US records 470 mass shootings, 25,000 gun-related deaths in first eight months of 2023

DUBAI - In the first eight months of 2023, 470 mass shootings occurred across the United States, and more than 25,000 Americans have died from gun violence, Gulf News, an English newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, said in a recent opinion piece.

According to the piece published on Thursday, an average of 22 children aged 17 and under are shot daily, and victims are predominantly fatalities from shootings but also include deaths by suicide.

"In America, you send a child to school without the guarantee of (him or her) coming back alive. It is a country that empowers the wrong in the battle with the right. No dreams can be built on a license to kill," said Gulf News.

The gun culture Americans embrace is part of their constitutional right, which is so engrained in the local mindset that children being shot every day won't lead to a change in the status quo, it said.

Facing the sad reality, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN that "this is the only country in the world where men who are having breaks with reality exorcise their demons through mass slaughter."

Gun violence has been a divisive and deadly issue in U.S. society for a long time. Deaths from gun-related injuries have been increasing in the United States since 2004, with 2021 hitting a record high of 48,830, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. - XINHUA