Teacher:In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: MASS SHOOTING CASUALTIES IN THE U.S. IN 2018 
  
 426 verified mass shootings 
  
 528 people killed 
  
 1,549 people wounded 
  
 2,077 total casualties (killed & wounded) 
  
 The figures above only represent victims of mass shootings (when four or more people were shot in an event, or related series of events without a cooling off period). Not included are victims of shootings where three or fewer people were shot. For more information, check out GrC's Mass Shooting Tracker. 
  
 Bonus Mass Shooting Fun Facts for 2018: 
  
 There was an average of 1.17 mass shootings per day in 2018. 
  
 The top 10 states for mass shootings in 2018 (# per million people) were: Alabama (3.48), Tennessee (3.39), Illinois (3.21), Missouri (3.10), Louisiana (2.78), Oklahoma (2.28), Arkansas (1.98), Nevada (1.96), Colorado (1.76), Florida (1.69). 
  
 Of the 426 mass shootings in 2018, 158 (37%) involved domestic violence or juvenile casualties. 
  
 DOMESTIC, ACCIDENTAL & SUICIDE SHOOTINGS IN THE U.S. IN 2018 
  
 Of course, mass shootings account for only a small fraction of the total number of shootings that occur every day, many of which involve domestic violence, accidents, suicides, children, and a much smaller number of justified "defensive gun uses" (DGUs). On average, 96 Americans are killed and 246 injured with guns every day [source], resulting in approximately 10,403 gunshot casualties each month. In the U.S. between 2012 and 2017 – the last year for which CDC data is available – 1 of every 75 deaths in the U.S. was caused by gunshot [sources]. 
  
 There were approximately 32,970 Americans killed or wounded in domestic, accidental and suicide shootings in 2018, as presented in the table below (this number does NOT include tens of thousands of non-domestic homicide and attempted homicide shootings): 
  
 Suicide shooting deaths in 2018 were estimated based on CDC data for 2017; suicide injuries were estimated assuming 85% of suicide attempts using firearms result in death [Drexler, 2019]. Domestic violence, accidental, and suicide shootings accounted for approximately a fifth of all gunshot casualties in 2018. 
  
 The top 10 states for gun-related domestic violence incidents in 2018 (# per million people) were: Vermont (35.3), Alaska (32.5), Maine (28.3), Mississippi (24.5), West Virginia (22.2), Arkansas (20.8), New Hampshire (20.7), Kentucky (19.7), Alabama (18.8), Oklahoma (18.5). 
  
 DEFENSIVE GUN USES (DGUs) IN THE U.S. IN 2018 
  
 By comparison, in 2018 there were 1,443 apparently justified DGUs in the U.S. where armed civilian gun owners attempted to prevent crimes (including incidents where no shots were fired), as presented in the table below (the figures below do not include incidents where unarmed citizens successfully defended themselves against armed criminals, incidents where armed law enforcement officers defended themselves, or "bad DGUs"): 
  
 Incident Type # Incidents # Killed # Wounded # Casualties List Source "Justified" DGUs 1,443 491 835 1,326 [List] GVA 
  
 The figures above indicate that in 2018, incidents where Americans shot themselves, a family member, an intimate partner or an innocent bystander (unintentionally) were 23 times more common than incidents where Americans used a gun in a justified attempt to stop a crime (see chart). This includes reported DGU incidents where Americans used guns to prevent petty larceny. Even if gun suicides are excluded, Americans were still 3.3 times more likely to shoot themselves, a family member, an intimate partner or an innocent bystander (unintentionally) than to use a gun in a justified attempt to stop a crime (including petty larceny). Women were approximately 100 times more likely to be killed by a man with a gun than to use a firearm in self defense [source]. For more in depth analysis, see Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use and Firearm Justifiable Homicides and Non-Fatal Self-Defense Gun Use. 
  
