For 3rd straight year, U.S. hits grim milestone of gun violence: NBC News

Passersby walk past gun-free zone signages near Times Square in New York, the United States, Sept. 1, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

This is the third straight year that there have been more than 600 multiple victim shootings in the United States.

NEW YORK, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- When the shooting was over and five bodies were removed from a Colorado gay bar that a gunman had turned into a killing zone, yet another sad statistic went into the books: this is the third straight year that there have been more than 600 multiple victim shootings in the United States, reported NBC News on Monday.

The figure was recorded by The Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit that tracks the spread of what has been called an American disease and which defines a mass shooting as a single incident in which at least four people -- other than the person wielding the gun -- are shot, according to the report.

The deadly attack Saturday on Club Q in Colorado Springs was the 601st such incident in 2022, according to the group. The GVA includes any type of shooting in its analysis including domestic violence, shootings in private homes, gang violence among others.

The GVA recorded 610 multiple victim shootings in 2020 and 690 last year, when the pandemic was already easing and the pace of deadly violence increased across the United States. It has been keeping a tally of mass shootings since 2014, when it recorded 273.

"Same story, different year," Christopher Herrmann, an assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, was quoted as saying. "Very sad."