US surpasses 500 mass shootings in 2023: Gun Violence Archive

by Miranda Nazzaro - 09/17/23 9:56 PM ET

FILE - Tape cordons off the scene where multiple people were shot including police officers in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. In a report issued this week, homicides in 2023 are declining in a cross-section of American cities, though their numbers remain higher than before the coronavirus pandemic took hold, according to a new report analyzing data from 30 U.S. cities. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) — FILE – Tape cordons off the scene where multiple people were shot including police officers in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

The United States’s 500th mass shooting of 2023 occurred over the weekend, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

As of Sunday, the Gun Violence Archive reported 501 mass shootings so far in 2023, after a Saturday night shooting in Denver marked the 500th mass shooting of the year.

According to the Denver Police Department, the shooting sent four people to the hospital, and a fifth victim was later discovered. All of the individuals are expected to survive, and no arrests were made as of Sunday morning, police said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Another shooting was later reported in El Paso, Texas, around 1 a.m. Sunday, killing a 19-year-old man and injuring five others, local television station KTSM reported. One of the wounded individuals was in critical condition, according to KTSM.

A January shooting in Monterey Park, Calif., marked this year’s deadliest shooting, when a total of 11 people were killed and 10 others were injured at a dance studio following a Lunar New Year celebration.

Data from the Gun Violence Archive — which logs mass shootings in cases where there are four or more individuals wounded or killed in a shooting — found the total number of mass shootings in 2023 is so far lower than totals from the past three years, but already higher than in 2019, which had 414 mass shootings, and in 2018, which had 335 mass shootings.

2021 had the highest-ever number of mass shootings in the U.S., with 689 reported mass shootings, the Gun Violence Archive’s data shows. The number of mass shootings fell in 2022 to 645, although FBI data showed a rise in the total number of Americans wounded in such events between 2021 and 2022.

The FBI defines a mass shooting as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area,” a definition that varies from other metrics that focus on the number of total victims in evaluating a shooting.

Even with last year’s drop, FBI officials said the past two decades have seen an overall rise in the number of mass shootings, regardless of the criteria used to make the assessment.

Tags gun violence mass shootings