A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers kill or injure multiple individuals simultaneously using a firearm. There is no widely accepted definition, and different organizations tracking such incidents use different criteria. Mass shootings are often characterized by the indiscriminate 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, but have also been used as a terrorist tactic. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.
In the United States, the country with the most mass shootings, the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012 defines "mass killings" as three or more killings in a single incident.[1] In its definition, a Congressional Research Service report from 2013 specifies four or more killings on indiscriminate victims, while excluding violence committed as a means to an end, such as robbery or terrorism.[2] Media outlets such as CNN, and some crime violence research groups such as the Gun Violence Archive, define mass shootings as involving "four or more shot (injured or killed) in a single incident, at the same general time and location, not including the shooter".[3]Mother Jones magazine defines mass shootings as indiscriminate rampages killing three or more individuals (not including the perpetrator), and excluding gang violence and armed robbery.[4][5] An Australian study from 2006 specifies five individuals killed.[6]
The number of people killed in mass shootings is difficult to determine due to the lack of a commonly agreed upon definition. In the United States, there were 103 deaths in mass shootings in 2021 (excluding the perpetrators) using the FBI's definition, and 706 deaths using the Gun Violence Archive's definition.[7] The FBI's definition refers to "active shooter incidents" defined as "one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area", while the Gun Violence Archive's definition counts incidents where at least four people (excluding the perpetrator) were shot, but not necessarily killed.[7]
Mass shootings (that occur in public locations) are usually committed by deeply disgruntled individuals who are seeking revenge as a motive, for failures in school, career, romance, or life in general.[8]. Homicide Studies, Vol 8(1), pp 125–145.</ref> Additionally, or alternately, they could be seeking fame or attention,[9] and at least 16 mass shooters since the Columbine massacre have cited fame or notoriety as a motive.[10] Fame-seekers average more than double the body counts, and many articulate a desire to surpass "past records".[10]
CBS defines a mass shooting as an event involving the shooting (not necessarily resulting in death) of five or more people (sometimes four)[15] with no cooling-off period.[13][15][16]
Mother Jones defines a mass shooting as an indiscriminate rampage in a public place, resulting in three or more victims (excluding the perpetrator) killed by the attacker, excluding gang violence, armed robbery, and attacks by unidentified perpetrators.[5][4]
Crime violence research group Gun Violence Archive, whose research is used by major American media outlets, defines a mass shooting as having a "minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident," differentiating between a mass shooting and mass murder and not counting shooters as victims.[17]
There are also different definitions of the term mass killing:
Under U.S. federal law, the Attorney General – on a request from a state – may assist in investigating "mass killings", rather than mass shootings. The term is defined as the murder of four or more people with no cooling-off period[18][12] but redefined by Congress in 2013 as being the murder of three or more people.[19]
In "Behind the Bloodshed", a report by USA Today, a mass killing is defined as any incident in which four or more were killed, including familial killings.[20] This definition is also used by the Washington Post.[21]
The lack of a single definition can lead to alarmism in the news media, with some reports conflating categories of different crimes.[24][25][26]
An act of mass shooting is typically defined as terrorist when it "appears to have been intended" to intimidate or to coerce people;[27] although a mass shooting is not necessarily an act of terrorism solely by itself.[2]
The perpetrator is typically but not always excluded from the body count.[28]
Prevalence
The number of people killed in mass shootings is difficult to determine due to the lack of a commonly agreed definition.[7] It is also difficult to determine whether their frequency is increasing or decreasing over time, for the same reason. In addition, there is a large impact from random chance, outliers, and the specific time frame chosen for analysis.[7]
A New York Times study reported how outcomes of active shooter attacks varied with actions of the attacker, the police (42% of total incidents), and bystanders (including a "good guy with a gun" outcome in 5.1% of total incidents).
