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Monterey Park Police officers at the scene of a mass shooting on Sunday, January 22, 2023 in Monterey Park  where 10 people were killed at a dance hall near the community’s Lunar New Year festival. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Monterey Park Police officers at the scene of a mass shooting on Sunday, January 22, 2023 in Monterey Park where 10 people were killed at a dance hall near the community’s Lunar New Year festival. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
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Saturday’s mass shooting at a Monterey Park ballroom, where at least 10 people were killed during a Lunar New Year celebration, followed a handful of other high-profile shootings in recent years in Southern California.

Update: Monterey Park mass shooting death toll now at 11

They include:

  • On May 15, 2022, at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, where David Wenwei Chou is accused of fatally shooting a doctor and injuring five other people.
  • On March 31, 2021, at a real estate office in Orange that left four people dead and a woman injured. Suspect Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez ultimately was found not competent to stand trial.
  • On Nov. 14, 2019, at Saugus High School that left two students dead.
  • On Nov. 7, 2018, in Thousand Oaks where a gunman killed 12 people in the Borderline bar before killing himself. A Ventura County Sheriff’s deputy died during the law enforcement response to the shooting.
  • A Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino.

Related: 10 killed in Monterey Park mass shooting as Lunar New Year is celebrated

They are part of a national list that already in 2023 identifies 33 mass shootings and 36 mass murders, according the Gun Violence Archive, a database that compiles statistics. The Archive defines such shootings that have a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.

In 2022, the database tallied 647 mass shootings across the country, as defined by its criteria. Saturday’s shooting is said to be the deadliest such shooting since an 18-year-old man opened fire at a school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 students, and two teachers.

An Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S. shows that 2022 was one of the nation’s worst years in terms of mass killings, with 42 such attacks — the second-highest number since the creation of the tracker in 2006. That database defines a mass killing as four people killed not including the perpetrator.

Since the Parkland shooting in February 2018 in which 17 were killed and 17 were injured, there have been 11 mass shootings in the US where 10 or more people died. In 2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic was at its peak, there were no mass shootings with double-digit deaths. The highest number of deaths that year was 7.

Nationally, here are the shootings in the last five years where 10 or more people died:

  • Jan. 21, 2023 Monterey Park, 10 killed 10 injured
  • May 24, 2022 Uvalde, Texas,  22 killed, 17 injured
  • May 14, 2022 Buffalo, NY, 10 killed, 3 injured
  • May 26, 2021 San Jose, Calif. 10 killed, 0 injured
  • March 22, 2021 Boulder, Co., 10 killed, 1 injured
  • Aug. 4, 2019, Dayton, Ohio,10 killed, 17 injured
  • Aug. 3, 2019, El Paso, Texas, (Walmart) 23 killed, 23 injured
  • May 3, 2019, Virginia Beach, Va., 13 killed, 4 injured
  • Nov. 7, 2018, Thousand Oaks (Borderline), 13 killed, 2 injured
  • Oct. 27, 2018, Pittsburg, Pa., Tree of Life Synagogue 11 killed, 7 injured
  • May 18, 2018 Santa Fe, Texas, 10 killed, 13 injured
  • Feb. 14, 2018, Pompano Beach, Fla. (Parkland), 17 killed, 17 injured

Leaders on Sunday echoed a familiar refrain: They asked, why does this keep happening? And once again their answers bounced between there is too much availability of dangerous firearms and the need for law enforcement agencies to be better prepared.

One thing there appeared to be some common ground: This happens way too much in a country where it has become ” a uniquely American problem,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D- Burbank.