Updated Detailed Information on Mass Public Shootings from 1998 to 2024
When another shooting happens at a place such as a school or a mall, politicians and the media are apt to claim that many hundreds of mass shootings occur each year. “Over the last year since Uvalde, our country has experienced a staggering 650 mass shootings,” President Joe Biden claimed in 2023. After the Madison, Wisconsin school shooting in mid-December, CNN said that “more than 500 mass shootings” had taken place so far in 2024.
These statements give an incorrect impression that there are massacres every day, like the infamous 2022 Uvalde shooting, which claimed the lives of nineteen students and two teachers, or the one in Lewiston, which claimed eighteen lives.
The numbers cited by Biden and CNN come from the Gun Violence Archive, which broadly defines mass shootings to include any case with four or more people shot or injured. The injuries could occur in the course of running away, and not from actually being shot. It is also useful to note that the GVA is a gun control group. Mark Bryant, who runs the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), lobbied the CDC to remove data on defensive gun uses from their website on the rate of defensive gun uses because that information “has been used so often to stop [gun control] legislation.”
There is a reason that Uvalde got the news coverage it did, and you don’t hear about these other hundreds of cases. What makes these attacks newsworthy is that the shooter tries to kill as many innocent people as possible in a public place. The FBI active shooting reports concentrate on shootings that occur in public and do not involve some other crime, such as drug gang fights or robbery. Traditionally, the FBI has classified “mass” as four or more people being murdered. Academic studies have used a similar definition. We are using this definition (more details are available here).
Since 1998, there have been between one and eight of these mass public shootings a year, with the two years when there were eight of them occurring during the Biden administration. During the Trump administration, there was an average of 4.5 attacks a year compared to 6.5 during Biden.
Between January 1st, 1998, and December 16, 2024, 51.9% of attacks used solely handguns, and 17.3% used only rifles of any type—35.6% of attacks used solely rifles or rifles in conjunction with another type of gun. Given the debate over pistol-stabilizing braces, the Excel file we provide lists the guns used in each attack, and two of the attacks used AR-15-type handguns with a pistol-stabilizing brace. (More information is available here. Here is our research on the rate at which any type of rifle is used in murders.) In discussing Klarevas’ research, we have also previously examined the rate at which assault weapons have been used over time before, during, and after the federal assault weapons ban (the Excel file with the data is available here).
58.4% of the US population was non-Hispanic white in 2024, with 1.06% being Middle Eastern and North African (MENA), so about 57.2% are non-Middle Eastern whites. With 55% of the murderers and victims being non-Middle Eastern whites, whites are slightly below their share of those involved in these attacks.
With all the discussions about the racial motives of shooters, blacks are underrepresented as a share of the victims. Blacks comprise 17.1% of the murderers but only 10.0% of the victims. That 10.0% is less than their 13.7% of the general population.
Hispanics are underrepresented as a share of mass murderers. 10.5% of these mass murderers are Hispanic compared to Hispanics, making up 19.5% of the general population. But their 17.0% share of the victims is close to Hispanics’ share of the general population.
Compared to Middle Easterners at 1.06% of the general population, they are overrepresented as a share of mass murderers (6.7%) and slightly underrepresented in terms of victims (0.9%).
Asians make up 6.4% of the population, but they are overrepresented in both mass murderers (7.6%) and even more overrepresented as victims (9.5%). Interestingly, 51.2% of the Asians murdered in these attacks were murdered by other Asians.
Trans individuals are well over-represented in terms of attacks. There are three estimates of the percentage of adults who are trans (CDC’s Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) finds 0.5% between 2017 to 2020, Gallup shows 0.7% in 2021, and the Census puts it at 1% in 2023). These numbers are clearly increasing over time, so an average for 2018 to 2023 years would probably overestimate the rate, but the average is 0.73%. Trans share of mass public shootings over the 2018 to 2024 period is 6.8 times their share of the population.
From January 1st, 1998, to December 16, 2024, 51% of mass murderers have seen mental health care professionals before their attacks.
In 2023, about 6.1% of the US were veterans, but almost 20% of mass public shooters over the 1998 through 2024 period were veterans.
Between 1998 and 2024, the number of mass public shootings averaged 3.9 attacks, 32.3 murdered per year, and the number murdered per attack was 7.8. The number of attacks is increasing at an increasing rate, while the number of people murdered and the number murdered per attack is declining. In five-year intervals, the number of mass public shootings varied this way: 2.0 (2000-2004), 3.6 (2005-2009), 3.2 (2010-2014), 4.8 (2015-2019), and 5.6 (2020-2024). In five-year intervals, the number of people murdered in mass public shootings varied this way: 10 (2000-2004), 29 (2005-2009), 24 (2010-2014), 62.4 (2015-2019), and 38.4 (2020-2024).
82.8 percent of the attacks since 1998 and 94 percent since 1950 have occurred in places where guns are banned. For those who read these murderers’ diaries or manifestos, these numbers aren’t too surprising. These mass murderers plan their attacks long in advance (at least six months). Their goal is to get media attention, and they know that the more people they kill, the more media attention they get. They know if they attack a place where people can’t defend themselves, they will be able to kill more people.
A more complete discussion on the definition of mass public shootings and gun-free zones, see the discussion here.
There is a distinction between civilians and police being able to stop mass public shootings. Uniformed, easily identifiable individuals find themselves at a serious disadvantage in an attack.
“A deputy in uniform has a difficult job in stopping these attacks,” noted Sheriff Kurt Hoffman in Sarasota County, Florida. “These terrorists have strategic advantages in determining the time and place of attacks. They can wait for a deputy to leave the area or pick an undefended location. Even when police or deputies are in the right place at the right time, those in uniform who can be readily identified as guards may as well be holding up neon signs saying, ‘Shoot me first.’ My deputies know that we cannot be everywhere.”
Whether one looks at the pre or post 1998 period there is a very high rate of mass public shootings occurring in gun-free zones.
The final set of figures shows how California’s per capita rate of Mass Public Shootings is much higher than the rate for the rest of the country. Since 2000, California’s rate has been 0.33 per million, and for the rest of the US, it has been 0.28. Since 2010, California’s rate is 0.28 per million and 0.19 for the rest of the US. Since 2020, it has been 0.13 for California and 0.07 for the rest of the US.
