By Lacey Wallace
The U.S. has suffered yet another mass shooting, with a deadly attack in a FedEx facility in Indianapolis. This was the fifth mass shooting in five weeks, including a shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado that took the lives of 10 people on March 22 and just days earlier, eight people were killed in a series of shootings at spas in Atlanta, Georgia. Public outcry about gun violence, gun rights and racism and what to do about these issues is high.
As a criminal justice researcher, I study gun purchasing and mass shootings, and it’s clear to me that these events are traumatic for victims, families, communities and the nation as a whole. But despite the despair about their slightly growing frequency, they are actually uncommon incidents that account for just 0.2% of firearm deaths in the U.S. each year.
Mass shootings are rare
Killings are not the only kind of gun violence, and are in fact a relative rarity when compared with other forms of gun violence in the U.S. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 470,840 people were victims of crimes that involved a firearm in 2018, and 481,950 in 2019. Each person is counted separately, even if several of them were part of the same incident, and this tally does not require the gun to be fired or anyone to be killed.
When it comes to people killed by firearms, police data reported to the FBI estimates that guns were used in 10,258 of the 13,927 homicides that occurred in 2019.
That’s much higher than even the uppermost count of mass shootings in 2019, the 417 recorded by the Gun Violence Archive. That group counts all incidents in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter, regardless of whether the shooter is killed or injured. It also includes events that involve gang violence or armed robbery, as well as shootings that occurred in public or in private homes, as many domestic violence shootings do.
A Mother Jones magazine database that defines mass shootings more restrictively lists only 10 for 2019.
Even the FBI’s own data – which uses yet another set of criteria focused on people who continue to shoot more people over the course of an incident – records just 28 active shooter incidents in 2019.
The most recent research on frequency of mass shootings indicates they are becoming more common, though the exact number each year can vary widely.
But not all experts agree. Some argue that mass shootings have not increased and that reports of an increase are due to differences in research methods, such as determining which events are appropriate to count in the first place.
Speaking about school shootings specifically in a 2018 interview, two gun violence researchers said that those events have not become more common – but rather, people have become more aware of them.
The same may be true of mass shootings more generally. In any case, some researchers have found that mass shootings are becoming more deadly, with more victims in recent attacks.
Suicide is the leading form of gun death
In 2019, the 417 mass shootings tallied by the Gun Violence Archive resulted in 465 deaths.
By contrast, 14,414 people were killed by someone else with a gun in 2019. And 23,941 people intentionally killed themselves with a gun in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Every year, homicides – one person killing another – make up about 35% of gun deaths. More than 60% of gun deaths are suicides.
Mass shootings can get more attention than these other, more common, types of firearm deaths both because of human nature and the news media. People are naturally curious about violent events that appear random, with no clear explanation. Those incidents often spark fears about whether similar things could happen to them, and a resulting desire to know more in an effort to understand.
In addition, cases with higher death counts or unusual characteristics, such as a shooter manifesto or video footage, are more likely to get press attention and extended coverage.
Americans’ opinions are split on whether mass shootings are isolated incidents or part of a broader societal problem.
And Americans are divided about how to reduce their frequency. A 2017 poll found that 47% of adults believed that reducing the number of guns in the U.S. would reduce the number of mass shootings. But a follow-up question revealed that 75% of American adults believe that someone who wants to hurt or kill others will find a way to do it whether they have access to a firearm or not.
With those diverging views, it will be hard to develop solutions that will be effective nationwide. That doesn’t mean nothing will change, but it does mean the political debates will likely continue.
Lacey Wallace is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Penn State. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Fredrick says
When I start seeing articles about the massacres in Chicago every weekend, a liberal run city in a liberal run state with very tight gun controls, I will take all this “concern” about mass shooting seriously. The talk about getting rid of 100 round magazines and “scary” looking guns is nothing but liberal fluff. Arrest , enforce the laws already in place and then I will start listening to this fake concern.
PTC Trader says
The argument to “ban” guns to prevent death is seriously flawed. There are millions and millions of guns in the hands of law-abiding, mentally competent individuals. Why usurp the Constitutional rights of all the Americans who comply with the laws and are not a “threat”. Moreover, enacting actions that violate the Constitutional rights of Americans will surely cause an uprising.
The real threat is our current system which seems to refuse to TAG MENTALLY ILL / PREVIOUS BAD ACTORS and prohibit them from owning, buying or accessing guns.
We haven’t sought to ban knives… but they are used as an instrument of death. We haven’t banned automobiles… but they are very often intentional and unintentionally used as instruments of death.
