Mass shootings (大規模槍擊事件) have been on the rise in America in recent years. These shootings have killed 263 people and injured more than a thousand since 2014.
Mass shooting refers to an incident in which four or more people were shot or killed, excluding the shooter. According to the Gun Violence Archive, an independent data collection organization, more than 300 mass shootings have occurred so far this year. This means there is more than one mass shooting per day so far this year.
The shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, left seven people dead and dozens injured.
The U.S. ended 2021 with 693 mass shootings. In 2020, there were 611 shootings. And 2019 had 417. Mass shootings have killed 256 people and injured 1,010 since 2014.
As for school shootings, 119 such incidents (事件) have taken place in different parts of the United States since 2018. 2021 had 34 such incidents. 2020 saw 10. Both 2019 and 2018 recorded 24 shootings.
The US has had 2,032 school shootings since 1970 and these numbers are increasing. Every number you see stands for a person, often a child, and the loved ones who cherished them.
Two months earlier, on May 24, the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, marks the 27th school shooting in America in the year. The shooting killed 19 children and two teachers. The shooter was an 18-year-old gunman named Salvador Rolando Ramos. He bought two rifles (來福槍；步槍) legally just after his 18th birthday and then went on a shooting rampage (橫衝直撞) at Robb Elementary School near his home. In Texas, you must be at least 18 years old to buy a rifle, and the state does not require a license to openly carry one in public. Family, friends say the shooter had troubled home life, was bullied for a speech impediment (言語障礙)and lashed out (痛打) violently in recent years.
US President Joe Biden said shootings like this “rarely happen anywhere else in the world”.
“The idea that an 18-year-old could walk into a store and buy weapons of war designed and marketed to kill is, I think, just wrong. It just violates common sense,” said the President.
Ten days before the tragedy (悲劇) in Uvalde, a suspected racially motivated attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, left 10 black people dead. The 18-year-old white teenager was charged (指控) with multiple counts of murder. Yes, this is just wrong. The scenarios are true horror stories. It does violate (違反) common sense. And this has been the case for some time. Biden is right. Other countries do have mass shootings, but nowhere near as frequently (頻繁地) as the US.
