14 DAY TRIAL // In a new report to be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Chicago, researchers with the University of Alabama show that the US and a few other countries face mass shootings more often than others.
More precisely, the University of Alabama team argue that, at least between the years 1966 to 2012, the US, Yemen, Serbia, Switzerland and Finland all ranked among the countries with the highest number of mass shooters per capita.
Interestingly, these countries also ranked as the top 5 in firearms owned per capita. “That is not a coincidence,” study leader Adam Lankford said in an interview.
The situation is pretty bad in the US
The researchers say that, according to their investigations, around 31% of the mass shooters reported on a global scale between the years 1966 to 2012 attacked in the US.
Just to put things into perspective, specialist Adam Lankford and colleagues go on to explain that, as shown by recent estimates, the country accounts for about 5% of the world's population.
This makes the number of mass shooters who struck in the US in recent decades oddly and quite worryingly disproportionate to the country's overall population.
What's more, the University of Alabama team say that, of the mass shooters reported in the US during said period, over 50% used more than one weapon.
By comparison, figures indicate that public mass shooters in other countries are 3.6 times less likely to use multiple weapons when committing an attack, EurekAlert explains.
Besides, it appears that mass shootings in the US are more likely to happen in schools, office buildings, factories and warehouses. Abroad, mass shooters are more likely to open fire in military settings.
Gun ownership laws are partly to blame
The researchers propose that the reason so many mass shootings occurred in the US between 1966 to 2012 was because of the country's firearm ownership laws.
“Until now, everyone was simply speculating about the relationship between firearms and public mass shootings. My study provides empirical evidence of a positive association between the two.”
“The most obvious implication is that the United States could likely reduce its number of school shootings, workplace shootings, and public mass shootings in other places if it reduced the number of guns in circulation,” said study leader Adam Lankford.