Total deaths in U.S. mass shootings—defined as four or more people shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator, at a public place, excluding gang-related killings[30][31]
The U.S. has substantially more mass shootings (in which four or more people are killed) than other developed countries.[32] According to Vox, the U.S. gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries.[33]
The United States has had the most mass shootings of any country in the world.[34][35][36] There were 103 deaths in mass shootings in 2021 (excluding the perpetrators) using the FBI's definition, and 706 deaths using the Gun Violence Archive's definition.[7] The FBI's definition refers to "active shooter incidents" defined as "one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area", while the Gun Violence Archive's definition counts incidents where at least four people (excluding the perpetrator) were shot, but not necessarily killed.[7]
In a 2016 study published by criminologist Adam Lankford, it was estimated that 31 percent of all public mass shooters from 1966 to 2012 attacked in the United States, although the U.S. had less than five percent of the world's population.[37] The study concludes that "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."[38]
Criminologist Gary Kleck criticized Lankford's findings, stating the study merely shows a proportional relationship but fails to prove that gun ownership causes mass shootings. The backlash from economist and gun rights advocate John Lott also raised objections to Lankford's methodology and refusal to share his data. He speculated that Lankford had overlooked a significant number of mass shootings outside the U.S., which if accounted for would adjust the nation's share closer to 2.88 percent; slightly below the world average.[39][40] Lankford has since followed up on his research, publishing his data and clarifying that the United States from 1998 to 2012 did have more than six times its global share of public mass shooters who attacked alone, which is almost always the case with mass shooters.[41] Using the data from Lott and Moody's 2019 study of mass shootings,[42] Lankford explains that "41 of all 138 public mass shootings by single perpetrators worldwide were committed in the United States. That represents 29.7 percent. Because America had in those years approximately 4.5 percent of the world's population (according to Lott and Moody's calculations), this indicates that based on their data, the United States had more than six times its global share of public mass shooters who attacked alone (29.7/4.5 = 6.6).[43] In a subsequent study, Lankford criticized Lott and Moody for including "attacks by terrorist organizations, genocidal militias, armed rebel groups, and paramilitary fighters" in their data and suggested they "misrepresent approximately 1,000 foreign cases from their own dataset" in other ways.[44]
Mass shootings have also been observed to be followed by an increase in the purchase of weapons, but this does not seem to create an increased feeling of needing guns in either gun owners or non-owners.[45]
Even though the global COVID-19 pandemic reduced public gatherings from March 2020 onward, the number of mass shootings increased significantly over that period. It "even doubled in July 2020 compared to a year earlier".[46]
Other countries
Mass shootings (and firearm deaths in general) virtually never happen in China, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and the United Kingdom. China's strict gun control laws have prohibited private ownership of firearms since 1951.[47]Japan has as few as two gun-related homicides per year. These numbers include all homicides in the country, not just mass shootings.[48]
While gun violence is relatively uncommon in India due to strict gun control laws, incidents of mass shootings and violent attacks continue to occur.
Mass shootings are relatively rare in Russia, but they have occurred sporadically over the past decade. Most of the incidents involve lone gunmen, although there have been a few cases involving multiple shooters.
Mass shootings have become a common occurrence in Mexico, particularly in recent years. The country has been plagued by violence from drug cartels, which have been responsible for many of the deadliest mass shootings in Mexico's history.
Brazil has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the world, and mass shootings have become more common in recent years. In 2022, there were at least 10 mass shootings in Brazil, resulting in the deaths of over 50 people. Furthermore, In 2017, there were over 45,000 gun-related homicides countrywide.[49]
In Africa, whilst incidents of mass violence resulting from terrorism and ethnic conflict have occurred, "mass shootings" are generally understood as rare.
Victims and survivors
After mass shootings, some survivors have written about their experiences and their experiences have been covered by journalists. A survivor of the Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting wrote about his reaction to other mass shooting incidents.[50] The father of a victim in a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, wrote about witnessing other mass shootings after the loss of his son.[51] The survivors of the 2011 Norway attacks recounted their experience to GQ magazine.[52] In addition, one paper studied Swedish police officers' reactions to a mass shooting.[53]
In 2019, Sydney Aiello and Calvin Desir, both survivors of the Parkland high school shooting, committed suicide as a result of survivors guilt. Meadow Pollack was killed in the shooting and was friends with Aiello.[57]
Perpetrators
For a detailed list of mass shooters and other rampage killers, see List of rampage killers.
