Mass Shootings in the U.S. Have Risen Sharply in 2020 – Why?
700,000 rifles and shotguns sold by August 2020. This was an increase of 60% over average US sales, with August gun sales being the fifth highest month on record according to FBI data.
With demand for firearms increasing, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Checks System (NICS) struggled to keep up and provide sellers with definitive background check decisions within the required time. This legal loophole in the system allowed sellers to use their own discretion to sell (or not) when background checks of purchasers came back from NICS as “inconclusive”.
In some states, gun sales increased massively in the pandemic period: the District of Columbia and and Michigan recorded increases in sales of 449% and 200% respectively between August 2019 and August 2020, according to FBI background check data. In Michigan, gun sales actually dropped 19% between 2018 and 2019 before massively increasing.
In addition to known gun sales data, sales of guns not registered or recorded – those bought at gun fairs and garage sales, for example, as well as online “ghost guns” (legal-to-purchase firearms that come in “kit form” and require assembly by the purchaser and not yet defined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) as “firearms”) must also be considered.
More Problems
There are many types of mass shooting and they are not homogeneous. The reasons and mechanics behind school shootings are not the same as attacks in workplaces or public spaces. Some attackers seek infamy and attention – and tend to kill more victims than other mass shooters as a result of their desire to “make the news”. Others have extreme ideological beliefs or hatred of people who may be unlike themselves.
Severe mental health problems are behind less than 30% of active shooter attacks. Many others kill because of narcissistic or disordered personalities which make them feel that mass shooting is the way to resolve their distress in life. Personality disorders are not mental heath problems and are classified separately from severe mental health problems and psychosis – the vast majority of mass shooters fully comprehend what they are doing.
In the majority of mass shooting perpetrators, there were clearly identified triggering events which caused intolerable distress that pushed individuals into action – making their fantasies become a reality.
With increased gun sales and the number of mass shootings already extremely high, we can expect many more in coming months. Research has shown the “contagion phenomenon” is true – mass shootings lead to other mass shootings, through general awareness and sensationalist news reporting that creates anti-hero figures of mass shooters, appealing to others who have considered undertaking mass shootings themselves.
The febrile climate in the US will encourage some potential mass shooters to undertake attacks – and these may involve targets, victims and locations different from those typically involved, due to lockdown restrictions forcing attackers to go to where large numbers of potential victims will be.
Schools, federal buildings and places of worship only account for 25%, 10% and 4% of mass shooter incidents respectively – with commercial and retail premises accounting for almost 50% of attacks. These will remain attractive targets to mass shooters when densely populated and while access to firearms remains relatively easy.
Craig Jackson is Professor of Occupational Health Psychology, Birmingham City University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.
