The United States has witnessed the lowest number of mass killings in 2025 in two decades, according to a database tracking such incidents.

A recent shooting at a family gathering in Stockton, California, that left four people dead, was the 17th mass killing this year, The Associated Press – which maintains the database alongside USA Today and Northeastern University – reported on Tuesday.

Recommended Stories

list of 4 itemsend of list

While that figure could yet rise in December, it is a drop of nearly 59 percent from 2019, when a record 41 mass killings occurred.

The database uses police and FBI reports, media articles and court records to track mass killings, defined as incidents in which four or more people were killed intentionally within a 24-hour period, not including any offender.

‘Regression to the mean’

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University who manages the database, told AP that the tally for 2025 was down about 24 percent compared with 2024, which in turn was about a 20 percent drop compared with 2023.

He said the drop in numbers was likely what statisticians call a “regression to the mean”, representing a return to more average crime levels after an unusual spike in the preceding years.

“Will 2026 see a decline?” Fox said. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

James Densley, a professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, told the news agency that as the database tracked a rare phenomenon, the figures could be volatile.

“Because there’s only a few dozen mass killings in a year, a small change could look like a wave or a collapse,” when it was actually a return to more typical levels, he said.

Advertisement

“2025 looks really good in historical context, but we can’t pretend like that means the problem is gone for good.”

Improved mass casualty responses

Some factors could be contributing to the drop, though, he said, including an overall decline in homicide and violent crime, which peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Improvements in the response to mass casualty incidents could also be playing a part, he said.

He cited a shooting during a Mass at a school in Minnesota in August in which two children were killed and more than 20 injured – a crime that would not be recorded on the database due to there being only two deaths.

“The reason only two people were killed is because of the bleeding control and trauma response by the first responders,” he said, adding that the fact the shooting “happened on the doorsteps of some of the best children’s hospitals in the country” also helped.

Eric Madfis, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Washington-Tacoma, told AP that while gun violence and associated deaths in the US were down, “we still have exceedingly high rates and numbers of mass shootings compared to anywhere else in the world.”

About 82 percent of mass killings in the US in 2025 involved a firearm.

Since the database was launched in 2006, 3,234 people have died in mass killings, with 81 percent of them shooting victims.