A new FBI report shows the number of active shooter incidents declined last year, but still remained high.
The report was detailed in a story by USA Today on Friday.
In all, there were 27 instances of active shooters in 2018. The incidents resulted in 85 deaths and 128 people injured. There were 30 incidents in 2017 resulting in 138 deaths and 593 wounded.
The newspaper noted active shooters are defined by the FBI as one or more persons trying to kill others in a populated area with a firearm.
The deadliest incident in 2018 came when a lone shooter killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In 2017, 58 people were killed during a festival in Las Vegas.
The FBI has been producing the report in since 2000, the newspaper noted. And in the first seven years there was an average of 6.4 incidents. That figure soared to 16.4 for the next seven years. And since then, it has been at least in the 20s every year, according to USA Today.
Last year, California had four incidents – the most in the U.S., followed by Florida with three.
“It's encouraging that the number of active shooting incidents dropped from an all-time high in 2017, but last year still saw the second-most incidents this century,’’ Kyleanne Hunter, vice president of Programs at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told USA TODAY.
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