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Mass Shootings

Issues

Mass Shootings

What is the problem?

In the eight years between 2015 and 2022, over 19,000 people were shot and killed or wounded in the United States in a mass shooting. The reach of each mass shooting stretches far beyond those killed and wounded, harming the well-being of survivors, their families, and entire communities.

Mass shootings do not need to be an inevitable element of American life. Just like all other tragic forms of gun violence, we can prevent them through common-sense policy solutions.

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Why is it an issue?

Mass shootings are preventable.

The United States is not the only country with mental illness, domestic violence, video games, or hate-fueled ideologies, but our gun homicide rate is 26 times higher than our peer countries.1Everytown analysis of the most recent year of gun homicides by country (2013 to 2019), GunPolicy.org (accessed January 7, 2022). The difference is easy access to guns. In fact, even within the U.S., states with weaker gun laws and higher gun ownership rates have higher rates of mass shootings.2Paul M. Reeping et al., “State Gun Laws, Gun Ownership, and Mass Shootings in the US: Cross Sectional Time Series,” BMJ 364 (March 2019): 1542, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l542.

Lawmakers must act to require background checks on all gun sales, support Extreme Risk laws that provide a process to temporarily remove guns from people showing warning signs, keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, and restrict assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

By the numbers

What are the solutions?