Mass Shootings in the United States
I’m tired of waking up to news about another mass shooting
I never knew about mass shootings when I was a child. I don’t recall anyone ever talking about them either although it’s happened before I was even born.
You can’t understand why they occur.
I’m not an expert. I don’t even speculate. We all have an opinion. I just hope that my family and I, and friends, never witness one.
What is a mass shooting?
Congressional Research Service defines mass shootings, as multiple, firearm, homicide incidents, involving 4 or more victims at one or more locations close to one another. The FBI definition is essentially the same. Often there is a distinction made between private and public mass shootings (e.g., a school, place of worship, or a business establishment). Mass shootings undertaken by foreign terrorists are not included, no matter how many people die or where the shooting occurs. (Source.)
When did mass shootings start occurring in the U.S.?
Mass shootings started early in the history of this country. All of them have not been recorded. Did you know there were over 100 in the 1990s? The numbers have been climbing.
Over 72 years ago on September 6, 1949, a man by the name of Howard Unruh took a semi-automatic pistol and shot 16 people in his neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey. Of those people, 13 did not survive. Unruh was a World War II veteran. His killing spree has been referred to as the “Walk of Death” as he walked through his neighborhood in less than 15 minutes. Unruh was 28 at the time.
Was Unruh just acting out his rage for people in his neighborhood? Interestingly, one of the survivors named Charles Cohen who was 12 at the time (b. Jan. 21, 1921, d. Oct. 19, 2009) was the maternal grandfather of Carly Novell who survived a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Marjory was hiding in a closet. Cohen survived by also hiding in a closet.
Unlike other notable mass shootings, Unruh did not commit suicide. He claimed he wasn’t a “psycho.” He was tired of people talking about him. His own mother said she didn’t like the look in his eyes.
The FBI doesn’t define ‘mass shooting’ as its own term; it only defines a ‘mass murderer’ as someone who kills four or more people in one location — and that doesn’t necessarily have to be with a firearm. The most accepted definition of a mass shooting, then, is as a single incident in which four or more people are shot or killed. (Source.)
As of April 4, 2022, there have been 119 mass shootings in the U.S. Over this past Easter weekend, there were three which would bring that number up to 122.
If you research mass shootings, you’ll discover that there are so many you haven’t heard of before. We don't want mass shootings to be defined as a common occurrence in our country, do we?
Are all mass shootings committed by people who have a mental illness?
In August 2019, a study came out indicating that only a third of people who commit mass shootings suffer from a mental illness.
However, the study emphasized that people with serious mental illness are responsible for less than 4% of all the violent acts committed in the United States. Mass shootings accounted for less than two-tenths of 1% of U.S. homicides between 2000 and 2016. (Source.)
According to Many U.S. Mass Shooters Had Untreated Mental Illness: Study published in US News in June 2021 indicates that many of the shooters did have a mental illness that went undetected.
Stanford University’s School of Medicine’s Dr. Ira Glick had a team that studied 35 mass shootings occurring between 1982 and 2019. The study concerned alive shooters who were tried. Medical evidence collected indicated that 28 of the shooters had a mental illness condition. The evidence also showed that 18 had a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 10 had other disorders: bipolar disorder, delusional disorder, personality disorders and substance-related disorders (source.). Noteworthy, of the 28 listed above, they weren’t medicated for their diagnosis, let alone have a diagnosis before they committed shootings.
How can mass shootings be stopped?
I have no answer.
In the state I live in, Missouri, no license is required to obtain a firearm.
Private firearms transfers are not subject to background checks in Missouri. In accordance with federal law, licensed dealers must initiate background checks on buyers before the sale of a firearm. These background checks are completed by directly contacting the FBI. (Source.)
According to a Washington Post article in March 2021, Shootings never stopped during the pandemic: 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades, while mass shootings seemed to have been out of news highlights, almost 20,000 people were killed in 2020 based on Gn Violence Archive’s data. This suggested it was a deadly year even during the pandemic for at least two decades. There were also suicide deaths of up to 24,000 people.
As stated earlier, I’m not an expert and everyone has an opinion. Having better background checks is a start. If a shooter goes undiagnosed with a mental illness or is unmedicated, that’s a real problem.
Even for Unruh to state that he wasn’t a “psycho,” his actions reminded me of an old 1993 movie, Falling Down, that starred Michael Douglas. A man who just couldn’t take it anymore with what he was seeing in society and he just snapped. A shooter doesn’t have to be someone with a mental illness.
Thank you for reading.
© Cathy Coombs
About the Author
Earning a degree in journalism and creative writing in my 40s affirmed my love for literature, language, and especially writing. I retired early to write full-time and have already published three eBooks in 2022. My current project is finalizing a true-crime book that was researched for over 10 years.
