Mass Homicide Research Articles

This Mortal Coil: A History of Death

“. . . for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life.” —William Shakespeare, Hamlet In This Mortal Coil: A History of Death, British scientist Andrew Doig charts the prodigious saga of death over the past few thousand years and the various means and methods that have enabled more of us to survive longer. This book is far less macabre than the subject might suggest, however. People in France have recorded their life spans since 1816. Since that time, the life expectancy of its citizenry has more than doubled, vaulting from 41.1 years to 85.3 for women and from 39.1 years to 79.3 for men. This impressive rise—rather evenly matched in other developed countries and evident to lesser extents in less endowed regions—can be attributed to progress in medicine (led by drops in infant mortality) and to advances in other methods of disease and disaster prevention. Unfortunately, poor diet, physical inactivity, illicit indulgences, sporadic wars, transportation mishaps, mass homicides, suicides, effects of climate change, and the heap of adversities associated with abject poverty threaten to reverse the trend.

Mass homicide by firearm in Canada: Effects of legislation.

Canada implemented a series of laws regulating firearms including background checks and licensing, references, psychological questionnaires, prohibition of paramilitary style rifles, and magazine capacity restrictions in order to decrease the incidences and deaths from mass shootings. The associated effects of these laws were examined over the years 1974 to 2020. A model was constructed using difference-in-differences analysis of firearms and non-firearms mass homicide incidences and death rates. Mass homicides were defined as a homicide due to one event involving three or more deaths. Incidence rates of mass homicide by firearm were found to be 0.11 (95%CI 0.08, 0.14) per million compared to a non-firearm mass homicide rate of 0.12 (95% CI 0.10, 0.15) per million. Mass homicide death rates by firearm were found to be 0.39 (95% CI 0.29, 0.49) per million compared to a non-firearm mass homicide rate of 0.47 (95% CI 0.34, 0.61) per million. Overall, there is a gradual declining trend in the incidence of mass homicide by firearm (IRR 0.97 (95% CI 0.96, 0.98)) and by non-firearm (IRR 0.97 (95% CI 0.97, 0.98)). The decline in mass homicide death rate by firearm and non-firearm is IRR 0.96 (95% CI 0.95, 0.97), and IRR 0.97 (95% CI 0.96, 0.98) respectively. No specific associated decrease in mass homicide incidence rates or death rates with firearms legislation was found after the implementation of background checks and prohibition of full auto firearms in 1980, by the implementation of references and psychological questionnaires in 1994, by the restriction of magazine capacity in 1994, the prohibition of paramilitary rifles in 1994, or licensing in 2001.

Moving Beyond Individual-Level Explanations: Exploring the Contextual Correlates of Mass Murder

Due to the rarity of mass murder, scholars have focused almost exclusively on its individual-level risk factors, assuming that structural characteristics play a negligible role in the etiology of this infrequent but impactful crime. This study explores whether local structural factors influence the incidence rate of mass murder and its logical comparison group, homicide. Using information from a novel mass killing database as well as the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), two-level count regression models examine the county- and state-level factors that predict the number of mass murder ( N = 549) and homicide incidents ( N = 274,399) in 3,143 U.S. counties from 2000 to 2018. Results indicate that mass murder is more likely to occur in disadvantaged and racially/ethnically heterogeneous areas, similar to homicide in general. Future research should examine both perpetrators and their environments instead of assuming that mass murders are exclusively driven by individual-level factors.

Exposure to Bullying, Childhood Trauma, and Violence in Video Games Among Perpetrators of Mass Homicides: A Brief Report

Perpetrators of mass homicides have often been believed to have experienced certain events in their childhoods that may have led to their crimes. Among the issues that were considered in this study were childhood trauma, which included abuse history, and history of childhood bullying. Another issue that was examined was whether they played violent video games as a child. Exposure to these variables were compared between a sample of 169 male firearm mass homicide perpetrators and preexisting research samples of the same age and gender who had not committed mass murders. Analyses were preregistered. Hypotheses that were tested included whether mass homicide perpetrators had experienced more childhood abuse, more childhood bullying or played more violent video games compared to matched samples. Results suggest that mass homicide perpetrators had experienced more abuse than other individuals, but not bullying. By contrast, mass homicide perpetrators had played fewer violent video games than had matched samples. These results seem to match previous data on mass homicide perpetrators.

