A recent shooting at a family gathering in Stockton, California, which left four people dead, has been recorded as the 17th mass killing in the United States so far this year. This figure represents the lowest annual tally since 2006, according to a major national database.
A Statistical Dip Amidst Ongoing Tragedy
The database, maintained by the Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University, defines a mass killing as an incident where four or more people are killed within a 24-hour period, excluding the perpetrator. While the 2025 number shows a significant drop—down about 24% from 2024, which itself fell roughly 20% from 2023—experts are urging caution against interpreting this as a lasting trend.
James Alan Fox, the criminologist at Northeastern University who manages the database, likened the decline to a statistical principle. "What goes up must come down," he said, referencing the unusual spike in mass killings seen in 2018 and 2019. He suggests the current numbers are more indicative of a 'regression to the mean'—a return to average levels after a peak—rather than a sign of sustained improvement. "Will 2026 see a decline? I wouldn't bet on it. What goes down must also go back up," Fox added.
Volatile Numbers and Complex Causes
James Densley, a professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, emphasised the inherent volatility in tracking such rare events. "Because there's only a few dozen mass killings in a year, a small change could look like a wave or a collapse," he explained. While 2025 looks favourable in a historical context, Densley cautioned that it does not mean the problem has been solved permanently.
Several factors may be contributing to the current dip. Densley pointed to an overall decline in homicide and violent crime rates since their pandemic peak, as well as potential improvements in the immediate emergency response to mass casualty incidents. Eric Madfis, a criminal justice professor at the University of Washington, Tacoma, stressed the multicausal nature of crime trends, noting that academics still debate the reasons behind the homicide drop in the 1990s.
Firearms were involved in approximately 82% of this year's mass killings, a proportion consistent with long-term data. Since 2006, the database records that 3,234 people have died in mass killings, with 81% of those victims killed by gunfire.
The Bigger Picture of Gun Violence
Some observers argue that focusing solely on mass killings risks obscuring the broader crisis of gun violence in America. Emma Fridel, an assistant professor of criminology at Florida State University, warned against "missing the forest for the trees."
"If you look at the deaths from firearms, both in homicides and suicides, the numbers are staggering," Fridel said. "We lose the same number of people every year to gun violence as the number of casualties we experienced in the Korean War. The number one cause of death for children is guns." She advocates viewing mass killings as one part of a much larger issue.
On a policy level, Christopher Carita, a former police detective now with the gun safety organisation 97Percent, highlighted that the 2022 Safer Communities Act has directed millions of dollars towards violence prevention programmes. Furthermore, Professor Madfis noted that more states are funding school threat assessments, which may help prevent school-based attacks, though this would not affect mass killings in other settings. Notably, none of the 2025 mass killings have occurred in schools.
