A New Wave of Mass Shootings? Exploring the Potential Impact of COVID-19

Abstract

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has brought much of U.S. society to a grinding halt, its impact on the occurrence of mass shootings is largely unknown. Using data from the Gun Violence Archive and an interrupted time-series design, we analyzed weekly counts of mass shootings in the U.S. from 2019 through 2021. Results show that total, private, and public mass shootings increased following the declaration of COVID-19 as a national emergency in March of 2020. We consider these findings in the context of their broader implications for prevention efforts as well as how they pave the way for future research.

Keywords

COVID-19 mass shootings public private

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

AJMC Staff. (2021, January 1). A timeline of COVID-19 developments in 2020. https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-covid19-developments-in-2020

Barton

Charles

J. B.

Mascia

Brownlee

(2020, September 3). Mass shootings are soaring, with black neighborhoods hit hardest. The Trace. https://www.thetrace.org/2020/09/mass-shootings-2020-gun-violence-black-neighborhoods/

Bauer

Broady

Edelberg

O’Donnell

(2020, September 17). Ten facts about COVID-19 and the U.S. economy. Brookings Institute. https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-covid-19-and-the-u-s-economy/

Berkowitz

Alacantra

(2021, May 21). The terrible numbers that grow with each mass shooting. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/mass-shootings-in-america/

Bernal

J. L.

Cummins

Gasparrini

(2017). Interrupted time series regression for the evaluation of public health interventions: A tutorial. International Journal of Epidemiology, 46(1), 348–355.

Bernal

J. L.

Soumerai

Gasparrini

(2018). A methodological framework for model selection in interrupted time series studies. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 103, 82–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2018.05.026

Bjelopera

J. P.

Bagalman

Caldwell

S. W.

Finklea

K. M.

McCallion

(2013). Public mass shootings in the United States: Selected implications for federal public health and safety policy. Congressional Research Service. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43004.pdf

Block

(2020, July 2). Many US July 4 fireworks, festivities, canceled due to coronavirus. VOA News. https://www.voanews.com/a/usa_many-us-july-4-fireworks-festivities-canceled-due-coronavirus/6192091.html

Borum

Fein

Vossekuil

Berglund

(1999). Threat assessment: Defining and approach for evaluating risk of targeted violence. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 17(3), 323–337. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0798(199907/09)17:3%3C323::AID-BSL349%3E3.0.CO;2-G

10.

Box-Steffensmeier

J. M.

Freeman

J. R.

Hitt

M. P.

Pevehouse

J. C.

(2014). Time series analysis for the social sciences. Cambridge University Press.

11.

Carter

T. M.

Turner

N. D.

(2021). Examining the immediate effects of COVID-19 on residential and commercial burglaries in Michigan: An interrupted time-series analysis. Journal of Criminal Justice, 76, 101834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2021.101834

12.

Castaldelli-Maia

J. M.

Segura

L. E.

Martins

S. S.

(2021). The concerning increasing trend of alcohol beverage sales in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alcohol, 96, 37–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2021.06.004

13.

Cloutier

(2015). Spike in crime often accompanies Fourth of July. Boston Globe. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/03/crime-tends-fourth-july/5KFxQH1eAcwe3dOKstdgUJ/story.html

14.

della Cava

Stucka

. (2021, February 26). Mass shootings hit a record high in 2020. Can COVID-19 vaccines bring peace in 2021? USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/26/mass-shootings-soared-covid-black-lives-matter-fears-2020/6784339002/

15.

Duwe

(2004). The patterns and prevalence of mass murder in twentieth-century America. Justice Quarterly, 21(4), 729–761. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418820400095971

16.

Duwe

(2020). Patterns and prevalence of lethal mass violence. Criminology & Public Policy, 19(1), 17–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12478

17.

Eichstaedt

J. C.

Sherman

G. T.

Giorgi

Roberts

S. O.

Reynolds

M. E.

Ungar

L. H.

Guntuku

S. C.

(2021). The emotional and mental health impact of the murder of George Floyd on the US population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 118(39), e2109139118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2109139118

18.

Falk

Romero

P. D.

Nicchitta

I. A.

Nyhof

E. C.

(2021). Unemployment rates during the COVID-19 pandemic (CRS Report No. R46554). Congressional Research Service. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R46554.pdf

19.

Farmer

(2020, September 28). Nearly two-thirds of U.S. households struck by COVID-19 face financial trouble. National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/28/916605221/nearly-two-thirds-of-u-s-households-struck-by-covid-19-face-financial-trouble

20.

Felson

Eckert

M. A.

(2019). Crime and everyday life (6th ed). SAGE.

21.

Felson

Poulsen

(2003). Simple indicators of crime by time of day. International Journal of Forecasting, 19(4), 595–601. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-2070(03)00093-1

22.

Fisher

Berman

Spolar

Rozsa

Ba Tran

(2021). America on edge: Covid lockdown protests and election strife led to record gun sales. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/record-gun-sales-us-2020/2021/01/18/d25e8616-55a9-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html

23.

Fox

J. A.

(2021, March 26). You’re right to be confused about the number of mass shootings. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/03/26/there-has-been-significant-inconsistency-tallying-mass-shootings-column/6987322002/

24.

Fox

J. A.

DeLateur

M. J.

(2014). Mass shootings in America: Moving beyond Newtown. Homicide Studies, 18(1), 125–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767913510297

25.

Fox

J. A.

Levin

(2015). Mass confusion concerning mass murder. The Criminologist, 40(1), 8–11.

26.

Fox

J. A.

Sanders

N. E.

Fridel

E. E.

Duwe

Rocque

(2021). The contagion of mass shootings: The interdependence of large-scale massacres and mass media coverage. Statistics and Public Policy, 8(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/2330443X.2021.1932645

27.

Freilich

J. D.

Chermak

S. M.

Klein

B. R.

(2020). Investigating the applicability of situational crime prevention to the public mass violence context. Criminology & Public Policy, 19(1), 271–293. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12480

28.

Fridel

E. E.

(2021a). Comparing the impact of household gun ownership and concealed carry legislation on the frequency of mass shootings and firearms homicide. Justice Quarterly, 38(5), 892–915. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2020.1789693

29.

Fridel

E. E.

(2021b). A multivariate comparison of family, felony, and public mass murders in the United States. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(3–4), 1092–1118. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260517739286

30.

Gun Violence Archive. (n.d.a.). General methodology. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology

31.

Gun Violence Archive. (n.d.b.). Mass shootings in 2017. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting?year=2017

32.

Gun Violence Archive. (n.d.c.). Past summary ledgers. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

33.

Hatchimonji

J. S.

Swendiman

R. A.

Seamon

M. J.

Nance

M. L.

(2020). Trauma does not quarantine: Violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Annals of Surgery, 272(2), e53. https://doi.org/10.1097/SLA.0000000000003996

34.

Hewitt

A. N.

Andresen

M. A.

Beauregard

Brantingham

P. L.

(2022). Dangerous times? A routine activities examination of the temporal patterns of sexual offenses over time. Justice Quarterly, 39, 113–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2020.1856399

35.

Horowitz

J. M.

Brown

Minkin

(2021, March 5). A year into the pandemic, long-term financial impact weighs heavily on many Americans. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/03/PSD_03.05.21.covid_.impact_fullreport.pdf

36.

Howard

(2021, October 6). US records highest increase in nation’s homicide rate in modern history, CDC says. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/health/us-homicide-rate-increase-nchs-study/index.html

37.

Huff-Corzine

Corzine

(2020). The devil’s in the details: Measuring mass violence. Criminology & Public Policy, 19(1), 317–333. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12482

38.

Jandoc

Burden

A. M.

Mamdani

Lévesque

L. E.

Cadarette

S. M.

(2015). Interrupted time series analysis in drug utilization research is increasing: Systematic review and recommendations. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 68(8), 950–956.

39.

Kochanek

K. D.

Murphy

S. L.

J. Q.

Arias

(2019). Deaths: Final data for 2017 (National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 68 no 9). National Center for Health Statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_09-508.pdf

40.

