Counting the Cost:Public Mass Shootings in the US

Three high-profile mass shootings took place in the US between October and December 2015, each in different public venues, and involving perpetrators with different motives. On 1 October, Chris Mercer opened fire at Umpqua Community College in southwest Oregon. Nine people were killed and nine others were injured in the attack. Mercer killed himself after being wounded in a shootout with police. Thereafter, on 27 November, a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, left three dead and several injured, and a suspect, Robert Dear, was apprehended. Most recently, on 2 December, 14 people were killed and 22 others injured in a mass shooting and attempted bombing at the Inland Regional Centre in San Bernardino, California. The assailants, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, targeted a group of approximately 80 employees from the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, who were holding a party in a rented banquet room. The incidents have reinvigorated debate in the US over gun violence and public mass shootings. In particular, questions have been raised over the prevalence of such shootings in the US, how these incidents are defined and when a mass shooting should be treated as a terrorist act.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2 December attacks, media sources cited data from the Mass Shooting Tracker (MST) website, which identified 353 mass shootings since the beginning of 2015 - more than one mass shooting per day up to that point - of which 42 percent were lethal. However, MST uses a very broad definition of what constitutes a mass shooting, stating that “a mass shooting is when four or more people are shot in an event, or related series of events, likely without a cooling off period.” This means that gang-related shootings, bar brawls, domestic violence, and other non-premeditated incidents are included as mass shootings. Consequently, carefully planned incidents, such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, may be classified as mass shootings alongside spontaneous drive-by shootings involving rival gang members. 

In contrast, other studies have placed the total number of mass shootings countrywide in the single digits. For example, a dataset created by the investigative US Magazine, ‘Mother Jones’, suggests that there were just four mass shootings in the country in 2015. Unsurprisingly, the magazine’s parameters for defining a mass shooting are far narrower than MST. To meet Mother Jones’ criteria, an attack must have occurred in a public place with “indiscriminate mass murder” as the apparent motive, with at least four people being killed. This would exclude cases of armed robbery, gang violence and domestic violence. In addition, at least four people must be killed by the assailant for the incident to be branded a mass shooting. Since not all victims die after being shot, Mother Jones’ count depends on the survival of victims, and therefore to an extent the shooter’s capabilities and the quality of emergency response. This means that the 27 November shooting at the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic is omitted from Mother Jones’ dataset, since only three people were killed. This reliance on arbitrary fatality numbers means that significant cases may be omitted from analysis. 

A less restrictive approach is offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Although the FBI does not have a definition for mass shootings, the organisation does collect data on active shooter events, which refers to “one or more persons engaged in killing or attempting to kill multiple people in an area occupied by multiple unrelated individuals – at least one of the victims must be unrelated to the shooter”. This definition avoids the problem of specifying an arbitrary benchmark for the number of deaths or injuries required for an incident to be considered a mass shooting. The FBI found 160 active shooter incidents from 2000 through to 2013, an average of just over 11 per year. However, the FBI’s ‘active shooter event’ neglects to stress the element of premeditation or intent to maim and kill as many people as possible. 

Another important question relates to how mass shootings are treated by the media and law enforcement – when do such incidents count as terrorism? The FBI’s definition of terrorism states that the primary distinguishing feature of a terrorist attack rests on the perpetrator’s intent: the attack must be perpetrated as an attempt to further political or social objectives. Thus, the actions of individuals with mental health illnesses - such as the perpetrators of mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Columbine High School, and a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado – whose primary purpose is to kill as many people as possible, may inspire widespread terror, but do not constitute acts of terrorism according to the FBI. 

Indeed, determining the intent of the perpetrators following mass shootings is a major challenge for the US authorities. It is especially difficult when seemingly non-terrorist motives are intertwined with more ideological impulses. For example, while the 1 October shooting in Umpqua Community College, Oregon, may be categorised as a criminal act, the other two cases in Colorado and California highlight key discrepancies in how cases are handled. Investigations into the San Bernardino incident have shown that while the assailants had no direct connections to Islamist extremist groups, Malik sent at least two private messages on Facebook to a small group of Pakistani friends in 2012 and 2014, pledging her support for extreme jihadist ideology. Furthermore, Malik’s post declaring allegiance to the Islamic State the week before the attack indicates that the shooting was inspired by extremist ideology. As such, the case has been addressed as a terrorist attack. On the other hand, the Family Planning shooting has been treated as a criminal case, even though the suspect had espoused an extreme anti-abortion sentiment. Dear had previously vandalised other clinics, and referred to himself as a “warrior for the babies” at his hearing. Prosecutors have filed 179 felony charges against Dear, none of which relate to terrorist acts. 

These anomalies point to a significant challenge for understanding and mitigating the threat of mass shootings. Given that there is no official definition for mass shootings in the US, academics, government officials and analysts are likely to remain at odds over how significant the problem is. The lack of consensus over the scope of the mass shooting phenomenon is tightly connected to the gun control debate, a contentious and emotive topic. Policy discussions over mass shootings frequently become heavily polarised along political lines, which stifles comprehensive legislation on mass shootings and gun violence in general. It is difficult to disentangle the complex motives and triggers for these types of shootings; arguably each incident needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis to determine whether attacks are motivated by political, social or criminal objectives before drawing out broader trends.

