At least four people were killed Nine people were injured After a gunman opened fire at Apalachee High School in north Georgia on Wednesday, the latest There have been over 250 mass shootings in the United States in 2024. Police have released little about the shooting so far, other than to say that the suspected gunman is now in custody.
A local sheriff said, “Please, let us get the information we need to make sure we get it right.” said At a news conference Wednesday, he described an investigation that was still in its early stages.
While the details will vary, many of the themes of the Barrow County shooting may sound familiar. The persistence of gun violence is one of the saddest aspects of life in the United States. Although mass shootings account for only a small percentage of the vast number of gun deaths that occur each year in the United States, they are the most attention-grabbing and visible manifestation of the country’s unique problem of too many guns.
The problem of mass shootings will likely be with us as long as we have more guns than people.
“There are no easy solutions,” he said Daniel NaginProfessor of Public Policy and Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. Nagin, who assisted in development A series of evidence-based recommendations To reduce mass shootings, said the “sheer amount of firearms” circulating in the United States, which are “much more lethal than in the past,” led to the idea of completely eliminating mass shootings — usually defined as a shooting in which four or more people are shot — seems far away.
We still don’t know who the Georgia shooters were and what may or may not have motivated them And while every mass shooting has unique circumstances, that doesn’t mean mass shootings are impossible to prevent. “We have a big stereotype or myth about mass shootings in general, that the criminals who do it go crazy and just snap,” said the book’s author, Mark Folman. Trigger Point: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in AmericaAnd An editor In Mother Jones. “That’s not really how it works.”
There are two broad approaches that can help mitigate the threat of mass shootings: proactive efforts to identify threats in advance, performed by behavioral threat assessment teams; and targeted gun regulations such as red flag laws and bump stock bans.
Threat identification
According to Fallman, mass shootings are almost never random. Most mass shooters do not spontaneously decide to pull out a gun in public. Learning to identify who is most at risk for mass violence, spotting the warning signs and finding ways to intervene can save lives.
what is this Behavioral Threat Assessment Team The process and composition of a team may differ in different contexts, including educational, corporate, and law enforcement settings, but the general idea is the same: groups receive information about related behaviors from community members. The parties Investigate that behavior To determine if someone is at risk of mass violence. Then, depending on their conclusions, the team finds a way to reach out to the person and try to get their support before they commit acts of violence. That contact may occur in the individual’s home, but it may also occur at work, school, or in another community setting.
Proving the effectiveness of these interventions is difficult, as there is no way to measure the number of mass shootings did not Happens because someone got help. But experts and mental health advocates say the act has deterred people from violence and Fallman reported the case Where law enforcement believed people were Moved successfully From committing acts of mass violence.
“It is very possible. “There are many examples of successful threat cases where the subjects of the case have been diverted from, in many cases, often very serious and advanced plans to commit violence,” Fallman said.
identified by researchers in different situations shared by those who commit mass violence. They are almost (but not always) men, many of whom have suffered some form of childhood trauma or abuse. Most are suicides. “The number of previously attempted suicide offenders was staggering,” Jillian PetersonA professor at Hamline University and co-founder of The Violence Project, a database of every mass shooting in the United States since 1966, said.
Peterson, who along with his colleagues interviewed a small number of mass shooter survivors after the violence, came to an important realization: “No one plans to come out.” This insight is significant, he said, because it means some of the same tools mental health professionals use to prevent suicides could also help prevent mass shootings.
But while those are common factors among mass shooters, they are not the most helpful in determining risk — the vast majority of men and suicidal people are not mass shooters. Other behavioral indicators help investigators better identify who might commit mass violence.
The most important of these is a history of domestic violence. In 2021, The researchers found Most of the mass shootings were related to domestic violence. “A significant fraction of mass shootings are not killings of strangers in public places, but rather in ongoing domestic disputes,” Nagin said.
Garen WintermuteThe founding director of the University of California’s Violence Prevention Research Program, and an expert on mass shootings and political violence, says that “intervening with people involved in intimate partner violence of any severity can help prevent mass shootings. And a lot of other bad things down the road.” .”
Researchers have identified other behaviors common among mass shooters: a sudden increase in, interest in, or purchase of guns and ammunition, and increased interest in previous mass shooters. A would-be mass shooter also often freaks out or threatening comments In the lead up to a shooting, he signaled to people close to him or the online community that he wanted to do something violent — a phenomenon researchers found faucet leak.
