Murdered at the hands of strangers or fatally shot by their loved ones. Massacred in small towns, in big cities, inside their own homes or in public places in broad daylight. This year’s relentless bloodshed in the United States has resulted in the grimest of national milestones: the highest number of manslaughter murders over six months since at least 2006.
From January 1 to June 30, the nation recorded 28 killings, all but one involving firearms. The death toll rose almost every week, a constant cycle of violence and pain.
Six months. 181 days. 28 murders outright. 140 victims. A country.
“What an awful mark,” says Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27 when a former student killed three children and three adults. “You never think your family would be part of a statistic like that.”
Leatherwood, a leading Republican in a state that hasn’t strengthened gun control laws, believes something must be done to keep guns out of the hands of those who might turn violent. The shock of seeing the bloodshed so close made him speak out publicly.
“You can also say that the Martians have landed, right? It’s hard to understand, ”she adds.
For statistical purposes, a multiple murder (“mass killing”) is defined as an event in which four or more people are killed, not including the assailant, in a 24-hour period. A database run by The Associated Press and USA Today, in collaboration with Northeastern University, has been tracking this large-scale violence since 2006.
This year’s milestone surpassed the previous record of 27 multiple murders, which barely registered in the second half of 2022. James Alan Fox, a professor of Criminology at Northeastern University, never imagined records like this when he began monitoring the database. about five years ago.
“We used to say there were two to three dozen a year,” recalls Fox. “The fact that there are 28 in half a year is an amazing statistic.”
The chaos of the first six months of this year does not automatically mean that the last six months of 2023 will be worse. The rest of the year could be quieter, even though the July 4th weekend, Independence Day, was more violent than others.
“Let’s hope it was just a blip,” says Dr. Amy Barnhorst, a psychiatrist and associate director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
“There could be fewer murders in the remainder of 2023, or this could be part of a trend, but we won’t know for a while,” he adds.
Experts like Barnhorst and Fox attribute the increase in bloodshed to a growing population with more guns. Yet despite all the headlines, mass murder is statistically rare and represents a fraction of overall US gun violence.
“We need to keep it in perspective,” Fox stresses.
Each killing, however, often spurs campaigns to reform gun control laws, though they are sometimes unsuccessful.
In the wake of the Nashville school shooting, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, urged the state Legislature to pass a bill that would keep firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others. , the so-called “red alert laws”, although Lee says that term is politically toxic.
Getting such an initiative passed in Tennessee is an uphill climb. The Republican-led Legislature adjourned earlier this year without addressing gun control, prompting Lee to schedule a special session for August.
Leatherwood, former CEO of the Tennessee Republican Party and now head of the influential public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote a letter to lawmakers asking them to approve the governor’s proposal.
Leatherwood emphasizes that he does not want any other family to go through what his children experienced at the time of the shooting, when they were in kindergarten, second and fourth grades. Recently, one of his sons was preparing to go camping and asked him if they would sleep safely there.
“What our son was asking us was ‘Do you think there will be an attacker that there will be fire during this camp? Do I have to worry about that?’” adds Leatherwood.
The Nashville shooter, whose briefs Leatherwood and other parents are asking a court to keep secret, used three weapons in the shooting, including an AR-15-type rifle. It was one of at least four mass murders in the first half of 2023 in which such a weapon was used, according to the database.
Almost all of the killings in the first half of this year, 27 of 28, involved weapons. The other was a suspected arson fire that killed four people at a home in Monroe, Louisiana. A 37-year-old man was arrested on charges of arson and murder in connection with the March 31 deaths.
Despite the unprecedented carnage, the National Rifle Association (NRA, an American organization that advocates for the rights to purchase and own guns) maintains a fierce opposition to the regulation of firearms, including AR-15 style rifles and similar weapons.
“The relentless efforts of (President) Joe Biden and (Vice President) Kamala Harris to weaken the Second Amendment will not bring security to the American people. On the contrary, they will only embolden criminals,” said Billy McLaughlin, spokesman for the NRA, referring to the constitutional amendment that guarantees the right of US citizens to keep and bear arms, including firearms. “That’s why the NRA continues to fight for self-defense laws. Rest assured, we will never bow down, never back down, and never apologize for standing up for the self-defense rights of law-abiding Americans,” McLaughlin added in a statement.
Tito Anchondo’s brother, Andre Anchondo, was among the 23 people killed in the 2019 massacre at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas. The attacker was sentenced last week to 90 consecutive life sentences, but he could face more punishment, including capital punishment. The prosecution of the racist attack on Hispanic shoppers in the border city was one of the most serious hate crime cases on record in the United States.
Andre Anchondo and his wife, Jordan, died protecting their 2-month-old son from bullets. Paul, who survived with several broken bones, is now 4 years old.
Tito Anchondo says he feels that the United States has forgotten the victims of El Paso over the years and that the nation has not done enough to stop more bloodshed. He worries about the future of his niece Paul.
“I hope that things can change dramatically, because this country is on a very, very slippery slope: a downward spiral,” he says. “It’s disconcerting to know that she’s going to end up taking classes with kids who can also bring a gun to school.”
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