The United States has had more mass shootings in 2023 than there were days in the year so far.

Data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit organization that collects and compiles information about gun deaths in America, paints a stark image of gun violence in America.

The GVA defines a mass shooting as having a ‘minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.’

By the Archive’s definition, there have been 208 mass shootings in the United States since the year began. A total of 229 people have been killed in these shootings.

The deadliest mass shooting so far this year took place in January, when a gunman opened fire at a dance hall at a celebration for Chinese Lunar New Year in Monterey Park, California.

A total of 12 people died and 9 were injured in the massacre, which is now the deadliest shooting in Los Angeles County’s history.

The tragedy was compounded when another shooter killed seven people at his workplace in Half Moon Bay, California just two days later.

One of the most recent mass shootings took place on Saturday, May 6, when a gunman opened fire at an outlet mall in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, killing eight and injuring seven.

Among those deaths, a disturbing number of children and teenagers have been targeted. According to the GVA, a total of 96 children, ages 0-11, have been killed by firearms in 2023. Another 217 were injured.

Among those were the three children killed in the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee that took place in March.

The shooting took place at a private Christian elementary school in the Tennessee city. All three of the children killed were 9-year-old first graders. Three adult faculty members were also killed in the massacre.

Another 532 teenagers, defined by the GVA as ages 12-17, have been killed by gun violence in 2023. A total of 1,296 teens have been injured.

Four young people were killed when shooters targeted a Sweet 16 birthday party in the small town of Dadeville, Alabama. Another 32 partygoers were injured in the shootout.

The victims included the 18-year-old brother of the girl celebrating her birthday. He reportedly pushed his sister out of the line-of-fire to save her life.

However, deaths in mass shootings only make up a small percentage of the total number of the 14,947 firearms deaths as of May 9, 2023.

About 6,432 of those deaths were homicides, a total which also includes murders, unintentional/accidental deaths from firearms, and domestic abuse.

According to a report from nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun violence advocacy group formed in the wake of the 2013 Sandy Hook school shooting, 70 women per month are shot and killed by their partners in the US.

In one of the most disturbing incidences of violence this year, a man in Utah shot and killed his wife after she asked for a divorce. He then turned the gun on their five children, ages 4-17.

The shooter had previously been investigated by police for domestic abuse against his wife and older children, but a prosecutor declined to press charges due to a lack of evidence.

Some of those deaths also included incidents of accidental violence, often as a result of children obtaining unsecured firearms around the house.

In Houston Texas, a 3-year-old girl shot and killed her 4-year-old sister while the two children were playing with an unsecured firearm they found in a parent’s bedroom.

‘You’ve got to be sure you’re being a responsible gun owner, securing your weapons in a safe place,’ Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said after the tragic death. ‘It’s got to be more than just telling young kids not to touch the weapons. You know, we’ve got to do a little more. We see far too many tragic situations like this unfold.’

One of the most striking examples of this took place only days into the new year. In January, a 6-year-old student somehow obtained a gun owned by his parents and brought it to school, where he fired a single shot at his first grade teacher.

The victim, teacher Abby Zwerner, became one of a total of 11,912 Americans that have been injured by firearms so far in 2023.

But the largest percentage of gun deaths is still suicides. A total of 8,514 deaths from self-inflicted gunshots have been recorded in the US so far.

According to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control, suicides by firearm increased nearly 35% between 2019 and 2020, coinciding with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These deaths have not meaningfully decreased, according to the GVA’s data. Just over 24,000 Americans used guns to kill themselves in 2021 and 2022 as well.

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