Mass shootings are recently in the news again. Kentucky and Tennessee political leaders recently called for tighter gun control, including stricter laws preventing people in crisis from accessing firearms, after two mass shootings killed 11 people in Louisville and Nashville – learn more here.
Considering this recent news about mass shootings, it might be helpful to look at some data concerning the profile of a mass shooter.
The Violence Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center dedicated to reducing societal violence and using data and analysis to improve policy and practice. They have compiled a database of mass shootings that one can access publicly. Below is trend data since 1966 of mass shootings.
Mass shooting demographics show an interesting trend. Individuals who engage in mass shootings study past mass shooters – one in five (21.6%) studied other mass shooters, and many are radicalized online. Most died on the scene of the public mass shooting, with 38.4% dying by their own hand and 20.3% killed by law enforcement officers. Other profile factors that are interesting in terms of what is a trend and overturning ideas about mass shooters that are not necessarily true. Here are some key mass killer profile attributes.
- 47% single.
- 51% employment trouble.
- 65% had a prior criminal record
- 63% history of violence
- 62% knew some of the victims
- 28.5% had a military background
- 72% suicidal
- 50% substance abuse
- 7% fame-seeking
- 5% religious hate
- 9% racism
- 5% terrorist group affiliation
It should be noted there is poor data collection available on prescription drugs like psychiatric drugs.
Most mass shooters (97.7%) were male. Ages ranged from 11 to 70, with a mean age of 34.1. The shooter racial groups were 52.3% White, 20.9% Black, 8.1% Latino, 6.4% Asian, 4.2% Middle Eastern, and 1.8% Native American. See this in the chart below and learn more here.
The stereotype that “white males” are the typical profile of a mass shooter is not born out from this data, but rather “black males” on a per capita basis. Locations of public mass shootings by the percentage of all occurrences.
Notably, most individuals who engaged in mass shootings used handguns (77.2%), and 25.1% used assault rifles in the commission of their crimes. Of the known mass shooting cases (32.5% of cases could not be confirmed), 77% of those who engaged in mass shootings purchased at least some of their guns legally, while illegal purchases were made by 13% of those committing mass shootings. In cases involving K-12 school shootings, over 80% of individuals who engaged in shootings stole guns from family members.
For this study, they used the Congressional Research Service’s definition of a mass shooting:
“a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms — not including the offender(s) — within one event, and at least some of the murders occurred in a public location or locations in close geographical proximity (e.g., a workplace, school, restaurant, or other public settings), and the murders are not attributable to any other underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance (armed robbery, criminal competition, insurance fraud, argument, or romantic triangle).”
There are other databases, such as gunviolencearchive.org, which use a much broader definition of these mass shootings. Below is a summary chart of their data, which clearly shows a rise in violence in recent years.
No doubt that political debate will heat up once again – facing off with Americans’ right to defend themselves from the rising violence via 2nd Amendment rights. On one side of the political divide, the focus is on the tool of the shooter (the gun), and the other side focuses on the reasons we have violence in the first place (leftist culture).
Considering how the political side that focuses on the “gun” (the tool of the shooter) as the problem seems to also not care much about good policing via their “defund the police” policies and a highly biased justice system.
Give us your thoughts on this data in the comment section below.
By Tom Williams
