# US Secret Service report on Mass Attacks in Public Spaces 2016-2020

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-secret-service-report-on-mass-attacks-in-public-spaces-2016-2020/978846
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 26, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-secret-service-report-on-mass-attacks-in-public-spaces-2016-2020/978846 "2023-01-26T18:47:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
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### Author: ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-secret-service-report-on-mass-attacks-in-public-spaces-2016-2020/978846/1 "2023-01-26T18:47:25Z")

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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](https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1151374507/a-look-at-key-takeaways-in-a-secret-service-report-on-mass-attacks-from-2016-202) is the NPR story, and [here](https://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/reports/threat-assessments/mass-attacks-public-spaces/details-1) 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.

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