934 Americans Killed In Mass Shootings Since 2006: Study

By Eric Brown | February 21 2013 9:23 PM

A new study of gun violence across the United States has confirmed that more than 900 Americans have died in mass shootings over the past seven years.

Reuters

Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, testifies during a hearing held by the Senate Judiciary committee about guns and violence on Capitol Hill in Washington.

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According to USA Today’s analysis, 934 people were killed in mass shootings in the United States since 2006. The study was conducted using FBI records and uses the FBI’s definition of a mass shooting as a crime in which four or more people are killed by a firearm.

The study also states that mass shootings amount to less than 1 percent of all gun-related homicides in the United States, noting that just under half of the victims were killed by family members.

USA Today’s gun violence study comes during a time of increased national attention on gun control laws. In the wake of the massacre at Newtown, Conn.'s Sandy Hook Elementary School, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, with more than 850 members, has begun pushing even harder for more tightly-regulated gun control nationwide.

"Mass shootings … are the tragedies that capture the public's attention," Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, told USA Today Thursday. "But every day, 33 Americans are being killed, mostly with handguns and distressingly often, by a family member or intimate partner."

Currently, Mayors Against Illegal Guns is backing its Demand a Plan initiative, which is asking Congress to institute a national law which will require criminal background checks before purchasing any firearm, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and make the trafficking of firearms a federal crime. The Demand a Plan website currently has more than 1.2 million signatures on a petition.

Several Congress members are already taking cues from the organization. Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are drafting legislation that will close a loophole allowing gun sales between two private parties to go without background checks.

“The only people who will be checked are law-abiding, normal, sane, decent Americans. It will be our names — the names of good people — that will be put into a massive database, subject to federal registration and abuse of privacy,” leader Wayne LaPierre wrote in a response to the State of the Union Address. “And none of it — from universal checks to universal gun bans — none of it does anything to keep our children safer in their schools."