Mass shootings in the US have nearly tripled since 2013, data from the Gun Violence Archive shows

UVALDE, Texas — Tuesday, 19 children and two adults were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The shooting comes just over a week after another mass shooting at a New York state grocery store, and is the latest in a long history of violence in the US and in American schools.

CLICK HERE for the latest live coverage of the Uvalde mass shooting.

A mass shooting is described as an incident of gun violence in which four or more people are injured or killed, excluding the suspect or perpetrator.

In 2022 alone, through May 25, there were 213 mass shootings in the United States that killed 242 people and injured 912 others, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that compiles media reports of gun violence. government, law enforcement, and commercial sources. The Gun Violence Archive likely represents an undercount of incidents, as its daily analysis does not detect all incidents of gun violence.

If these incidents continue at the same rate for the rest of 2022, the country will reach 540 mass shootings this year.

But the year 2022 is not unique. As the chart above illustrates, mass shootings have been on the rise in the US over the past decade. Weighing heavily on the national consciousness is the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, nearly 10 years ago, when 20 children ages 6 to 7 and six adults were shot to death.

Since 2013, a year after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, mass shootings in the United States have nearly tripled. There have already been 213 mass shooting incidents in 2022, a 50% increase from the 141 shootings in May 2017 and a 150% increase from the 84 in May 2013.

The number of people injured or killed does not include the suspect or the perpetrator. These graphs show the number of victims in all mass shootings since 26 people were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on December 14, 2012.

In fact, thousands of US residents have lost their lives in mass shootings in the last decade, not to mention the many thousands more injured. The number of mass shooting victims, like the number of shootings, has nearly tripled since 2013.

Mass shootings in schools

Since the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Gun Violence Archive has recorded 27 mass shootings in US schoolsincluding 19 in elementary schools and 8 in colleges or universities.

These shootings involved hundreds of victims, including at least 22 people killed and 16 injured this year alone, the third-highest year for school shooting deaths in the past decade. Note that this does not include every person who was shot or killed in US schools this year, only those who were specifically killed or injured in a mass shooting; again, a shooting involving four or more victims.

We remember the lives of the young victims of all these mass shootings.

SEE MORE: Remembering the victims of the Uvalde School shooting

Gun manufacturing, gun control and politics

Even before the Sandy Hook mass shooting, gun control was a strongly divisive issue in American politics, with huge amounts of funding for political campaigns.

In fact, in the year after Sandy Hook, gun rights lobbying increased 1.5-fold, from $6 million spent to $15 million, according to OpenSecrets. Gun control lobbying also increased eightfold, but only jumped from $250,000 to $2 million. In 2021, the gun rights lobby saw its highest spending year in more than two decades at $16 million.

And it’s no secret that many gun rights interest groups fund members of Congress. Since 1989, members of Congress have received millions from both gun rights and gun control interests. On the one hand, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), has benefited the most from gun rights groups; on the other, Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), got a little more funding from gun control lobbyists.

The National Rifle Association he has alone given many millions of dollars to members of Congress, including Mitt Romney, who has reaped $14 million, both directly and indirectly, from the group.

And as political support continues and lobbying for gun rights increases, so does gun manufacturing. In the past 20 years, the number of firearms manufactured in the United States has nearly tripled from 3.9 million to 11.3 million, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Adjusting for population growth, this equates to more than twice as many weapons manufactured in the country per 100,000 inhabitants.

According to law enforcement officials, Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old suspect in the Uvalde shooting, legally bought two AR-15 assault rifles six days after your 18th birthday. He carried out the elementary school massacre two days later.

RELATED: Beto O’Rourke’s interruption at Uvalde press conference was unplanned, says his campaign

Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer kick off a couple of gun background check billsbut no votes have been scheduled as of the writing of this article.