Charted: Rising Mass Shootings in America

Charted: Rising Mass Shootings in America

The United States of America has a new fatal epidemic on its hands. But it’s not a new virus or disease; it’s the skyrocketing number of mass shootings.

On January 21, 2023, a gunman opened fire on a group celebrating the Lunar New Year in California, killing 10 and injuring 10 others.

This graphic by Pablo Alvarez used data from the Gun Violence Archive to track the number of mass shootings in the U.S. over the past eight years and highlight the states that have witnessed the worst of it.

U.S. Mass Shootings From 2014‒2022

While gun violence has been a hot topic in the U.S. for many years, mass shootings are now visibly on the rise. In fact, they have almost doubled post-pandemic.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, mass shootings comprise incidents where four or more people (not including the shooter) are shot at the same time and in the same location.

Between 2020 and 2022, the U.S. saw 1,947 mass shootings. These tragic incidents killed 1890 people and left over 8,000 others injured.

Las Vegas witnessed the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history on October 1, 2017, when a gunman opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 people attending a country music festival. The incident took 58 lives and injured over 500 people.

A year before this tragedy, 49 people lost their lives in the mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, with more than 50 additional people wounded. In fact, many of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history have occurred in the 21st century, and especially over the last 10 years.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.