Detroit block party mass shooting was the state's worst since at least 2013

The shooting of 21 people early Sunday morning at a block party on Detroit's east side, leaving two people dead and 19 others injured, ranks as Michigan's largest mass shooting in recent history.

And the state's second-largest mass shooting took place just last year at a street party in Saginaw, where thirteen people were shot, two fatally, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive that goes back to 2013.

"We have more guns on the street; more people carry guns," said Mark Bryant, executive director of the Gun Violence Archive. "And if there's a party, or a concert, or a bar, or a parking lot outside a bar …when one gun comes out, ten guns come out; so one person doesn't get shot, a bunch of people get shot."

There's no single consensus on the definition of a mass shooting. The Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit formed to track gun violence in the U.S., defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people are injured or killed by gunfire, not including the suspect.

Since 2013, there have been 166 mass shootings in Michigan, including 11 incidents in the first half of this year. Nearly half of the mass shootings, 80, took place in the state's most populous city, Detroit.

Michigan recorded the most mass shootings — 25 — in 2021; the same year, a student killed four students and injured six students and a teacher at Oxford High School.

In Chicago, three mass shootings took place from July 1- July 7; 27 people were killed and 100 were injured, according to GVA data. Across the U.S., during the same time period, 20 mass shootings occurred; 340 people were killed and 756 were injured.

Kristi Tanner is a data reporter. Contact her at ktanner@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @midatalove.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit block party shooting was the state's worst since at least 2013