It took only 23 days into 2023 to make this California’s deadliest month of mass shootings in at least a decade.
And it seems like everybody is feeling it. Six dead in the San Joaquin Valley town of Goshen. Five days later, 11 gunned down in the LA suburb of Monterey Park. Two days after that, seven killed in Half Moon Bay. In all, during a month known for renewal, 27 people have been killed in five mass shootings. Another 20 have been reportedly injured.
“Everyone is hurting, whether you live on the coast or not,” said Patricia Love, head of communications at the San Mateo County Office Education, which spent the last 24 hours reaching out to provide support to teachers, students, and school staff at classrooms not just in Half Moon Bay, but across the county. “I don’t live in Half Moon Bay, but I’ve been choking up all day.”
The carnage is weighing heavily on Californians everywhere in a state with some of the nation’s toughest gun laws. Perhaps nothing symbolized the shocking toll like Gov. Gavin Newsom learning about Monday’s shootings at a pair of coastal farms in Half Moon Bay while he was at the hospital in Southern California visiting survivors of Saturday’s night’s massacre at a dance studio. Hours later, Oakland experienced its own mass shooting near a gas station Monday night in which five people were shot, one fatally.
This month’s death toll in California has already eclipsed the Golden State’s previous monthly high of 17 mass shooting deaths recorded in December 2015, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that documents mass shootings across the country in which at least four people were shot. That month, 16 people were killed in the San Bernardino terror attack, and a 17th person was killed in a mass shooting in Los Angeles, which injured three other people.
This month didn’t just set records for California. Throughout the country, it is the deadliest January for mass shootings since the Gun Violence Archive began counting in 2014. From the first of the month through Monday, 70 people have been killed in 39 separate mass shootings. Another 167 were injured.
“It’s horrifying,” said James Zarsadiaz, an associate professor of history at the University of San Francisco who specializes in Asian American history. “And unfortunately, a lot of Americans have to cope with dealing with not only this, but the regularity …read more
Source:: The Mercury News