US mass shootings getting deadlier, more common: The Guardian

LONDON - More mass shootings occurred in the United States in the last five years than any other comparable time span dating back to 1966, The Guardian reported.

There were 31 massacres from 2017 through 2021, compared with 24 from 2012 through 2016, it said in an analysis piece last week.

As mass shootings in the United States reached a record high, so did the number of deaths and injuries, it said.

From 2017 to 2021, perpetrators killed 299 people -- about a third more than the 221 fatalities in the five-year period that ended in 2016, it said, adding that the number of people injured was five times higher.

The Guardian's analysis is based on data from the Violence Project, a nonprofit research group that uses a narrow definition of mass shootings adopted from the congressional research service, which advises federal lawmakers.

The Guardian noted that there is no national, legal definition of a "mass shooting" in the United States as several organizations that track mass shootings use different yardsticks: some count only incidents in which three or more people are killed, while others measure incidents with at least four people killed or injured.

The lack of consensus on what qualifies as a mass shooting makes the problem confusing to talk about, let alone try to address, it said, citing Jacob Kaplan, a criminologist at Princeton University.