Mass Public Shootings Research Articles

Comparing the Global Rate of Mass Public Shootings to the U.S.’s Rate and Comparing Their Changes Over Time

The U.S. is well below the world average in terms of the number of mass public shootings, and the global increase over time has been much bigger than for the United States. Over the 18 years from 1998 to 2015, our list contains 2,354 attacks and at least 4,880 shooters outside the United States and 53 attacks and 57 shooters within our country. By our count, the US makes up less than 1.15% of the mass public shooters, 1.49% of their murders, and 2.20% of their attacks. All these are much less than the US’s 4.6% share of the world population. Attacks in the US are not only less frequent than other countries, but they are also much less deadly on average. Out of the 97 countries where we have identified mass public shootings occurring, the United States ranks 64th in the per capita frequency of these attacks and 65th in the murder rate. Not only have these attacks been much more common outside the US, the US’s share of these attacks have declined over time. There has been a much bigger increase over time in the number and severity of mass shootings in the rest of the world compared to the US.

Should schools have teachers carry guns?

With 20 states having teachers and staff carrying guns to varying degrees on school property, we don’t need to guess how the policy would work. Fears of teachers carrying guns in terms of accidents or other problems have not materialized.Letting teachers carry is the only effective way to overcome the strategic advantages of mass public killers.The other alternatives to preventing mass public shootings have real limits.

Wounding Patterns Based on Firearm Type in Civilian Public Mass Shootings in the United States

There are no studies correlating wounding pattern or probability of death based on firearm type used in civilian public mass shooting (CPMS) events. Previous studies on non-CPMS events found that handguns are more lethal than rifles. We hypothesized that CPMS events associated with a handgun are also more lethal than those associated with a rifle. A retrospective study of autopsy reports from CPMS events was performed; CPMS was defined using the FBI and the Congressional Research Service definition. Site(s) of injury, site(s) of fatal injury, and presence of potentially preventable death (PPD) were determined independently by each author and cross-referenced to firearm type used. Autopsy reports of 232 victims from 23 events were reviewed. Seventy-three victims (31%) were shot by handguns, 105 (45%) by rifles, 22 (9%) by shotguns, and 32 (14%) by multiple firearms. Events using a handgun were associated with a higher percentage killed, and events using a rifle were associated with more people shot, although neither difference reached statistical significance. Victims shot by handguns had the highest percentage of having more than 1 fatal wound (26%); those shot by rifle had the lowest percentage (2%) (p= 0.003). Thirty-eight victims (16%) were judged to have had a PPD. The probability of having a PPD was lowest for events involving a handgun (4%) and highest for events involving a rifle (23%) (p= 0.002). Wounding with a handgun was significantly associated with brain (p= 0.007) and cardiac injury (p= 0.03). Civilian public mass shooting events with a handgun are more lethal than those associated with use of a rifle.

Mass shootings: Are children safer in the streets than in the home?

PurposeThough the total fatality and injury count in mass shootings is known, the burden on the pediatric population remains undefined. We sought to define the impact of domestic vs. public mass shootings in the pediatric population. MethodsOpen-source databases, Everytown for Gun Violence, and Mother Jones were cross-referenced and used to review domestic and public mass shootings from 2009 to 2016. Mass shootings were defined as four or more fatalities and any injuries. Domestic mass shootings were defined as ones that occurred in the home where the assailant was either a family member or a past or present intimate partner of a family member. Public mass shootings occurred in a public space where the shooter was unknown to the victim. The number of incidents in each group, fatalities and injuries, and effect on children <18 years were analyzed along with perpetrator characteristics. Categorical data were analyzed using Fisher's Exact test. ResultsThere were 71 Domestic and 31 Public mass shootings accounting for 331 vs. 281 fatalities and 28 vs. 217 injuries (p < 0.0001). Children <18 years accounted for 44% of Domestic and 10% of Public fatalities (p < 0.0001) and 46% vs. 2% of all injuries (p < 0.0001). The assailant was prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm in 32% of Domestic and 39% of Public mass shootings accounting for 54 vs. 25 fatalities. ConclusionThe pediatric fatality rate in mass shootings is alarming, especially among Domestic shooting events. This is a public health issue and requires vigilance to protect at-risk youth. Type of studyEpidemiology study, retrospective review. Level of evidenceLevel IV.

