USA TODAY International Edition
Are mass shootings a return to ‘ normal’?
COVID- 19 isn’t the only threat to public health
For one year, we stepped back from public life in fear of the virus. In doing so, we made ourselves less vulnerable to another threat: mass shootings in public spaces.
Though many forms of gun violence increased during the pandemic – gang violence, domestic incidents, retaliatory violence in which perpetrators knew the victims – the number of shootings in public was the lowest in a decade, according to The Associated Press/ USA TODAY/ Northeastern University mass killings database. As the nation inches closer to a return to “normal,” two mass shootings in less
than a week are a reminder the threat of COVID- 19 is far from the nation’s only public health concern.
On March 16, shootings at three Atlanta- area spas left eight people dead, and Monday, a shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, killed 10.
“There is something about these crimes that’s really a gut punch to people. You’re grocery shopping, and it feels like if it can happen there, we’re all at risk, and I can’t wear a mask to protect myself from that,” said Jillian Peterson, a professor of criminal justice at Hamline University and co- founder of the Violence Project, a research center that tracks and studies gun violence.
As out of control as COVID- 19 felt, many people understood if they wore masks and maintained distance, they could play a role in their own safety. But many people feel helpless to protect themselves from the threat of a mass shooter. Every public space feels vulnerable – schools, concerts, grocery stores, places of worship.
Though perpetrators are responsible for the violence they inflict, experts said research provides a number of actions society, institutions and individuals can take to help prevent mass shootings, which remain rare. That knowledge, Peterson said, can act as an antidote to helplessness.
“We’re acting like these are scary monsters, and they just show up and the best we can do is run faster and hide,” Peterson said. “Our goal is to show the pathway for perpetrators, so we can have real conversations about how we can prevent people earlier on. ... After you understand something, it alleviates the anxiety because the truth is we can cut this off sooner.”
The Violence Project defines a mass shooting as four or more people killed in a public space where the perpetrator does not have a relationship with the victims. Peterson said that until the Atlanta shootings, there hadn’t been an attack that met that criteria since March 2020. According to USA TODAY research, mass killings of 10 or more people disappeared during the pandemic.
“It’s really striking,” Peterson said. “We haven’t been able to gather in mass, shooters have been out of the media, so we’ve lost that contagion effect. I think there’s a number of us who were hoping maybe that would last, but now they appear to be emerging.”
Peterson said the Violence Project’s research shows there are many similarities in perpetrator profiles that provide predictable entry points to cut someone off from violence. Data shows gun violence is disproportionately a male problem.
“We’ve interviewed perpetrators of mass shootings who are in prison. We’ve interviewed their moms and their sisters and their elementary school teachers to try to really understand deeply that pathway,” Peterson said.
Researchers found early childhood trauma among mass shooters. Perpetrators often lack access to mental health care and peer support. They develop poor coping skills and build to a crisis point. Many are suicidal.
Mass shooters often develop a grievance with the world and find someone else to blame. They spend time on the internet engaging with others who validate those grievances. They acquire access to a chosen location to engage in mass violence, and they acquire the guns to do it.
“You can think about how you cut this off at any one of those points along the pathway,” Peterson said.
Experts said there are societal, institutional and individual actions people can take that would reduce the likelihood of mass shootings, including better access to mental health care and background checks, more suicide prevention training in workplaces and schools and empowering people to spot someone in crisis.
“We always look for motive. If it was a terrorist attack we say, ‘ Oh, that’s it, now we know why they did it.’ If it’s mental illness, we say the same. But behind every terrorism case, behind every mental health case, there were lots of opportunities for intervention that were missed,” said James Densley, a professor of criminal justice at Metropolitan State University and co- founder of the Violence Project.
Peterson said 80% of perpetrators show signs of crisis behavior. After mass shootings, people lament the warning signs that were missed, or the ones that were seen but never led to intervention.
Tyler Bayless, who lived with the man accused in the Atlanta shootings for six months, said the suspect visited massage parlors, engaged in sexual acts, then expressed guilt. “When I saw the headlines, my mind went straight to him,” Bayless said. “I always thought he’d do something, but I thought he would harm himself, not something like this.”
The person charged with killing 17 people in Parkland, Florida, was a troubled teenager expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for “disciplinary reasons” before the shooting spree in 2018. One student said he had been abusive to his girlfriend.
“People are noticing that something’s off,” Peterson said. “It’s easier to say in retrospect, of course.”
Though more than half a million people in the USA have died from COVID- 19, the nation is on track to eventually resume public life once the threat of the virus no longer looms. Gun violence killed more than 40,000 people in 2020. Experts said a commitment to stem that epidemic appears less certain.
“America wasn’t well before the pandemic, and if we only focus on the pandemic, that still doesn’t mean we fixed all the problems that were there before it. That’s the piece perhaps we lost sight of – that ‘ normal’ didn’t always mean good,” Densley said.