The United States was a far more dangerous place in 2019 with more than 210 persons murdered in 41 mass killings, the most number of mass killings in one year since records began back to the 1970s.
The record for the number of victims killed in a year, however, occurred in 2017 when 224 persons were murdered. The year 2017 also saw the shooting deaths of 58 people in Las Vegas on October 1, the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the history of the United States.
Of the grisly total for 2019, 33 were mass shootings while most of the rest were mass stabbings, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. A mass killing is defined as a lethal incident where four or more people are killed, but excluding the murderer.
Authorities pointed out most of the mass killings went unnoticed by the American public as these incidents failed to make it to the national news. What garnered much media coverage were a few incidents such as the shooting massacres in El Paso and Odessa, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; Virginia Beach, Virginia and Jersey City, New Jersey.
California is the state with the most number of mass killings at eight. Nine mass shootings occurred in a public place with most of the remaining occurring inside homes or at workplaces..
Guns were the weapons used in 33 of the mass killings in 2019. Other weapons included knives and axes. There were two incidents where the murderer set mobile homes on fire, killing that inside.
This year's worst mass shooting took place on August 3 in El Paso, Texas. A white racist with hate in his heart for Hispanics shot dead 22 people and wounded 24 others at a Walmart store in El Paso. This slaughter is the deadliest mass shooting in the United States in 2019 and the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history. It's also the seventh deadliest U.S. mass shooting since 1949, and the third deadliest in Texas.
There were 423 mass shootings in the U.S. that occurred from January 1 to December 22. This total includes those killed and wounded. This horrific total means there is an average of 1.19 mass shootings per day in the U.S. These shootings saw the killing of 466 people and the wounding and injuries to 1,604 people.
The deadliest month for mass shootings was August where 93 people lost their lives in 49 mass shootings. Three of the August mass shootings saw the deaths of 10 or more people. El Paso was the worst with 22 deaths. Ten people were killed and 27 others wounded in Dayton, Ohio on August 4 when a gunman shot people at random outside of a bar after he was denied entry. He was later killed by police.
On August 31, eight people were shot dead and 35 wounded at Odessa and Midland, Texas by a killer that opened fire on police and civilians after fleeing from a traffic stop.
The AP/USA Today/Northeastern database confirms and mirrors his research into exclusively mass shootings has shown, according to James Densley, a criminologist, and professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota.
"This seems to be the age of mass shootings," said Densley.
He said what makes this even more exceptional is that mass killings are going up at a time when general homicides, overall homicides, are going down.
"As a percentage of homicides, these mass killings are also accounting for more deaths."
He believes these mass murders are partially a byproduct of an "angry and frustrated time" we live in. Densley also said crime tends to occur in waves. The 1970s and 1980s saw several serial killers; the 1990s were marked by school shootings and child abductions and the early 2000s dominated by concerns over terrorism.
