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How Many Mass Shootings in 2019? Last Weekend Underscored the Violence
This year, there have been at least 32 fatal shootings with three or more victims in the United States.
Gun massacres killed 29 people over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, shaking the country and igniting a new debate over gun control.
The bloodshed in Dayton on Sunday was the 32nd mass killing by firearms in the United States this year. A mass killing is defined by the Justice Department as three or more killings in a single episode. There is no legal definition for the term “mass shooting,” despite its frequent use by gun control groups and the news media.
Here are some of the deadliest shootings in 2019. (Death tolls do not include the people who carried out the attacks.)
Aug. 4 — 9 killed
Dayton, Ohio
Nine people were killed and 27 others were wounded after a gunman wearing a mask and body armor opened fire in a busy entertainment district. The gunman’s sister was among the dead, according to the police, who have not yet established a motive for the attack.
Aug. 3 — 20 killed
El Paso
Twenty people were killed and 26 others were wounded in a shooting that targeted shoppers in a Walmart store in El Paso, a predominantly Hispanic border city.
The suspect, a white man in his 20s who was taken into custody, wrote an anti-immigrant manifesto that was posted online shortly before the attack, the authorities said.
July 28 — 3 killed
Gilroy, Calif.
An annual garlic festival in an agricultural community south of San Jose turned deadly when a 19-year-old man opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle that he had bought legally in Nevada. The shooter killed himself in the attack. The victims included a 13-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy.
July 6 — 5 FOUND DEAD
St. Louis County, Mo.
The bodies of five men who had been fatally shot were discovered in an apartment building by police officers in north St. Louis County, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The victims ranged in age from 37 to 65. Two men were arrested in the killings, which the police said were connected to “drug activity,” as reported by The Post-Dispatch.
June 8 — 5 killed
White Swan, Wash.
Five members of the Yakama Nation were killed in White Swan, a remote community on the Yakama Indian Reservation in central Washington State. Four people were arrested in the shootings, the latest act in a cycle of criminal activity on the reservation, which is nestled between the Cascade mountains and the Columbia River. Two of the men charged in the killings took a child hostage at gunpoint, the authorities said.
May 31 — 12 killed
Virginia Beach, Va.
A city engineer quit his job and then went on a shooting rampage at Building No. 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. The suspect, a former soldier, was armed with two handguns and a cache of ammunition as he targeted his former co-workers in offices and hallways, according to the authorities. His victims were civil servants in the public works and public utilities departments and a contractor who was at the offices to discuss a permit. Until the attack in El Paso on Saturday, the shooting at Virginia Beach was the greatest loss of life in a mass killing this year.
Feb. 15 — 5 killed
Aurora, Ill.
A disgruntled employee who had been fired from his job returned to a suburban Chicago factory with a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun with a laser sight, which the authorities said he used to kill five of his former co-workers. The shooter was not supposed to have a weapon, as his gun permit had been revoked a year earlier because of a felony assault conviction. The victims included an intern who was on his first day of work and a grandfather of eight.
Jan. 23 — 5 killed
Sebring, Fla.
Five women were fatally shot while they were lying on the ground in a SunTrust Bank branch by a 21-year-old man, who called an emergency dispatcher and said, “I have shot five people.” The killer, who was charged with five counts of first-degree premeditated murder, was wearing a T-shirt that bore the image of four scythe-wielding grim reapers on horseback.
Neil Vigdor is a breaking news reporter on the Express Desk. He previously covered Connecticut politics for the Hartford Courant. More about Neil Vigdor
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