School shootingsUNC shooting has these things in common with other campus shootings
The 30 April shooting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte follows a familiar pattern of mass shootings at college campuses in the United States. If authorities better understood these patterns, they may be able to prevent future shootings.
The 30 April shooting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte follows a familiar pattern of mass shootings at college campuses in the United States.
If authorities better understood these patterns, they may be able to prevent future shootings.
We’re a psychologist and sociologist who have been studying mass shooters in order to develop new prevention strategies. Our research is part of a grant from the National Institute of Justice.
Part of our work involves looking at the psycho-social life histories of mass shooters from 1966 through the present, as well as the kinds of places where mass shootings occur.
Mass shootings are defined by the FBI as incidents in which four or more people are killed. When mass shootings occur on college campuses, it tends to be at larger, public universities like UNC Charlotte.
Strikingly, more than 70 percent of campus shootings took place at the end of the school year – in April, May or June – a time that students report as being the most stressed. The shooting at UNC Charlotte took place on the last day of classes of the semester.
Indeed, April stands out as a particularly deadly time of the year when it comes to campus mass shootings – the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre that claimed 32 lives, and the 2012 Oikos University shooting in Oakland, California, that killed seven and wounded three, both happened in April.
Characteristics of campus shooters
The UNC Charlotte shooting is not technically a mass shooting because there were only two fatalities. Two students were killed and four were injured as they listened to final presentations in class.
