There are almost as many mass shootings in the United States as there are days in a calendar year.
A social service centre for people with developmental disabilities in San Bernardino, California has become the 355th site of a mass shooting on Wednesday, the 336th day in 2015. Fourteen people were fatally shot and seventeen others were injured after three gunmen opened fire inside the city's Inland Regional Center. The tragedy becomes the deadliest shooting in the states since December 2012, when 26 children and adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut.
The Mass Shooting Tracker, maintained by the subreddit Guns Are Cool, defines mass shootings as four or more people killed or injured by gunfire in the states. The total of shootings may outpace the numbers recorded in 2013 and 2014.
President Barack Obama responded to Wednesday's tragedy during an interview with CBS News.
"The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world. And there are some steps we could take, not to eliminate very one of these mass shootings, but to ensure that they don't happen as frequently."
President Obama has been cast as the nation's "mourner-in-chief" due to Congress' lack of efforts to pass meaningful gun legislation in the states.
“For those who are concerned about terrorism, some may be aware of the fact that we have a 'no fly' list where people cannot get on planes, but those same people who are not allowed to fly can go into a store right now and buy a firearm," he said. "My hope is that we are able to contain this particular shooting... We should come together in a bipartisan basis, at every level of the government, to make these rare, as opposed to normal."
