There Have Been More Mass Shootings Than Days In 2019

The amount of mass shootings across the U.S. so far in 2019 has outpaced the number of days this year, according to a gun violence research group. This puts 2019 on pace to be the first year since 2016 with an average of more than one mass shooting a day. 

As of Aug. 5, which was the 217th day of the year, there have been 255 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which tracks every mass shooting in the country. The GVA defines a mass shooting as any incident in which at least four people were shot, excluding the shooter.

The toll of 255 mass shootings include five high-profile massacres in the past eight days, in which more than 100 people have been shot:

• A shooting in a historic district of Dayton, Ohio, with nine people killed and 27 injured.
• A shooting at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, with 22 people killed and at least 24 wounded. It was the deadliest shooting of the year.
• A shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festivalin the San Francisco Bay Area, with three people killed and 15 injured.
• A shooting at a Brooklyn block party,with one person killed and 11 injured.
• A shooting at a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi, with two people killed and two injured.

Before the El Paso attack, the deadliest mass shooting of 2019 happened in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, where a former city employee killed 12 people and injured four.

The GVA said there have been 33,237 total shooting incidents, resulting in 8,796 gun deaths and 17,480 injuries, as of Monday afternoon.

The last time the mass shooting toll topped days of the year was 2016, which had 382 mass shootings — the most in any year since the Gun Violence Archive started keeping track. The past two years came close, with 346 mass shootings in 2017 and 340 in 2018.