Gun violence in US killed 'over 10,000' so far in 2023

Gun Violence Archive reports 130 mass shootings in three months as fresh shooting in southern Tennessee state claims six more lives — the latest bloodshed in an epidemic of gun violence turning US schools into killing zones.

People pay their respects at a makeshift memorial for victims at the Covenant School building at the Covenant Presbyterian Church following shooting in Nashville.
AFP

People pay their respects at a makeshift memorial for victims at the Covenant School building at the Covenant Presbyterian Church following shooting in Nashville.

More than 10,000 people in the US have died from gun violence as of March 28, according to the Gun Violence Archive — that's an average of more than 111 deaths everyday.

There have been 130 mass shootings so far this year, the non-profit research group said on Tuesday.

The tracker shows that the number of people who have committed suicide with firearms since the beginning of the year has reached 5,742 while 4,266 others have died in homicides, murders, accidental discharges and defensive gun use.

Some 7,564 people have been wounded.

As for minors, 59 children aged 0-11 died in the same incidents and 347 aged 12-17, according to the tracker.

On Monday, the state of Tennessee made headlines with a mass school shooting in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed at the Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school.

The heavily armed shooter, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a former student of the school, was killed during a shootout with a five-member police team that engaged Hale on the second floor of the school, which is associated with a church, authorities said.

President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Congress has to act.

"I have gone the full extent of my executive authority to do on my own anything about guns," Biden said.

"The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, a crazy idea. They're against that."

Nashville police are working to determine the shooter’s motive for the killings.

READ MORE: Nashville shooter was ex-student with detailed plan to kill

Tragic experiences 

Several Americans are speaking out about their experiences being impacted by more than one massacre, including the Nashville school shooting on Monday, in which the lives of three children and three adults were abruptly ended.

Ashbey Beasley and her son were attending a Fourth of July parade last year in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, when a gunman opened fire, killing seven.

Beasley said in a tweet that she was "on a family vacation" in Nashville, when the school shooting occurred.

"Aren't you guys tired of being here and having to cover all of these mass shootings?" she asked the press conference.

"How is this still happening?"

She later told CNN that she had been planning to have lunch with a friend on Monday who lost her son in a mass shooting at a restaurant five years ago.

But the friend told Beasley that another one of her children was in lockdown due to the Nashville school shooting.

Emma Riddle survived a deadly shooting at her high school in 2021 and hoped to never experience such a nightmare again.

But just over a year later, she found herself locked down at Michigan State University, as a gunman killed three other students.

"Fourteen months ago I had to evacuate... when a fifteen year old opened fire and killed four of my classmates and injured seven more," she tweeted the night of the February 13 attack.

"Tonight, I am sitting under my desk... once again texting everyone 'I love you.'"

READ MORE: US report on 173 mass attacks calls for early intervention to curb violence

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