San Bernardino Shooting: US Averages One Mass Shooting a Day in 2015

As another mass shooting unfolded in San Bernardino today, Reddit’s Mass Shooting Tracker took up the grim task of tallying the latest numbers.

This was number 355 in the United States for 2015. That’s 21 more shootings than there have been days in the year so far, or 1.06 mass shootings per day.

From the Washington Post:

As many as three attackers opened fire at a holiday party for county employees in San Bernardino, Calif., on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 17 others in what the city’s police chief described as an act of domestic terrorism.

The active shooting scene erupted at the Inland Regional Center, a complex that houses a conference center and a facility serves people with developmental disabilities.

We’ve already surpassed the total number of shootings in 2014 and are well above the pace of 2013, when there was a total of 363.

Reddit’s Shooting Tracker is run by subreddit GunsAreCool (an angrily sarcastic name for a subreddit devoted to pushing for gun reforms and criticizing the National Rifle Association), which crowd-sources media reports of shootings and notes every event that involves four or more people shot (either wounded or killed) in a single spree or setting, without a cooling off period. Over the last year the tracker has been cited by CBS, the Economist, CNN, The Guardian and many other mainstream news outlets.

GrC says keeping such a list debunks the NRA argument that covering mass shootings will result in more shootings via copycats. “In fact, many of these shootings do not receive more than a day’s worth of local coverage. Yet mass shootings continue to occur anyway. We actually think mass shootings should receive more publicity, not less.”