One was newly engaged, another newly married. They were mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. Some came to the United States seeking better lives for their families, all going about their daily lives. A police officer responding to 911 calls, a spa owner thinking of retiring, a young man planning for his first Civil War re-enactment.
Here are the victims of two of 2021’s mass shootings, in the Atlanta area on March 16 in which eight people died, six of them women of Asian descent, and less than a week later, on March 22, at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, during which 10 were killed.
Their deaths left the country again grappling with a crisis sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic: How do we end gun violence?
Following the Colorado mass shooting — defined by the FBI as three or more deaths in a public setting not related to gang violence — President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass gun restrictions including expanded background checks and a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Biden made a similar statement on Feb. 14, the third anniversary of the Parkland school shooting in which 17 people, mostly teenage students, were killed.
"This administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call,” Biden said. “We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. We owe it to all those we've lost and to all those left behind to grieve to make a change."
