There were more mass shootings than days in 2019

There were more mass shootings across the U.S. in 2019 than there were days in the year, according to a gun violence research group. 2019 had the highest number of mass shootings in any year since the research group started keeping track. 

By the end of 2019, there were 417 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which tracks every mass shooting in the country. Thirty-one of those shootings were mass murders. 

GVA defines a mass shooting as any incident in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter. The group also tracks mass murders as defined by the FBI — incidents in which at least four people are killed. The FBI does not have a formal definition of a mass shooting.

The toll of 417 mass shootings includes several high-profile, mass casualty attacks, some of which happened within 24 hours of each other:

• A shootout at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 10. Three people in the store were killed and three others wounded, including two police officers. The two attackers also died in the shootout. The attackers also shot and killed a police detective at a nearby cemetery before the store attack. 

• A shooting near New Orleans' French Quarter on December 1 that left 10 people injured.

• A shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, on November 14, which left two teenage students dead and three wounded. The suspect, a 16-year-old student, shot himself in the head and died the next day.

• A drive-by shooting spree in Odessa and Midland, Texas, on August 31, with seven people killed and 24 wounded

• A shooting in a historic district of Dayton, Ohio, on August 4, with nine people killed and 27 injured.

• A shooting at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, with 22 people killed and 24 wounded. It was the deadliest shooting of the year, and the seventh-deadliest in modern U.S. history.
• A shooting at a playground hosting a community festival in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on July 28. One person was killed and 11 were wounded.
• A shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area on July 28. Three people were killed — two of them children — and 12 were wounded. Police shot and killed the gunman.

• A shooting in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, on May 31, where a former city employee killed 12 people and wounded four.

The GVA said there was a total of 15,381 gun deaths — including homicides, suicides and accidents — and 29,568 injuries in 2019.

In the end, 2019 had the highest number of mass shootings in any year since 2014, when the Gun Violence Archive started its count. It has surpassed the prior record of 382 mass shootings in 2016. The GVA reported 346 mass shootings in 2017 and 337 in 2018.