The overwhelming majority of mass shooters in the U.S. are male, with some sources showing males account for 98 percent of mass shooters.[58][59][60] According to Sky News, male perpetrators committed 110 out of 114 school shootings (96%) in the period 1982–2019,[61] compared to homicides in general in the United States, where 85.3 percent of homicides were committed by males.[62]
A study by Statista showed that 65 out of 116 (56%) U.S. mass shootings in a period from 1982 to 2019 involved white shooters (who are 65% of the population).[63] According to a database compiled by Mother Jones magazine, the race of the shooters is approximately proportionate to the overall U.S. population, although Asians are overrepresented and Latinos underrepresented.[60]
Mental health and criminal records
In a study of 55 mass shooters from Mother Jones' mass shooting database, researchers found that 87.5 percent of perpetrators had misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated or undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric illnesses.[64]
According to a study by The Violence Project, 42 percent of all mass shooters experienced physical or sexual abuse, parental suicide, or were victims of bullying.[65] They also found that 72 percent of perpetrators were suicidal.
In a study of 171 mass shooters who attacked in the United States from 1966 to 2019, researchers Adam Lankford and Rebecca Cowan found that although the vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent, "almost all public mass shooters may have mental health problems." They suggest the frequency of mental health problems among mass shooters is sometimes underestimated because "many perpetrators have never been formally evaluated by a psychiatrist or mental health practitioner...and others deliberately avoid doctors, conceal their mental health problems, or lie about their symptoms due to shame, stigma, or fear of other consequences." However, Lankford and Cowan also emphasize that mental illness is not the sole cause of mass shootings and many other factors play an important role in perpetrators' decisions to attack.[66]
Criminologist James Allen Fox said that most mass murderers do not have a criminal record, or involuntary incarceration at a mental health centre,[67] although an article in The New York Times in December 2015 about 15 recent mass shootings found that six perpetrators had had run-ins with law enforcement, and six had mental health issues.[68]
Motives
Mass shootings can be motivated by religious extremism, political ideologies (e.g., neo-Nazism, terrorism, white supremacism), racism, misogyny, homophobia, mental illness,[69][70] and revenge against bullying,[71] among other reasons.[58] Forensic psychologist Stephen Ross cites extreme anger and the notion of working for a cause–rather than mental illness–as primary explanations.[72] A study by Vanderbilt University researchers found that "fewer than five percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness."[73]John Roman of the Urban Institute argues that, while better access to mental health care, restricting high powered weapons, and creating a defensive infrastructure to combat terrorism are constructive, they do not address the greater issue, which is "we have a lot of really angry young men in our country and in the world."[74]
Author Dave Cullen, in his 2009 book Columbine on the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and its perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, described Harris as an "injustice collector."[75] He expanded on the concept in a 2015 New Republic essay on injustice collectors,[76] identifying several notorious killers as fitting the category, including Christopher Dorner, Elliot Rodger, Vester Flanagan, and Andrew Kehoe. Likewise, mass shooting expert and former FBI profiler Mary O'Toole also uses the phrase "injustice collector" in characterizing motives of some mass shooting perpetrators.[77] In relation, criminologist James Alan Fox contends that mass murderers are "enabled by social isolation" and typically experience "years of disappointment and failure that produce a mix of profound hopelessness and deep-seated resentment."[78][79]Jillian Peterson, an assistant professor of criminology at Hamline University who is participating in the construction of a database on mass shooters, noted that two phenomena surface repeatedly in the statistics: hopelessness and a need for notoriety in life or in death.[80] Notoriety was first suggested as a possible motive and researched by Justin Nutt. Nutt stated in a 2013 article, "those who feel nameless and as though no one will care or remember them when they are gone may feel doing something such as a school shooting will make sure they are remembered and listed in the history books."[81]
In a 2019 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times,[82] Jillian Peterson and James Densley of The Violence Project think tank presented a new, hopeful framework to understand mass shootings. Based on a study funded by the National Institute of Justice, Peterson and Densley found mass shooters had four things in common:
Early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age
An identifiable grievance or crisis point
Validation for their belief system, have studied past shootings to find inspiration
The means to carry out an attack
This new framework highlights the complexity of the pathway to a mass shooting, including how each one can be "socially contagious,"[83] but also provides a blueprint to prevent the next mass shooting. Each one of the four themes represents an opportunity for intervention. By mitigating contagion (validation), training in crisis intervention de-escalation (crisis), and increasing access to affordable mental healthcare (trauma), a mass shooting can be averted.