How a Botched Study Fooled the World About the U.S. Share of Mass Public Shootings: U.S. Rate is Lower than Global Average

A paper on mass public shootings by Adam Lankford (2016) has received massive national and international media attention, getting coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, plus hundreds of other news outlets spanning at least 35 different countries. Lankford’s claim was that over the 47 years from 1966 to 2012, an enormous amount of the world’s mass public shooters -- 31% -- occurred in the United States. Lankford attributed this to America’s gun ownership. Lankford claims to have “complete” data on such shooters in 171 countries. However, because he has neither identified the cases nor their location nor even a complete description on how he put the cases together, it is impossible to replicate his findings. It is particularly important that Lankford share his data because of the extreme difficulty in finding mass shooting cases in remote parts of the world going back to 1966. Lack of media coverage could easily lead to under-counting of foreign mass shootings, which would falsely lead to the conclusion that the U.S. has such a large share. Lankford’s study reported that from 1966 to 2012, there were 90 public mass shooters in the United States and 202 in the rest of world. We find that Lankford’s data represent a gross undercount of foreign attacks. Our list contains 1,448 attacks and at least 3,081 shooters outside the United States over just the last 15 years of the period that Lankford examined. We find at least fifteen times more mass public shooters than Lankford in less than a third the number of years. Even when we use coding choices that are most charitable to Lankford, his 31 percent estimate of the US’s share of world mass public shooters is cut by over 95 percent. By our count, the US makes up less than 1.43% of the mass public shooters, 2.11% of their murders, and 2.88% of their attacks. All these are much less than the US’s 4.6% share of the world population. Attacks in the US are not only less frequent than in other countries, they are also much less deadly on average. Given the massive U.S. and international media attention Lankford’s work has received, and given the considerable impact his research has had on the debate, it is critical that this issue be resolved. His unwillingness to provide even the most basic information to other researchers raises real concerns about Lankford’s motives.

Can threat assessment help police prevent mass public shootings? Testing an intelligence-led policing tool

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether threat assessment, an intelligence-led policing (ILP) tool, can prevent mass public shootings.Design/methodology/approachIn order to gauge the potential effectiveness of this ILP tool, the authors conduct a retrospective analysis of 278 mass public shootings that occurred in the USA between 1966 and 2016. This retrospective analysis allows us to determine how successful threat assessment protocols could be in preventing mass public shootings by examining how successful this tool would have been in identifying the offenders in our data.FindingsThe results show that threat assessment has the potential to be an effective tool in the ILP arsenal to identify and prevent impending mass public shootings. However, our results also point to several obstacles for the effective implementation of this ILP tool. The underreporting of threats and using the content of threats and characteristics of threateners are problematic in correctly assigning risk. The authors make suggestions for how to overcome these obstacles.Originality/valueThis study makes several contributions to the intelligence-led policing and mass murder field. This is the first study to test the potential effectiveness of an intelligence-led policing tool to prevent mass public shootings. Additionally, this is one of the first studies to examine the leaks, types, context and follow-though of threats made by mass public shooters in the United States. Consequently, it provides unique information on the foreshowing behaviors of mass public shooters.

A Comparative Analysis of Media Coverage of Mass Public Shootings: Examining Rampage, Disgruntled Employee, School, and Lone-Wolf Terrorist Shootings in the United States

This study provides a comparative analysis of news media coverage across four types of mass public shootings: rampage, disgruntled employee, school, and lone-wolf terrorist. This research analyzes the agenda-setting function of the media and identifies differences in coverage and the salience of coverage, proportionality of coverage, changes in coverage over time, and factors influencing levels of coverage. Findings indicate school shootings and lone-wolf terrorist shootings receive disproportionate amounts of news media coverage. This suggests media coverage may be contributing to setting the public and policy agenda concerning the phenomenon. These findings have important implications for public perceptions of risk, conceptualizations of potential perpetrators, and the implementation of security measures.

A Distinction Without a Difference? Examining the Causal Pathways Behind Ideologically Motivated Mass Public Shootings

This study utilizes crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis to assess 306 mass shootings. We compare non-extremist and extremist mass shooters according to characteristics that capture mental health histories of offenders, their grievances, and strains. We discover that offenders who sympathized with extremism were driven by grievance against a social group and were suffering from either mental health issues or from general strain. Extremist sympathizers differ from non-extremists in the nature of their grievances and the strains they experience. These results imply there may exist different causal mechanistic activity underpinning extremist and non-extremist violence, specifically with regards to mass shootings.

The media’s coverage of mass public shootings in America: fifty years of newsworthiness

ABSTRACTThis study uses a media distortion analysis to examine the New York Times coverage of mass public shooting incidents occurring in the United States from 1966 to 2016. A comparison between media coverage and actual incidents is used to identify the characteristics influencing the newsworthiness of mass public shootings. This work expands the breadth and depth of media and mass public shooting research, strengthening the validity of previous findings, and identifying new characteristics influencing newsworthiness. Findings indicate significant predictors of newsworthiness include higher casualties and injuries, as well as perpetrators that are young, Middle Eastern, and ideologically motivated. School shootings are more likely to receive any coverage, and all non-workplace shootings receive salient levels of coverage. An incident is also more likely to receive any coverage if a combination of weapons is used. These findings have important implications for public knowledge and perceptions of mass public shootings.

