The latest mass killing in the United States occurred Saturday night when three children ages 8, 9 and 14, and a 21-year-old adult were killed in a shooting at a child’s birthday party in California. Eleven people were also wounded at a Stockton banquet hall.
This is the country’s 17th mass killing this year. The killings are tracked in a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
It is the lowest number of mass killings recorded since 2006, according to the database. Experts warn it probably isn’t the start of a bigger trend, but more likely a return to average levels after spikes in 2018 and 2019.
At least 81 people have died this year in U.S. mass killings, which are defined as cases in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.
So far this year, 14 of 17 recorded mass killings (82%) have involved a firearm. Shooting victims make up 81% of the 3,234 victims of mass killings since 2006.
Last year ended with at least 165 deaths from at least 38 mass killings.
Here is a look at other U.S. mass killings this year:
SAINT HELENA ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, Oct. 12
Four people were killed and 15 others were injured in a shooting during a high school reunion party at a St. Helena Island bar. One man charged in the shooting and another man, who was killed, had a disagreement and started firing at each other, authorities said. Investigators found evidence of a third shooter and have said they expect more arrests.
LELAND, MISSISSIPPI, Oct. 10
A shooting after a high school football game in a small Mississippi Delta town left seven people dead. Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive for the shooting in Leland, but the FBI says it may have been “sparked by a disagreement among several individuals.” At least nine people have been arrested, several of them charged with capital murder.
GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN, Sept. 28
A man opened fire in a Michigan church and set it ablaze, leaving four people dead and the church burned to the ground. The FBI has said the gunman, who was killed by responding law enforcement, was motivated by “anti-religious beliefs” against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
MERLIN, OREGON, Aug. 11
Police said two adults and three children died in a murder-suicide in southern Oregon, KGW-TV reported. The children were ages 11, 9 and 7. Police found the bodies at a home near Grants Pass after one of the victims didn't show up for work.
ANACONDA, MONTANA, Aug. 1
Four people were fatally shot at a bar in a small town about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of Missoula, authorities said. The man charged in the killings evaded capture for a week.
TIPTONVILLE, TENNESSEE, July 29
The parents, grandmother and uncle of an infant found abandoned in a front yard were shot in a wooded area about 40 miles (65 kilometers) away. The man charged in the killings was the boyfriend of the sister of the infant’s grandmother, authorities said.
NEW YORK CITY, July 28
A man carrying a rifle killed four people at a midtown Manhattan building that houses finance companies and the NFL headquarters. The victims included an off-duty New York City police officer. The gunman wounded a fifth person before taking his own life.
TALLADEGA, ALABAMA, July 5
Three men and a woman were fatally shot in an apartment, WBRC-TV reported. The bodies were discovered when police followed up on a call about a missing woman. A friend of one of the victims was arrested.
CHICAGO, July 2
Two men and two women were killed and 14 others were wounded in a drive-by shooting as people left an album release party. Police said the driver immediately fled, and no one was in custody.
CHICAGO, June 26
Police said a man upset with a friend and his ex-girlfriend set a building fire that killed four other people, WLS-TV reported. The fire was started with gasoline and a lighter.
MINNEAPOLIS, April 29
Four people were shot inside a vehicle and died in the Phillips neighborhood in south Minneapolis. A suspect was arrested and charged a few days later.
PERRY, GEORGIA, April 4
Three adults, ages 82, 51 and 37, and a 2-year-old child found dead in a mobile home in Perry, a rural city about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Macon. Authorities said three of the victims had been stabbed and one of them was suffocated. A man was arrested in May and charged in the killings, officials said
HALLANDALE BEACH, FLORIDA, March 26
A man fatally shot his estranged girlfriend and three of her children before turning the gun on himself at a south Florida residence, WTVJ-TV reported. The man, the father of two of the children, died later at a hospital. A fourth child was shot but survived.
LAKE STATION, INDIANA, Feb. 21
The deaths of a mother and her three daughters, ages 4, 6 and 7, found fatally shot at a home in Lake Station, about 34 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Chicago, were ruled homicides, WBBM-TV reported. The woman’s husband was also found fatally shot, and his death was ruled a suicide.
BYRON, WYOMING, Feb. 10
A woman fatally shot her four daughters, ranging in age from 2 to 9, at their home in Big Horn County before shooting herself, according to the sheriff. The mother and one daughter were hospitalized, but later died.
NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 1
A driver plowed into a crowd of revelers in New Orleans’ French Quarter district at 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens, authorities said. The driver, a U.S. citizen from Texas, died in a shootout with police. The FBI called the attack an act of terrorism.
Investigators examine the scene of a mass shooting Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Stockton, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
WASHINGTON (AP) — In his news conference on Monday, President Donald Trump threatened to blow up every bridge and power plant in Iran, a declaration so far-reaching that some experts in military law said it could constitute a war crime.
