Press Trust of India
Washington, August 29: The US was the site of 31 per cent of the world’s public mass shootings from 1966-2012, despite having only 5 per cent of the world’s population, according to a new study. According to a research by Adam Lankford, associate professor of criminal justice at The University of Alabama, a combination of American exceptionalism, American gun culture and stressors are potential factors in explaining the commonality of public mass shooters in the US. Previous studies did not include statistics of offenders worldwide, a gap in research that has partly contributed to the assumption that mass shootings are an American problem, the study said.
“Until now, everyone was simply speculating about the relationship between firearms and public mass shootings. My study provides empirical evidence of a positive association between the two,” Lankford said. Lankford’s quantitative assessment of 171 countries relied on multiple sources, including active shooter reports from the New York Police Department and the FBI, along with multiple international sources. He used data of public mass shootings that resulted in the deaths of four or more people and didn’t include data of homicides.