In considering the frequency of mass shootings in the United States, criminologist Peter Squires says that the individualistic culture in the United States puts the country at greater risk for mass shootings than other countries, noting that many other countries where gun ownership is high, such as Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Israel...tend to have more tight-knit societies where a strong social bond supports people through crises, and mass killings are fewer. He is an advocate of gun control, but contends there is more to mass shootings than the prevalence of guns.[84] The Italian Marxist academic Franco Berardi argues that the hyper-individualism, social alienation and competitiveness fomented by neoliberal ideology and capitalism creates mass shooters by causing people to "malfunction."[85]
Social science and family structure
A noteworthy connection has been reported in the U.S. between mass shootings and domestic or family violence, with a current or former intimate partner or family member killed in 76 of 133 cases (57%), and a perpetrator having previously been charged with domestic violence in 21.[86][87]
Responses
Media
Some people have considered whether media attention revolving around the perpetrators of mass shootings is a factor in sparking further incidents.[88] In response to this, some in law enforcement have decided against naming mass shooting suspects in media-related events to avoid giving them notoriety.[89]
The effects of messages used in the coverage of mass shootings have been studied. Researchers studied the role the coverage plays in shaping attitudes toward persons with serious mental illness and public support for gun control policies.[90]
In 2015, a paper written by a physicist and statistician, Sherry Towers, along with four colleagues was published, which proved that there is indeed mass shooting contagion using mathematical modeling.[91] However, in 2017, Towers said in an interview that she prefers self-regulation to censorship to address this issue, just like years ago major news outlets successfully prevent copycat suicide.[92]
In 2016, the American Psychological Association published a press release, claiming that mass shooting contagion does exist and that news media and social media enthusiasts should withhold the name(s) and face(s) of the victimizer(s) when reporting a mass shooting to deny the fame the shooter(s) want to curb contagion.[93]
Mass shootings are extremely rare in the United Kingdom, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. As a result of the Hungerford massacre in Hungerford, England, and the Dunblane school massacre in Stirling, Scotland, the United Kingdom enacted tough gun laws and a buyback program to remove specific classes of firearms from private ownership. They included the Firearms Amendment Act 1988, which limited rifles and shotguns; and the 1997 Firearms Amendment Acts, which restricted or made illegal many handguns.[100] Since then, there have been only a handful of mass shootings in the country with relatively few fatalities. The UK has also banned the private ownership of semi-automatic and automatic weapons, and introduced stringent checks before issuing permits to private citizens to own single and low cartridge shotguns. There have been two mass shootings since the laws were restricted: the Cumbria shootings in 2010, which killed 13 people, including the perpetrator;[101][102] and the Plymouth shooting in 2021, which killed six people, including the perpetrator.[103]
In the United States, support for gun law reform varies considerably by political party, with Democrats generally more supportive and Republicans generally more opposed. Some in the U.S. believe that tightening gun laws would prevent future mass shootings.[104] Some politicians in the U.S. introduced legislation to reform the background check system for purchasing a gun.[105] A vast majority of Americans support tighter background checks. "According to a poll by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, 93 percent of registered voters said they would support universal background checks for all gun buyers."[106]
Others contend that mass shootings should not be the main focus in the gun law reform debate because these shootings account for less than one percent of the U.S. homicide rate and believe that these shootings are hard to stop. They often argue that civilians with concealed guns will be able to stop shootings.[107]
According to British criminologist Peter Squires, who has studied gun violence in different countries, mass shootings may be more due to the "individualistic culture" in the U.S. than its firearm laws.[108]
The ongoing violence in Mexico has prompted the government to take action to try to address the issue. In recent years, the government has implemented various measures, including increasing security forces, deploying the military to high-risk areas, and tightening gun control laws. Despite these efforts, mass shootings in Mexico continue to be prominent in the country, and the country remains one of the most violent in the world according to some.
In China, the Chongqing shooting occurred on 5 April 1993. Chen Xuerong, a worker at a machine factory used a hunting rifle to kill three coworkers before being captured by police. In 2013, Fan Jieming entered a shop and shot six people dead before killing himself. Another shooting was the 1994 Tian Mingjian incident.
In South Korea, the deadliest mass shooting was committed by Woo Bum-kon in 1982, leaving 62 dead. For many years, it was the deadliest mass shooting in modern history, until surpassed by the 2011 Norway attacks.
In British India, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on 13 April 1919, when an estimated 379–1500 Indian protesters were killed by the British Army, and an additional 1,200 were injured.
