“Triggered by Economics”: Analysing the Impact of Economic Factors on the Mass Shooting Rates using Pooled Ols

Abstract

“People will say it’s too early to talk about it. If you ask me, it’s always too late.” These are the words of Cameron, a junior at a high school in USA & more popularly, a leader of the youth movement against gun control after the Parkland school massacre. He tweeted after the attack, "I am part of the Mass Shooting Generation, and it's an ugly club to be in. (BBC, 2019)", now aren’t we all a part of this ugly club? How do we find a way out? This study examines the possible connections between mass shootings and numerous socioeconomic variables in three nations: the US, Germany, and Russia. We look into whether factors such as unemployment rates, population density, and gun ownership are reliable indicators of the frequency of mass shootings using pooled OLS regression analysis. According to the analysis, mass shooting rates are favorably correlated with population density and gun ownership, but rates of unemployment are negatively correlated with mass shooting rates. These findings emphasize the significance of taking into account a variety of variables when analyzing the frequency of mass shootings and have significant policy ramifications for nations attempting to solve this issue.