THIS DATASET WAS LAST UPDATED AT 8:11 PM EASTERN ON SEPT. 30
2019 had the most mass killings since at least the 1970s, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings Database.
In all, there were 45 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings . This summer was especially violent, with three high-profile public mass shootings occurring in the span of just four weeks, leaving 38 killed and 66 injured.
A total of 229 people died in mass killings in 2019.
The AP's analysis found that more than 50% of the incidents were family annihilations, which is similar to prior years. Although they are far less common, the 9 public mass shootings during the year were the most deadly type of mass murder, resulting in 73 people's deaths, not including the assailants.
One-third of the offenders died at the scene of the killing or soon after, half from suicides.
The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed (not including the offender) over a short period of time (24 hours) regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database includes information on these and other characteristics concerning the incidents, offenders, and victims.
The AP/USA TODAY/Northeastern database represents the most complete tracking of mass murders by the above definition currently available. Other efforts, such as the Gun Violence Archive or Everytown for Gun Safety may include events that do not meet our criteria, but a review of these sites and others indicates that this database contains every event that matches the definition, including some not tracked by other organizations.
This data will be updated periodically and can be used as an ongoing resource to help cover these events.
To get basic counts of incidents of mass killings and mass shootings by year nationwide, use these queries:
To get these counts just for your state:
Mass murder is defined as the intentional killing of four or more victims by any means within a 24-hour period, excluding the deaths of unborn children and the offender(s). The standard of four or more dead was initially set by the FBI.
This definition does not exclude cases based on method (e.g., shootings only), type or motivation (e.g., public only), victim-offender relationship (e.g., strangers only), or number of locations (e.g., one). The time frame of 24 hours was chosen to eliminate conflation with spree killers, who kill multiple victims in quick succession in different locations or incidents, and to satisfy the traditional requirement of occurring in a “single incident.”
Offenders who commit mass murder during a spree (before or after committing additional homicides) are included in the database, and all victims within seven days of the mass murder are included in the victim count. Negligent homicides related to driving under the influence or accidental fires are excluded due to the lack of offender intent. Only incidents occurring within the 50 states and Washington D.C. are considered.
Project researchers first identified potential incidents using the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). Homicide incidents in the SHR were flagged as potential mass murder cases if four or more victims were reported on the same record, and the type of death was murder or non-negligent manslaughter.
Cases were subsequently verified utilizing media accounts, court documents, academic journal articles, books, and local law enforcement records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Each data point was corroborated by multiple sources, which were compiled into a single document to assess the quality of information.
In case(s) of contradiction among sources, official law enforcement or court records were used, when available, followed by the most recent media or academic source.
Case information was subsequently compared with every other known mass murder database to ensure reliability and validity. Incidents listed in the SHR that could not be independently verified were excluded from the database.
Project researchers also conducted extensive searches for incidents not reported in the SHR during the time period, utilizing internet search engines, Lexis-Nexis, and Newspapers.com. Search terms include: [number] dead, [number] killed, [number] slain, [number] murdered, [number] homicide, mass murder, mass shooting, massacre, rampage, family killing, familicide, and arson murder. Offender, victim, and location names were also directly searched when available.
This project started at USA TODAY in 2012.
Contact AP Data Editor Justin Myers with questions, suggestions or comments about this dataset at jmyers@ap.org. The Northeastern University researcher working with AP and USA TODAY is Professor James Alan Fox, who can be reached at j.fox@northeastern.edu or 617-416-4400.
As of June 19, 116 school shooting incidents were recorded in K-12 schools in the United States in 2025. Within the provided time period, the greatest number of K-12 school shootings was recorded in 2023, at 350. The source defines a school shooting as every time a gun is brandished, fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims (including zero), time, day or the week, or reason, including gang shootings, domestic violence, shootings at sports games and after hours school events, suicides, fights that escalate into shootings, and accidents.
This dataset was found online at the Association of Religious Data Archives (ARDA) website. http://www.thearda.com/ . This data set shows information on religous groups throughout the United States. All data was uploaded as a polypoint centroids per county in the United States, in shapefile format. This Data set shows the Total congregations, Total Adherents, and Rate of Adherence per 1000 population for All religions in the United States and for the Mainline Religions.
This dataset lists the number of well known school shootings by state. Some states have had more incidents than others. School shooting is a term popularized in American and Canadian media to describe gun violence at educational institutions, especially the mass murder or spree killing of people connected with an institution. A school shooting can be perpetrated by one or more students, expelled students, alumni, faculty members, or outsiders. Unlike acts of revenge against specific people, school shootings usually involve multiple intended or actual victims, often randomly targeted. Source: Wikipedia section on school shootings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shootings#List_of_school_shootings
This Dataset Tally's up the number of Olympic Gold medal winners per state. if an athlete has earned multiple medals, they only count as one. Its just the way it works out. anyways, this was pulled from Wikipedia.org, and is incomplete, these aren't total counts, these are just counts that i could find data for. If you'd like to try to do better, feel free. Source URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Olympic_gold_medalists_for_the_United_States
This dataset was retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information Services Division website on February 29, 2008. "This table provides the estimated number of offenses and the actual number of offenses reported in the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), cities outside metropolitan areas, and nonmetropolitan counties, and the rate (per 100,000 inhabitants) for each grouping, and the estimated population for each state" however to simplify the dataset, I only included the state total and the rate for each state. Data for Puerto Rico was not included. "The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program". Please see the Data Declaration for further information on the data set. Values of -1 represent no value.