In India, during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, 10 gunmen affiliated with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked multiple targets in Mumbai, killing 175 people and injuring hundreds more. The attack lasted for four days and one of the perpetrators was sentenced to death. Other notable incidents include the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, in which five gunmen attacked the parliament building in New Delhi, killing nine people, and the 2016 Pathankot attack, in which militants attacked an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, killing seven security personnel. Mass shootings have also occurred in the context of regional conflicts. For example, the 2014 Chhattisgarh attack involved Naxalite militants attacking a convoy of political leaders and security personnel, killing 15 people, while the 2021 Sukma-Bijapur attack involved Naxalite rebels attacking security forces, resulting in the deaths of at least 22 security personnel. Other examples include the 1878 Hyderabad shooting and 1983 Pashupatinath Temple shooting.
In Thailand, a mass shooting occurred near and in Nakhon Ratchasima, colloquially known as Korat, between 8 and 9 February 2020. A soldier of the Royal Thai Army killed 30 people and wounded 58 others before he was eventually shot and killed.[112] On 6 October 2022, 38 people, 24 of them children, were killed in a shooting and stabbing spree by a former police officer. The main target was a childcare centre in Nong Bua Lamphu province. The perpetrator then killed both his wife and son at his own home before committing suicide. Other mass shootings that occurred in Thailand are the Pak Phanang school shooting, the Lopburi mall shooting, and the Siam Paragon shooting.
The deadliest mass shooting by a lone individual in modern history occurred in Europe with the 2011 Norway attacks in Norway, in which 77 people were killed. Of those killed, 67 died of gunshot wounds.[101]
In the United Kingdom, on August 19, 1987, in Hungerford, England, a man killed his mother before killing 16 people and injuring 15 others. On March 13, 1996, in Dunblane, Scotland, a man entered a primary school and opened fire, killing 16 children and one teacher before committing suicide. On August 12, 2021, in Plymouth, England, a man killed five people and injured two others before taking his own life. Other mass shootings in the UK include the Cumbria shootings on June 2, 2010, in which a man killed 12 people and injured 11 others before committing suicide; the Wallasey pub shooting, where 1 person was killed and 4 others injured; and the Monkseaton shootings, where 1 person was killed and 16 others injured.
In Germany, the Erfurt school massacre on April 26, 2002, was inspired by the Columbine High School massacre. Former student Robert Steinhäuser killed 16 people, including two students, 11 teachers, a trainee teacher, a secretary and a police officer before killing himself.[113] On March 13, 2009, when a 17-year-old student named Tim Kretschmer went on a shooting spree at his former high school in Winnenden. Kretschmer killed 15 people, including nine students, three teachers, and three bystanders, before turning the gun on himself. On July 22, 2016, when a lone gunman named David Sonboly opened fire at a shopping mall in Munich, killing nine people and injuring 36 others. Sonboly, who had a history of mental illness, was armed with a pistol and a semi-automatic rifle. After a brief exchange of fire with police, he turned the gun on himself. On October 9, 2019, a far-right extremist named Stephan Balliet attempted to carry out a mass shooting at a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle. Balliet, who was armed with several 3D printed firearms and homemade explosive devices, tried to force his way into the synagogue during on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. When he was unable to get inside, he shot and killed two people outside the building and injured several others. The entire shooting was live streamed on Twitch. Balliet was later arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder. Later, on February 19, 2020, a schizophrenic man named Tobias Rathjen opened fire at two shisha bars in the town of Hanau, killing nine people before turning the gun on himself. Rathjen, who had a history of mental illness and far-right extremist views, left behind a manifesto in which he expressed his hatred for immigrants and called for the extermination of several ethnic groups.
