NEW YORK, December 5. /TASS/. At least 38 mass shootings with victims occurred in the US in 2023, which is a record-high since 2006, The Washington Post reports.

The daily applies the term "mass killings" to incidents in which four or more victims were killed, not including the attackers themselves. Such cases in 2023 totaled 38. The previous record was set a year earlier, when the country saw 36 mass shootings with fatalities.

In all, shootings in the United States in 2023 left at least 197 killed and 91 injured. Since 2006, the number of deaths in similar circumstances has already reached 2,423.

As the daily notes, mass killings with guns rose in 2019 but dropped during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. "As daily life gradually returned to normal, the frequency of the deadliest shootings crept up," the article reads. "The rise in mass shootings is driven by many factors, but increasingly easy access to firearms is the primary cause."

Earlier, US President Joe Biden called gun violence in the country an "epidemic."