Mass Homicide by Firearm in Canada: Effects of Legislation

Mass Homicide by Firearm in Canada: Effects of Legislation

Using Open-source Data to Better Understand and Respond to American School Shootings: Introducing and Exploring the American School Shooting Study (TASSS)

ABSTRACT This study uses open source information to examine school shootings in the United States for the 1990–2016 period. We innovatively created a national-level database to address the gaps in existing research and identified 652 school shootings. These shootings included 473 intentional shootings (encompassing 354 with known offenders and 119 with unknown perpetrators), 102 suicide only shootings, 73 accidental discharges and 4 legally justified shootings. Most school shootings were committed outside of the school building (e.g., school yard), by non-students, during non-school hours and were sometimes motivated by non-school issues such as gang disputes. Almost 56% of the intentional shootings resulted in no deaths and mass homicide shootings were outliers. No clear time trend emerged. Importantly, proportionally more of the non-juvenile offenders committed fatal shootings. While the vast majority of attacks targeted high schools, those against elementary schools were more deadly. We outline how these findings could aid policymakers, and highlight issues that future research could address with these data. We also describe our open source collection procedures, the amount and type of information uncovered, and how we assessed their quality. We aim to set a standard for more transparent open source data collection processes and enhance the data’s rigor to provide important context to the larger policy discussions about school shootings.

Examining differences between mass, multiple, and single-victim homicides to inform prevention: findings from the National Violent Death Reporting System

BackgroundMulti-victim homicides are a persistent public health problem confronting the United States. Previous research shows that homicide rates in the U.S. are approximately seven times higher than those of other high-income countries, driven by firearm homicide rates that are 25 times higher; 31% of public mass shootings in the world also occur in the U.S.. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the characteristics of mass, multiple, and single homicides to help identify prevention points that may lead to a reduction in different types of homicides.MethodsWe used all available years (2003–2017) and U.S. states/jurisdictions (35 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico) included in CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), a public health surveillance system which combines death certificate, coroner/medical examiner, and law enforcement reports into victim- and incident-level data on violent deaths. NVDRS includes up to 600 standard variables per incident; further information on types of mental illness among suspected perpetrators and incident resolution was qualitatively coded from case narratives. Data regarding number of persons nonfatally shot within incidents were cross-validated when possible with several other resources, including government reports and the Gun Violence Archive. Mass homicides (4+ victims), multiple homicides (2-3 victims) and single homicides were analyzed to assess group differences using Chi-square tests with Bonferroni-corrected post-hoc comparisons.ResultsMass homicides more often had female, child, and non-Hispanic white victims than other homicide types. Compared with victims of other homicide types, victims of mass homicides were more often killed by strangers or someone else they did not know well, or by family members. More than a third were related to intimate partner violence. Approximately one-third of mass homicide perpetrators had suicidal thoughts/behaviors noted in the time leading up to the incident. Multi-victim homicides were more often perpetrated with semi-automatic firearms than single homicides. When accounting for nonfatally shot victims, over 4 times as many incidents could have resulted in mass homicide.ConclusionsThese findings underscore the important interconnections among multiple forms of violence. Primary prevention strategies addressing shared risk and protective factors are key to reducing these incidents.

Chronic Homicide - The Unlawful Killing

Chronic homicide, additionally called sequential killing, the unlawful crime of at any rate two individuals did by a similar individual (or people) in discrete occasions happening at various occasions. Albeit this definition is broadly acknowledged, the wrongdoing isn't officially perceived in any lawful code, including that of the United States. Chronic homicide is recognized from mass homicide, in which a few casualties are killed simultaneously and place.

