Lies, damn lies, and statistics. In his autobiography, Mark Twain attributed the phrase to the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, yet the phrase never appeared in any of Disraeli’s writings or private remarks. The right statistics can reveal powerful truths about the world, but sometimes that truth is difficult to see through all the numbers.

On February 15, 2019, Gary Martin shot and killed five people and injured six others at the Henry Pratt Company’s warehouse in Aurora, IL. According to Mother Jones’ online database, this is the most recent mass shooting in the United States.

A young black man was shot and killed in America last night. He was poor and you won’t read about it in the newspaper or see it on the news. Another victim of the violence epidemic infecting our cities. But I don’t know his name.

Columbine. Newtown. Orlando. Las Vegas. Parkland. To many people, these tragedies represent a growing problem in the United States. But they tell only a small part of the story. The story of mass shootings ignores the vast majority of violence in this country.