A school shooting is an armed attack at an educational institution, such as a primary school, secondary school, high school or university, involving the use of a firearm. Many school shootings are also categorized as mass shootings due to multiple casualties. The phenomenon is most widespread in the United States, which has the highest number of school-related shootings, although school shootings take place elsewhere in the world. Especially in the United States, school shootings have sparked a political debate over gun violence, zero tolerance policies, gun rights and gun control.
Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm. It is separate from suicide.
A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders in a short time, often in multiple locations. There are different opinions about what durations of time a killing spree may take place in. The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics has spoken of "almost no time break between murders", but some academics consider that a killing spree may last weeks or months, e.g. the case of Andrew Cunanan, who murdered five people over three months.
A lone wolf attack, or lone actor attack, is a particular kind of mass murder, committed in a public setting by an individual who plans and commits the act on their own. In the United States, such attacks are usually committed with firearms. In other countries, knives are sometimes used to commit mass stabbings. Although definitions vary, most databases require a minimum of four victims for the event to be considered a mass murder.
A murder–suicide is an act where an individual intentionally kills one or more people before killing themselves. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms:
An active shooter is the perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting. The term is primarily used to characterize shooters who are targeting victims indiscriminately and at a large scale, who oftentimes, will either commit suicide or intend to be killed by police. More generally, an active perpetrator of a mass murder may be referred to as an active killer.
A copycat crime is a criminal act that is modeled after or inspired by a previous crime. It notably occurs after exposure to media content depicting said crimes, and/or a live criminal model.
Internet homicide, also called internet assassination, refers to killing in which victim and perpetrator met online, in some cases having known each other previously only through the Internet. Also Internet killer is an appellation found in media reports for a person who broadcasts the crime of murder online or who murders a victim met through the Internet. Depending on the venue used, other terms used in the media are Internet chat room killer, Craigslist killer, Facebook serial killer. Internet homicide can also be part of an Internet suicide pact or consensual homicide. Some commentators believe that reports on these homicides have overemphasized their connection to the Internet.
Crime in California refers to crime occurring within the U.S. state of California. The principal source of law for California criminal procedure is the California Penal Code.
A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers use a firearm to kill or injure multiple individuals in rapid succession. There is no widely accepted specific definition, and different organizations tracking such incidents use different criteria. Mass shootings are generally characterized by the targeting of victims in a non-combat setting, and thus the term generally excludes gang violence, shootouts and warfare. Mass shootings may be done for personal or psychological reasons, such as by individuals who are deeply disgruntled, seeking notoriety, or are intensely angry at a perceived grievance; though they have also been used as a terrorist tactic, such as when members of an ethnic or religious minority are targeted. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.
Crime in Oakland, California began to rise during the late 1960s after the King assassination riots, and by the end of the 1970s Oakland's per capita murder rate had risen to twice that of San Francisco or New York City. In 1983, the National Journal referred to Oakland as the "1983 crime capital" of the San Francisco Bay Area. Crime continued to escalate during the 1980s and 1990s, and during the first decade of the 21st century Oakland has consistently been listed as one of the most dangerous large cities in the United States.
Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition. One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims.
On October 24, 2018, a man and woman were shot and killed by a gunman at a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, a suburb of Louisville.
Mass shooting contagion theory is the studied nature and effect of media coverage of mass shootings and the potential increase of mimicked events. Academic study of this theory has grown in recent years due to the nature of mass shooting events, frequency of references to previous rampage shooters as inspiration and the acquisition of fame using violence, particularly in the United States. The Columbine High School massacre is cited as being the first shooting to receive nationwide 24/7 publicity, giving both shooters near instant widespread infamy, and thus often is claimed by researchers as being a source of inspiration for would be copycat mass shooters.
A mass stabbing is a single incident in which multiple victims are injured or killed with a sharp object thrusted at the victims, piercing through the skin and injuring the victims. Examples of sharp instruments used in mass stabbings may include kitchen knives, utility knives, sheath knives, scissors, katanas, icepicks, bayonets, axes, machetes and glass bottles. Knife crime poses security threats to many countries around the world.
The Columbine effect is the legacy and impact of the Columbine High School massacre, which occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. The shooting has had an effect on school safety, policing tactics, prevention methods, and inspired numerous copycat crimes, with many killers taking their inspiration from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold by describing the two perpetrators as being martyrs or heroes.
Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012 (IAVCA) is a federal law in the United States that clarifies the statutory authority for federal law enforcement agencies to provide investigatory assistance to the States. The Act provided that, upon request from a state or local government, federal law enforcement may assist in the investigation of violent crime occurring in non-federal, public places. The Act did not create any new crimes but rather mandated a definition, across federal law enforcement agencies, of "mass killings" as a killing of three or more victims in the same incident. The Act enabled the Federal Bureau of Investigation to develop a program of research and training to address active shooter incidents.
