100 Days Since Newtown: Three Gun Deaths in Watsonville

Thursday marks 100 days since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

Despite public outcry for stricter gun laws—particularly limits on assault weapons—more than 2,200 people have been killed by guns in the United States since Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot twenty children and six educators, according to a tally by the Huffington Post.

A similar project by Slate and Twitter feed @GunDeaths puts the total at 3,053 as of 9 a.m. Thursday.

Three of the gun deaths occured in Watsonville. On Dec. 29, a man was found shot with a pistol in his lap. On Jan. 18, Marco Topete, 18, was killed on his bicycle on Second Street. On Feb. 15, Marco Ortega, 18, was shot outside Watsonville High School.

There was also a fatal stabbing in Watsonville since Newtown. . Four people have been arrested in connection to that homicide.

In total, 355 people in California have died of gunshot wounds since the Sandy Hook mass murder. In addition to the Forestville slayings, many of the killings have been in the San Francisco Bay Area:

• Three in Watsonville
• Four in Santa Cruz, including two police officers gunned down by a suspect in a sexual assault case
• One in Gilroy
• One in Campbell, the city's first homicide in six years
• Four in East Palo Alto
• One in Burlingame, Marin City and Napa
• Nine in San Jose
• Two in Santa Rosa
• Eight in San Francisco

The Sandy Hook mass murder reignited the national debate on gun control, though some question if it's waning in the months since the school shooting.

The Senate is expected to vote soon on a legislative package that includes provisions to expand background checks on gun purchases, creates new penalties for straw purchases and includes funding to bolster school safety, according to USA Today. The legislation does not ban assault weapons.