(NEW YORK) — Shootings have continuously made headlines in just the first two months of the year.
So far, 6,278 people have been died from gun violence this year in the U.S, as of Feb. 23, according to the Gun Violence Archive – which is roughly an average of 116 deaths each day.
Deaths by suicide made up the vast majority of gun violence deaths this year – 56%, the nonprofit gun violence tracker reports. There’s been an average of 66 deaths by suicide per day in 2023 up to now.
Of those who died from gun violence this year, 227 were teens and 36 were children.
The majority of these deaths have occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana.
The grim tally of gun violence deaths includes 196 people fatally shot by police and 52 killed in “unintentional” shootings, the Gun Violence Archive shows.
There have been 84 mass shootings in 2023 so far, which is defined by the Gun Violence Archive as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed. These mass shootings have led to 126 deaths and 336 injuries so far this year.
In Michigan, three students were killed and five others were injured when a gunman opened fire at two locations on Michigan State University’s main campus in East Lansing on Feb. 13, police said.
California saw three shootings in a matter of days in January, with one shooting leaving at least 11 people killed and 10 others injured after a gunman opened fire at a dance studio near a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California.
The U.S. has surpassed 39,000 deaths from gun violence per year since 2014, according to data from Gun Violence Archive. Still, gun deaths are down from 2016, 2017 and 2018, when the total number of deaths each year surpassed 50,000. There were 44,310 such deaths in 2022.
President Joe Biden in June signed into law a gun safety package passed by Congress and while not as sweeping as he requested and did not include a ban on assault weapons, it was the first gun reform bill in decades.
But advocates for gun reform continue to push for tougher measures. Florida lawmakers Rep. Jared Moskowitz and Rep. Maxwell Frost spoke with “GMA3” this month to mark the fifth anniversary of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and called on Congress to do more to curb gun violence.
“Five years later, we feel like we’ve made some progress and then we were reminded that nothing has changed,” Moskowitz said.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide — free, confidential help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call or text the national lifeline at 988. Even if you feel like it, you are not alone.
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