Depressing Three Year Time-Lapse Video Reveals Extent Of American Mass Shootings


We are all aware that mass shootings have dramatically increased in our country over the last several years. We hear about the numbers, but to actually see these numbers increase in a time-lapse video is very depressing.

Soon after the San Bernardo shooting, International Business Times created a time-lapse video, using the Mass Shooting Tracker database, to map out incidents since 2013. The database defines a mass shooting as an incident where:

four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire in a single event, with a killed or injured perpetrator also counting in the tally.

At the beginning of 2013, there were already several mass shootings that took place as you can see from this map of January 2013:

January 2013. Screengrab from Newsweek.com
January 2013. Image is a screengrab from Newsweek.com.

In 2013, we saw a total of 279 incidents. After only one year, the map dramatically changed as follows:

January 2014. Screengrab from Newsweek.com.
January 2014. Image is a screengrab from Newsweek.com.

For 2014, mass shootings totaled 281 incidents. At the beginning of 2015, the map sadly becomes much darker:

January 2015. Screengrab from Newsweek.com
January 2015. Image is a screengrab from Newsweek.com

With 330 incidents in 2015, the video time-lapse ends with this picture of the United States:

November 2015. Image is a screengrab from Newsweek.com.
November 2015. Image is a screengrab from Newsweek.com.

As of the date of publishing this article, there have been 16 incidents so far in 2016.

What is particularly sad about these statistics is we do not hear about all of these shootings from the media.

The Washington Post states that the reason the media only covers a few of these shootings is because most of the incidents do not “rise to the level of national interest.

Since President Barack Obama’s executive order early last month, the mainstream media has not focused on this very important topic; instead they are wrapped up in the 2016 presidential primary drama. They will likely only bring this up when the next mass shooting takes place.

To watch the time-lapse video, click here.

Featured image is a screengrab from Newsweek.com.