Considered opinionAmerica’s deadliest shooting incidents are getting much more deadly

By Philip Bump

The mass shooting that killed at least fifty people in Las Vegas last night was the deadliest in modern American history. The shooting marked the latest outbreak of gunfire and bloodshed to erupt in a public place, transforming a seemingly routine night into one of terror and carnage. The killing in Las Vegas surpassed the death toll of forty-nine people killed in June 2016 when a gunman in Orlando opened fire inside a crowded nightclub.

Philip Bump writes:

If it seems as though we only just experienced another deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, it’s because we did. About 16 months ago, Omar Mateen killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. Before that, the record was held by the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, in which 32 people were killed.

Looking at the timeline of these incidents, a recent trend emerges: The death toll from these shootings has increased dramatically.

Obviously any new “deadliest incident” will have more deaths than the ones that came before. From 1949 to 1991, though, the increase in the number of deaths was only nine. The shooting at Virginia Tech was more than double that in Camden in 1949. The killings in Orlando added 17 more deaths to the total. How many will end up as victims in Las Vegas isn’t yet known — but it’s already twice the toll of the deadliest shooting in history as of 11 years ago.

Read the full article: Philip Bump, “America’s deadliest shooting incidents are getting much more deadly,” Washington Post (2 October 2017)