Trends in U.S. Mass Shootings: Facts, Fears and Fatalities

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10439862231189987
• Author: James Alan Fox
• Date: 01 February 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862231189987

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2024, Vol. 40(1) 65 –81

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862231189987

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Article

Trends in U.S. Mass

Shootings: Facts, Fears

and Fatalities

James Alan Fox1

Abstract

Although representing a rather small percentage of gun deaths in the United States,

mass shootings receive a disproportionate share of crime news coverage, with

the fears of countless Americans at a level well above the actual risk. This article

attempts to clarify some of the wide-ranging confusion regarding what exactly is a

mass shooting, how often they occur, and whether they have been on the rise over

the past several years. After discussion of some methodological issues associated

with measuring prevalence, trends exhibited in several reliable data sources on mass

shooting are presented. The article concludes with a brief discussion of contagion

and whether it is reasonable to expect that the recent spike in mass shootings will

persist.

Keywords

mass shootings, mass killings, fear, active shooter events, contagion, media coverage

A centuries-old idiom suggests that “No news is good news.” When it comes to the

media’s approach to crime, however, it is more the reverse: “Good news is no news”

and, of course, “Bad news is big news.” Recurring big news in recent years has been

about mass shootings, particularly those that involve large body counts and occur in

public settings, such as schools, nightclubs, houses of worship, and retail

establishments. And according to on-air pundits, these tragedies seem to be an every-

day occurrence.

1Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

James Alan Fox, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, MA

02115, USA.

Email: j.fox@northeastern.edu

1189987CCJXXX10.1177/10439862231189987Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeFox

research-article2023

66Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 40(1)

In response to such devastating events, many Americans see the scourge of mass

killing as something new, pointing to such factors as the proliferation of high-powered

firearms, insufficient mental health services, and various forms of violent entertain-

ment. While the underlying causes for large-scale bloodshed represent a topic of lively

debate, the idea that mass shootings are a menace of recent emergence fails to consider

headlines such as these concerning major shooting sprees that took place decades ago:

13 Slain at Club in Seattle’s Chinatown. (The New York Times, February 20, 1983)

Big Mac Massacre. (New York Post, July 19, 1984)

Rifleman Kills 5 at Stockton School: 29 Other Pupils Hurt. (Los Angeles Times, January

18, 1989)

During the 1980s and into the 1990s, mass shootings were eclipsed by the focus on

a different form of multiple homicide: serial murder and legacy assailants such as

Theodore Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. The uneven attention given

to these and other sexual sadists by crime writers, the mass media, and the public was

reflected as well in the criminological literature (see Fox & Levin, 1998). But that all

changed in 2012, following high-profile massacres at a California university, a

Colorado cinema, and especially a Connecticut elementary school. The Sandy Hook

school shooting that claimed the lives of 20 children and 6 educators (along with other

mass shootings) became the leading topic of the year in the Associated Press annual

rankings of news stories based on a poll of its editors (see Crary, 2012), overshadow-

ing a hotly contested campaign for the U.S. Presidency and another Sandy—Superstorm

Sandy—that actually resulted in far more deaths than the school shooting. Suddenly,

the nation became deeply attuned to stories of large-scale gun violence. The same was

true among criminologists. As shown in Figure 1, the number of scholarly articles

related to mass shootings published in criminology/criminal justice journals grew pre-

cipitously following that juncture.

The concern over mass violence perpetrated with firearms has remained high since

the 2012 “discovery” of the topic. This is hardly surprising in light of the fact that six

of the nine mass shootings in modern U.S. history with at least 20 killed have occurred

since Sandy Hook (see Table 1).

Although accounting for a very small fraction of homicides in the United States,

mass shootings are greatly overrepresented in the news media, the political debate, and

the public discourse. Many observers have described the surge in mass shootings as an

epidemic. Although such a characterization may be largely hyperbolic, there is unques-

tionably an epidemic of fear. For example, a 2019 Harris Poll commissioned by the

American Psychological Association (2019) of more than 2,000 American adults

found that fearing the possibility of falling victim in a mass shooting caused more than

three-quarters of respondents to experience stress, one-third to avoid certain places or

events, and nearly one-quarter to alter how they live their lives.