In the Czech Republic, the first mass shooting in its independent history occurred on 8 March 2009, when a 42-year-old Macedonian national named Raif Kačar opened fire at the Sokol Restaurant in Petřvald, killing four. Kačar then shot himself and died four days later as a result of his injuries. The firearm used in the shooting was obtained illegally. A second mass shooting occurred on 24 February 2015, when a 62-year-old man named Zdeněk Kovář, who was legally armed with a CZ 75B and an Alfa 820 revolver, entered the Družba restaurant in Uherský Brod and started shooting. Nine people, including Kovář who committed suicide, died in the shooting, and one other person was injured. The police received criticism for its response to the shooting. This incident was the deadliest mass shooting in Czech history until the 2023 Prague shooting. On 10 December 2019, when 42-year-old Ctirad Vitásek, illegally armed with a CZ 75B, opened fire at the traumatology room of the Ostrava University Hospital[cs], killing seven and injuring two. Vitásek then fled the scene and committed suicide near the town of Děhylov after being discovered by the police. On 21 December 2023, 24-year-old David Kozák, a world history student at Charles University who was also a legal owner of several firearms, murdered his father at his home in Hostouň and later opened fire at the Faculty of Arts building of the Charles University in Prague. 16 people, including Kozák's father and Kozák himself, who committed suicide at the rooftop terrace of the building, died in the shootings. 25 people were wounded. This was the first case of a school shooting in Czech Republic's history. Kozák had brought several firearms with himself into the school, a Glock 47 pistol, a SIG Sauer semi-automatic pistol and an AR-10-style rifle are known to have been used in the shooting, he used a pump-action shotgun to commit suicide. Police later reported that Kozák was one of the several suspects in a case of a double-murder of an infant and her father at Klánovice Forest near Prague, which occurred on 15 December 2023, Police also later confirmed that one of the firearms owned by Kozák matched the bullets found at the scene of the double-murder. On 27 December 2023, it was reported that police found a letter in Kozák's home, in which he confessed to the double-murder. The Prague shootings are currently the deadliest mass shooting in Czech Republic's history.
The most deadly shooting in Russia occurred on October 8, 1999, when Achmed Ibragimov killed at least 34 Russian inhabitants of the village Mikenskaya. Other shootings include the Moscow Multifunctional Center shooting on December 7, 2021, where a 45-year-old man shot and killed two people and wounded four others, reportedly after being told to put on a face mask. In another incident on April 4, 2020, Anton Franchikov shot five people to death in Yelatma, Ryazan Oblast. In the Perm State University shooting on September 20, 2021, Timur Bekmansurov fatally shot six people before being apprehended by police. In another incident on September 26, 2022, Artem Kazantsev opened fire at his former school in Izhevsk, Udmurtia, killing 18 people before committing suicide. One of the largest shootings involving military personnel occurred on October 15, 2022, at the Soloti military training ground in Belgorod Oblast. Two conscripts from Tajikistan committed friendly fire, killing 11 people before being killed by return fire.
In Ukraine, on January 27, 2022, when a gunman opened fire at the Yuzhmash factory in the city of Dnipro. The attack left five people dead and five others injured. The shooter, a former employee of the factory, was reportedly disgruntled over his dismissal and had been seeking revenge. Another notable incident of mass shooting in Ukraine took place on October 17, 2018, when Vladislav Roslyakov, an 18-year-old student at the Kerch Polytechnic College in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, opened fire on his fellow students and teachers, killing 20 and injuring more than 70 others. The shooter committed suicide in the library at the school. The perpetrator is believed to have been inspired by Columbine.[114]
Notable mass shootings in Mexico include the 2010 Chihuahua shootings in Chihuahua. One of the deadliest mass shootings in Mexico occurred in 2010 in the town of San Fernando, Tamaulipas. In that incident, 72 migrants from Central and South America were found dead in a ranch, allegedly killed by members of the Zetas drug cartel. 2 months prior to that, 19 people were killed in the Mexican state of Chihuahua in another shooting. Another high-profile mass shooting in Mexico took place in 2009, when a man opened fire on passengers on a Mexico City metro train, killing two people and injuring several others. In 2019, about 70 miles (110km) south of the Mexico–United States border, the LeBarón and Langford families endured a massacre in the state of Sonora, where nine women and children were killed by suspected members of a drug cartel. The victims were believed to have been mistaken for members of a rival cartel. Other notable mass shootings in Mexico include the Minatitlán shooting in 2019, the Salamanca nightclub shooting in 2019, and the 2019 Villa Unión shootout. In 2020, the country experienced several high-profile mass shootings, including the Colegio Cervantes shooting in Torreón, the Irapuato massacres, and the Camargo massacre. On 23 May 2022, 11 people were killed in a mass shooting at the Gala Hotel and a nearby bar in Celaya, Guanajuato. The attackers were reportedly from the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, and left a message referring to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and three dismembered bodies found earlier that day. On 27 March 2022, 20 people were killed in a mass shooting at an illegal cockfighting pit in Las Tinajas, Zinapécuaro, Michoacán. The attackers were believed to be from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and the massacre was part of a conflict between the cartel and the local gang Familia Michoacana. On August 24, 2022, eight people were killed in the city of Tuzantla, Michoacán, in a firefight between rival factions of La Familia Michoacana. The dispute stemmed from infighting between brothers Johnny "El Pez" and Jose Alfredo "El Fresa" Hurtado Olascoaga, leaders of the Tuzantla cell, and their former coworker known as "El Chaparro".
