The mass shooting in Maine’s Lewiston is the deadliest shooting this year in the US – with more than 500 shootings already recorded

America has reached a grim milestone with more than 500 mass shootings this year, with the massacre in Lewiston, Maine, set to be the deadliest on record this year.

Wednesday night’s mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, left at least 22 people dead and up to 60 injured in three different locations.

Including this shooting, there have been 565 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, according to data. This is the third year in a row that the country has reached the grim milestone before November.

The devastating shooting in Maine will add another tragic incident to this year’s already alarming toll.

The shooting, which killed at least 22 people, is the deadliest shooting this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Up to 60 injured also represent the highest number of victims of all shootings in 2023.

Maine authorities ordered residents to shelter in place and warned them to stay off the streets to allow emergency responders access to hospitals.

The devastating shooting in Maine will add another tragic incident to this year’s already alarming toll

A photo released by sheriffs showed a white man with an AR-15 rifle and laser optics entering the Sparetime recreation center. He was wearing black combat pants and a brown top

Police released a photo of that car, which they believe belongs to the shooter

Maine authorities ordered residents to shelter in place and warned them to stay off the streets to allow emergency responders access to hospitals.

Including this shooting, there have been 565 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, data shows

A photo released by sheriffs showed a white man with an AR-15 rifle and laser optics entering the Sparetime Recreation Center. He was wearing black combat pants and a brown top.

The neighboring city of Auburn was also placed on lockdown because the shooter is still at large.

Gun violence has claimed more than 15,000 lives in the U.S. this year, including more than 240 children under 12 and more than 1,000 teenagers ages 12 to 17.

The day before the tragic events in Maine, there was a shooting in North Carolina that left a 19-year-old dead and two 18-year-olds and a 17-year-old injured.

A shooting last month in Denver that left five people injured brought the number to more than 500, according to the organization.

Gun Violence Archive, the independent organization that collects the data, defines a mass shooting as a shooting in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter.

The rise in gun violence is part of a frightening trend — just five years ago, the country has never seen more than 500 shootings in a year, according to the research group.

Before the Maine shooting, the deadliest shooting this year was the attack in Monterey Park, California, in January, in which 72-year-old gunman Huu Can Tran killed 11 people and injured nine in a predominantly Asian area on the eve of the Lunar New Year.

Gun violence at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama, also shocked the nation, with four young people murdered and 32 injured – the most fatalities before the mass shooting in Maine.

A bloody handprint marks a pillar the day after a shooting during a teenager’s birthday party at Mahogany Masterpiece Dance Studio in Dadeville, Alabama

Children holding hands leave Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, after the deadliest school shooting of 2023

In August, a gunman opened fire at a historic biker bar in Trabuco Canyon in Orange County, California, killing three people and wounding six before being shot by police.

In a separate incident, eight people were killed in a shooting in Cedar City, Utah, on January 4, with Michael Haight killing his wife, five children and his mother-in-law before turning the gun on himself.

The number of school shootings is also increasing if the current situation continues as expected this year. According to another research team, the K-12 School Shooting Database, a staggering 236 incidents were recorded.

In the deadliest school shooting this year, six were murdered and six were injured by transgender gunman Audrey Hale, who opened fire on March 27.

Three nine-year-old students and three adults were murdered in the attack on The Covenant Christian school in Nashville.

The latest shootings bring the number of mass shootings to 564.

The 500 mark was exceeded late at night in Denver in September.

Then there was a shooting in El Paso, Texas, around 1 a.m. Sunday that left a 19-year-old man dead and five others injured.

Five people were critically injured in a shooting in Dorchester, MA, including a child who suffered life-threatening injuries, Boston police said.

The Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio near the site of a fatal shooting on Saturday

The incident occurred on Wednesday evening around 7:30 p.m. at Cook’s Corner, a bar in Trabuco Canyon, California

The FBI defines a mass shooting as “one or more persons actively involved in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area” – a different metric than most organizations that consider the number of victims to classify it as to define such.

According to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey, there are about 120 guns for every 100 Americans.

No other country has more civilian weapons than people, and about 44 percent of U.S. adults live in a home with a gun.

According to a November 2020 Gallup poll, about a third personally own one. A third of adults in the United States believe that if more people owned guns there would be less crime.

Fear of gun violence has overshadowed other concerns, data from earlier this year shows

A girl runs as other shoppers walk with their hands raised after police responded to a gunman who shot eight people and injured at least seven others at the Allen Premium Outlets mall north of Dallas, Texas

However, several studies show that where people have easy access to firearms, gun-related deaths – including suicide, homicide and unintentional injuries – are more common.

Mass shootings also lead to a demand for more guns, as many Americans feel they are “safer” when they personally own a gun.

The rate of gun violence is eight times higher than in Canada, which has the seventh highest rate of gun ownership in the world.