FLORIDA, USA — If it feels like you've been seeing a lot more news about mass shootings lately, that's no accident. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, the U.S. has reported 636 instances so far this year where four or more people at once have been shot or killed.
Both the U.S. and the state of Florida have reached record levels of mass shootings in recent years: the U.S. saw its bloodiest year ever in 2021 with 690 mass shootings reported nationwide, and Florida hit its record in 2020 with 34 mass shootings reported. As of Dec. 14, 2023 there have been 28 such shootings in Florida.
The most high profile of these mass shootings was the Aug. 23 murder at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, where the killer was a white supremacist who had written racist manifestos and killed three Black people with an assault rifle on which he had engraved a swastika. The murder triggered a hate crime investigation by the FBI and a national discussion about racist rhetoric and the radicalization of white supremacists.
However, it seems like most of the mass shootings that happened in Florida were motivated by personal grudges or a dispute between two groups of people, including the deadly Halloween weekend shooting in Ybor and the January shooting in Lakeland where 10 men were hurt.
Other mass shootings were deadly cases of domestic violence, including the shooting in Cocoa where a man allegedly broke into his ex-girlfriend's house in the middle of the night and shot her dead, along with her boyfriend, her mother, and his daughter with her. In another instance in Orlando, a man shot and killed his son, his girlfriend's mother, and another child before being killed during a shootout with police.
A surprising number of the reported mass shootings, however, happened out in the open. In addition to the shooting in Ybor City, Tampa saw a shooting in July outside the Tally Ho Bar Lounge and Grill in which five people were shot but survived. Other such shootings happened at major public events, including a beach boardwalk shooting in Hollywood during Memorial Day, a deadly shooting after an MLK Day parade in Fort Pierce and a New Year's shooting in Ocala that killed two people and hurt four.
While Florida does have some laws regulating gun ownership, including an age restriction of 21 or older, a mandatory 3-day waiting period, and a red flag law allowing police to take guns away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others, it notably does not restrict assault weapons or magazine capacity. It does not require background checks for private gun sales, nor does it require a registration, or state permit for gun owners. Florida residents can legally carry a concealed weapon without a license, mandatory background checks, or weapon training.