MASS SHOOTINGCan Mass Shootings Be Prevented? Researchers Believe It’s Possible
New research examining more than 150,000 pages of police records, court transcripts, and after-action reports found that mass shootings are quite predictable, if you know what to look for.
This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.
Last May, Jaclyn Schildkraut, who heads the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Upstate New York, was working on a study about preventing mass shootings when she got a text message from a member of the research team. “You’re not going to believe what I just saw on Reddit,” he said, sharing posts from a teenage boy containing a photo of a gun covered in racist epithets, swastikas, and a reference to one of the Columbine killers.
Schildkraut and her colleagues knew immediately what they were looking at. They sprang into action, reaching out to the teen while simultaneously screenshotting his posts and sending them to the FBI. A field agent later confirmed that the researchers had averted a shooting.
The episode was as meta as it gets: Schildkraut and her team had been researching this very phenomenon, known as “leakage,” which is when a shooter communicates violent thoughts or intentions before an attack. This can take the form of text messages, in-person interactions, or online postings, like the one on Reddit.
It was a stunning turn of events. But what surprised the researchers most was how many people didn’t sound the alarm.
“While we were actually doing something, there’s over 100 people who are liking his post, who are commenting on it, like, ‘This sounds bad. Maybe you should talk to your mom,’ like armchair psychologizing him,” Schildkraut told The Trace. “And we’re like, ‘This is a credible threat. You actually have to do something.’”
By the time the first phase of her federally funded study was finished last summer, Schildkraut was surprised at just how many shooters over the last quarter-century left clues to their upcoming attacks, often right out in the open. This leakage primarily took the form of text messages and online postings. But most people who encounter a credible threat are like those Redditors who failed to sound an alarm, the researchers found.