This dataset displays all the hazardous waste sites in the United States and it's Territories as of 5.08. The data comes from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry(ATSDR). The dataset contains information about the site: Site ID Site Name CERCLIS # Address City State County Latitude Longitude Population Region # Congressional Districts Federal Facility National Priorities List Status Ownership Status Classification For more information go to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry(ATSDR)website at http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov
All the data for this dataset is provided from CARMA: Data from CARMA (www.carma.org) This dataset provides information about Power Plant emissions in the USA. Power Plant emissions from all power plants in the United Staes were obtained by CARMA for the past (2000 Annual Report), the present (2007 data), and the future. CARMA determine data presented for the future to reflect planned plant construction, expansion, and retirement. The dataset provides the name, company, parent company, city, state, zip, county, metro area, lat/lon, and plant id for each individual power plant. The dataset reports for the three time periods: Intensity: Pounds of CO2 emitted per megawatt-hour of electricity produced. Energy: Annual megawatt-hours of electricity produced. Carbon: Annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The units are short or U.S. tons. Multiply by 0.907 to get metric tons. Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) is a massive database containing information on the carbon emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies worldwide. Power generation accounts for 40% of all carbon emissions in the United States and about one-quarter of global emissions. CARMA is the first global inventory of a major, sector of the economy. The objective of CARMA.org is to equip individuals with the information they need to forge a cleaner, low-carbon future. By providing complete information for both clean and dirty power producers, CARMA hopes to influence the opinions and decisions of consumers, investors, shareholders, managers, workers, activists, and policymakers. CARMA builds on experience with public information disclosure techniques that have proven successful in reducing traditional pollutants. Please see carma.org for more information http://carma.org/region/detail/202
This dataset displays the Real GDP by metropolitan area for the years 2001-2005. For each of the posted metropolitan areas Millions of chained dollars and the percentage change from the previous year is posted. This data was geocoded according to city and state locations. During the geocoding process 233/363 records from the original dataset were successfully geocoded. The reason for this is that during the process is that the dataset often groups cities together into one metropolitan area, which were unable to be properly coded. This data was collected from the Bureau of Economic analysis at their web page at: http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/gdp_metro_newsrelease.htm Access Date: October 29, 2007
This dataset shows airports in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The data were derived from an extract of The Public- Use Airports database of the National Transportation Atlas Databases-2001 (NTAD-2001), published by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Department of Transportation. This dataset was released in October 2001 and was found on-line at the National Atlas, www.nationalatlas.gov in Shape file format. This point data is intended for use within the United States, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This data may be used for geographic display and analysis at the national level, and for large regional areas. Metadata: http://www.nationalatlas.gov/metadata/airprtx020.faq.html Online: www.nationalatlas.gov
This dataset shows the hometowns of US Olympic Gold medal winners by their Sport. This dataset show All Americans who have won Gold Medals in 'Athletics', which is the classification for Track and Field events and others. Data was found online at Wikipedia, and it isn't perfect. i was able to geocode about 100 of the almost 150 gold medalists. Source URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Olympic_gold_medalists_for_the_United_States
The United States Military Installations database contains the boundaries and location information for important military installations in the United States and Puerto Rico. The database includes records for 405 military installations. Source: National Transportation Atlas Database URL: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_atlas_database/2006/
This dataset includes births, deaths and the ratio of births to deaths by metropolitan area for the years 2000-2006. The actual births and deaths for 2000 and estimates were taken from the U.S. Census Components of Population Change. Ratios were calculated based on that data.
This dataset was retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information Services Division website on February 29, 2008. "This table provides the type of weapons used in murder offenses. The data are based on the aggregated data from agencies within each state for which supplemental homicide data (i.e., weapon information) were reported to the FBI. The table also includes a breakdown of the types of firearms used in murders (i.e., handguns, rifles, shotguns, or unknown firearms)". "The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program". Estimated population was added for each state for 2006 that appeared on Table 5 of the data from 2006. Total murders from 2005 and 2004 were also included. Please see the Data Declaration for further information on the data set. Values of -1 represent no value.
This dataset was compiled from the ATF 2007 report on firearms trace data. The numbers provided represent the top 15 source states of firearms for each state. The number and percentage of out of state guns are also calculated.
This dataset was retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information Services Division website on February 29, 2008. "This table provides arrest data for 29 separate UCR offenses for each state for 2006". The table provides data for total arrests by class of crime. "The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program". Estimated population was added for each state for 2006 that appeared on Table 5 of the data from 2006. Please see the Data Declaration for further information on the data set. Values of -1 represent no value.
