A shooting last weekend that killed a woman and wounded six people at a Tennessee church has demonstrated again that deadly violence at U.S. houses of worship is not rare.
According to a church security consultant’s database, on average someone is killed twice a month at a church, synagogue, mosque or other religious facility.
Colorado-based consultant Carl Chinn says that before Sunday’s shooting at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ there had been at least 447 deadly attacks over the last 18 years that killed 565 people.
Those include the 2015 massacre of nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina; the 2014 slayings of three at a Kansas Jewish center and retirement home; and the 2012 killings of six at a Wisconsin Sikh temple.