Kujawa

Green

Compas

B. E.

Dickey

Pegg

(2020). Exposure to COVID-19 pandemic stress: Associations with depression and anxiety in emerging adults in the United States. Depression and Anxiety, 37(12), 1280–1288. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.23109

41.

Lang

B. J.

Lang

(2021). Pandemics, protests, and firearms. American Journal of Health Economics, 7(2), 131–163. https://doi.org/10.1086/713035

42.

Lewis

(2020, April 14). March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-first-march-without-school-shooting-since-2002-united-states/

43.

Lopez

Rosenfeld

(2021). Crime, quarantine, and the US coronavirus pandemic. Criminology & Public Policy, 20, 401–422. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12557

44.

Moreland

Herlihy

Tynan

M. A.

Sunshine

McCord

R. F.

Hilton

Poovey

Werner

A. K.

Jones

C. D.

Fulmer

E. B.

Gundlapalli

A. V.

Strosnider

Potvien

García

M. C.

Honeycutt

Baldwin

., CDC Public Health Law Program, & CDC COVID-19 Response Team, Mitigation Policy Analysis Unit. (2020). Timing of state and territorial COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and changes in population movement: United States, March 1–May 31, 2020. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 69, 1198–1203. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6935a2-H.pdf

45.

Pane

L. M.

(2020, December 29). In a year of pain, one silver lining: Fewer mass shootings. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/us-news-pandemics-shootings-coronavirus-pandemic-052396ae1f5322397c04fd191f596190

46.

Peña

P. A.

Jena

(2021). Mass shootings in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Network Open, 4(9), e2125388. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.25388

47.

Peterson

Densley

(2021). Op-Ed: Why mass shootings stopped in 2020: And why they are now roaring back. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-03-23/why-mass-shootings-stopped-boulder-atlanta

48.

Proclamation No. 9994, 85 F.R. 15337 (2020, March 13). Declaring a national emergency concerning the novel coronavirus disease (COVID–19) outbreak. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-03-18/pdf/2020-05794.pdf

49.

Rocque

(2012). Exploring school rampage shootings: Research, theory, and policy. The Social Science Journal, 49(3), 304–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2011.11.001

50.

Ruderman

Cohn

E. G.

(2021). Predictive extrinsic factors in multiple victim shootings. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 42(1), 59–75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-020-00602-3

51.

Schildkraut

(2021). Can mass shootings be stopped? To address the problem, we must better understand the phenomenon (Policy brief). https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Public-Mass-Shootings-Brief.pdf

52.

Schildkraut

Elsass

H. J.

(2016). Mass shootings: Media, myths, and realities. Praeger.

53.

Schildkraut

Elsass

H. J.

Meredith

(2018). Mass shootings and the media: Why all events are not created equal. Journal of Crime and Justice, 41(3), 223–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2017.1284689

54.

Schildkraut

Elsass

H. J.

Stafford

M. C.

Sheingold

(2022). Understanding more than 50 years of mass public shootings as a function of routine activities. Homicide Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10887679221083607

55.

Schildkraut

Naman

B. M.

Stafford

M. C.

(2019). Advancing responses to mass shootings using a routine activity approach. Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 21(4), 346–361. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41300-019-00077-3

56.

Schwartz

Spix

Touloumi

Bacharova

Barumamdzadeh

le Tertre

Pierarksi

Ponce

Leon

Pönkä

Rossi

Saez

Schouten

J. P.

(1996). Methodological issues in studies of air pollution and daily counts of deaths or hospital admissions. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 50(1), S3–S11. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.50.Suppl_1.S3

57.

Stickle

Felson

(2020). Crime rates in a pandemic: The largest criminological experiment in history. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 45(4), 525–536. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09546-0

58.

Turanovic

J. J.

Pratt

T. C.

Neville

K. N.

La Tosa

(2022). A comprehensive assessment of deadly mass shootings, 1980-2018 (Final report prepared for the National Institute of Justice). National Institute of Justice.

59.

Wolfson

(2020). The fourth of July weekend threw America’s coronavirus failures into stark relief. Time. https://time.com/5863324/july-fourth-coronavirus/