At least 20 people were killed Saturday in an armed attack at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the nation’s second mass shooting in less than a week after three fatalities at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California, last Sunday.
Saturday’s bloodshed in Texas represented the 31st mass killing by firearms in 2019. A mass killing is defined by the Justice Department as three or more killings in a single episode. There is no legal definition for the term “mass shooting,” despite its frequent use by gun control groups and the news media.
Here are some of the deadliest shootings in 2019. (Death tolls do not include the shooter.)
July 28 — 3 killed
Gilroy, California
An annual garlic festival in an agricultural community south of San Jose turned deadly when a 19-year-old man opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle that he had bought legally in Nevada. The shooter killed himself in the attack. The victims included a 13-year-old girl and a 6-year-old boy.
July 6 — 5 found dead
St Louis County, Missouri
The bodies of five men who had been fatally shot were discovered in an apartment building by police officers in north St Louis County, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch. The victims ranged in age from 37 to 65. Two men were arrested in the killings, which the police said were connected to “drug activity,” as reported by the Post-Dispatch.
June 8 — 5 killed
White Swan, Washington
Five members of the Yakama Nation were killed in White Swan, a remote community on the Yakama Indian Reservation in central Washington state. Four people were arrested in the shootings, the latest act in a cycle of criminal activity on the reservation, which is nestled between the Cascade mountains and the Columbia River. Two of the men charged in the killings took a child hostage at gunpoint, the authorities said.
May 31 — 12 killed
Virginia Beach, Virginia
A city engineer quit his job and then went on a shooting rampage at Building No. 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Centre. The suspect, a former soldier, was armed with two handguns and a cache of ammunition as he targeted his former co-workers in offices and hallways, according to the authorities. His victims were civil servants in the public works and public utilities departments and a contractor who was at the offices to discuss a permit. Until the attack in El Paso on Saturday, the shooting at Virginia Beach was the greatest loss of life in a mass killing this year.
Feb 15 — 5 killed
Aurora, Illinois
A disgruntled employee who had been fired from his job returned to a suburban Chicago factory with a 40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun with a laser sight, which the authorities said he used to kill five of his former co-workers. The shooter was not supposed to have a weapon, as his gun permit had been revoked a year earlier because of a felony assault conviction. The victims included an intern who was on his first day of work and a grandfather of eight.
Jan 23 — 5 killed
Sebring, Florida
Five women were fatally shot while they were lying on the ground in a SunTrust Bank branch by a 21-year-old man, who called an emergency dispatcher and said, “I have shot five people.” The killer, who was charged with five counts of first-degree premeditated murder, was wearing a T-shirt that bore the image of four scythe-wielding grim reapers on horseback.
