Questioner: I’m going to give you some credit. Do you know do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?
Charlie Kirk: Counting or not counting gang violence?
The CPRC stands alone in highlighting how many so-called “mass shootings” actually stem from gang fights. While tragedies like Uvalde (21 murdered), Lewiston, Maine (18 murdered), and Monterey Park, California (11 murdered) dominate national headlines, advocates often cite Gun Violence Archive (GVA) numbers claiming the U.S. suffers 600 mass shootings each year.
But when you look at mass public shootings — shootings in public places, not tied to gang fights or other crimes like robberies, where four or more people are murdered — the numbers look very different. Since 1998, the U.S. has seen only between 1 and 8 of those incidents per year. The FBI uses a broader definition of “active shootings,” covering all public shootings not linked to gangs or other crimes, and even including cases where a gunman shoots at and misses a single person. Using that definition, the FBI reports between 20 and 61 incidents annually from 2014 to 2024, with 24 in 2024.
The contrast is stark: over those 11 years, the GVA claims 4,637 mass shootings, while the FBI counts just 374 active shootings—only 8.07% of the GVA figure. And there were 54 mass public shootings — 1.15% of the GVA count.
As Charlie Kirk notes, most of the GVA’s tally involves rival drug gangs. Chicago alone provides countless examples. Yet these individual gang shootouts rarely make national news, because they overwhelmingly involve drug violence. Every murder is a tragedy, but the causes—and the solutions—differ sharply between gang wars and school shootings.
While Charlie Kirk follows lots of people, it is still flattering to see that he was following Dr. John Lott on X.
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