Three high-profile mass shootings took place in the US between October and December 2015, each in different public venues, and involving perpetrators with different motives. On 1 October, Chris Mercer opened fire at Umpqua Community College in southwest Oregon. Nine people were killed and nine others were injured in the attack. Mercer killed himself after being wounded in a shootout with police. Thereafter, on 27 November, a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, left three dead and several injured, and a suspect, Robert Dear, was apprehended. Most recently, on 2 December, 14 people were killed and 22 others injured in a mass shooting and attempted bombing at the Inland Regional Centre in San Bernardino, California. The assailants, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, targeted a group of approximately 80 employees from the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, who were holding a party in a rented banquet room. The incidents have reinvigorated debate in the US over gun violence and public mass shootings. In particular, questions have been raised over the prevalence of such shootings in the US, how these incidents are defined and when a mass shooting should be treated as a terrorist act.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2 December attacks, media sources cited data from the Mass Shooting Tracker (MST) website, which identified 353 mass shootings since the beginning of 2015 - more than one mass shooting per day up to that point - of which 42 percent were lethal. However, MST uses a very broad definition of what constitutes a mass shooting, stating that “a mass shooting is when four or more people are shot in an event, or related series of events, likely without a cooling off period.” This means that gang-related shootings, bar brawls, domestic violence, and other non-premeditated incidents are included as mass shootings. Consequently, carefully planned incidents, such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, may be classified as mass shootings alongside spontaneous drive-by shootings involving rival gang members. 

In contrast, other studies have placed the total number of mass shootings countrywide in the single digits. For example, a dataset created by the investigative US Magazine, ‘Mother Jones’, suggests that there were just four mass shootings in the country in 2015. Unsurprisingly, the magazine’s parameters for defining a mass shooting are far narrower than MST. To meet Mother Jones’ criteria, an attack must have occurred in a public place with “indiscriminate mass murder” as the apparent motive, with at least four people being killed. This would exclude cases of armed robbery, gang violence and domestic violence. In addition, at least four people must be killed by the assailant for the incident to be branded a mass shooting. Since not all victims die after being shot, Mother Jones’ count depends on the survival of victims, and therefore to an extent the shooter’s capabilities and the quality of emergency response. This means that the 27 November shooting at the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic is omitted from Mother Jones’ dataset, since only three people were killed. This reliance on arbitrary fatality numbers means that significant cases may be omitted from analysis. 

A less restrictive approach is offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Although the FBI does not have a definition for mass shootings, the organisation does collect data on active shooter events, which refers to “one or more persons engaged in killing or attempting to kill multiple people in an area occupied by multiple unrelated individuals – at least one of the victims must be unrelated to the shooter”. This definition avoids the problem of specifying an arbitrary benchmark for the number of deaths or injuries required for an incident to be considered a mass shooting. The FBI found 160 active shooter incidents from 2000 through to 2013, an average of just over 11 per year. However, the FBI’s ‘active shooter event’ neglects to stress the element of premeditation or intent to maim and kill as many people as possible. 

Another important question relates to how mass shootings are treated by the media and law enforcement – when do such incidents count as terrorism? The FBI’s definition of terrorism states that the primary distinguishing feature of a terrorist attack rests on the perpetrator’s intent: the attack must be perpetrated as an attempt to further political or social objectives. Thus, the actions of individuals with mental health illnesses - such as the perpetrators of mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Columbine High School, and a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado – whose primary purpose is to kill as many people as possible, may inspire widespread terror, but do not constitute acts of terrorism according to the FBI. 

Indeed, determining the intent of the perpetrators following mass shootings is a major challenge for the US authorities. It is especially difficult when seemingly non-terrorist motives are intertwined with more ideological impulses. For example, while the 1 October shooting in Umpqua Community College, Oregon, may be categorised as a criminal act, the other two cases in Colorado and California highlight key discrepancies in how cases are handled. Investigations into the San Bernardino incident have shown that while the assailants had no direct connections to Islamist extremist groups, Malik sent at least two private messages on Facebook to a small group of Pakistani friends in 2012 and 2014, pledging her support for extreme jihadist ideology. Furthermore, Malik’s post declaring allegiance to the Islamic State the week before the attack indicates that the shooting was inspired by extremist ideology. As such, the case has been addressed as a terrorist attack. On the other hand, the Family Planning shooting has been treated as a criminal case, even though the suspect had espoused an extreme anti-abortion sentiment. Dear had previously vandalised other clinics, and referred to himself as a “warrior for the babies” at his hearing. Prosecutors have filed 179 felony charges against Dear, none of which relate to terrorist acts. 

These anomalies point to a significant challenge for understanding and mitigating the threat of mass shootings. Given that there is no official definition for mass shootings in the US, academics, government officials and analysts are likely to remain at odds over how significant the problem is. The lack of consensus over the scope of the mass shooting phenomenon is tightly connected to the gun control debate, a contentious and emotive topic. Policy discussions over mass shootings frequently become heavily polarised along political lines, which stifles comprehensive legislation on mass shootings and gun violence in general. It is difficult to disentangle the complex motives and triggers for these types of shootings; arguably each incident needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis to determine whether attacks are motivated by political, social or criminal objectives before drawing out broader trends.