Deconstructing an Epidemic

The excessive media coverage of mass gun violence has contributed to the public perception of an epidemic. These senstionalized media accounts highlight statistics suggesting a dramatic rise of the phenomenon. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis and comparison of open-source datasets to identify methodological weaknesses and clarify the prevalence of the problem. Findings illustrate the definitional, temporal, and data collection issues impacting the accuracy of assessment. This deconstruction of research counters the perception of a substantial rise in mass gun violence and suggests rates will vary depending on the typological phenomenon being investigated. A discussion of findings illustrates the importance of continuing the examination of mass gun violence and provides comprehensive guidelines for future research assessing the frequency of the phenomenon.

Active and Mass Shootings

Serving as an introduction to the book, this chapter reviews the literature and statistics about active and mass shootings. It provides a broad overview of the research on specific causes, occurrences, and responses to large-scale violence in the United States. Though there are clear demographic and biographical patterns among the shooters, more research is necessary, as monocausal, singular approaches fall short in terms of prediction and prevention. Additionally, while police responses have evolved and training for violent events has become more commonplace, there is a clear need for more nuanced research and evaluation on best practices to minimize casualties and prevent these events from occurring.

Crisis Communication and Management

This chapter provides suggestions as to what could be included in a crisis communication and management plan. It is strongly encouraged that a professional review the plan and customize it for the specific needs of a school district or business. This chapter will briefly focus on three main topics of crisis communication and management: 1) pre-crisis/preparedness, planning ahead in the event of a crisis with the main goal of preventing loss of life, injury, or damage to property; 2) active crisis/response, what to expect and what will take place after authorities are on the scene; and 3) post-crisis/recovery, debriefing after the crisis to document what occurred and discuss what could have been done differently.

Commander- or Comforter-in-Chief?

After mass shootings, various claims makers enter the national discourse to understand why these events happen and how best to respond to them in respect to policy and prevention. Among these individuals is the President of the United States, who often offers commentary meant to unify the nation in the aftermath of such tragedy and calm the fears of a nervous public. The influence of presidential rhetoric has long been contested among scholars, though it has yet to be examined in the context of mass shootings. Accordingly, this chapter seeks to understand the nature of such responses to these events in respect to the language choices made by the President, the context in which these messages are framed, and how these contribute to a broader understanding of mass shootings. Remarks offered by presidents in response to mass shootings are analyzed for 32 attacks occurring between 1966 and 2014, with attention paid to patterns within and between the various presidents. Potential policy implications and a broader social contextualization of these commentaries also are explored.

Media Salience and Mass Murder

Mass shootings in the United States continue to be a cause for national concern both for the public and politicians alike. A key component in this pervasive discourse is the news media, which, since most people never will directly experience a mass shooting or other episodic violent crime, acts as the main source for information about these and other crime events. The present study analyzes the media coverage and framing patterns of 12 years of public mass shootings following the 1999 attack at Columbine High School. A two-dimensional analytic model is used to examine framing at both the spatial and temporal levels. The findings indicate that while the framing across the time dimension remains consistent with previous research, the use of the space frames departs from previous research, indicating a shift in the coverage. These findings and their associated implications for policy responses to mass shootings also are considered.

Looking Upstream

In the last 40 years, social scientists have provided important insights into the different characteristics of mass public shootings. Despite these efforts, we still lack a fundamental understanding of the processes that shape its incidence and spatial distribution. In this chapter, the author argues that the failure to tap into these dynamics is rooted in our inability to escape a risk-factors paradigm in which this phenomenon has been examined. The goal of this study is to step away from this paradigm and recast these shootings as a social phenomenon, shaped by social forces. This investigation is couched on two major sociological/criminological theoretical perspectives: social integration and social disorganization. A continuous-time event history model (or hazard/survival model) is used to test the influence of social integration and social disorganization forces on the prevalence of mass public shootings in the contiguous United States for the 1970-2014 period. The results paint a mixed but rather interesting picture.

A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Active Shooters

This chapter examines biographical information about the shooters in the context of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. By using a qualitative approach to search for patterns and themes, this study offers a comprehensive evaluation of the presence or absence of many important factors that are found in the reporting of active and mass shooters. Rather than focusing on one major contributing factor, this chapter describes a number of factors, offers descriptive, specific accounts about individual shooters, and organizes a wealth of information from over 1200 news articles, books, and journals into a concise study for future research and evaluation.

Methodological Issues in Studying Mass Violence

This chapter offers a review of the literature of the nature of studying mass violence. It is often problematic, difficult, or nearly impossible due to small sample sizes, incomplete or inaccurate information, or discrepancies even deciding what exactly “mass violence” is. This chapter reviews the literature for methodological approaches, summarizes qualitative and quantitative methods and findings, and discusses the challenges of mass violence methodologies while also proposing solutions, suggestions, and directions for future research.