In the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, two students from the school shot and killed twelve classmates and a teacher before dying from suicide. In the Virginia Tech shooting, a 23-year-old student killed thirty-two students and teachers, and wounded seventeen others. Other people were injured attempting to escape. When police stormed the building he was in, the shooter killed himself. In the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, a 20-year-old killed his mother before shooting and killing twenty children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. He then committed suicide. In the Uvalde school shooting, a local man shot and wounded his grandmother before driving to his former elementary school and opening fire. He killed nineteen children and two adults before being shot dead by police. Eighteen other people were hospitalized.[116]
In the Pulse nightclub shooting, a gunman, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub. The gunman was killed in a shootout with the police.[117] The perpetrator of the 2022 Buffalo shooting, who killed 10 people, wrote in a lengthy manifesto that he was radicalized after having "extreme boredom" during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he began browsing 4chan and neo-Nazi websites linked from it; the accused gunman's manifesto espoused notions from the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory and included screenshots of memes and conservative news headlines that he cited as sources for his ideology.[118]
Suzano school shooting (2019): Two former students killed 7 people and injured 11 others at Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, São Paulo before killing themself. The perpetrators also killed one of their uncles before the school shooting.
Realengo school shooting (2011): A gunman killed 12 students and injured 22 others at Tasso da Silveira Municipal School in Realengo, Rio de Janeiro before committing suicide.
Fortaleza nightclub shooting (2018): A man killed 14 people at a nightclub in Fortaleza[121]
Aracruz school shootings (2022): On November 25, 2022, a 16-year-old neo-nazi[122] former student opened fire at two schools in Brazil, killing four and injuring 12.
New Zealand has a relatively low rate of gun violence compared to other developed countries despite its formerly lax gun laws.[128][98] The country has experienced three major mass shootings since the late 20th century.[129][130][99] The first mass shooting occurred in Aramoana, a small town on the east coast of the South Island, in 1990. David Gray, a 33-year-old man with a history of mental illness, killed 13 people and injured three others before being shot and killed by police.[129][130]The second mass shooting occurred in Christchurch, the largest city in southern New Zealand, in 2019. Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian-born man, opened fire on two mosques during Friday prayers, killing 51 people and injuring 40 others. This was the worst mass shooting in New Zealand history.[129][130] The third mass shooting occurred in Auckland, the largest city in the North Island. Matu Tangi Magua Reid, who was under house arrest killed two people and injured 10 others during a workplace shooting before killing himself.[99][131]
The École Polytechnique massacre, also known as the Montreal massacre, was an antifeminist mass shooting that occurred on December 6, 1989, at the École Polytechnique de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec. Fourteen women were murdered; another ten women and four men were injured.
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.
Mass murder is the violent crime of killing a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more persons kill several others.
In the United States, domestic terrorism is defined as terrorist acts that were carried out within the United States by U.S. citizens and/or U.S. permanent residents. As of 2021, the United States government considers white supremacists to be the top domestic terrorism threat.
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.
The Crandon shooting was a mass murder that occurred about 2:45 a.m. CDT on October 7, 2007, at a post-homecoming party inside a duplex in Crandon, Wisconsin, United States. The perpetrator, 20-year-old Tyler James Peterson, who was a full-time deputy in the Forest County Sheriff's Department and a part-time officer with the Crandon Police Department, shot and killed six people and critically injured a seventh before committing suicide. One of the victims, 18-year-old Jordanne Michele Murray, was Peterson's former girlfriend, and it was believed that a dispute within the apartment motivated the shooting.
The Collier Township shooting, also referred to as the Bridgeville LA Fitness shooting, was a mass shooting and murder-suicide that took place on August 4, 2009, in an LA Fitness health club in Collier Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The attack resulted in four deaths, including the perpetrator, George Sodini, who killed himself. Nine other people were injured. The fitness center is approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of Pittsburgh, in the Great Southern Shopping Center, a strip mall located in the Kirwan Heights section of Collier Township, just outside of the borough of Bridgeville.