When a behavioral threat assessment team identifies someone at risk, the next step is to come up with a plan to help. This often involves the person’s family or friends and may involve direct contact with the person concerned. “The ideal of this work is with compassion and concern,” says Fallman. “And then coming up with a plan to intervene and try to help, based on specific information gathered about that person and from the people around them. What does this person need? We move them from where they are now to a better place. What can I do?”
The goal is to make the person less isolated and angry, and to try to ease the grievances that might make him feel violent. Each treatment plan looks different.
“It’s not like there’s a simple menu and you pick one thing and then the switch flips and everything’s fine. That’s not how threat management works,” Fallman said.
Currently, in-school threat assessment teams are required Nine statesNot including Georgia — but experts say more states need them, and make sure they have them The resources they need to develop risk assessment strategies and track their results. People living in states without risk assessment teams can press their states to require them in schools and other government settings.
Finding gun regulations that help prevent mass shootings
One of the interesting things about behavioral threat assessment work is that it’s an intervention that can be done without facing the brick wall that is America’s complex debate over gun control.
But make no mistake: a country It has more than 400 million gunsAnd gun control is so lax that almost anyone can openly carry a gun at will, making the task of preventing mass shootings even more difficult.
Still, there are specific gun policies that could help prevent mass shootings and be more politically feasible. Lawmakers and voters who care about reducing mass shootings have already helped push for their passage in states like New York, Florida and California. For advocates who care about reducing mass shootings, that’s a good place to start.
One of the most important legal tools available to prevent mass shootings is the Extreme Risk Act, commonly referred to as the Red Flag Act. law, Currently in 21 statesincluding several Parkland, Florida, after the 2018 school shootingAllows both family members and law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily confiscate someone’s firearm if they believe the owner poses a risk of harm to themselves or others. The red flag law, Fallman said, “is a relatively new gun policy that is very important and very useful in threat assessment.” Although critics have challenged the law’s constitutionality, they have so far resisted Legal challenge.
Another common theme among mass shooters is their use Assault-style rifleKnown for rapid fire and ability to kill or injure large numbers of people in a short period of time. Although studies have shown that assault weapons may be prohibited to reduce meaningfully Mass shooting deaths when they are effective, Republicans An assault weapons ban is blocked When it came before Congress in December 2023, and polls showed that Americans Generally favors stricter gun controlthey are more divided On the question of whether assault weapons are outright prohibited.
Due in part to Republican opposition to assault rifle regulation, Gun safety advocates As a more targeted and effective way to reduce mass shootings, the Trump administration has focused its attention on banning bump stocks, and in 2018 took rare steps for a GOP administration. Banning bump stocks Following a Las Vegas mass shooting. But the Supreme Court struck down the regulation in June 2024.
What happens next is an open question, and Republicans have been relatively quiet about the Supreme Court’s decision. But the congressional action could be an important next step. As Justice Samuel Alito noted in his concurring opinion, Congress A law banning bump stocks may be passedThat would help limit the lethality of weapons used by mass shooters.
Given that a Republican president was the first to ban bump stocks and that the regulation was relatively controversial at the time, it’s not impossible to believe that Congress could make it happen. So is Vice President Kamala Harris States have been urged to adopt the Red Flag ActAnd so does former President Donald Trump Previously expressed support for this lawDespite concerns from gun rights advocates. Support from leaders of both major parties belies the idea that gun regulations that could prevent mass shootings are completely off the table.
And although experts say passing these laws will have an impact, it’s not the only one. Family members and law enforcement in states that already have red flag laws Courts can try to intervene If they are worried about someone with a gun. Individuals Community members, especially at work and schools, may pay attention when someone appears to be leaking intent on a mass shooting. and report that behavior to the authorities. Media can give their best Not raising the profile of mass shooters, which has been shown to induce a copycat effect.
Above all, Fallman says, it’s important not to treat the problem as hopeless. Sometimes, he said, it can even encourage shooters. “We have this narrative that it’s never going to end and nothing really changes, and there’s nothing we can really do about it.” But understanding that mass shootings are not random, that they are predictable and preventable, can help people understand what warning signs to look out for.
“Frustration and anger,” he says, “is not a good way to think about problems.”
