Surge in US shootings shows no sign of easing: media

"This country's recent dysfunction is bigger than Covid. It is a dark new form of American exceptionalism," The New York Times warned.

LOS ANGELES - The surge in gun violence in the United States that began almost two years ago shows no sign of easing after at least nine mass shooting events were reported across the country over the weekend, reported The New York Times on Wednesday.

The newspaper said in two related reports about gun violence which were published on Wednesday that the burst of weekend violence continues a trend that began in 2020 as the pandemic set in and continued through a summer of unrest following the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who was suffocated to death after a white police officer had knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes in Minneapolis in May, 2020.

The newspaper worried that the deadly weekend was an ominous harbinger for the warmer summer months ahead, which is typically America's most violent time, noting that murders have risen more than 30 percent since 2019 in the country, citing recent data.

"Criminologists and researchers say no single cause explains the rise in gun violence, but they point to a confluence of traumatic events, from the economic and social disruptions of the pandemic to the unrest of 2020, as well as the accompanying surge in gun ownership," said the newspaper in its report.

Garen J. Wintemute, who researches gun violence at the University of California, Davis, told the newspaper that he worries that Americans increasingly see those they disagree with as the enemy.

"We have lowered the bar, the threshold of insult or affront or whatever, that's necessary for violence to seem legitimate," Wintemute was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"By many measures, Americans are feeling frustrated with their government, their economy and their fellow citizens. Nearly 80 percent are dissatisfied with the country's direction," reported The New York Times, citing Gallup, adding that polls also show an alarming degree of skepticism about democracy and openness to political violence.

Criminologists and historians who have studied past crime waves point out that they often occur when people are feeling frustrated with society, government and their fellow citizens, reported the newspaper, adding that this frustration can feed a breakdown in societal norms and a rise in what the sociologist Emile Durkheim called "anomie."

"This country's recent dysfunction is bigger than Covid. It is a dark new form of American exceptionalism," warned the newspaper.