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. Severe mental health problems are behind less than 30% of active shooter attacks. Others have extreme ideological beliefs or hatred of people who may be unlike themselves. 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”. The reasons and mechanics behind school shootings are not the same as attacks in workplaces or public spaces. There are are many types of mass shooting and they are not homogeneous.
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.
Protesters, some openly carrying semi-automatic weapons, descended on Lansing, Michigan in April 2020 to protest against the governor’s stay-at-home order. In Michigan, gun sales actually dropped 19% between 20 before massively increasing. 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. 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”. 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 was an increase of 60% over average US sales, with August gun sales being the fifth highest month on record according to FBI data. More gunsĪn increase in firearm sales in the US at the start of the coronavirus pandemic especially involving “first-time buyers” helped to partially explain the rise in mass shootings, reaching 1.3 million handguns and 700,000 rifles and shotguns sold by August 2020. Other countries with similar gun-ownership rates to the US have considerably fewer mass shootings – so there is clearly something cultural at play. Research generally shows that more guns in circulation typically results in more mass shootings occurring, but this correlation alone – while important – does not explain why such attacks happen. In September the FBI identified the election period up to the 2021 inauguration as a “potential flashpoint”, issuing an intelligence report warning of an imminent “violent extremist threat” from far-right militias, including white supremacists such as the Boogaloo Boys.įar-right 'boogaloo' movement is using Hawaiian shirts to hide its intentions As a Harvard study from 2015 has shown, put simply, more guns equals more homicides.
Mass gatherings and protests have also involved firearms being brandished and open-carry laws being used to maximum advantage and intimidation. A lot of these people are prompted to buy themselves guns. There are also those who believe that law enforcement is not working fairly or effectively for them. There are a number of reasons behind this: people’s concern that law enforcement and the criminal justice system are not coping with a growing crime-wave while COVID depletes police numbers.