Understand why the United States is the country with the most mass shootings

In 2022, so far, American society has mourned two major massacres: the one in Buffalo, in which an 18-year-old boy murdered 18 people, and the one in Uvalde, Texas, in which another boy, also 18, murdered 19 students. and two adults in a school.

On May 31, 2019, 11 people were killed in an attack in Virginia Beach. On November 7, 2018, twelve people were killed in a bar shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. In November 2017, 25 people and a fetus were killed at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A month earlier, a man in a Las Vegas hotel opened fire on spectators at a concert, killing 58 people. In June 2016, Omar Seddique Mateen opened fire at an LGBTQIA+ bar in the city of Orlando, leaving 50 dead.

These episodes join a long list of attacks in which an attacker took the lives of several people on the same occasion.

When it comes to mass killings, the United States has alarming numbers, as more attacks have been recorded there than in any other country in the world, according to a study.

Between 1966 and 2012, there were 90 mass shootings in the United States.. According to the study, this statistic includes episodes in which four or more victims die and does not include gang fights or murders involving several members of the same family.

The 90 mass shootings in the United States represent a third of the 292 recorded attacks worldwide. With 5% of the world’s population, the US is involved in 31% of events of this nature.

“People were shocked by these statistics,” says Adam Lankford, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Alabama, who did the analysis. Lankford presented his work at the American Psychological Association annual conference last year and says this is the first survey of its kind comparing global numbers.

Are US shootings different?

Lankford reviewed the mass occurrence records and found some common factors in episodes in the United States that set them apart from the rest of the world.

In the US, people have a high probability of dying in mass shootings if they are at work or school.. In other countries, these cases often occur near military installations.

In more than half of the cases in the United States, the assailant has more than one firearm. In other countries, the killer usually has only one weapon.

In the United States, there is an average of 6.87 victims per episode, while in the other 171 countries that Lankford studied, the average is 8.8 victims per attack.

The phenomenon of imitation

What is behind these mass murders in the United States?

Many of the abusers in the United States had psychological disorders, according to the report. But other studies estimate that the number of cases of psychological disorders has not increased significantly, while the number of mass shootings has skyrocketed.

These attacks tripled between 2011 and 2014, according to an analysis by the Harvard School of Public Health and Northeastern University. Harvard research shows that public attacks during this period occurred on average every 64 days. In the previous 29 years, they happened every 200 days or so.

In contrast, the overall rate of homicide and gun violence in the United States has dropped significantly over the past two decades.

Some researchers believe that these massacres can be “contagious”: one death or one attack increases the chances of others occurring within two weeks. It is an “infection” that lasts about 13 days, as found in other studies.

This imitation phenomenon is more pronounced in the US because guns are more readily available to people than in any other country. “Access to firearms is an important predictor of these incidents,” says Lankford.

The US has more weapons than any other country. There are about 270 million to 310 million weapons circulating in the country. With the American population of 319 million, that means almost every American has a gun.

Just over a third of Americans say someone in their home has a gun, according to the Pew Research Center. The country with the most weapons after the United States is India, with 46 million units in a population of over 1.2 billion. India doesn’t even appear in the top 5 of the countries with the most mass shootings. The numbers show that more restrictive laws make a difference. Lankford points to Australia as an example. The country had four mass shootings between 1987 and 996. After that, public opinion turned against allowing people to have guns and Parliament passed stricter laws. Australia hasn’t had a shooting since.

Is the desire for fame a factor?

“It’s harder to quantify, but I was shocked by research that shows that gaining fame is one of the most important goals of this generation,” Lankford said. “It seems that more and more Americans are seeking fame and there is no doubt that there is an association between the media coverage these criminals receive and the possibility that they will act,” says Lankford.

The expert added that if there is anything good to be gained from his study, it is that knowledge can help others prepare for the unthinkable.

“Our homicide rate is higher than that of other European nations. However, it is these types of attacks that negatively distinguish us from the rest of the world and give us this violent reputation as a country,” Lankford said. “Frankly, if we want to give the world a message of what we’ve learned from all of this, it would be to tell them that, ‘It’s possible for these things to happen, so prepare yourself and learn from them before you experience tragedy yourself.

See images of the attack on the school in Uvalde: