Country endured 28 mass killings – a total of 140 victims – amid uptick in gun violence and calls by some for stricter laws. Police officers walking down street,

The United States saw a record of 28 mass killings in the first half of 2023, The Associated Press has reported, as policymakers struggle to curb gun violence across the country.

The AP analysis, published on Friday, said 140 victims were killed during that period. All but one of the mass killings – incidents in which four or more people are slain not including the perpetrator – involved firearms.

“What a ghastly milestone,” Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville in March when a former student fatally shot six people, told the AP. “You never think your family would be a part of a statistic like that.”