The mass shooting that took the lives of eight children in Louisiana has reignited the debate on gun violence in the United States. While these high-profile shootings make headlines, they only represent a small part of an armed violence that has become, according to authorities, a true “public health crisis.”
The city of Shreveport in Louisiana (United States) was the scene of a new mass shooting, in which eight children, aged three to eleven, were killed on Sunday, April 19.
This incident marks the worst toll of a shooting in the country since January 2024, in the state that has the highest number of mass shootings per capita:
A mass shooting is defined as when four or more people are injured. Despite their high visibility, these events only make up a small fraction of gun violence. Including suicides, over 600 people are killed by firearms every day, according to Amnesty International.
“These mass shootings are high intensity, but low frequency,” says Francis Langlois, a researcher and member of the United States Observatory of the Raoul Dandurand Chair.
“Gun violence also includes suicides, which account for two-thirds, as well as homicides,” he details.
A “public health crisis”
Such tragedies are recurrent in the United States. The Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, declared gun violence a “public health crisis” in 2014.
Since 2020, nearly one in five Americans has experienced a family member dying from gun violence, also the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the country. This violence is particularly discriminatory as it disproportionately affects the African American community.
For example, there were 690 mass shootings in the United States in 2021, making it a record year. The following year, 46 shootings occurred in schools, a level not seen since 1999, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a leading source on the subject.
This situation is partly due to the proliferation of firearms in the country, as the right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of 1791:
“Being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” it states.
58% of Americans want stricter legislation
According to the Pew Research Center, nearly a third of American adults own a gun, and 42% live in a household with a firearm. Despite these numbers, there is no national registry to track the ownership and circulation of firearms in the country. Additionally, 61% of respondents believe it is too easy to obtain a gun, and 58% are in favor of stricter legislation.
But the National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful pro-gun lobby, strongly opposes any restrictions. Among the major financial contributors to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, the organization wields significant influence over a portion of the Republican Party.
The issue thus polarizes American society, and the debate resurfaces after each tragedy. The March for our Lives movement following the Parkland shooting in 2018 revealed a growing popular desire to regulate the Second Amendment. However, a significant portion of the population remains opposed to the idea of federal interference in their individual freedom.
“I think it’s worth accepting, unfortunately, some gun deaths each year to be able to benefit from the Second Amendment, which protects our other God-given rights,” justified Charlie Kirk in 2023, an American influencer shot dead in 2025.
According to Francis Langlois, decisions by the Supreme Court in 2009 and 2022 have undermined risk reduction efforts undertaken during the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. “The jurisprudence has enshrined the Second Amendment and prohibited the banning of this individual right,” he summarizes.
The researcher nevertheless points to a decrease in mass shootings and overall crime, except for significantly increasing homicides, since the 1990s-2000s. The reason: “Authorities have focused on prevention and rehabilitation, policies that have proven more effective than pure punishment,” he concludes.
