GVA records 267 mass shootings so far in 2021, stoking concerns as US heads into summer

A spate of mass shootings overnight across three states, leaving two dead and at least 30 others wounded, has stoked fears that the United States could be headed for a violent summer as COVID-19 restrictions ease and more people are free to engage in outdoor activities.

The shootings occurred late Friday or early Saturday in the Texas capital of Austin, Chicago, and Savannah, Georgia.

Fourteen people were wounded, including two critically, in Austin early on Saturday after a shooting on a crowded pedestrian-only street packed with bars and restaurants.

“We are saddened that Austin has joined the far too lengthy list of communities that have experienced mass shootings,” Dewitt Peart, president and CEO of the Downtown Austin Alliance in Texas, said in a statement. “Our nation has endured heartbreak time and time again resulting from the acts of deranged individuals intent on killing and harming others. This senseless violence must end.”

Law enforcement said they had arrested one of the two male suspects in Austin and a manhunt was underway for the other.

Mass shooting in busy entertainment district in Austin leaves many wounded

US police in Texas say a mass shooting in a busy entertainment district in downtown Austin leaves more than a dozen people wounded.

Elsewhere in the US, one person was shot to death and at least seven others were injured, including two children, in a shooting in Savannah on Friday night. In Chicago, police said they were looking for two gunmen in a shooting early Saturday that sent 10 people to the hospital, where one woman succumbed to her injuries.

No arrest was reported in connection with the two shooting incidents.

The attacks come amid an easing of pandemic restrictions in much of the country. A spike in US shootings and homicides last year had many believe that it was a result of a rise in gun ownership caused by pandemic-related stress.

But shootings and homicides continue to plague the country at a rate still much higher than pre-pandemic times, including in cities that resisted the calls to cut police spending in the aftermath of the death of Georgie Floyd in custody.

“It’s worrisome,” James Alan Fox, a criminologist and professor at Northeastern University, told the Associated Press. “We have a blend of people beginning to get out and about in public. We have lots of divisiveness. And we have more guns and warm weather. It’s a potentially deadly mix.”

Gun sales hit all-time high in US amid flurry of mass shootings

In 2020, a surge in gun sales to an all-time was widely attributed to nationwide anxiety due to the pandemic as well as social unrest following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

The Gun Violence Archive, which monitors media and police reports to track gun violence, has reported at least 267 mass shootings across the United States so far this year. Overall, according to its database, more than 8,700 people have died of gun violence in the US this year.

The nonprofit group, which defines a mass shooting as those involving four or more people who were shot regardless of whether they died, also found that mass shootings increased last year to about 600, higher than in any of the previous six years it tracked the data.

“There was a hope this might simply be a statistical blip that would start to come down,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. “That hasn’t happened. And that’s what really makes chiefs worry that we may be entering a new period where we will see a reversal of 20 years of declines in these crimes.”

This year’s 267th mass shooting in downtown Austin coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, where a gunman killed 49 people and injured more than 50 others. The Pulse attack remains one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern history.

In a statement marking the anniversary of the Pulse attack, US President Joe Biden said that “there is more we must do to address the public health epidemic of gun violence in all of its forms.”

“In the coming days, I will sign a bill designating Pulse Nightclub as a national memorial, enshrining in law what has been true since that terrible day five years ago: Pulse Nightclub is hallowed ground,” Biden said in the statement released as he continued a European tour.

US must end epidemic of gun violence, Biden tells Congress after California deadly shooting

President Joe Biden says the US suffers from an “epidemic of gun violence.”

Members of Congress have often remained at odds in the aftermath of mass shootings.

Many Democrats have been pushing for a ban on certain types of firearms, including military-style automatic rifles, while Republicans have largely rejected stricter gun control measures, citing the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees the fight of the people to keep and bear firearms.

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