Just minutes into New Year’s Day, a teenage boy was shot and wounded in the leg on the North Side of St. Louis. A few minutes later, four people were shot in a different neighborhood, three fatally. By morning, the police were investigating 10 shootings, including five deaths, across the city.

And the year wasn’t even a day old. Nor was the violence limited to St. Louis, which in 2017 had the nation’s highest murder rate.

In a country that has become accustomed to gun violence in all its forms, 2020 was off to a typical start. Gunfire echoed across the country in shootings from St. Louis to Philadelphia, and from Michigan to Texas.

In Cleveland, a man who news reports said was firing off rounds to celebrate the new year accidentally killed his girlfriend. In Florida, near Orlando, two men were killed in a shooting inside a nightclub. And in Baltimore, which closed 2019 with the city’s second-highest number of homicides on record, the police were investigating two killings that happened a few hours before midnight.