Christmas Day in America. A 73-year-old grandmother in Texas shoots her husband over "marital issues." The parents of a young boy are gunned down in an Ohio parking lot. A barber is shot three times, and left lying on the sidewalk by his shop.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, 27 people were killed in shooting incidents across the United States on Friday. Another 63 were injured, and neither of these figures include self-inflicted gunfire.
Two of the tragedies qualify as mass shooting incidents, defined by GVA as involving "four or more shot and/or killed in a single event, at the same general time and location, not including the shooter."
This rate of violence is especially shocking given that while 27 people died during a single day in the United States, that number is comparable to an entire year of gun-related homicides in Australia or the United Kingdom.
Hong Kong, Iceland, Bermuda, Estonia, Slovenia, Norway, New Zealand, and Austria – combined – would average 27 gun deaths per year.
Christmas Day was comparatively peaceful, when measured against the American average. On average, 36 Americans are killed in gun related fatalities every day, with another 73 injured.
A spate of mass shootings in recent years has brought renewed focus to gun violence in the United States. The San Bernardino massacre earlier this month saw 14 people killed. That incident occurred less than a week after a gunman opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic, killing three.
A report released earlier this month found that the San Bernardino shooting was the 355th mass shooting in the United States in the first 336 days of 2015.