The Role of Prior Information in Inference on the Annualized Rates of Mass Shootings in the United States

ABSTRACTWhile public debate over gun control in the United States has often hinged on individual public mass shooting incidents, legislative action should be informed by knowledge of the long-term evolution of these events. We present a new Bayesian model for the annualized rate of public mass shootings in the United States based on a Gaussian process with a time-varying mean function. While we present specific findings on long- and short-term trends of these shootings in the U.S., our focus is on understanding the role of model design and prior information in policy analysis. Using a Markov chain Monte Carlo inference technique, we explore the posterior consequences of different prior choices and explore correlations between hyperparameters. We demonstrate that the findings about the long-term evolution of the annualized rate of public mass shootings are robust to choices about prior information, while inferences about the timescale and amplitude of short-term variation depend sensitively on the prior. This work addresses the policy implications of implicit and explicit choices of prior information in model design and the utility of full Bayesian inference in evaluating the consequences of those choices.

Change and stability in offender, behaviours, and incident‐level characteristics of mass public shootings in the United States, 1984–2015

AbstractFor the last 40 years, the general profile of mass public shooters has enjoyed enduring consensus by experts, and as a result, it has remained static over this time. However, a recent string of mass public shootings perpetrated by “atypical” offenders bring into question the stability of the characteristics, motivations, and methods employed by these offenders. The goal of this study is to examine the stability and change of these characteristics and behaviors over the last 32 years (1984–2015). Using an open‐source database, this study compares mass public shootings in 2000–2015 time period to the attacks committed in 1984–1999. The results illustrate not only sharp increase in number of mass public shootings in the last 16 years but also a significant growth in the racial heterogeneity and background characteristics of these offenders, clearly marking a departure from the general accepted profile of mass public shooters and mass murderers. The results also point to key characteristics, and behaviors that have remained static during the analysis time. Additionally, this study explores the implications these changes and stability on crime prevention strategies, as well as strategies to mitigate the lethality of these attacks.

Mass Shootings and Public Support for Gun Control

The recent spate of mass public shootings in the United States raises important questions about how these tragic events might impact mass opinion and public policy. Integrating research on focusing events, contextual effects and perceived threat, this article stipulates that residing near a mass shooting should increase support for gun control by making the threat of gun violence more salient. Drawing upon multiple data sources on mass public shootings paired with large-N survey data, it demonstrates that increased proximity to a mass shooting is associated with heightened public support for stricter gun control. Importantly, the results show that this effect does not vary by partisanship, but does vary as a function of salience-related event factors, such as repetition, magnitude and recency. Critically, the core result is replicated using panel data. Together, these results suggest a process of context-driven policy feedback between existing gun laws, egregious gun violence and demand for policy change.

Mass Shootings and Public Support for Gun Control

The recent spate of mass public shootings in the U.S. raises important questions about how these tragic events might impact mass opinion and public policy. Integrating research on focusing events, contextual effects, and perceived threat, we argue that residing near a mass shooting should increase support for gun control by making the threat of gun violence more salient. Drawing upon multiple data sources on mass public shootings paired with large-N survey data, we demonstrate that increased proximity to a mass shooting is associated with heightened public support for stricter gun control. Importantly, we show that this effect does not vary by partisanship but does vary as a function of salience-related event factors, such as repetition, magnitude, and recency. Critically, we replicate our core result using panel data. Together, our results suggest a process of context-driven policy feedback between existing gun laws, egregious gun violence, and demand for policy change.

The impact of the Orlando mass shooting on fear of victimization and gun-purchasing intentions: Not what one might expect

Mass public shootings are typically followed by a spike in gun sales as well as calls for stricter gun control laws. What remains unclear is whether the spike in gun sales is motivated by increased threat perceptions or by concerns about gun control, or whether the sales are mainly driven by non-owners purchasing guns or gun owners adding to their collection. Two surveys of gun owners and non-owners, conducted immediately before and after the Orlando shooting, allowed us to assess its impact on threat perceptions and on gun-purchasing intentions. Although there was a minor impact on threat perceptions of non-owners, neither group reported any increased gun-purchasing intentions or an increased need of a gun for protection and self-defense. We suggest that these responses are representative for the majority of Americans and, therefore, people who are influenced by mass shootings to buy guns are probably an atypical minority.

The profile of wounding in civilian public mass shooting fatalities.