In the instant case of the former worker at FedEx… He had already had an interaction with law enforcement and had a firearm taken from him. WHY AT THAT POINT WAS HIS NAME NOT FLAGGED ON THE DATABASE THAT IS USED FOR FIREARMS PURCHASE BACKGROUND CHECKS???
When you solve that riddle and make MEANINGFUL CHANGES… you will at least hamper “some” of the senseless rampages.
In all these arguments, never forget that the determination of a human and his/her mental state is the real weapon here.
mark101 says
I think I worry more about the number of traffic fatalities in Fla. in 2019 there were 3273 Traffic Fatalities in the state of Fla. In 2019, an estimated 38,800 people lost their lives to car crashes in the United States.
Ray W. says
A number of years ago, one of the presenters at a death penalty seminar, a neuropsychologist, spoke of an international study regarding persons who experienced auditory hallucinations. In India, the most commonly reported hallucination involved a voice telling the person to clean the house. In one of the southwestern African countries (Namibia, but that memory is hazy), the hallucination involved a voice telling the person he or she was either God or a prophet of God and that the hearer needed to help others. In America, the most commonly reported hallucinatory command was to either hurt or kill oneself or others. The presenter did not opine as to the reason for the differences, nor do I, other than to comment that it seems to me that mental illness or instability is an extraordinarily complex problem incapable of easy solutions. Any general statutory solution proposed at either the state or federal level is bound to generate significant controversy, as it likely will address access to firearms and the argument will focus on overbroad statutory control. Any specific statutory solution will be attacked as too narrowly focused. Theft is an example of a general statute. Theft of a horse is an example of a specific statute. Theft of an Arabian mare might be attacked as too narrow, as it would require the taker to know that the horse is Arabian. Theft of an item left unattended on a park bench might be considered overbroad, as it does not address the taker’s intent, only the act of taking an item, regardless of how long it had been on the bench. In our nation’s polarized political atmosphere, either type of statute would likely prompt arguments that devolve into hatred for one’s perceived opponents, to everyone’s detriment.
Sad Times says
YES! Yes! Yes! Simple.
The Republicans want their guns…fine. But, why the military-type? If you want the military-type….it shows me that you want to kill people. Period.
I had thought Republicans wanted their guns for sport. Is killing people the sport they mean? In this day and age….the answer appears to be “yes.”
mark101 says
So sorry Sad!, I’ve been a democrat for over 59 years and I still have guns, I served my time in the military and I know a lot of LEO’s and Military types that are democrats and Republicans they hunt and own guns as well. So your statement is plain SAD !
OH PS, So many crimes have been committed by all party types including for example; Omar Mateen, the shooter who killed 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, was registered as a Democrat in 2006 but it doesn’t matter he killed innocent people.
The party has no baring on killing, its pure hate. SO if someone breaks into your home and is going to harm your children, don’t forget to ask them, their party before you take action if you take action at all.
Ray W. says
As a addendum to the issue of general versus specific statutes, in the mid-80’s, Florida’s legislature expanded the definition of robbery by adding the phrase “during the course of” to the robbery statute. Theft, the general statute, is part and parcel of robbery, which is defined as a codified compound common law crime, i.e., theft plus force. Thus, by definition, robbery is more specific than is theft. A specific statute controls a more general statute. I was a felony prosecutor at the time a man stole food from a Winn-Dixie and struggled with employees outside the store, which struggle I planned to use as my argument that the struggle occurred during the course of the theft, even though the intent to struggle may have developed long after the intent to steal. The police officer decided, perhaps out of zeal or perhaps out of ignorance, to file separate complaint affidavits, with the theft affidavit going to a MM prosecutor and the robbery affidavit hitting my desk. Neither prosecutor knew of the other affidavit, computer technology being what it was. The MM charge was set for arraignment before a county court judge days before my case was set before a circuit court judge. The defendant’s attorney smartly marched his client into county court, pled him out as charged, and filed a motion to dismiss my felony Information. Jeopardy being what it was and still is, I had to file a Nolle Prosequi, formally ending the felony prosecution.
Mike Cocchiola says
The gun proponents – some on this page – embrace their supposed second amendment rights (I say supposed because nothing in the second amendment precludes the regulation of gun ownership) to rationalize gun violence. Over 43,000 people in this country died by gunfire in 2020 whether by suicide, accident, or homicide. We add more to this carnage every year.
Gun defenders need to be honest. They just don’t care. They are willing to let you die. They ignore the 300+ Americans, including 22 children and teens, who are shot every day in America (Brady.org). To gun defenders, that’s the acceptable price you all pay for their “freedoms”.
Gun violence is more than an American epidemic. It is a profoundly cultural aberration of the mind and spirit. There is no cure except evolution.