The issue could turn on whether the power plants were legitimate military targets, the attacks were proportional compared with what Iran has done and whether civilian casualties were minimized.
Trump's threat was so broad brush it did not seem to account for the harm to civilians, prompting Democrats in Congress, some United Nations officials and scholars in military law to say such strikes would violate international law.
The president's eventual actions often fall short of his all-encompassing rhetoric in the moment, but his warnings about the power plants and bridges were unambiguous both on Sunday and Monday as he set a deadline of Tuesday night for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday warned that attacking such infrastructure is banned under international law.
“Even if specific civilian infrastructure were to qualify as a military objective,” Stephane Dujarric said, an attack would still be prohibited if it risks “excessive incidental civilian harm.”
Rachel VanLandingham, a Southwestern Law School professor who served as a judge advocate general in the U.S. Air Force, said civilians are likely to die if power is cut to hospitals and water treatment plans.
“What Trump is saying is, ‘We don’t care about precision, we don’t care about impact on civilians, we’re just going to take out all of Iranian power generating capacity,’" the retired lieutenant colonel said.
Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world's oil normally flows, has been all but halted, sending oil prices soaring and roiling the stock market.
Trump said Monday that he’s “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes as he continues to threaten destruction. He also warned that every power plant will be “burning, exploding and never to be used again.”
“I hope I don’t have to do it,” Trump added.
When asked for further comment Monday, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said “the Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing.”
“The Iranian regime has committed egregious human rights abuses against its own citizens for 47 years, just murdered tens of thousands of protestors in January, and has indiscriminately targeted civilians across the region in order to cause as much death as possible throughout this conflict,” Kelly wrote in an email.
As the conflict has entered its second month, Trump has escalated his warnings to bomb Iran's infrastructure, including Kharg Island, central to Iran’s oil industry, and desalination plans that provide drinking water.
In a Truth Social post on March 30, Trump warned that the U.S. would obliterate "all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’“
On Easter Sunday, Trump threatened in an expletive-laden post that Iran will face, "Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” while adding that “you’ll be living in Hell” unless the strait reopens.
“This strikes me as clearly a threat of unlawful action,” said Michael Schmitt, a professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College and an international law professor at the University of Reading in Britain.
A power facility can be attacked under the laws of armed conflict if it provides electricity to a military base in addition to civilians, Schmitt said. But the strike must not "cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population, and you’ve done everything to minimize that harm.”
Harm does not include inconvenience or fear, said Schmitt, who has taught military commanders. But it does mean severe mental suffering, physical injury or illness.
Schmitt said military commanders should consider alternatives, such as targeting a substation or transmission lines that feed electricity to a base, before destroying an entire power plant.
“If you look at the operation and you’ve got a valid military objective, but it’s going to cause harm to civilians and you go, ‘Whoa, that’s a lot,’ then you should stop,” Schmitt said. “If you hesitate to take the shot, don’t take the shot.”
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said Monday that Trump is “absolutely not” threatening a war crime when he said he might bomb civilian infrastructure.
The infrastructure is also used by the military, Ernst said, and “it’s an ongoing operation.“
“If he needs leverage, he’s using that leverage,” she said while presiding over a brief pro forma session of the Senate.
But Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, also in the Capitol for the brief session, said it would be a “textbook war crime.”
“If you target civilian infrastructure for the purposes the president was talking about, it clearly is a war crime,” Van Hollen said.
Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said the question of whether attacks on civilian infrastructure would be considered war crimes would have to be decided by a court.
However, Katherine Thompson, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, said any accountability would more likely come from Congress.
She said thinking otherwise would mean believing that the U.S. would allow its president to be held accountable by foreign entities.
“This is the persnickety, inconvenient truth about international law: It only works if sovereign nations are willing to cede their sovereignty to a foreign body for accountability,” she said.
But Congress would have to say the president has gone too far. And then both houses would have to take action and with enough support to overcome a presidential veto, a highly unlikely prospect.
Trump also appears to have broad legal immunity under the Supreme Court’s ruling in the criminal case before his reelection, said VanLandingham. And the president could also grant preemptive pardons to top officials if needed.
Even if technically justified under the law of war, strikes that bring harm to civilians could backfire for the U.S. long term, VanLandingham said.
“There's a lot of violence that can still be justified as lawful, but lawful can still be awful,” VanLandingham said. “How far did that get us in Iraq? How far did that get us in Afghanistan? How far did that get us in Vietnam?”
Trump’s rhetoric risks spreading fear among regular Iranians and communicating that the U.S. isn’t worried about their well-being, VanLandingham said. The country’s leaders could use it as propaganda to create and harden opposition, contributing to a longer, tougher war.
Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Edith M. Lederer in New York and Mary Clare Jalonick and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump, accompanied by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
