The shootings continuously hit the headlines in just the first two months of the year.
As of Feb. 23, gun violence has killed 6,278 people in the U.S. this year, an average of 116 deaths every day.
NOTE: The video in the media player is taken from a previous report.
Suicide accounted for the vast majority of gun violence deaths this year at 56%, according to the nonprofit that monitors gun violence. In 2023 until now, there have been an average of 66 suicides per day.
Of those who died this year from the use of weapons, 227 were teenagers and 36 were children.
Most of these deaths occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana.
The grim death toll from gun violence includes 196 people fatally shot by police and 52 killed by “accidental” gunshots, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
So far in 2023, there have been 84 mass shootings, defined by the Gun Violence Archive as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed. These mass shootings have resulted in 126 deaths and 336 injuries this year.
Mass shootings in 2023
Photo illustration by ABC News, gunviolencearchive.org
In Michigan, three students were killed and five were wounded when a gunman opened fire at two locations on the main campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing on Feb. 13, police said.
California had three shootings in a matter of days in January, with one shooting killing at least 11 people and wounding 10 others after a gunman opened fire at a dance studio near a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, California.
Since 2014, gun violence deaths in the U.S. have exceeded 39,000 per year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. However, the number of gun deaths is down from 2016, 2017 and 2018, when the total number of deaths each year exceeded 50,000. In 2022, there were 44,310 such deaths.
President Joe Biden signed the Gun Safety Measures Act passed by Congress in June, and while it was not as broad as he had asked for and did not include a ban on assault weapons, it was the first gun reform bill in decades.
But gun reform advocates continue to push for tougher measures. Florida Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Maxwell Frost spoke with “GMA3” this month to mark the fifth anniversary of the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and called on Congress to do more to curb gun violence.
“Five years later, we feel like we’ve made some progress, and then we’re reminded that nothing has changed,” Moskowitz said.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, free confidential help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call or text the national rescue service on 988. Even if you feel like it, you are not alone.
