A small town in central Georgia is the latest to experience a mass shooting in the state after a block party in Vienna erupted into gunfire leaving two dead and more than 30 others injured over the weekend.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified the two victims as Ja'Quavion Aderious Jackson, 21, and Macaleb Malik Jackson, 23. Both were not residents of Vienna, and there were more than 1,000 people who attended the block party, according to the GBI.
"The condition of the 35 injured victims range from stable to critical," law enforcement officials said Sunday, and investigators are still working to identify the shooter or shooters and what may have led to the shooting.
Vienna has a population of less than 3,000 people, according to census
data, but the town is now just the latest Georgia community to be touched by large-scale gun violence.
How many mass shootings in Georgia this decade?
There have been more than 150 mass shootings in the state of Georgia since the beginning of 2020, according to data aggregated by the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, an organization founded after the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that left 26 dead in 2012.
While there is no one uniform definition of what constitutes a mass shooting, federal officials typically use the term for the shooting of three or more people. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines an "active shooter incident" as when "one or more individuals actively engage(s) in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area."
This could then apply to smaller domestic events like the shooting of family members in a home or to a larger event like a school shooting.
The state of Georgia was rocked by this kind of violence most recently in 2024 when teenager Colt Gray opened fire inside Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta. Four people, including two students and two teachers, were killed. Gray later pleaded guilty to dozens of felony charges, and his father was also found guilty of providing a weapon to Gray.
But other mass shooting events are happening around the state every year.
At the end of September, 12 people were injured by gunfire at a birthday party in Macon, Georgia. In January, four people were killed in a domestic incident at a home in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
One person died and another five were injured in a shooting at a homecoming event at Albany State University in 2024. A year earlier, four people were killed across the Dogwood Lakes neighborhood of Hampton and a shootout led to the injury of two police officers. Just months before that, a gunman opened fire at a Northside Hospital location in Midtown Atlanta, killing one and injuring four others.
There was also a major targeted attack in 2021. Three different spas in the Atlanta metro were targeted by a single gunman who conducted multiple mass shootings and killed eight people, six of whom were of Asian descent. The attack was later deemed a hate crime.
Georgia firearm deaths are increasing
The state of Georgia has the 14th-highest rate of firearm deaths anywhere in the United States, and gunfire is the leading cause of death in Georgia children, the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation says.
The rate of gun deaths has also been rising in the Peach State.
The overall gun death rate increased 25% from 2015 to 2024 in Georgia, according to the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins.
Georgia has the eighth highest gun homicide rate in the country as of 2024, and guns were overwhelmingly used in the more than 160 domestic violence-related homicides in the state in 2023.
But the rise in gun use and misuse is not impacting all communities the same.
Young Black men, aged 15 to 34, only make up about 5% of the state's population, but account for nearly 40% of the gun violence deaths in Georgia, according to the Center for Gun Violence Solutions. Males overall are four times more likely to die by gun violence than females. Black people overall are eight times more likely to die by gun violence than white people, and Black females are four times more likely to die by gun homicide than white females.
A similar trend is found in gun suicide deaths. Males are seven times more likely to take their life with a firearm than women, and while white men account for only 14% of the state population, they make up nearly half of all gun suicide deaths, according to the Center.
What are Georgia's gun carry laws?
Under the Georgia Constitutional carry Act, anyone who is legally allowed to own a firearm can carry one open or concealed without the need of a weapons carry license.
You must still meet the illegibility requirements to own a weapon, and open carry may still be banned in specific locations like college campuses, public schools, government buildings and private properties.
Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA Today’s Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: More than 150 mass shootings in GA since 2020. Vienna added another