Extremists: Criminals and Victims of Radical Violence

The radical political violence outgoing from extremist communities became the most dangerous trend in the modern criminal dynamics. The victims of crimes committed by suicide terrorists are not only those who are subject to political and ideological violence, but also absolutely random people outside the field of politics. The actual perpetrators of mass homicide, including the most brutal acts of terrorism, are extremists with homicide-suicidal syndrome, interested in the society’s attention to them, convinced, in an irrational way, that absolutely all people are guilty of their problems. The fate of extremists and victims of their radical violence is not always directly determined by the level of unemployment or organized relations between the rule of law state and other social management institutions. These well-known criminological determinants affect the form of extremist actions and crimes, they may lower the level of extremist aggression, but do not change the motives of criminals. The higher the quality of life in the country, the less frequently mass homicide will happen, but it is likely to use high tech. Limiting the use of firearms by extremists, we are confronted with their attempts to adapt vehicles for deadly purposes. The actions of extremists do not reflect any real political struggle for freedom and independence, for religious values, for social justice; in practice, there is irrational extremism — a new socio-political phenomenon of active criminal protest against the very idea of huma­nism. Violent extremism emerges against the background of a certain social situation: 1) low efficiency of social policy; 2) isolation of an individual from civil society institutions and state structures; 3) desperate human desire for self-realization that is set against universal indifference to the problems of an individual. Under the influence of criminogenic factors, an extremist’s personality may become the object of manipulation by terrorist groups and other criminal communities.

Family Can Hurt You the Most: Examining Perpetrators in Multiple Casualty Events

IntroductionRecently, multiple-homicide events, particularly mass shootings, have become a focus of media attention. We hypothesize that many multiple homicides are related to domestic conflict and suicidality. Materials and methodsWe analyzed multiple-homicide events (involving two or more victims) in the National Violent Death Reporting System from 2003 to 2015, including those that were followed by suicide of the perpetrator. We characterized circumstances of these events and compared victims with those found in single-homicide events. ResultsWe identified 2425 multiple-victim incidents involving a total of 5424 homicide victims (9.3% of all homicide victims in National Violent Death Reporting System). Of these events, 14.1% (n = 341) were homicides followed by suicide of the perpetrator. Many multiple homicides involved intimate partners or family members of the victims (n = 741, 30.6%). Few of these events were related specifically to a mental health crisis (n = 39, 2.3%), resulting in the deaths of multiple strangers. Even in mass homicide events (more than four victims), many involved the death of an intimate partner or family member of the perpetrator (n = 14/31, 45.2%). Risk of homicide-suicide increased as the number of victims in the incident increased. ConclusionsIn our examination of multiple-homicide events, we found that many involve the death of the intimate partner and/or family members of the perpetrator, even for events with more than four victims. Although the scenario of a perpetrator with mental health issues going on a “shooting rampage” and murdering multiple strangers is commonly invoked in mass homicide incidents, it is rare overall.

How to Prevent School Shootings and Other Mass Homicides

Mass homicides, of which school shootings are a species, are all too common. What makes them philosophically interesting is that the usual punishments for such crimes are ineffective. How does one deter a person who is intent on killing himself or herself upon completion of the massacre? After clarifying the concepts of prevention, deterrence, and punishment, I describe various modes of punishment. If we are serious about preventing mass homicides, we must not rule out any mode of punishment a priori. I suggest several punishments, such as torture and imprisonment with hard labor, that may deter prospective mass murderers. The aim is to find a punishment that the prospective mass murderer fears more than death. I also recommend the inculcation of theism (understood as belief in a retributive god) as a means of deterring mass homicides.

Towards an Algebra of Existence and Development of Unique Subjects with Unique Minds: a Commentary to Jens Mammen's Book.

