By Anoushka Kuswaha ’24
News Editor
Content warning: This article discusses gun violence, mass death, murder and suicide.
As of Feb. 2, approximately 54 mass shootings have already taken place in 2023 in the U.S. The most destructive mass shooting of the year so far occurred in Monterey Park, CA, resulting in the deaths of 11 victims and the injury of nine others. On Jan. 21, a man opened fire at approximately 10:30 p.m. PT in the Star Ballroom Dance Studio. The shooter then attempted to open fire in the nearby Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in Alhambra, CA, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The shooting took place on the eve of the Lunar New Year, one of the largest holiday events in the area, during which members of the community gathered at a festival to celebrate. According to an article by The New York Times, the suspect is believed to have shot 42 rounds in Star Ballroom, based on the number of shell casings found at the scene of the shooting. He intended to continue firing at Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio but was stopped by employee Brandon Tsay, whose family owns the studio in Alhambra, per an article by CNN. The suspect attempted to evade law enforcement, but on Sunday, Jan. 22, was located after a van matching the description provided by police was found in the nearby town of Torrance. Upon law enforcement’s attempts to engage with the suspect, who was still inside the van, the suspect sustained a self-inflicted gun wound and was later pronounced dead, per CNN. The suspect’s motives remain unclear.
This carnage characterized the deadliest mass shooting of the year thus far, but it was not the last. The events that occurred in Monterey Park were swiftly followed by another gun violence tragedy in California. On Monday, Jan. 23, a shooting took place in a small coastal community, known as Half Moon Bay, located south of San Francisco. The suspect was apprehended shortly after the shootings, according to CNN. He enacted violence in two separate locations, one being a mushroom farm where he was formerly employed, the other being “near a trucking facility,” according to an article on CNN. His actions left seven people dead and one person injured, all of whom were of Asian and Hispanic descent, according to the BBC.
Photo courtesy of ken lund via Flickr. Gun violence has struck the United States over 50 times this year, recently on Monterey Park. The Monterey Park's shooter's motivations are unknown.
Though gun violence has become an ever-present part of American life and contemporary political discourse, solutions have yet to be implemented. There remains no formal definition as to what constitutes a mass shooting, according to the New York Times. The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research group that uses police reports, public records and news reports to track gun violence in the United States, describes mass shootings as “[having] 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 both instances of violence that took place in California, allegations were made regarding the perpetrators’ personal circumstances and the role of those circumstances in leading them to commit violent acts of crime. In the case of the Half Moon Bay shooting, the suspect gave an interview to local San Francisco channel KNTV-TV explaining that due to his complaints about long working hours being ignored, he felt compelled to make himself heard by returning to his place of work to unleash his fury on the victims, according to an article written by the BBC. In the Monterey Park case, the perpetrator’s motives will likely be forever unknown. However, it has been alleged the gunman was a frequent presence at both of the sites where he performed these acts of violence. He worked as a voluntary dance instructor and engaged in frequent arguments with the other patrons of the studios, according to an article by The New York Times. The same article alleges that the gunman’s actions were a manifestation of his anger toward his fellow patrons, which could potentially begin to explain why he went to both of the dance studios he frequented, perhaps looking for one or more individuals in particular, leaving death and injury in his wake.
The high number of incidents of this year, which has just concluded its first month, raises the question of how the United States could prevent access to weapons and provide support to community members in order to prevent such scenes of carnage in the future.
Gun violence has also been felt recently in the Pioneer Valley, following a shooting at the Holyoke Mall on Jan. 28. An employee, Trung Tran, was shot while working at his job at the Touch of Beauty Hair and Nail Salon, according to an article written by MSN.
In a statement to Mount Holyoke News regarding the shootings that took place in Monterey Park, Asian American Students in Action (AASIA) stated that they were “horrified by the recent tragedies in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, California.” The students of AASIA went on to remind the Mount Holyoke community of the targeted nature of the gun violence these past few weeks, the importance of solidarity and the need “for structural change in order to prevent such tragedies from repeating.”