This is a study of 180 mass attackers over this 5-year period. I think it’s supposed to include every mass attacker who attacked and harmed at least three other people, with any kind of weapon. Here is the NPR story, and here is a direct link to the report.
After reading the article and dipping into the report, I have to say that while I’m glad the subject is being studied, useful conclusions seem thin on the ground. For example, 58% of attackers experienced mental health symptoms prior to or at the time of the attack. At the same time, mental health issues should not be considered causal explanations for mass attacks. And how many people have mental health symptoms who don’t go on to do mass attacks? And so on with pretty much all the other attributes they find for some percentage of the attackers. Many of them had financial stressors, many of them had personal stressors, and so on. As the article states:
The report doesn’t offer any kind of road map to prevent future mass attacks, but the agency recommends that “community systems” be set up to help identify and intervene when someone reports concerns about another person.
Which seems like an invitation to intrusive busybodies everywhere. Basically, at this point and with this level of knowledge, there’s really nothing practical that can be done to find and stop mass attackers before the attacks. Not a surprising conclusion, but also perhaps disappointing.
This is where willful blindness to the actual problem inevitably leads. By completely rejecting any notion of addressing the actual cause of the gun violence problem, namely the necessity of strict regulation of sales, use, transportation, and storage of guns and ammunition, the only actual available options are either to do nothing, or to turn the public into a mob of paranoid informers suspecting anybody who is “too quiet”, or a little different, or in any way unusual, of being a potentially murderous psychopath.
And, in fact, in an environment where everybody and his dog can own multiple semi-automatic weapons including high-powered assault rifles with large-capacity magazines with no justification needed and very little, if any, effective background checks, and where in any case there are so many of these things everywhere that anyone can borrow or steal one or ten, a heavy dose of paranoia is in fact quite justified. That environment of justified fearful paranoia, along with the ever-present opportunity to get shot, is the tragic legacy of America’s gun culture.
I should note that the report is not exclusively about gun violence. 27% of the attacks did not involve guns at all. Of the 73% that did involve guns, 25% (or about 18% of the total 180 attacks) used guns that were acquired illegally. I mention this for the sake of clarity, not to attempt to invalidate your point about gun control legislation.
It occurs to me that, for some people who have influence on policy, that environment is the goal.
“More than two thirds of mass shootings are domestic violence incidents or are perpetrated by shooters with a history of domestic violence”
Domestic violence offenders should have their guns taken away and should not be able to get more. This is probably the single most effective move to reduce mass shootings.
Also impossible in the current political climate unfortunately.
Domestic violence offenders are precisely the kinds of assholes that are most attracted to guns. If any law was enacted to keep guns away from them, they’d probably be able to get an entire platoon of NRA lawyers arguing their “Second Amendment Constitutional rights”. The underlying problems run deep.
The USSS report gives different numbers, (but as with all gun violence data the criteria isn’t 1:1)
Nearly two-thirds of the attackers (n = 115, 64%) had a prior criminal history, not
including minor traffic violations. While over half (n = 103, 57%) had been arrested
or faced charges for non-violent offenses, over one-third of the attackers (n = 68, 38%) faced prior charges for violent offenses. Additionally, 11 attackers (6%) had prior
arrests or charges for sex crimes. The violent offenses included such acts as domestic violence, aggravated assault, robbery, and animal cruelty.
Strange that its so incredibly different. The cite I posted is based on a peer reviewed study specifically looking into the link between mass shootings and domestic violence. I’m not responsible for the study, but based on other current news about the secret service I’m not sure they can be considered more trustworthy. So I don’t know.
Maybe the SS study only counts those actually criminally charged with DV? As we know, in our society, DV incidents don’t always lead to actual criminal penalties unfortunately.
I don’t suspect fudging on either part, rather I’d suspect different definitions. The USSS report only counts domestic violence that ended up in an arrest or charges, and it defines a mass attack as 3 or more homicides people harmed, not including the perpetrator. Your citation regards mass shootings specifically, defined as four or more fatalities not including the perpetrator. It includes shootings of family or domestic partners, as well as a “history of domestic violence” which includes news articles where the domestic partner alleged abuse after-the-fact. You can see that would catch a lot more than going by arrests.
I’d guess the legal bar for actually taking away someone’s guns is conviction, which is an even higher standard.
And again, the difference between mass shootings and all mass attacks that include other weapons. There may be other differences in the way the original data pool is selected.
No, it defines a mass attack as three or more people harmed (which I presumed means injured or killed) aside from the perpetrator. (edited to add: I didn’t see a definition of how serious “harm” has to be to be counted, but it’s probably in there somewhere).
What? If you’re convicted of domestic violence you can’t buy a gun. And usually you’ll be ordered to turn over any firearms when convicted. There used to be a loophole for people who committed domestic violence against boyfriends/girlfriends as opposed to spouses or family members, but that was closed last summer by federal legislation (section 12005).
