Over the past seven days, America witnessed eight mass shootings that left four dead and 29 wounded, bringing the US mass shooting body count so far this year to 273 dead and 945 injured. That means at least as many people have died in US mass shootings in 2016 as perished in the 1979 crash of American Airlines Flight 191, which killed 271 passengers and two people on the ground at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in an historic national catastrophe.
Meanwhile, Europe suffered zero mass shootings over the past week, leaving the continent's body toll in such attacks so far this year steady at 37 dead and 125 injured. [...]
Although Injuries involving children tend to draw at least a bit of local press, none of these incidents were apparently unique enough to garner much national scrutiny. But it's worth remembering that even in this good week, America was still hemorrhaging from large-scale gun violence. The comparatively low body count of the past few days is still obscene by most global standards, and ought to be intolerable domestically, as well. Instead of hoping in vain that the mass shooting onslaught might relent, Americans should reflect on what it means that this is what we consider merciful—when "just" 29 people are wounded and four more killed in one week's worth of mass gun violence.
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