It was the deadliest mass shooting ever carried out on American soil. But the rampage at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday, which left 50 people dead including the shooter, was hardly the only place in the U.S. where gunfire ripped apart lives over the weekend.
Across the country on Saturday and Sunday, from California to New York — in 21 states — Americans died from gunshot wounds with the usual numbing regularity. At least 121 people were fatally shot over the two days in 63 incidents, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tallies deaths and injuries from firearms across the country.
Subtracting those who died in Orlando from the tally, one person died from gunfire in the U.S. every 40 minutes, on average, over the weekend.
121 people killed with guns in America last weekend
In Roswell, New Mexico, on Saturday, a 34-year-old woman and her four daughters — aged 14, 11, 7, and 3 — were found shot to death in their home. The woman’s husband is the suspected killer, and was apprehended in Mexico on Monday.
Later Saturday evening in Stockton, California, a 30-year-old man was killed and three others were wounded when two groups of people exchanged gunfire outside an ice-skating rink. As many as 80 bullets were fired in the melee.
That same night in Panorama City, California, a 46-year-old man shot his 41-year-old girlfriend in the stomach, wounded her 20-year-old son, and killed her two daughters, ages 13 and 17, before turning the gun on himself. A GoFundMe page has been created to help pay for the girls’ funerals.
So far this year, at least 5,997 people have been killed by guns, 212 of them in mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Most of the other incidents over the weekend received scant attention outside the communities where they occurred.
Those who died include Jessica White, 29, who was at a park in the Bronx when a gunman wearing a ski mask opened fire. She threw herself in front of her three children to protect them from the bullets, and one hit her in the heart. The victim’s mother, Gola White, said Jessica was the third child she’s lost to gun violence.
Elsewhere in the Bronx, 31-year-old Eric Oliver, who’d been paralyzed by a bullet 10 years ago, was shot in the head late Saturday. His dead body was discovered sprawled out on the sidewalk next to his wheelchair.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, a 21-year-old man was fatally shot and another three people were wounded at a party in an apartment. At around the same time in Webster, Minnesota, four people were shot and wounded at a party when a physical altercation escalated to gunfire.
Clamisha Houston, 19, was killed by a stray bullet as she stepped off a party bus in the parking lot of a Lowe’s in Harvey, Louisiana.
Antwon Brooks, 42, was shot dead on his porch in Chicago just hours after attending a funeral for another victim of gun violence. He was one of 42 people shot in that city over the weekend, seven fatally. One of the wounded was a 5-year-old girl, who was shot in the foot while standing on a sidewalk on the city’s southwest side.
Just after midnight on Sunday in southwest Houston, Texas, Saturday, 28-year-old Alma Rivera-Melendez was fatally shot in her apartment following a daylong text message argument with her boyfriend. Bryan Euymr Vega-Velez, 38, has been charged with murder.
In the wake of Sunday’s massacre, “the Orlando mass shooting” became shorthand for the tragedy. But, sadly, it wasn’t even the only mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub this year: In February, 11 people were shot, two fatally, at Glitz Ultra Lounge, 10 miles south of Pulse.
[Photo: White, Facebook; Houston, Facebook; Gonzalez sisters, GoFundMe; Brooks, family]
