The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s (ALEA) State Bureau of Investigations is investigating a shooting that killed at least four people and injured about 16 others during a Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville on April 15.
The shooting occurred around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, and the majority of those injured are teenagers.
New Jersey suffered a lesser death toll. There were two shootings in each Newark and Paterson, one in Trenton and one in Hillside over the past 72 hours, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Thirteen people were injured in the Garden State shootings, with fatalities in Newark and Trenton.
“At approximately 11:45 p.m. Saturday, April 15, Special Agents with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s (ALEA) State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) launched a death investigation at the request of the Dadeville Police Chief,” said ALEA in a statement. “The investigation is a result of a shooting which occurred at approximately 10:34 p.m. near the 200 Block of Broadnax Street in Dadeville, located in Tallapoosa County.”
“Currently, there have been four confirmed fatalities and multiple injuries,” said ALEA. “The following agencies responded to the scene and are currently assisting with the investigation: The Dadeville Police Department, Tallapoosa County Sheriff’s Office, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the 5 Circuit District Attorney’s Office. Nothing further is available as the investigation is ongoing.”
Senators Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt claim they’re heartbroken over this shooting, but the Alabama Republicans have both sworn to continue empowering deranged gunmen rather than impose common sense restrictions on the sale of firearms and ammunition.
Calling herself a Christian, wife, and mother, Britt has said, “As crime skyrockets across the country thanks to dangerous liberal policies and anti-law enforcement rhetoric, it is more important than ever that law-abiding citizens exercise our Second Amendment rights.”
After the U.S. House of Representatives passed controversial legislation allowing the state to disarm Americans whom the courts consider to be dangerous, Britt said she opposed the bill and does not support additional gun laws.
“Gun grabbers use so-called ‘red flag laws’ as a gateway to push their disarming agenda,” said Britt. “In reality, a ‘red flag law’ is an abridgment of the Second Amendment and can be abused to take away the right to self-defense with no due process. I do not support additional gun laws that infringe upon our Second Amendment rights. As Senator for Alabama, I will be a champion for preserving and strengthening our God-given Second Amendment rights.”
The nation is still reeling from the shocking events that unfolded recently in Louisville, Kentucky, a bloody milestone for America.
Connor Sturgeon had reportedly been fired by the Old National Bank. Seemingly driven mad with rage, he opened fire on his former colleagues, killing five and leaving eight injured. And when he did so, he registered the highest number of ‘mass shootings’ ever recorded in the US in the first 100 days of a year.
The Louisville tragedy was the country’s 146th such massacre in 2023. On April 10 last year, America had experienced 126 ‘mass shootings.’
The numbing statistics have been steadily on the rise for the past decade, and they are unarguably grim and barely believable. However, they’re not always completely understood.
The Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a non-profit research database that tracks shootings across the US, defines a ‘mass shooting’ as those with a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter.
As well as active-shooter incidents like those in Louisville, ‘mass shootings’ include accidental firearm incidents, armed robberies, familicide, home invasions and drive-bys, among others.
The GVA does not differentiate, for instance, between a gang shooting and a school shooting when they compile these statistics.
Deaths by gun are now so commonplace that ‘mass shootings’ – while undeniably traumatizing, attention-grabbing events – make up 1.1% of America’s firearm deaths in 2020. (Tragically, most gun-related fatalities are suicides).
‘It’s not [that mass shootings] are not horrific, they absolutely are, but they are statistically rare events. When you’re not offering that context, it makes everyone think that if you walk outside, you’re going to die in a massacre,’ explained Jaclyn Schildkraut, the executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the non-partisan Rockefeller Institute of Government.
But mass killings are increasing. Another database, published by USA Today, tracks a much narrower category known as ‘public mass killings’. These are defined as events in which four or more people are killed, not including the attacker, and in a public place, like a school or a bank.
The most public mass killing to ever occur in a single year in America has been ten.
The Louisville massacre was this year’s fourth in the same number of months, meaning that the country is potentially on track to set a new record.