Sixteen US Mass Shootings Happened in 2012, Leaving at Least 88 Dead

President Barack Obama wipes his eye as he talks
about the Connecticut elementary school shooting,
Friday, December 14, 2012, in the White House briefing
room in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

George Zornick on December 14, 2012 - 4:18 PM ET

Today’s nearly indescribable tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, where twenty-seven people, including eighteen children, were shot to death inside an elementary school, is at least the sixteenth mass shooting to take place in America this year. The death toll is now at eighty-four.

Here is a list of every fatal mass shooting that’s taken place since January 1—defined as multi-victim shootings where those killed were chosen indiscriminately. The tragedies took place at perfectly random places—at churches, movie theatres, soccer tournaments, spas, courthouses and, now, an elementary school. But given the frequency of these awful events, perhaps in the long view their occurrence isn’t so random after all—it’s predictable.    READ MORE 

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