Mass killings dropped dramatically in United States this year

A national database maintained by Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University shows that 2025 recorded one of the lowest totals of mass killings in nearly two decades.

According to the AP/USA Today/Northeastern University Mass Killing Database, which defines mass killings as incidents in which four or more people are intentionally killed within 24 hours, excluding the perpetrator, the United States recorded about 17 such incidents in 2025. That is the lowest total since the database began tracking in 2006 and is roughly a 24% decline from 2024, and an even steeper drop from the more than 40 incidents recorded in peak years such as 2023.

The decline does not necessarily signal a permanent shift. Those working with the database say the change is more consistent with a statistical regression to the mean following the surge in violence seen during the pandemic years, when social disruption, economic stress, mental health collapse, and reduced community intervention coincided with sharp increases in homicide.

School-related mass killings were notably absent in 2025 under this strict definition.

The database shows no incidents involving four or more deaths at K–12 schools during the year, following just one such incident in 2024. Some researchers point to the expansion of school threat assessment programs in many states, which are designed to identify and intervene when students show warning signs of violent behavior, as a possible factor in preventing high-fatality attacks.

At the same time, definitions differ. Broader categories often labeled “school shootings” include any discharge of a firearm on school grounds, even when no one is killed or when injuries occur off campus. Using those broader standards, other tracking efforts, such as the K-12 School Shooting Database and the Gun Violence Archive, recorded dozens to hundreds of school-related gun incidents in 2025. But no mass killings.

The decline extends beyond mass killings alone. Data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive indicate that mass shootings, defined as incidents in which four or more people are shot, injured or killed, fell sharply in 2025 to roughly 388–400 incidents nationwide. Overall gun deaths and injuries also declined from the elevated levels seen in the early 2020s, according to year-end summaries reported by national and international media outlets.

James Alan Fox, a Northeastern professor who maintains the mass killing database, advises that year-to-year fluctuations are common. In 2022, he documented what he described as a record-setting year for mass killings in the United States.