The incidence and severity of civilian public mass shootings (CPMS) continue to rise. Initiatives predicated on lessons learned from military woundings have placed strong emphasis on hemorrhage control, especially via use of tourniquets, as means to improve survival. We hypothesize that both the overall wounding pattern and the specific fatal wounds in CPMS events are different from those in military combat fatalities and thus may require a new management strategy. A retrospective study of autopsy reports for all victims involved in 12 CPMS events was performed. Civilian public mass shootings was defined using the FBI and the Congressional Research Service definition. The site of injury, probable site of fatal injury, and presence of potentially survivable injury (defined as survival if prehospital care is provided within 10 minutes and trauma center care within 60 minutes of injury) was determined independently by each author. A total 139 fatalities consisting of 371 wounds from 12 CPMS events were reviewed. All wounds were due to gunshots. Victims had an average of 2.7 gunshots. Relative to military reports, the case fatality rate was significantly higher, and incidence of potentially survivable injuries was significantly lower. Overall, 58% of victims had gunshots to the head and chest, and only 20% had extremity wounds. The probable site of fatal wounding was the head or chest in 77% of cases. Only 7% of victims had potentially survivable wounds. The most common site of potentially survivable injury was the chest (89%). No head injury was potentially survivable. There were no deaths due to exsanguination from an extremity. The overall and fatal wounding patterns following CPMS are different from those resulting from combat operations. Given that no deaths were due to extremity hemorrhage, a treatment strategy that goes beyond use of tourniquets is needed to rescue the few victims with potentially survivable injuries. Prognostic/epidemiologic study, level IV; therapeutic/care management study, level V.

Do Background Checks on Private Gun Transfers Help Stop Mass Public Shootings?

Persistent claims have been made that expanding background checks to include any private transfers of guns would reduce mass public shootings. Yet, this is the first study to systematically look to see if that is true. In fact there is no evidence that these laws reduce the risk of these attacks. Examining all the mass public shootings in the US from 2000 through 2015, we find that states adopting additional background checks on private transfers they see a statistically significant increase in rates of killings (80% higher) and injuries (101%) from mass public shootings. There is not one mass public shooting that occurred over that period where these checks would have prevented it from occurring.

Public Mass Shooters and Firearms: A Cross-National Study of 171 Countries

Model the global distribution of public mass shooters around the world. Negative binomial regression is used to test the effects of homicide rates, suicide rates, firearm ownership rates, and several control variables on public mass shooters per country from 1966 to 2012. The global distribution of public mass shooters appears partially attributable to cross-national differences in firearms availability but not associated with cross-national homicide or suicide rates. The United States and other nations with high firearm ownership rates may be particularly susceptible to future public mass shootings, even if they are relatively peaceful or mentally healthy according to other national indicators.

Race and mass murder in the United States: A social and behavioral analysis

In the popular discourse, it is commonly assumed that mass murderers and mass shooters are different from most criminals in the United States, because they are almost always white. The present study uses data on 308 mass murderers who attacked from 2006 to 2014 to evaluate this assumption, test for racial differences between mass murderers and all other murderers, and identify characteristics of mass murderers’ behavior by race and ethnic group. Findings suggest that, overall, the racial composition of mass murderers is similar to that of other murderers, and thus may be largely explained by similar social forces, such as structural disadvantages and social inequalities. However, there are significant differences across racial and ethnic groups in attack subtype, victims killed, and attack resolution. In particular, the structural advantages and aggrieved entitlement experienced by whites may help explain their involvement in public mass shootings. Further research in both the United States and other countries may shed additional light on the behavior of mass murderers and the broader social forces that shape them.

The Fbi's Misrepresentation of the Change in Mass Public Shootings

An FBI report released on September 16th, 2014 makes the assertion that active shooter attacks and deaths have increased dramatically since 2000 – both increasing at an annual rate of about 16 percent. As the headline in the Wall Street Journal stated: “Mass Shootings on the Rise, FBI says.”But the FBI made a number of subtle and misleading decisions as well as outright errors. Once these biases and mistakes are fixed, the annual growth rate in homicides is cut in half. When a longer period of time is examined (1977 through the first half of 2014), deaths from Mass Public Shootings show only a slight, statistically insignificant, increase – an annual increase of less than one percent.The FBI’s misleadingly includes cases that aren’t mass shootings – cases where no one or only one person was killed in a public place. While the FBI assures people that it “captured the vast majority of incidents falling within the search criteria,” their report missed 20 shootings where at least two people were killed in a public place. Most of these missing cases took place early on, biasing their results towards showing an increase.

The impact of state and federal assault weapons bans on public mass shootings

The purpose of the present study is to determine the effects of federal and state assault weapons bans on public mass shootings. Using a Poisson effect model and data for the period 1982 to 2011, it was found that both state and federal assault weapons bans have statistically significant and negative effects on mass shooting fatalities but that only the federal assault weapons ban had a negative effect on mass shooting injuries. This study is one of the first studies that looks solely at the effects of assault weapons bans on public mass shootings.