Shooting attacks more common

Rampages also grow more deadly, FBI says

GILROY, Calif. – Sunday’s mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival is another addition to the country’s expanding list of attacks by disgruntled men that leave death and destruction in their wake.

In an instant, an event known for family fun, live music and garlic ice cream became linked to horror and sorrow – the latest sign of how randomized gun violence is spreading.

In the past 10 years, America has entered a new and disturbing era of mass shootings. The number of incidents is increasing, according to FBI data, and they are becoming more deadly.

In the farming town of Gilroy, a 19year-old gunman cut his way through a security fence to bypass metal detectors and bag searches and opened fire at the festival, killing three and injuring at least a dozen.

“They’re latching on to some anger that’s bigger than them.” Adam Lankford University of Alabama

“This is going to be remembered for years to come – for all the wrong reasons,” said Bobby Holmes, who manages two 9Round Fitness franchises in the area. “It’s affected everyone already.”

Such scenes are becoming an increasingly common experience in America. A survey by Chapman University last year found 41% of Americans fear random mass shootings.

Unfortunately, it’s not an unreasonable fear.

“The truth is that there is one mass shooting per day in the United States if you define them as four or more people shot,” said Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City.

“The more deadly ones are happening with great frequency, maybe once or twice a month. This is happening in communities everywhere, of all backgrounds and sizes,” said Klarevas, the

author of “Rampage Nation: Securing America from Mass Shootings.”

Experts tie the rise to several factors: Would-be shooters have easy access to high-capacity firearms. The news and social media fuel their desires for infamy. More people are willing to commit mass murder to express their anger at the world and its perceived slights.

Shooters often cite their beliefs in online postings, but experts don’t blame any one ideology.

Though they often give lip service to a cause, “at its core, it’s all really personal,” said Adam Lankford, a criminology professor at the University of Alabama who studies mass shootings.

This mindset is sometimes referred to as being an “injustice collector,” Lankford said. These men, and they are overwhelmingly men, often feel that they’ve been personally wronged, mistreated or overlooked, he said. Sometimes they see broader injustices they perceive as against their gender or race or religion.

“They’re latching on to some anger that’s bigger than them,” Lankford said.

Killing more, more quickly

The number of victims in each incident is growing. That’s true even if statisticians remove the music festival shooting in Las Vegas, where 58 died and hundreds were wounded in 2017, said Sherry Towers, a researcher at Arizona State University who has studied firearm violence.

The five deadliest public mass shootings in the USA have all occurred since 2007. From 1966 to 2009, 15% of mass shootings killed eight people or more, Lankford said. Since 2010, 30% of attacks have reached that death count.

All this has happened as crime overall has declined, said John Donohue III, a law professor and economist at Stanford University who focuses on gun control

Media reports tend to focus on semiautomatic assault weapons.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem with the assault rifles per se but rather with the high-capacity magazines that (the shooters) have,” Towers said. “A lot of these high-casualty events involve either an assault rifle or a high-capacity handgun.”

Both allow the assailant to keep shooting, she said.

‘A 24-hour hate rally’

In many ways, social media acts as an accelerant for the aggrieved and angry. It gives them a place to find corroboration for their frustrations and others with whom they can vent.

“Social media cannot be underestimated in the role that it plays,” Tower said. “There’s very little control of information content on social media, and that can have a significant effect, particularly on young impressionable men that may have other issues in their lives.”

In the past, shooters joined groups that motivated them to attack. Now, more are radicalized on their own while browsing the internet – “a 24hour hate rally and bookstore,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

The solo browsing sessions lead to “a lone-wolf mentality among the attackers. They may strike for no reason other than they are fed up,” Levin said.

One thing that stands out to Lankford is a shift in motivations among the shooters. They increasingly seem to be motivated to kill a large number of victims to receive the most media attention, a sort of horrific one-upmanship.

“In Aurora, in his manifesto, the shooter basically ruminated on how to kill the most victims from different attack locations. The Parkland shooter wanted to kill at least 20 . ... The Las Vegas perpetrator Googled ‘most crowded festivals,’ ” Lankford said.

Some of them are drawn to online forums where mass shooters are lionized.

“The Sandy Hook shooter was participating and posting in these forums for three years before his attack,” Lankford said.

“They may strike for no reason other than they are fed up.” Brian Levin Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism