Kansas City Super Bowl shooting: Can anything stop mass shootings?
VoxFeb 15
Report: US Mass Shootings Down 29% on the Year
Image copyright: Anna Moneymaker/Staff/Getty Images News via Getty Images
The Facts
According to the Gun Violence Archive, mass shootings — those where four or more are killed other than the perpetrator — were down 29.4% in the US through Apr. 30, 2024, from the same period in 2023.
There were 134 mass shootings in the first four months of 2024, compared to 190 last year.
The Spin
Left narrative
A single-year decrease in shootings doesn't mean America is headed in a positive direction. With an average annual gun death count of 40K, which disproportionately impacts people of color, this remains a uniquely American problem due to the disturbingly high number of firearms circulating. As a growing number of lawmakers work to pass stringent gun control laws, Americans also need to put more legal pressure on the manufacturers flooding US streets with weapons.
Right narrative
US gun violence is part of a much larger problem, given that non-gun-related murders also outnumber the total murder rates of most other developed nations. Gun murders are also concentrated in select neighborhoods of select cities by a small number of offenders. Fear of being called racist has prevented the country from successfully policing crime-ridden neighborhoods, the dangerous consequences of which are impacting all Americans.
Nerd narrative
There is a 50% chance that there will be at least 1.4 small firearms per capita in the US in 2029, according to the Metaculus prediction community.