FBI reports dip in 2022 mass shootings as total casualties rise

The total number of mass shootings in the U.S. fell between 2021 and 2022 even as the total number of Americans wounded in such events rose, according to newly released data.

The FBI said Wednesday there were 50 shootings in the U.S. last year, compared with 61 the year before, that met the bureau’s criteria for a mass shooting.

While the total number of deaths from such shootings also declined slightly — from 103 in 2021 to 100 last year — the total number wounded in mass shootings jumped from 140 to 213.

The FBI defines a mass shooting as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area,” a definition that varies from other metrics that focus on the number of total victims in evaluating a shooting.

The Gun Violence Archive, which logs mass shootings in cases where there are four or more individuals wounded or killed in a shooting, found there were 646 mass shootings last year, a drop from 690 in 2021.

Despite last year’s drop, data shows an overall rise in the number of mass shootings the past two decades, regardless of the criteria used to make the assessment.

“While we see a decrease from 2021 to 2022, we see over time, over the past 20 years since we’ve been reporting on active shooter incidents, and certainly in the last five years, there has been an overall increase in this number,” a senior FBI official said during a call with the media, according to reports from Voice of America.

The FBI noted a steady increase in mass shootings from 2018, where they logged 30. The Gun Violence Archive has data going back as far as 2016, where they counted 383 such shootings.

Mass shootings in 2022 included a massacre at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that left 21 dead, including 19 children, as well as a shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store that left 10 dead. The two were among the five shootings with the highest casualty count last year.