The database provides location and attribute information for use in national and regional network analysis applications. Supplemental_Information: At the time of publishing the CD significant updates to the layer were underway. Please check http://gis.fra.dot.gov for the latest version of the dataset. The National Rail Network: 1:2,000,000 (line) contains 1 polyline feature (FRAID 8298) that is defined by more than 500 shape points. This feature will not import correctly into the workstation version of ArcInfo, which has a 500 shapepoint limit. When importing into the workstation version of ArcInfo, this feature will be automatically split into 2 features. As part of this process, attributes are simply duplicated on the split features. Because of this, an additonal node is added. The additional node will have incomplete attribution.
This dataset was created from the CDC's National Vital Statistics Reports Volume 56, Number 6. The dataset includes all data available from this report by state level and includes births by race and Hispanic origin, births to unmarried women, rates of cesarean delivery, and twin and multiple birth rates. The data are final for 2005. No value is represented by a -1. "Descriptive tabulations of data reported on the birth certificates of the 4.1 million births that occurred in 2005 are presented. Denominators for population-based rates are postcensal estimates derived from the U.S. 2000 census".
This dataset shows data on Hazmat statistics for the year 1995. The data comes from Department of Transportations Office of Hazardous Materials Safety (OHMS), within the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The data is broken up by state and gives the number of incidents per state, the number of people hospitalized during the incident, the number of people involved in the incident that were not hospitalized, the number of fatalities that occurred during the incident, and the damages from the incident in dollars ($). This set of data covers all Hazmat incidents across the United States. This includes all incidents that happened in the air, on highways, on water, and on the rails.
This dataset displays the Pedestrian fatality rates for the United States on a state level. An Inverse ranking is used to display the highest values to the rankings. This dataset was collected from the fatality analysis reporting system at: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/States/StatesPedestrians.aspx Date: November 12, 2007
THIS DATASET WAS LAST UPDATED AT 8:11 PM EASTERN ON SEPT. 30
2019 had the most mass killings since at least the 1970s, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings Database.
In all, there were 45 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings . This summer was especially violent, with three high-profile public mass shootings occurring in the span of just four weeks, leaving 38 killed and 66 injured.
A total of 229 people died in mass killings in 2019.
The AP's analysis found that more than 50% of the incidents were family annihilations, which is similar to prior years. Although they are far less common, the 9 public mass shootings during the year were the most deadly type of mass murder, resulting in 73 people's deaths, not including the assailants.
One-third of the offenders died at the scene of the killing or soon after, half from suicides.
The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed (not including the offender) over a short period of time (24 hours) regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database includes information on these and other characteristics concerning the incidents, offenders, and victims.
The AP/USA TODAY/Northeastern database represents the most complete tracking of mass murders by the above definition currently available. Other efforts, such as the Gun Violence Archive or Everytown for Gun Safety may include events that do not meet our criteria, but a review of these sites and others indicates that this database contains every event that matches the definition, including some not tracked by other organizations.
This data will be updated periodically and can be used as an ongoing resource to help cover these events.
To get basic counts of incidents of mass killings and mass shootings by year nationwide, use these queries:
To get these counts just for your state:
Mass murder is defined as the intentional killing of four or more victims by any means within a 24-hour period, excluding the deaths of unborn children and the offender(s). The standard of four or more dead was initially set by the FBI.
This definition does not exclude cases based on method (e.g., shootings only), type or motivation (e.g., public only), victim-offender relationship (e.g., strangers only), or number of locations (e.g., one). The time frame of 24 hours was chosen to eliminate conflation with spree killers, who kill multiple victims in quick succession in different locations or incidents, and to satisfy the traditional requirement of occurring in a “single incident.”
Offenders who commit mass murder during a spree (before or after committing additional homicides) are included in the database, and all victims within seven days of the mass murder are included in the victim count. Negligent homicides related to driving under the influence or accidental fires are excluded due to the lack of offender intent. Only incidents occurring within the 50 states and Washington D.C. are considered.
Project researchers first identified potential incidents using the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). Homicide incidents in the SHR were flagged as potential mass murder cases if four or more victims were reported on the same record, and the type of death was murder or non-negligent manslaughter.
Cases were subsequently verified utilizing media accounts, court documents, academic journal articles, books, and local law enforcement records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Each data point was corroborated by multiple sources, which were compiled into a single document to assess the quality of information.
In case(s) of contradiction among sources, official law enforcement or court records were used, when available, followed by the most recent media or academic source.
Case information was subsequently compared with every other known mass murder database to ensure reliability and validity. Incidents listed in the SHR that could not be independently verified were excluded from the database.
Project researchers also conducted extensive searches for incidents not reported in the SHR during the time period, utilizing internet search engines, Lexis-Nexis, and Newspapers.com. Search terms include: [number] dead, [number] killed, [number] slain, [number] murdered, [number] homicide, mass murder, mass shooting, massacre, rampage, family killing, familicide, and arson murder. Offender, victim, and location names were also directly searched when available.
This project started at USA TODAY in 2012.
Contact AP Data Editor Justin Myers with questions, suggestions or comments about this dataset at jmyers@ap.org. The Northeastern University researcher working with AP and USA TODAY is Professor James Alan Fox, who can be reached at j.fox@northeastern.edu or 617-416-4400.