US shootings: 56 shot, 9 fatally in Chicago weekend violence
At least 56 Americans, including a 3-year-old girl, have been shot in bursts of gun violence across the city of Chicago. None others lost their lives in the attacks.
The 3-year-old girl was a passenger in the back seat of a vehicle when gunfire shattered the back window and grazed her head, according to Chicago police.
Hours earlier, a 10-year-old boy was hospitalized after being shot while walking with his father. The boy suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and was taken by his father to hospital, police said. No one is in custody and detectives are investigating.
A teen girl was also shot on Sunday morning, Chicago police said. A 14-year-old girl, who was a passenger in a vehicle, was shot in the arm. There is no one in custody. Two other teenage boys were also wounded in separate shootings in the city. Dozens of others were injured in other separate nonfatal shootings.
The shooting spree in Chicago also claimed the lives of five Americans, including an 18-year-old boy, over the weekend.
Last weekend, 30 people were shot, four fatally, in a wave of gun violence across the city, police said.
The surge in US gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021 in the country. The rate of gun deaths in those two years hit the highest level since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.
According to the 2018 international study Small Arms Survey, there were approximately 393 million firearms in civilian hands in the US, or 120.5 firearms per 100 people. That number is much higher now, given increases in gun sales in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The independent data collection non-profit organization, Gun Violence Archive, says the US has witnessed over 380 mass shootings this year alone.