In the commentary to Jens Mammen's book A New Logical Foundation for Psychology (2017), three issues are discussed. The first one concerns possible interrelations of: (a) others' irreplaceability and existential irretrievability rigorously proved by Mammen; and (b) morality and attitudes to the others. Lem's criticism of Heidegger's existential philosophy, which paradoxically ignores mass homicide, is discussed in the context of topology of being. Different attitudes to the other as irreplaceable and irretrievable (e.g., in case of apprehension and execution of a murderer) are analyzed. The second issue concerns the possibility of true duplicates of the same person. The paradox of copied complexity is introduced. The third issue concerns reductionism (including brain reductionism) and opportunities to deduce various phenomena of development (mental development, actual genesis of creative thinking, etc.) from the new logical foundation for psychology built by Mammen.

Amok: a mirror of time and people. A historical review of literature.

The conceptualization of psychiatric disorders changes continuously. This study examined 'amok', a culture-bound syndrome related to sudden mass homicide, to elucidate changing and varied concepts. A historical review of 88 English articles revealed that the meanings and assumed causes of amok have changed over time. These changes appear to have been affected by social events, medical discoveries, knowledge of descriptors and occasionally, the benefit to users. In other words, the concept of amok changes depending on the history of society and the knowledge and intention of people at the time. We should consider in detail what we focus on when diagnosing a disorder.

Mass Homicide and Canada

Tragedies as the recent shooting of RCMP officers in Moncton, New Brunswick, raise questions about why these occur and what can be done to prevent these horrible events. There are often many theories raised in the media and by special interest groups but in reality little is known about what are relatively rare incidents. A brief discussion of mass homicide in Canada including the history, factors involved, and strategies for mitigation are covered.

Examining active shooter events through the rational choice perspective and crime script analysis

Active shooter events involve individuals entering a public space and opening fire with the intent to kill as many people as possible. In recent years this topic has received extensive media coverage, followed by an increase in academic attention. Much research focuses on high-profile active shooter events, labeled as mass homicide events or mass shootings. The present study examined active shooter events through the rational choice perspective and crime script analysis, with emphasis placed on finding similarities between the motivation for an offense and event-level characteristics. Once events were organized into three general scripts (that is, autogenic, victim-specific and ideological), variables pertaining to the commission of the offenses were examined. While event characteristics overlapped between scripts, key differences in the planning, execution and conclusion stages were observed. This new typology may be a useful analytic tool, not only to empirically study active shooter events, but also for the development of policies to help reduce the occurrence and/or lethality of these events.

An examination of thwarted mass homicide plots and threateners

Abstract Thwarted mass homicide events derived primarily from news media sources were examined. This study describes who was responsible for uncovering these near-acts of violence, the intended targets, planning details, weapons, outcomes (legal or other) and the accompanying demographic factors associated with each event. Cases were divided into two groups: high-credibility and low-credibility. The majority of cases, across both groups, were characterized by threateners who were male, acting alone, in their mid to late twenties, and who targeted academic institutions. When compared to threateners in the low-credibility group, high-credibility threateners were more likely to have mental health problems and to have created materials suggesting the premeditation of a planned mass homicide event. Plots were most commonly discovered by two groups: (1) friends, family and acquaintances of threateners and (2) members of the general public. The findings of this study suggest that some threats should be taken more seriously than others and in the absence of a reliable early-warning system, tips from friends, family members, acquaintances of threateners and the general public, could serve as a valuable asset in the prevention of mass homicide.

