These 14 Facts Are Crucial to Understanding Gun Violence in America What we've learned after two years on the beat.

Rampage attacks, like the one that left a Louisiana congressman in critical condition last week, are horrifying, and to victims and families, devastating. But they are not an especially good proxy for understanding the epidemic of gun violence in America.

In any given week, there are over 200 more gun homicides than the worst mass shooting in American history — the massacre of 49 people at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in June 2016. These “everyday” victims of gun violence are shot by rivals, friends, strangers, family members, and even children.

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This understanding is one of the very first we reached when we launched The Trace, two years ago this week. It has shaped our coverage and led us to many more truths. Here are 14 that have surprised us the most.

05

There’s probably been a shooting near where you live. In a collaboration with Slate, we mapped every reported incident of gun violence in America from June 13, 2015 to June 13, 2016. Our map shows that while shootings are disproportionately clustered in a handful of cities, almost no community in the country is completely free of gun violence.