The first rant I ever posted on this blog all the way back in early 2017 was entitled Gun Nuts and it referred to data from 2013 on general gun deaths in the US. At that time 33,534 people were killed by guns, at a rate of 10.35 per 100,000 people. In Australia in the same year 225 people were killed by guns, at a rate of 0.94 per 100,000 people1.
I saw a figure that startled me on Monday (December 1st) morning, and it said there had been 380 mass shooting in the US so far this year; an average of more than one a day, considering there have been 334 days this year to the end of November. Given the large number, I thought I’d see if it was accurate. The place to check this out is the Gun Violence Archive2. It was accurate.
The monthly breakdown is as follows, listing the number of mass shootings in that month and the number of dead (excluding perpetrators):
November events 23, dead 19
October events 30, dead 31
September events 35, dead 33
August events 37, dead 28
July events 62, dead 60
June events 62, dead 39
May events 40, dead 33
April events 22, dead 23
March events 28, dead 22
February events 18, dead 26
January events 23, dead 192
That comes to a total of 380 mass shooting events, with 333 dead (other than perpetrators), and there were also 1,736 injured. In many of the cases, semi-automatic (e.g. Ar-153, or AK-474) rifles were used2.
Most recent event was at a child’s birthday party in Stockton, California, which was supposedly a ‘gang-related’ shooting. It happened at an event venue where more than 100 people were celebrating. Multiple gunmen were stated to have fired into the event venue, leaving four people dead and 11 others wounded5.
Three of the dead were children, aged 8, 9 and 14, while the dead adult was a male aged 21. The 11 injured included children aged 9, 9, 12, and 15, as well as 2 young adults6.
Some of the children attended schools in the Stockton Unified School District, which posted a message “In moments like these, may we stand together in strength, compassion, and support as our community begins to heal”5. While I wouldn’t know what to say in such a situation, that statement is just as useful as the “thoughts and prayers” bullshit US politicians utter in such appalling situations as they disgracefully trouser money from the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers who want to make sure this carnage continues.
In the same period (January 1- November 30, 2025) there has been one mass shooting in Australia. It was by a 60-year-old man who opened fire from a restaurant rooftop, shooting at cars passing on Georges River Road in the Sydney suburb of Croydon Park. Nobody was killed, but one man was taken to hospital with gunshot wounds to his chest and neck. The shooter used an M1 carbine rifle; the licence for which has expired over 30 years ago. Family members thought he was suffering from depression at the time of the shooting7.
This is the 19th mass shooting in Australia this century, which pales into insignificance compared to the carnage in the US, which has had 23 mass shootings in November 2025 alone.
The appalling religious nutters in the US will tell you it is because their public education system is too secular, with ‘god having been taken out of schools’. This is a ludicrous explanation, as Australia has no prayer in its public schools, no pledge of allegiance to the flag or nation “under god”, no ten commandments on school walls, no ‘in god we trust’ on our currency8, and is a nation which is ahead of the US in becoming less religious, now with likely over 50% stating that they are ‘not religious’9, yet we have far fewer mass shootings than the US.
US politicians know that the problem is access to weapons, especially semi-automatic rifles and handguns, but refuse to do anything about it. To them, money is more important than lives, so the carnage continues.
Sources
- https://blotreport.com/2017/01/08/gun-nuts/
- https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15%E2%80%93style_rifle
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47
- https://stocktonia.org/news/public-safety/2025/11/30/8-year-old-mass-shooting-victim-identified-as-stockton-unified-student/
- https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3365899
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-09/family-alleged-croydon-park-shooter-say-police-did-welfare-check/105868196
- https://stribs.medium.com/where-there-is-no-god-the-people-need-not-perish-a85193945ba3
- https://blotreport.com/2022/06/28/and-so-it-continues/
