The drama of the shootings in the United States seems to have no end. There is not a week without the country waking up in mourning with the news of a new tragedy. And, in fact, this 2023 started much worse than previous years and is on its way to breaking all historical records.
Also read: This is the common pattern that shooters have, according to a study.
According to the File for Gun Violence (GVA), still not ending January, There have been at least 40 mass shootings in the United States. which, for the authorities, are defined as incidents, in which at least four people are killed or injured without counting the assailant.
This is the highest figure recorded for this time of year and whose previous record was set more than three decades ago. In total, 70 people have died and almost 170 injured in January, another record number. On average, there are almost three deaths a day so far this month (2.5 on average).
(Of interest: Three shot dead in a meeting in a luxurious residence near Beverly Hills).
Despite the large number, eyes are on California, where in a 48-hour period there were three shootings that left 19 dead.
The first occurred over the weekend in Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, where a Chinese immigrant opened fire on senior citizens who celebrated the lunar new year in a dance hall, leaving 11 dead before committing suicide. Then on Monday another man, also an immigrant from that country, killed seven other people in two separate incidents near the town of Half Moon Bay. Hours later, 65 kilometers away in Oakland, a third individual was involved in another incident where one person ended up dead and seven were injured.
Authorities are still investigating the motives behind these shootings and whether there is any connection between them. Especially in the first two that were perpetrated by individuals at a very special time for the Asian community (the “new year” for them that is celebrated with two weeks of festivities).
And while the research is important, as Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Gun Violence Research Consortium, says, it doesn’t hide the fact that No one in the United States is safe from this type of incident. Over the past few years, shootings have occurred at schools, universities, malls, supermarkets, places of worship, nightclubs, music concerts, and workplaces.
(Also: Tire Nichols: videos of the police beating a young man who died after arrest).
Many of the incidents that have been recorded recently have a racial, migratory or religious origin
“There is no uniformity as to who is responsible. Although they have all been men and the majority between the ages of 16 and 30, as we saw this week in California, it could be an elderly person or a child,” says Schildkraut, referring to another case that shocked the country two weeks ago when a six-year-old boy shot one of his teachers.
And the motivations are equally diffuse. Many of the incidents that have been recorded recently have a racial, migratory or religious origin. Especially those that have affected Hispanic and Asian communities, African Americans or Jews. But others seem to be in response to bullying in schools, job dissatisfaction or love disappointments.
In any case, the figures are chilling. Between 2014 and 2022 the number of mass shootings in the United States, according to GVA, have doubled: from 273 documented to 647. Although between 2021 and 2022 there was a slight reduction when it reached an all-time high (690), last year’s statistics were excessively high compared to previous years.
GVA also highlights how the phenomenon has worsened in terms of the lethality of the attacks. Nine of the ten deadliest incidents in the recent history of the United States they have been presented after the year 2007.
But it’s not just that. In general, deaths with firearms also come shot. From about 30,000 -including suicides in 2014- to almost 45,000 last year. That is, an increase of 50 percent in this period.
According to a new study published in December by the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is a phenomenon that is increasingly affecting the nation’s youth. Today Firearm deaths are the leading cause of death for people under 24 years of age.. And to give the drama more context, another report from the JAMA Network, specialized in gun violence, maintains that since the 1990s in the United States, more than a million people have died in this way.
These are more than those who have perished in all the wars in which that country has participated, including the First and Second World Wars as well as Korea and Vietnam, according to figures from the NGO Statista.
The United States is the only country in the world where there are more weapons than people among the civilian population.
The reason for these terrible statistics is more complex than the sum of deaths and it is a debate that has been dividing American society for years.
Many point to a very basic problem: the Second Amendment to the National Constitution, which allows the sale and possession of weapons among the civilian population, and the laxity to control them. According to the annual report of the Small Arms Survey, There are about 393 million guns in circulation in the United States. or the equivalent of 120 weapons for every 100 inhabitants.
“The United States is the only country in the world where there are more weapons than people among the civilian population. It is followed by Las Malvinas -British territory- where there are half, 62 per 100 inhabitants, and then Yemen, a country in civil war, where there are 53 per 100 inhabitants”, says this report.
Additionally, there is the ease with which they can be purchased -anyone over the age of 16, in most states can purchase one even at a grocery store like Walmart. And to which is added the intense lobbying that arms manufacturers do through the National Rifle Association (NRA) to prevent Congress from approving controls on their sale.
But on the other side there are those who defend to the death this right and its culture that is rooted in the very fibers of American history. For them, on the contrary, many of the shootings could be prevented if more decent citizens were armed.
Regardless of where you are in this debate, there are some factors that would explain the upward trend that has been taking place.
In the first place, for a few years now, civilians have been arming themselves exponentially. Only between 2019 and 2020 was there a 65 percent increase in arms sales and 2021 and 2022 presented similar figures.
According to Josh Horwitz, co-director of the Center for the Solution against Armed Violence at Johns Hopkins, in recent years there have been events that have caused great uncertainty, such as covid -19, the capture of the Capitol in January 2021 and violent protests following the death of African-American George Floyd. “People are afraid, and the antidote to fear is to arm yourself. And it is a vicious cycle, because events like the ones this week produce even more fear in a population that feels vulnerable to this type of attack and buys weapons to protect itself”, says Horwitz.
People are afraid, and the antidote to fear is to arm yourself.
Likewise, the coronavirus pandemic – and the economic and psychological hardships that it unleashed – raised people’s stress levels, creating a propitious atmosphere for these types of incidents to occur in an increasingly armed society.
But as Horwitz says, what really separates the United States from the rest of the world where these same things happen is how easy it is to acquire firearms. Although last year, after the massacre in Uvalde (Texas) where 19 children and two teachers were murdered, Congress approved a new package of measures to strengthen background checks and other controls, there are still many gaps in the legislation.
This background check to prevent them from falling into the hands of criminals or people with mental problems, for example, does not include the sale of weapons between people, or those that are done through the Internet or in the arms fairs that take place daily in the country.
In any case, what was approved last year, as so far this 2023 shows, has not managed to make a dent in the violence. This week, President Joe Biden called on Congress to go much further. Not only by closing these loopholes but by passing restrictions on the sale of assault weapons and high capacity suppliers.
But given the huge divisions that exist today in a Congress where Republicans control the House of Representatives, it is unlikely that anything significant will move forward.
At least not to stop a nightmare that seems to have no end.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
TIME CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON
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