100 days into 2023, Louisville attack marks nation's 146th mass shooting and 15th mass killing
It started just days into the new year when a man fatally shot seven members of his family before dying by suicide in Utah.
Then there were three mass shootings in California within a matter of days – in a house, a dance hall and two farms.
Last month, a shooter killed three children and three adults in a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.
And Monday, five people were killed and nine injured in a shooting at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky.
One hundred days into 2023, there have been 15 mass killings – shootings in which four or more people were killed, not including the shooter – in the U.S., according to a USA TODAY/Associated Press/Northeastern University database tracking the killings.
"This is consistent with the overall trend that mass shootings are becoming more frequent," said James Densley, co-founder of the Violence Project, a nonprofit research center.
Mass killing database: Revealing trends, details and anguish of every event since 2006
Live updates: 4 killed, 8 injured in downtown Louisville shooting, police say; suspected shooter dead
Louisville, Kentucky, shooting marks 4th public mass killing of 2023
Of the 15 mass killings, four were public shootings, and most of the others were family-related incidents, said James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston who oversees the USA TODAY database, which goes back to 2006.
This year, there have been three mass killings in California, two in each of Alabama and Florida and one in Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, according to the database. The killings have left at least 79 people dead and 20 injured, not including the shooters.
A 'worrisome' trend of mass killings
Only two other times since 2006 has the U.S. witnessed more than 15 mass killings by April 10, according to the database.
"It is more than the average, but we have seen that number before," Fox said. "It's hard to predict what will happen by end of year, but it’s certainly on the high side."
In a given year, the average number of public mass killings that are shootings is usually six, and the most the U.S. has ever had in a single year is 10, he said.
"The fact that there have been four public mass shootings in less than four months – that's disconcerting and worrisome," Fox said.
146 mass shootings in which four victims injured
The nonprofit Gun Violence Archive tracks all mass shootings, defined as a shooting in which at least four victims are hit by gunfire. There have been 146 mass shootings this year – up 10% over the previous record year of 2021, said Mark Bryant, executive director.
The archive tracks publicly sourced media and police reports and includes incidents like the mass shooting at Michigan State University, where a man killed three students and injured five others in February.
Thousands more killed, injured in gun violence in 2023
While mass killings garner a disproportionate share of media attention, they account for just a fraction of the gun violence injuries Americans face each year.
Nearly 5,000 people have died from gunfire so far in 2023, and nearly 9,000 have been injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Hundreds of children under age 11 have been killed or injured, along with more than a thousand teens, the database shows.
The archive estimates thousands of people have also died by suicide, as about half of all gun violence deaths in the U.S. each year are deaths by suicide.
Gun violence is also increasingly seeping onto school grounds, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. Incidents in which a gun was brandished or fired or a bullet hit school property reached all-time highs last year, according to the database, which goes back to 1970.
That data includes gang-related shootings, domestic violence, shootings at sports games, accidents and more. There have been more than 100 such incidents on school grounds this year, the database shows.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shooting in Louisville is US's 15th mass killing 100 days into 2023