In 2023, the United States has already seen 40 recorded mass shootings devastating community after community across the nation. Mass shootings– when an attacker uses a firearm to harm multiple individuals at once– have been a severe issue in the US since the first major shooting was recorded in 1891, with frequency rates increasing exponentially. Between 2019 and 2020, the total number of shootings jumped from 417 to 610. More shootings were recorded in 2021 than any other year since the Gun Violence Archive began tracking them in 2013, with 690 shootings across 44 states. As of late, multiple mass shootings have befallen California, leaving families and communities in pieces. 

On Saturday, January 21, the community of Monterey Park, California, gathered at a dance studio to celebrate the beginning of the Lunar New Year, one of the most important holidays for the Asian-American community, when 72-year-old Huu Can Tran opened fire on the crowds. Releasing 42 rounds of ammunition from a semi-automatic handgun, Tran killed eleven people between the ages of 57 and 76 and injured nine. He was later discovered dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his motive is still unknown. The Monday after the tragedy, a vigil was held to honor the lives of the victims. 

Then, another mass shooting took place.

The community of Monterey Park was still processing the events of Saturday night when news of another mass shooting came to light. This time, the massacre was in Half Moon Bay in Northern California, where seven people were killed and one was injured. The gunman, Chunli Zhao, shot four people at a mushroom farm and three others at another nearby farm. He was a coworker or former coworker of the victims at each site, leading officials to believe the attacks were provoked by workplace disagreements. While coworkers argue all over the world, as California assembly member Marc Berman stated, “...it’s only in the United States where far too often those disagreements end in mass shootings.”

There is one thing that ties most mass shootings in the U.S. together: the availability of deadly weapons. California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, and yet, the gun used in the Half Moon Bay shooting was legally owned and the gun used in the Monterey Park shooting was bought and legally owned before certain laws went into place. The fact that specific deadly weapons are legal and can be purchased is part of what sets the United States apart from most other advanced countries, where mass shootings are more rare. It is extremely disheartening to notice that the reaction to each new massacre is predictable; denial from the gun lobby and a feeling of hopelessness from the majority, who support a meaningful and needed tightening of gun laws. An issue with creating stricter gun laws in one state is that politicians often ignore the fact that many of the guns used to kill and injure people in states with stricter gun laws come from states where strict gun laws are not enforced. 

If anything can be learned from the tragedies of mass shootings, it’s that each massacre is an individual incident, involving different victims, different motivations, and different circumstances. We must recognize this specificity, as well as the unimaginable and devastating losses suffered by the victims and their loved ones. However, we should never lose sight of the fact that all of this suffering has taken place in a culture where it is easy to obtain deadly weapons. Until the laws of this matter change, we will continue to live in a country overrun by carnage and tragedy. 

Information retrieved from “‘Tragedy upon tragedy’: 44 hours. 3 mass shootings. 19 dead”, “Gun violence in the US and what the statistics tell us”, “Seven killed in two shootings in Half Moon Bay, California”, and “Covering the Monterey Park Shooting”.