Mass shootings have been identified as a novel American crime problem. The term is merely a new name, however, for an older crime problem—mass murder. The social construction of the mass shooting and mass murder problems have both been driven by “mass public shootings”—incidents that occur in the absence of other criminal activity (e.g., robberies, drug deals, and gang “turf wars”) in which a gun was used to kill four or more victims at a public location within a 24‐hour period. Using data on 845 mass shootings, including 158 mass public shootings, which occurred in the United States between 1976 and 2018, in this study, I analyze trends in their prevalence and severity (i.e., number of victims killed and wounded). After controlling for growth in the U.S. population, the results show the late 1980s and early 1990s had the highest incidence of mass shootings. Both the incidence and severity of mass public shootings, on the other hand, have increased over the last decade. I also describe the patterns of mass public shootings by reporting incident and offender characteristics.

中文翻译：

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致命性大规模暴力的模式和流行

大规模枪击已被确认为一种新的美国犯罪问题。但是，该术语只是一个较旧的犯罪问题的新名称-大规模谋杀。大规模枪击和大规模谋杀问题的社会建构都受到“大规模枪击事件”的驱动，这些事件是在没有其他犯罪活动（例如抢劫，毒品交易和帮派“地盘战争”）的情况下发生的，在24小时内，使用枪支在公共场所杀死了四个或更多受害者。在这项研究中，我使用了1976年至2018年间在美国发生的845次大规模枪击事件的数据，包括158次大规模枪击事件，分析了其发生率和严重程度（即，死伤者的数量）的趋势。在控制了美国人口的增长之后，结果表明，1980年代末和1990年代初，发生大规模枪击事件的发生率最高。另一方面，在过去十年中，大规模枪击事件的发生率和严重性都有所增加。我还通过报告事件和犯罪者的特征来描述大规模枪击事件的模式。