Pulse Nightclub Massacre Marks Nearly 1,000 Mass Shootings Since Sandy Hook

By Nathan Wellman

Fifty people were killed in a gay nightclub last night in Orlando, the deadliest mass shooting in US history. This marks 998 mass shootings in the 912 days since Sandy Hook.

These shooters have murdered at least 1,105 people and wounded 3,929 in just two and a half years.

These numbers come from the Gun Violence Archive, an online database that has been tracking this data since 2013, marking each time four or more people (not counting the shooter) were shot at the same time and location. These astronomically high numbers may actually be too low, Vox reports.

 

Mass shootings — defined as public shootings in which four or more people are shot, excluding domestic, gang, and drug violence — are getting progressively more frequent, according to this analysis from Harvard School of Public Health researchers. Pitifully, these increasingly common massacres are only a sliver of America’s total deaths from firearms, which are now totaling over 32,000 every year.

 

Compared to other developed countries, the US had 29.7 firearm homicides per 1 million people in 2012, whereas Switzerland had 7.7, Canada had 5.1, and Germany had 1.9.

When a mass shooting happens, conservatives viciously attack progressives for calling for more gun control. Barely a few hours after the Orlando massacre, conservative website Red State put out an article which snidely began with “It never fails. The collective stupidity of the left is never more apparent than when there is some kind of violent tragedy that takes place on US soil, particularly when it involves guns.”

And yet, research has definitively shown where there are more guns, there are more homicides. The United States possesses 42% of the entire world’s civilian-owned guns even though we only comprise around 4.4% of the world’s population.

Fifty deaths is the highest body count in a single shooting so far in the United States, but if we continue to allow bought-by-the-NRA conservatives to lead us away from real reform, it won’t take long before somebody goes for the new record.

Nathan Wellman is a Los Angeles-based journalist, author, and playwright. Follow him on Twitter: @LightningWOW