 Finally, there were approximately 250,000 to 500,000 cases in 2018 in which guns were stolen from private owners, more than enough to provide a weapon for every instance of gun violence in the country [source]. This indicates that gun owners were at least 173 times more likely to have a gun stolen by criminals than to use a gun in an attempt to stop a crime. ||||| From Columbine to Charleston, here's a look at some of the most notable U.S. mass shootings. (Alice Li/The Washington Post) 
  
 The headlines all start to sound the same after awhile. Seven people shot inside Louisville nightclub. Four men shot in Suffolk early Sunday morning. Two dead, two hospitalized in Brice Street shooting. 
  
 The shootings happen so often, the circumstances become so familiar, that we tune them out. One dead, five injured in west Columbus shooting. Four shot in grocery store ambush. One dead, four injured in Stockton shooting. 
  
 Every now and then a particularly heinous crime makes us pause and reflect. Nine dead in shooting at black church in Charleston. Four marines, one sailor killed in attacks on Chattanooga military facilities. Gunman opens fire on Louisiana movie theater. 
  
 The Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowd-sourced project of the anti-gun folks at the Guns Are Cool subreddit, lists 203 mass shooting events so far in 2015. Add in the shooting at a Louisiana movie theater last night and you get 204. Incidentally, yesterday was the 204th day of the year. 
  
 [Another day, another massacre – and it’s hard to explain why] 
  
 The Mass Shooting Tracker is different from other shooting databases in that it uses a broader definition of mass shooting. "The old FBI definition of Mass Murder (not even the most recent one) is four or more people murdered in one event," the site's creators explain. "It is only logical that a Mass Shooting is four or more people shot in one event." 
  
  
  
 An officer walks with people near the scene of a shooting at the Grand Theatre on Thursday, July 23, 2015, in Lafayette, La. (Leslie Westbrook/The Advocate via AP) 
  
 These shootings have become so common that they typically don't even make national news. Do you remember the four people shot in Cincinnati earlier this month? How about the seven in Cleveland, or the nine in Fort Wayne? Unless you live in these areas, you probably didn't even hear about them. 
  
 This year there were 18 mass shootings in April, 39 in May, 41 in June, and 34 so far in July -- and the month isn't over yet. The theater shooting was Louisiana's 8th this year. There have been 10 in Ohio, 14 in California and 16 in New York. 
  
 Will anything change? Probably not. The Charleston shooting did produce a fruitful national conversation -- not on guns, but on the symbolism of the Confederate flag, which the shooter adopted as a banner of his racist beliefs. It took 150 years and a national tragedy for the country to reach something like a consensus on the meaning of a battle flag. 
  
 "Those who live in America, or visit it, might do best to regard [mass shootings] the way one regards air pollution in China: an endemic local health hazard which, for deep-rooted cultural, social, economic and political reasons, the country is incapable of addressing," The Economist wrote in response to the Charleston massacre. "This may, however, be a bit unfair. China seems to be making progress on pollution." ||||| WE DO not yet know why a gunman entered a church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday and killed nine people at a prayer meeting, but in a sense it does not matter. One searches for reasons in order to assign responsibility and to devise solutions, but in this case no one will accept responsibility, and no solutions will be devised. One might blame radical ideology; given that the gunman, who police suspect is 21-year-old Dylann Roof, is white and the victims black, it seems probable that the motives were rooted in racial hatred. But no modern American party, movement or politician embraces explicit racism. While some exploit more subtle forms of racial resentment, none would admit to any link to a mass killer. A South Carolina branch of the Ku Klux Klan has been on a last-ditch recruitment drive to save itself from extinction, but one expects even the KKK would dissociate itself from violence these days. 
  
 The massacre, then (like those in Sandy Hook , Isla Vista, Aurora, and many others), will almost surely be blamed on the actions of a lone madman, who is now in the custody of police. This might, as with the Sandy Hook massacre, lead to support for legislation to make the public mental-health system more proactive (and more coercive). But that legislation is controversial among mental-health practitioners, and has been bogged down in Congress. In any case, while better mental health is a good thing in itself, it is unlikely to have a reliable impact in finding and stopping the small number of people who commit mass killings. The gunman's access to firearms was obviously a prerequisite for the killings. But it has become clear since Sandy Hook that meaningful gun control is politically impossible in America. While certain forms of restrictions on gun ownership are popular, the power of lobbying organisations such as the National Rifle Association and the lock-step opposition of Republicans in Congress have blocked all moves towards legislation. 
  
