Halloween Weekend of Deadly Gun Violence in Cities Across the Country Underscores Urgent Need for Action on Gun Safety

NEW YORK – The Halloween holiday weekend marked yet another deadly weekend in the U.S. as gun violence killed and wounded hundreds of people across the country. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were at least 12 mass shootings this weekend in which at least 11 people were shot and killed and 76 others wounded. This number doesn’t include the many other shootings that occurred in cities across the country, highlighting the importance of addressing city gun violence. These shootings follow a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, which killed 18 people and wounded 13 in the deadliest mass shooting of 2023.

A snapshot of the weekend’s gun violence:

• On Sunday morning, a mass shooting in Ybor City in Tampa, Florida left two people, including a 14-year-old, dead, and 16 wounded, 15 from gunshot wounds. 
• At a Halloween party in the North Lawndale neighborhood in Chicago, 15 people were shot and wounded when gunfire erupted inside the party. Four more people were shot and wounded in Chicago in a drive-by shooting outside a party.
• In Texarkana, Texas, three people were killed and three others were wounded in a shooting at a party in the back room of a business a little after 9 p.m. on Saturday.

• In northeast Indianapolis, 10 people between the ages of 16 and 21 years old were wounded, one of them fatally, at a large party. 
• Four people — two of them students — were shot Sunday near Georgia State University’s Atlanta campus. Another GSU student was shot at the same location in December 2022.
• In Las Cruces, New Mexico – seven people were wounded in a shooting at a party near Hillrise Elementary School. 
• A shooting at a Halloween party at a bar in Dodge, Kansas left two men shot and killed and another two wounded.

“It is horrific that when Americans come together in community, those celebrations and occasions are consistently marked by gun violence,” said Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action. “The shootings that occurred this Halloween weekend demonstrate, yet again, the need for common-sense gun safety policies to combat our gun violence crisis and to help prevent tragedy. It’s unconscionable for lawmakers to ignore the will of the American people and not do everything in their power to keep our communities safe from gun violence.”

To save lives, lawmakers at every level must take meaningful action to prevent access to guns by those who are a danger to themselves or others, invest in community-based violence intervention programs that do life-saving work in the nation’s hardest hit communities, and reject any efforts to pass gun-lobby-backed bills that would weaken lifesaving gun laws. 

As gun violence continues terrorizing our communities and tearing American families apart – each tragedy is a painful reminder that Congress should reinstate the ban on assault weapons, which are designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. These weapons and high-capacity magazines are frequently used in the violence that plagues our nation. From 2015 to 2022, mass shootings with four or more people killed where an assault weapon was used resulted in nearly six times as many people shot, more than twice as many people killed, and 23 times as many people wounded on average compared to those that did not involve the use of one.