Why Do Young Males Attack Schools? Seven Discipline Leaders Share Their Perspectives

Mass shootings in public places such as political rallies in Arizona, movie theaters in Colorado, and grade schools in Connecticut and Norway are some of the most horrifying events we face in the 21st century. The time has come for us to research, understand, and communicate the causes for perpetrators who wreak such havoc on unsuspecting, unprepared, innocent people. The time has come for a peer-reviewed scientific journal to do everything possible to explore the contributing factors of such violent acts in order to mitigate or prevent them in the future. To this end, Violence and Gender has assembled a multidisciplinary panel of experts to look at the basic information regarding shooters--generally white males between fifteen and thirty years of age--from a wide range of scientific and behavioral perspectives as a foundation for understanding "why." Language: en

When Duty Calls: A Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention

When should the United States and other members of the international community intervene to stop a government from harming its own citizens? Since World War II, the main standard for intervention has been the high bar of genocide, although the international community has rarely acted to stop it. The main alternative—the “responsibility to protect”—would set the bar so low that virtually every instance of anarchy or tyranny would create unbounded obligations beyond the capacity of states to fulfill. A new standard—the pragmatic standard of humanitarian intervention—can help guide decisionmakers on when to intervene to stop governments from targeting their own citizens. The standard has three requirements: (1) an ongoing campaign of mass homicide sponsored by the government; (2) a viable plan for intervention with reasonable estimates of low casualties for the intervening forces; and (3) a workable strategy for creating lasting local security for the threatened population. The pragmatic standard was met in the recent successful intervention in Libya as well as in other cases over the last twenty years, and it should become the basis for deciding which humanitarian crises justify international intervention in the future.

Sex Determination from Hand and Foot Dimensions in a North Indian Population

Hands and feet are often recovered from the site of natural as well as man-made disasters because of bomb blasts, train accidents, plane crashes, or mass homicides. This study is intended to establish standards for determination of sex from the dimensions of hands and feet in a North Indian population. The data for this study comprise 123 men and 123 women aged between 17 and 20 years from the "Rajput" population of Himachal Pradesh in North India. Four anthropometric measurements viz. hand length, hand breadth, foot length, and foot breadth have been taken on both sides of each subject following international anthropometric standards. The hand index (hand breadth/hand length × 100) and the foot index (foot breadth/foot length × 100) were calculated. Sectioning points and regression models are derived for the hand and foot dimensions and the derived indices. The hand and foot dimensions show a higher accuracy in sex determination by sectioning point analysis when compared to hand and foot index. Of the hand and the foot dimensions, hand breadth and foot breadth showed better accuracy in sex determination. Hand index and foot index remain poor sex discriminators in the study.

Le meurtrier de masse

Multicide and other mass killing are sufficiently dramatic to excite great interest from clinicians, criminologists and behavioural scientists. A review of avaible literature on the topic is presented and analysed, in order to define mass murder and to learn about sociodemography and psychopathology of mass killers. Mass homicide is typically defined as the intentional killing of multiple individuals, injuring five or more persons, of whom three or more are killed, during the course of one criminal event. The functional difference between mass and serial homicide is quite obvious, particularly in setting, time, victim status and modus operandi. Classification of these acts requires a number of parameters. Mass murderers usually involve disgruntled employees, annihilation of families, and recently school shootings. Although they are rarely psychotic, mass murderers have serious deficiencies in long-term emotional relationships. They have no obvious personality type but tended to be egocentric, rigid and obsessional. They are few individuals with signifiant histories of criminal offending or violence. For example, school shooting perpetrators are more than twice as likely as their victims to have been bullied by their peers. They are described as loners and poorly integrated into school activities. The formulation of a plan for a massacre might be fostered through identification with a role model offered through films, television, Internet, or other media. Suicides, homicide-suicides, murder-suicides and suicide pacts tend to co-occur in the context of mass murders. The biological, psychological, and social determinants of auto- and heteroagressivity remain to be similar. Furthermore suicide-related reporting, especially of nonfictional individual suicides, triggers additional suicides: So-called imitative effects. Similarly copycat crimes were reported to follow violent episodes that receive wide coverage in the media. Suicides and mass-murders are likely to be imitated. But media discourse supports preventive efforts when it educates the public about the treatment of mental ill and suicidality. The prevention of copycat suicides and mass murders rests on the adoption of precise guidelines for the reporting of these episodes.