Across America, gun violence surged in many communities in 2022 as overall death rates from firearms rose to the highest level in nearly three decades. The year saw a near-record number of mass casualty shooting incidents, including several allegedly motivated by hate.
“For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say enough is enough?” asked U.S. President Joe Biden in a nationally televised address in May — days after the deadliest U.S. school shooting incident in nearly a decade.
Biden joined the nation in mourning after an 18-year-old gunman wielding a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
The attacker, a former student at the school, fired hundreds of rounds as he carried out the massacre. Heavily armed law enforcement officers delayed storming the building for approximately an hour, sparking outrage from the community and across the nation.
The young lives taken illustrate a sobering statistic that guns are now the number one killer of children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The tragedy came less than a month after another a 19-year-old — also armed with a semi-automatic rifle — opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people. The suspect said he was targeting Black people.
In November, a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub claimed five lives and left 17 others wounded. The 22-year-old suspect was charged with murder and bias-motivated crimes.
“We are seeing a return to much higher rates of gun violence than we have seen for a long time,” said Jack McDevitt, a professor at Northeastern University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice in Boston, Massachusetts, speaking with VOA. “We are starting to see more people use firearms to go after victims who they perceive to be different.”

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