In an article updated on June 5, 2022, NPR claimed there have been “over 240 mass shootings” in the U.S. thus far in 2022.
The NPR piece claimed the country experienced “at least 246 in just over 22 weeks,” which “averages out to just over 11 a week.”
The NPR reaches such a number by sidestepping the traditional FBI definition of four people killed in one incident. Instead, NPR uses the Gun Violence Archive definition of four people shot, whether fatally or not.
Using such a measure allows NPR to claim 11 mass shootings in the first week of June 2022 alone.
The U.S. has already experienced at least 240 mass shootings in just over 22 weeks. https://t.co/sqCb8nsW4J
— NPR (@NPR) June 5, 2022
In early December 2015 the left reacted to the San Bernardino terror attack by claiming there had been 355 mass shootings in 2015. The Washington Post made the claim, NBC News made the claim, and actresses such as Rose McGowan made the claim.
On December 3, 2015, Mother Jones editor Mark Follman addressed the left’s claims of “355 mass shootings” that year and pointed out the actual number is about four.
Writing in the New York Times, Follman said:
At Mother Jones, where I work as an editor, we have complied an in-depth open-source database covering more than three decades of public mass shootings. By our measure, there have been four “mass shootings” this year, including the one in San Bernardino, and at least 73 such attacks since 1982.
The FBI noted there were 61 “active shooter incidents” in all of 2021, twelve of which “met the criteria cited in the federal definition of a mass killing.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at