Gun availability is not a “cause”. True, it makes the fact that a mentally disturbed person going postal (as it were) much more deadly- machete and axe “sprees” generally have a lower body count.
The cause is WHY men (overwhelmingly male) decide to go on a killing rampage. Guns make that rampage much more deadly, but they are not the cause.
Not only not impossible, but the law in several states, and even Federally.
The Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban , often called the “Lautenberg Amendment” (“Gun Ban for Individuals Convicted of a Misdemeanor Crime of Domestic Violence”, Pub. L.104–208 (text)(PDF),[1]18 U.S.C.§ 922(g)(9)[2]), is an amendment to the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, enacted by the 104th United States Congress in 1996, which bans access to firearms by people convicted of crimes of domestic violence.
That’s not the read I’m getting from the report. The report’s purpose is to help communities build behavioral threat assessment programs, not to brief lawmakers on gun policy. If your school is trying to create policies to minimize the risk of mass attacks, they don’t want to read report after report saying the solution is better legislation. (Even if it is.) Legislation is not actionable at a local-political/organizational/workplace level. They want stuff like this:
Communities must encourage and facilitate bystander reporting and be prepared to respond when reports of concern are received. Three-quarters of the attackers exhibited concerning behaviors and communications. Those who observed these behaviors had varying degrees of association with the attacker. They included family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, school staff, mental health professionals, and local officials, as well as members of the public, both online and in person. The breadth of people who observed these behaviors highlights the necessity of bystander reporting and behavioral threat assessment programs to assess and manage the risk posed by those individuals. Communities have made great strides in facilitating and encouraging bystander reporting of concerning behavior, and many environments have adopted behavioral threat assessment programs as part of their safety approach, including workplaces, schools, universities, government agencies, and police departments. These organizations should continue to promote open and receptive communication between themselves and the public, ensuring that bystanders know what, when, and how to report behavior that elicits concerns for safety.
[…] Early intervention is key to prevention and can be accomplished using existing community resources, including crisis intervention programs, social services, mental health treatment, and, if warranted, a criminal justice response.
[…]
Businesses should consider establishing workplace violence prevention plans to identify, assess, and intervene with current employees, former employees, and customers who may pose a risk of violence. In this study, half of the attacks involved one or more business locations and the attackers often had a prior relationship with the business, either as a current or former employee, or as a customer. What’s more, some in this study were motivated in whole or in part by a workplace grievance. Workplaces should establish behavioral threat assessment programs as a component of their workplace violence prevention plans, and businesses should also establish proactive relationships with area law enforcement so that they may work collaboratively to respond to incidents involving a concern for violence, whether that concern arises from a current employee, a former employee, or a customer.
Public safety, school, workplace, and community service professionals should consider strategies for resolving interpersonal grievances. In this study, attackers displayed a range of motives for carrying out acts of violence, and in half of the incidents, attackers were motivated by some type of grievance. These grievances were most often related to a personal issue, such as bullying, ongoing feuds with neighbors, or issues with family members. In other attacks, grievances were related to a current or former domestic relationship or workplace issues. By understanding an individual’s motive to perpetrate a violent act, public safety and other professionals will be better equipped to employ management strategies and resources that will help de-escalate situations involving interpersonal conflicts.
There’s a famous episode of The Twilight Zone called “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” that’s essentially a parable about mass paranoia, or what might be called “building behavioral threat assessment programs”:
As a few hours passes, and no restoration of normal circumstances happens, paranoia soon gets the better of the people on Maple Street, and they start a borderline Witch Hunt, as people in the neighborhood who have been perceived as acting suspicious, even if it is just minor stuff like having a slightly different daily routine than everybody else, are accused of being aliens in cahoots with whoever is behind the power outage. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E22TheMonstersAreDueOnMapleStreet
One-line summary: The peaceful members of suburbia transform into a bloodthirsty mob of monsters because they are terrified of a mere possibility.
But this is what you’re left with when you cannot address the root cause driving the justifiable paranoia.
Thanks, yeah I do remember hearing about the loophole being closed for boyfriends/girlfriends, so I was aware of that, but I suppose at the time of posting the previous comment I was just wallowing in a moment of pessimism about our current inability to solve any societal problem.
Just to clarify, @wolfpup, did you read what I quoted and you disagree with school/workplace policies described? Because these are the broadest, commonsense, most uncontroversial guidelines I’ve ever seen. Every school these days has a “see something, say something” policy when it comes to bullying or other concerning behaviors. They run ads on children’s television networks to drive the point home, literally. And the schools are supposed to train their counselors on how to de-escalate, and when it is appropriate to involve mental health professionals or police.
It’s a far cry from totalitarian “report thy neighbor”.
Do you disagree with that kind of policy or are you totally straw-manning right now?