Why 39 mass shootings already this year cannot be considered abnormal in US

 The US state of California is reeling from its third mass shooting in just eight days after 66-year-old suspect Chunli Zhao, from the coastal city of Half Moon Bay, shot dead seven former co-workers. He was arrested after driving to a police station.

The incident comes just a couple of days after a mass shooting in Monterey Park, about six hours southeast of Half Moon Bay, during Lunar New Year celebrations that left 10 people dead and injured 10 more. And just over a week ago, six people were killed at a property in central California.

But such nightmarish mass shootings cannot be considered abnormal in the US. There have already been 39 mass shootings across the country in the first three weeks of this year, with five of them in California.

Nearly 70 people have been killed in mass shootings so far in 2023, data from the Gun Violence Archive show. The not-for-profit research group classifies a mass shooting as any armed attack in which at least four people are injured or killed, excluding the gunman.

More than 1,200 people have been shot dead before the end of the first month of this year, including 120 children. This figure includes all deaths from gun violence, except suicides. It is likely to increase to tens of thousands by the end of 2023. Last year, almost 20,200 people were killed across the country by firearms.

"Tragedy upon tragedy," the California governor, Gavin Newsom, wrote on Twitter.

Despite claims by the US gun lobby and their political backers, little connects this rampant gun violence in terms of the perpetrators' background or mental health. Instead, the connection is the ready availability of firearms in the country.

According to a 2018 Small Arms Survey report, there are more guns in the US than people. The report found that the nation had the highest rate of firearm ownership in the world. Americans purchased about 150 million guns in the last decade, with sales rising.