Posted Sun 7 Apr 2024 at 4:45amSunday 7 Apr 2024 at 4:45am,
updated Sun 7 Apr 2024 at 3:33pm
It is 1am on March 31, a week ago, when an unknown man opens fire on a group of young women celebrating a birthday in Chicago, Illinois.
WARNING: This story contains content that may be distressing for some readers.
The group are in their teens – among them is 19-year-old Arianna Murphy, who has only been at the party for a few minutes.
She has just graduated top of her class and is about to start nursing school.
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A "smart and loving", "very outgoing person", her family says she has a vibrant energy and a signature smile.
She dies at the scene. Four others, all aged between 16 and 20 years old, are also shot and taken to hospital.
The gunman flees.
In the hours to come, nearby residents will go out into the street to scrub the blood from the cement themselves.
It is the first mass shooting of the day. There are six more to come.
Hundreds of children and teens already killed by guns in 2024
There have already been 4,138 deaths linked to gun violence across the United States in 2024, according to independent research organisation the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).
Among those killed, 355 were children and teenagers. More than 350 incidents were "unintentional".
GVA defines a "mass shooting" as "a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident".
Illinois, where the first mass shooting of March 31 took place, is a "national leader", ranked third in the country for its gun laws by gun control advocacy group Everytown.
"Illinois is surrounded by states with much weaker laws," the non-profit says in its state report card.
"And an outsized share of likely trafficked guns recovered in Illinois are originally purchased out-of-state — especially in Indiana, just across the border from Chicago."
'The wrong place at the wrong time'
One hour after the first mass shooting in Chicago there will be a second one, this time almost 1,400 kilometres away in Dublin, Georgia.
A car pulls up outside a home on West Avenue, and someone in the car fires multiple shots at a crowd of people.
Miyori Ellington, 23, and Sacred Brown, 24, die from their injuries. Five others are taken to hospital.
At the same time police three states away in Paris, Texas will start getting multiple 911 calls — someone has opened fire during a block party.
Two men nearby have gotten into a fight that escalates into a shooting and injures four people.
Police say there are approximately 80 empty shell casings at the scene, from various calibre weapons.
At 4:20am, local time, 29-year-old Stefon Barnes is buying a bag of chips at a deli in the Bronx, New York.
He's a frequent customer, a familiar face for the workers behind the counter.
Despite the early hour the shop is packed with customers, dancing and singing, when a scuffle breaks out – video shows a man in a ski mask attempting to rifle through another man's pockets.
As the struggle escalates and another man joins in, a gun goes off.