In the early morning of December 24, 2012, William Spengler, a 62-year-old man living in West Webster, New York, a suburb of Rochester, deliberately set his home and vehicle on fire. He then perpetrated a mass shooting, firing upon first responders. Spengler killed two firefighters, and injured two more and a police officer, before committing suicide. The badly burnt corpse of his sister was later found in his home.
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.
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.
On August 4, 2019, 24-year-old Connor Betts shot and killed nine people, including his brother, and wounded 17 others near the entrance of the Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio. Betts was fatally shot by responding police officers 32 seconds after the first shots were fired. A total of 27 people were taken to area hospitals. It is the deadliest mass shooting to occur in Ohio since the 1975 Easter Sunday Massacre.
On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at sixteen locations in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing twenty-two people and injuring three others before he was shot and killed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in the community of Enfield. The attacks are the deadliest shooting rampage in Canadian history, exceeding the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, where fourteen women were killed.
On 12 August 2021, a mass shooting occurred in Keyham, Plymouth, England. The gunman, 22-year-old Jake Davison from Plymouth, shot and killed five people, including his mother and a 3-year-old girl. Davison also injured two others before fatally shooting himself. The inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing of all of the victims.
On 26 April 2022, three people were killed in a school shooting at a kindergarten in Veshkayma, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia.
↑ Follman, Mark. "What Exactly Is A Mass Shooting". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on 2 August 2015. Retrieved 9 August 2015. What is a mass shooting? Broadly speaking, the term refers to an incident involving three or more deaths due to gun violence. But there is no official set of criteria or definition for a mass shooting, according to criminology experts and FBI officials contacted by Mother Jones.
↑ "PUBLIC LAW 112–265"(PDF). United States Congress. 14 January 2013. Archived(PDF) from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
↑ Greenberg, Jon; Valverde, Miriam; Jacobson, Louis. "What we know about mass shootings". PolitiFact. Archived from the original on 6 August 2019. Retrieved 6 August 2019. In January 2013, a mandate for federal investigation of mass shootings authorized by President Barack Obama lowered that baseline to three or more victims killed
↑ Buchanan, Larry; Leatherby, Lauren (22 June 2022). "Who Stops a 'Bad Guy With a Gun'?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 June 2022. Data source: Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center
↑ Follman, Mark; Aronsen, Gavin; Pan, Deanna (2012). "A Guide to Mass Shootings in America". MotherJones.com. Archived from the original on 10 March 2023. Updated March 27, 2023 Describes inclusion criteria.
↑ Lopez, German (26 May 2022). "America's Gun Problem". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 26 May 2022. Source: Jason R. Silva, William Paterson University
↑ Lott, John (16 December 2018). "How a Botched Study Fooled the World About the U.S. Share of Mass Public Shootings: U.S. Rate is Lower than Global Average". SSRN3238736.
↑ Kellermann, A. L.; Mercy, J. A. (July 1992). "Men, women, and murder: gender-specific differences in rates of fatal violence and victimization". The Journal of Trauma. 33 (1): 1–5. ISSN0022-5282. PMID1635092.
↑ Van Brunt, Brian, and W. Scott Lewis. "Costuming, misogyny, and objectification as risk factors in targeted violence." Violence and gender 1.1 (2014): 25–35.
↑ Rocque, Michael. "Exploring school rampage shootings: Research, theory, and policy." The Social Science Journal 49.3 (2012): 304–313.
↑ "Analysis of Mass Shootings". Everytownresearch.org. 20 August 2015. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2016. This analysis has later figures than reported in the article
↑ McGinty, Emma (1 May 2013). "Effects of News Media Messages About Mass Shootings on Attitudes Toward Persons With Serious Mental Illness and Public Support for Gun Control Policies". American Journal of Psychiatry. 170 (5): 494–501. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2013.13010014. PMID23511486.
↑ Towers, Sherry (6 December 2017). "Newsmaker Sunday: Sherry Towers". Newsmaker Sunday (Interview). Interviewed by John Hook. Phoenix, Arizona, United States: Fox 10 Phoenix. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
↑ Zettl, Max Sebastian (2018). Amok an Schulen. Prävention, Intervention und Nachsorge bei School Shootings (in German). Matthias Böhmer. p.71. ISBN9783658227074.
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