July Fourth and Fifth have the most mass shootings of any day of the year
(CNN) — Mass shootings, like the ones that occurred Monday in Philadelphia and Fort Worth, Texas – and over the weekend in Baltimore — are not uncommon around the Fourth of July. The holiday has accounted for the most mass shootings of any other days of the year in nearly a decade, according to a CNN analysis of the Gun Violence Archive’s mass shooting data since 2014.
Both CNN and GVA define a “mass shooting” as a shooting that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.
On a holiday where Americans gather to celebrate their country’s history and culture, gun violence has been woven into that story, with mass shootings spiking over the Fourth of July holiday in recent years.
Since 2014, only four dates have seen mass shootings in the double digits in a single day – three occurred over the three most recent July Fourth holiday weekends in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Summer days overall have higher numbers of mass shootings than other times of the year, according to CNN’s analysis. Of the top 10 calendar days with the highest number of mass shootings since 2014, all but one — New Year’s Day — was in June, July or August.
