Justice

A Second Mass Shooting Happened This Weekend

June 12th 2016

While we turn our attention to the tragedy in Orlando, Florida, it's important to keep in mind that there were at least two mass shootings this weekend.

While the biggest massacre in U.S. history occurred at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, another mass shooting is flying under the radar. Police announced Sunday that five people — four of them children — were found shot to death in Roswell, New Mexico.

Roswell Police Department spokesman Todd Wildermuth told press that a relative checking on the house discovered the bodies late Saturday night.

Authorities say that they are looking for a man who they believe attacked the five individuals sometime Saturday in their family home. Although the identities of the victims have yet to be released, those deceased are believed to be the attacker's wife, age 34, as well as the couple's 3, 7, 11, and 14 year-old daughters.

Thirty-four-year-old Juan David Villegas-Hernandez has been identified as the suspect in the incident, and at this time, Villegas-Hernandez is still at large. According to The Washington Post, he may be driving a red, four-door pickup with New Mexico license plates. Anyone with information on the murders is asked to call the Roswell Police Department at 575-624-6770.

There have been 134 mass shootings in 2016, according to data from Gun Violence Archive, which broadly defines a mass shooting as a shooting with at least four victims either injured or killed, not including the gunman. (The organization defines "mass murder" as "FOUR or more killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location not including the shooter.")

"The big ones, of course, attract the national media, comments from the president, cries of terrorism," the Washington Post reported last year, when the memorable San Bernardino, California shooting happened on the same day as a smaller incident in Savannah, Georgia. "The small ones ... well, they have become just another police report in the United States."

USA Today reports that one in six mass killings (including those not involving firearms) are "public massacres," like the tragedy in Orlando. However, 53 percent of mass killings are family-related disputes, according to USA Today's "Behind the Bloodshed," an in-depth look at mass killings in the United States.

Share your opinion

Do you think the U.S. should have stricter gun control laws?

No 11%Yes 89%