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 This political dynamic helps explain why the rise in mass killings in America has not led to any changes in policy. Such killings have become increasingly common , even as the overall number of gun-related homicides has declined. Before yesterday, there had been 279 killings involving four or more victims since 2006, according to an excellent database compiled by USA Today . About five out of six such killings target family members, or involve the commission of another crime such as a burglary. The mass killing in Charleston appears to belong to the sub-category of "public killings": those, like the Sandy Hook massacre, in which the killer had no intimate personal relationship with the victims. In fact, 2015 has not been a particularly bad year for public killings: until yesterday there had been just one, in San Francisco, and police believe it was gang-related. (The biker brawl in Waco , Texas, which left nine people dead, is not classified as a public killing because the victims appeared to have known each other.) 
  
 The massacre in Charleston will certainly add to America's growing racial tensions. After a series of killings at the hands of white police officers and citizens in the past few years, African-Americans increasingly feel they are the victims of structural racist violence. One of the most egregious slayings took place in nearby North Charleston in April, when a police officer shot a fleeing African-American man eight times after pulling him over for a broken tail light. (The officer has been indicted for murder.) White Americans often refuse to accept that such violence is rooted in widespread racism; for African-Americans, the connection is obvious. Still, while racist killings by officers could be addressed by changes in jurisprudence or policing practices, it is harder to imagine how to tackle mass murder. 
  
 This is not to say that Wednesday's massacre in Charleston has had no political consequences at all. There has been one: Jeb Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, cancelled a rally in the city that had been planned for Thursday. It is interesting to contemplate how many victims a killing must claim before politicians feel they need to cancel a rally in the area, and what types of victims merit cancellation. Would Mr Bush have cancelled his rally after a gang-related killing? What about a terrorist attack? (For that matter, why are political murders such as the Boston Marathon bombing immediately labelled "terrorism", while the apparently political mass murder in Charleston is not?) Will mass killings someday be unremarkable enough in America that politicians feel comfortable ignoring them entirely? 
  
 The regularity of mass killings breeds familiarity. The rhythms of grief and outrage that accompany them become—for those not directly affected by tragedy—ritualised and then blend into the background noise. That normalisation makes it ever less likely that America's political system will groan into action to take steps to reduce their frequency or deadliness. Those who live in America, or visit it, might do best to regard them the way one regards air pollution in China: an endemic local health hazard which, for deep-rooted cultural, social, economic and political reasons, the country is incapable of addressing. This may, however, be a bit unfair. China seems to be making progress on pollution. |||||
Student:
It's the worst kind of synchronicity: A website that tracks mass shootings in the US had logged 203 through Wednesday. It hasn't caught up with last night's rampage in a Louisiana theater, but when it does, that will be No. 204—and yesterday was the 204th day of the year, notes the Washington Post. The Mass Shooting Tracker is a crowd-sourced tool from an anti-gun forum at Reddit called Guns Are Cool, and it defines "mass shooting" as incident in which at least four people were shot. Not all of the incidents resulted in deaths. A post at Quartz digs in a little deeper to the numbers and finds that 40 of 50 states have had at least one such mass shooting this year, with New York (16), California (14), Florida (14), Texas (12), and Georgia (12) at the top of the list. In its coverage, the Post quotes a barb from the Economist, written after the Charleston church massacre, that has been in wide circulation of late: "Those who live in America, or visit it, might do best to regard [mass shootings] the way one regards air pollution in China: an endemic local health hazard which, for deep-rooted cultural, social, economic and political reasons, the country is incapable of addressing. This may, however, be a bit unfair. China seems to be making progress on pollution."