(WXMI) — As students and families reel from the deadly shooting at Michigan State University, the community of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is marking the fifth anniversary of another tragedy.
In 2018, seventeen students and staff were killed in what was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history at the time, catalyzing anti-gun violence movements across the country and in Congress.
Since then, gun violence has only grown more common for students. For several Oxford High School graduates, who are now students at MSU, this is the second school shooting they've witnessed in less than two years.
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Four students were killed at Oxford High School in 2021. Litigation is still pending.
This past November, three students were shot and killed when a gunman opened fire on a bus at the University of Virginia.
These are only a few of the dozens of school shootings we've seen in recent years since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. According to statistics, the number of school shooting incidents per years is increasing over 150%.
In 2022, that number's jumped from 119 incidents to over 300, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
That same year, number of students and staff shot on school property also increased to 332.
A little over a month into 2023, the K-12 School Shooting Database shows us that 35 people were shot in school.
Now, the shooting on Michigan State University on Monday marks 67th such event this year, according to the Gun Violence Archives' tracking of shootings in America.
The database defines a mass shooting as a singular incident in which at least four people are killed or hurt, not including the shooter.
According to the data, however, the MSU shooting is tied for sixth deadliest of the year's nearly five dozen shootings.
Those include the Lunar New Year Shooting in Monterey Park, California, when twelve people were killed, as well as the Half Moon Bay Shooting, when seven people died.
In total, more than 5,000 people have lost their lives due to some form of gun violence this year. That's more than 115 people per day.
With these tragedies in mind, we're on track to record more than 500 mass shootings in 2023, before we even reach the summer months, when violence tends to spike.
