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Mass shootings in the US: 2022 could be the second-highest year

By Janie Boschma, CNN
Published 3:12 PM EST, Wed November 23, 2022

Flowers are piled around crosses remembering those killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.Jae C. Hong/AP
CNN —

This year is likely to be the second-highest year for mass shootings in the United States on record, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun violence incidents across the country.

The Gun Violence Archive, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

There have been at least 607 mass shootings through November 22 this year. That’s just short of the 638 mass shootings in the country at this point last year – the worst year on record since the group began tracking them in 2014. There were a total of 690 mass shootings in 2021. The United States is likely to soon surpass the total of 610 mass shootings in 2020, with more than a month left of 2022 to go.

How a tiny nonprofit with no full-time employees became the foremost tracker of gun violence in America

Tuesday’s massacre at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, left six people dead and four more with injuries. That was just three days after five people died in a shooting rampage at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado.

In the past week alone, mass shootings have claimed at least 24 lives and injured 37 others in gun rampages across seven states, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

There have been more mass shootings than days so far in 2022 – a trend that’s continued each year since 2019 – underscoring the growing prevalence of gun violence in American life.

The pace of mass shootings in 2022 is part of a three-year uptick that began in 2020. Between 2019 and 2020, the total number of mass shootings all year jumped from 417 to 610. The number jumped again in 2021 to 690.


Mass Shootings in the US Fast Facts

In 2022 so far, at least 3,179 people have been shot in mass shootings, resulting in 637 deaths and more than 2,500 people injured.

Through the same period in 2021, there were at least 3,267 people shot in mass shootings, resulting in 645 deaths, while in 2020 the numbers show 2,873 people shot with 463 deaths.

So far in November, there have been at least 32 mass shootings across the nation resulting in more than 177 people shot and 43 dead. For the month of November 2021 through the 22nd, there were 36 mass shootings, resulting in 160 people shot, leaving 34 of those people dead.

CNN’s Priya Krishnakumar and Dakin Andone contributed to this report.