The Republican-led Legislature adjourned earlier this year without taking on gun control, prompting Lee to schedule a special session for August. Getting such a measure passed in Tennessee is an uphill climb. Bill Lee, a Republican, had urged the General Assembly in the wake of the Nashville school shooting to pass legislation keeping firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others, so-called “red flag laws,” though Lee says the term is politically toxic. “We need to keep it in perspective,” Fox said.īut the mass violence most often spurs attempts to reform gun laws, even if the efforts are not always successful.
Yet for all the headlines, mass killings are statistically rare and represent a fraction of the country’s overall gun violence. But we won’t know for sometime,” she added.Įxperts like Barnhorst and Fox attribute the rising bloodshed to a growing population with an increased number of guns in the U.S. “There could be fewer killings later in 2023, or this could be part of a trend. Amy Barnhorst, a psychiatrist who is the associate director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. The remainder of the year could be calmer, despite more violence over the July Fourth holiday weekend. "The fact that there's 28 in half a year is a staggering statistic.”īut the chaos of the first six months of 2023 doesn't automatically doom the last six months. “We used to say there were two to three dozen a year," Fox said. James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, never imagined records like this when he began overseeing the database about five years ago. The 2023 milestone beat the previous record of 27 mass killings, which was only set in the second half of 2022. A database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University tracks this large-scale violence dating back to 2006. "You may as well say Martians have landed, right? It’s hard to wrap your mind around it," he said.Ī mass killing is defined as an occurrence when four or more people are slain, not including the assailant, within a 24-hour period. The shock of seeing the bloodshed strike so close to home has prompted him to speak out. Leatherwood, a prominent Republican in a state that hasn't strengthened gun laws, believes something must be done to get guns out of the hands of people who might become violent. “You never think your family would be a part of a statistic like that.” “What a ghastly milestone," said Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27 when a former student killed three children and three adults. The death toll rose just about every week, a constant cycle of violence and grief. 1 to June 30, the nation endured 28 mass killings, all but one of which involved guns. has led to the grimmest of milestones: The deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006.įrom Jan. This year's unrelenting bloodshed across the U.S. Massacred in small towns, in big cities, inside their own homes or outside in broad daylight. NEW YORK (AP) - Slain at the hands of strangers or gunned down by loved ones.
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