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Two mass shootings at crowded public places in Texas and Ohio in less than 24 hours claimed at least 29 lives and left scores injured, a shocking carnage even in a country accustomed to gun violence. In the Texas border city of El Paso, a gunman opened fire Saturday morning in a shopping area packed with thousands of people during the busy back-to-school season, killing 20 and injuring more than two dozen, many of them critically. The shooting was being investigated as a possible hate crime as authorities worked to confirm whether a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly beforehand was written by the man arrested in the attack on the 680,000-resident border city. Just hours later in Dayton, Ohio, a gunman wearing body armor and carrying extra magazines opened fire in a popular nightlife area, killing nine and injuring at least 26 people. The Saturday shooting in El Paso and the Sunday shooting in Dayton were the 21st and 22nd mass killings of 2019 in the U.S., according to the AP/USA Today/Northeastern University mass murder database that tracks homicides where four or more people killed — not including the offender. Including the two latest attacks, 125 people had been killed in the 2019 shootings.

A History Of The Top 25 Mass Shootings Prior To Yesterday's Murders

Including yesterday's shootings, 18 of the top 25 deadlies shootings have happened over the past 15 years.   Ironically, both Myspace and Facebook are approximately 15-16 years old, with other online channels such as forums as old as 20 years now. The first mass top 25 mass shooting occured in 1949 in Camden, then a whopping 17 years the next top 25 mass shooting occured at the University of Texas.

In-Depth Study Of Mass Shootings

Columbine. Virginia Tech. Orlando. San Bernardino. Las Vegas. Sandy Hook. Parkland. These are only a handful of the places where mass shootings have occurred in the United States in the past 20 years, and these violent crimes are increasing in frequency. An event where four or more individuals are shot now occurs every 12.5 days in this country (Meindl & Ivy, 2017). This rise in mass shootings has recently been linked to “media contagion” theory, which suggests that society’s never-ending news cycle has a “copycat” effect on these crimes (Meindl & Ivy, 2017). It is important to note that the primary media circulating this news are not just television and newspapers anymore, but also social media platforms and online news sources. These new media, including Snapchat, Facebook Live, Twitter, and online blogs, have made the spread of information about mass shootings nearly effortless.