When Malcolm Gladwell, writing for the New Yorker magazine, tried to find a pattern in mass shootings -- defined as a shooting in which at least four people are killed -- he did not find the problem to be an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. The situation is worse. It's that young men need not be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts. [1]
Sociologist Mark Granovetter studied riots to try to find a pattern on how riots start and then grow. He saw a riot as a case of destructive violence that involves a number of people who would not usually be disposed to violence. He concluded that our social patterns are driven by our thresholds, which he defined as the number of people who would need to see other people doing some activity before they would join them. Thus some people would not join in a destructive activity if they saw only one person throwing a brick, some people might join in if two people throw bricks, and others might join in brick-throwing if three people threw bricks. Others might have a higher threshold.
Although Malcolm Gladwell found little pattern in mass shootings and sociologist Granovetter's threshold theory may help explain how riots start and grow, there is evidence of "a copycat effect rippling through many cases, both among mass shooters and those aspiring to kill." This assessment comes from a FBI report on a study of 160 active-shooter cases. "Perpetrators and plotters look to past attacks for not only inspiration but operational details, in hopes of causing even greater carnage." [2]
On April 20, 1999, two teenage boys, named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, fatally shot thirteen people and injured twenty-four others at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. A Mother Jones investigation shows that the nation's worst high school shooting has inspired at least seventy-two plots or attacks in thirty states. The breakdown of the 72 cases follows:
* 72 Known Copycat Cases --- 51 Plots or Threats Thwarted by Law enforcement --- 21 Attacks.
* 12 Cases Involved Plotters Who Hoped to Surpass the Carnage of the Columbine Shooting. --- Plotters in at Least 9 Cases Cited the Columbine Shooters as Heroes, Idols, Martyrs, or God --- 3 Plotters Made Pilgrimages to Columbine While Planning Attacks. 2 of Them Later Launched Attacks. The Third Plot Was Thwarted.
* 53% of the Cases Involved Guns --- 18% Involved Bombs or Explosives --- 14% Involved Knives.
* The Overall Toll - 89 Killed --- 126 Wounded --- 9 Shooter Suicides
* 94% of the Plotters Were Male. --- Only 4 Cases Involved Women Acting Alone --- None Resulted in Attacks.
* 17 - Average Age.
* 4 Out of 5 Were White (in Cases in Which Race or Ethnicity Was Known)
* 14 Attacks Were Planned for an Anniversary of the Columbine Attack. --- 12 of These Plots Were Thwarted. --- 2 Were Ultimately Carried Out on Different Dates. [3]
A History of Violence - Mass Shootings Are Becoming More Common -- and Deadlier.
* The Frequency of Mass Shootings Has Tripled Since 2011.
* Between 1982 and 2011, a Mass Shooting Occurred in the United States Every 200 Days.
* Between 2011 and 2014, a Mass Shooting Occurred Every 64 Days.
* Of the 13 Mass Shootings With Double-Digit Death Tolls Over the Past 50 Years, 7 Took Place in the Last 9 Years. (Source: Harvard School of Public Health, Congressional Research Service).
Footnotes
[1] Malcolm Gladwell, "The Thresholds of Violence," The New Yorker, October 19, 2015.
[2] Mark Follman, "Trigger Warnings," Mother Jones, November/December 2015.
[3] Ibid.
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