Mass shootings in Philadelphia over the Independence Day weekend add to a worrying trend

The Hindu

11-07-2025

The Independence Day weekend starting from July 4 to 6 and including July 7, was a particularly disturbing time in Pennsylvania's most populated city, Philadelphia. Videos of several shootings across the city went viral, and news reports confirmed that there had been at least 15 shootings recorded, as shown in the map below.
Data from OpenDataPhilly, the official open data repository for the City of Philadelphia, shows that there were at least 48 victims to the shootings that happened between July 4-7 this year, which includes 8 people who were killed. One of those killed was aged 40 while seven were within the 19-26 age bracket. Another 40-year-old was killed by the police as he was armed and fired shots at the police, according to multiple news reports.
Also read: No control: On the wave of mass shootings in the U.S.
This is not the first time that Philadelphia has witnessed a barrage of shootings in the first week of July, around the Independence Day holidays.
Mass shootings and the worrying trend
Data shows that each of the 48 victims were shot outside in the open. Out of the 48 victims, 20 were targeted in the shooting on July 7 on 1500 South Etting Street. From the 15 reported shootings, groups and organisations that track mass shooting, like Gun Violence Archive and Mass Shooting Tracker whose work is heavily utilised by media and advocacy outlets, have recorded two of these as mass shootings, based on the definition that a 'mass shooting' comprises at least four people who are shot, whether injured or killed, during a single shooting spree.
The shooting on 1500 South Etting Street on July 7 is classified as a mass shooting in the catalogues of both Gun Violence Archive and Mass Shooting Tracker. While both these trackers have recorded 3 deaths from the shooting on July 7, OpenDataPhilly's records show that 5 people were killed on 1500 South Etting Street.
Apart from the two mass shootings in Philadelphia, there were at least 22 other mass shootings in other parts of the country in the same period. In fact, July 5 recorded the highest number of mass shootings in a single day in the country, with at least 13 reported incidents recorded in Gun Violence Archive.
Out of the 188 days of 2025 shown in the graphic above, mass shooting incidents were recorded on 112 days which amounts to around 60% of the days. More than one mass shooting incident were recorded on 46 of the 112 days.
Mass shootings in 2025 in USA have injured over 1000 people and killed at least 184 according to the data collated by Gun Violence Archive.
Incidents of mass shootings reduced by almost 24% in 2024, reducing to 503 recorded incidents as compared to 659 incidents recorded in 2023. Between 2015 and 2024, the highest number of incidents were recorded in 2021 (689) as shown below.
Since 2017, almost 25% of the incidents have occurred in just three states: California (8%), Illinois (9.5%), and Texas (7.2%). In 2021, there were 86 incidents of mass shootings in Illinois, which is the highest number of recorded incidents throughout all States since 2017. In 2023, Texas had 65 such incidents.
Mass shootings just account for less than 2% of gun deaths
Even though mass shootings have accounted for over 4,200 deaths between 2017-24, it still accounts for less than 2% of the deaths due to guns or firearms in the USA. Comparing the data from 2017-2023 compiled by Gun Violence Archive to that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it shows that around 57% of the gun deaths occur through suicides.