2020 has had more mass shootings than any of the previous six years. Not only that, but 2020 crossed that grim milestone on September 2nd, barely two-thirds of the way through the year, and this month of September already has more mass shootings than any previous month of September in the past six years, with 39 and counting. The uptick in mass shootings has come despite a precipitous drop in other crime rates, which raises the question: what exactly IS causing the massive increase in mass shootings? News Uncovered investigates.
There are several bizarre characteristics of mass shootings. The first is, per the data, mass shootings are seasonal for some reason: over the past 6 years, May, June, July, and August have made up 3 of the 4 months most plagued with mass shootings, and in 2 of those years (2015 and 2019), they were the 4 worst months for mass shootings. The second bizarre characteristic is, for whatever reason, mass shooters are frequently from out of town, but rarely cross state lines: the ten deadliest mass shootings in US history were all committed by people who lived in-state, yet half of those ten were from entirely different cities. Finally, despite the irrational nature of gunmen committing mass shootings, a shooter can spend as much as two months preparing for the massacre, if not more. Aurora Shooter James Holmes, for example, started acquiring the specific weapons he used in May of 2012, 2 months in advance of his deadly rampage.
While some crimes have gone up as a result of the plague, such as theft of toilet paper from public restrooms, reports of mass shootings linked to fear of coronavirus have not surfaced as of yet. While a security guard in California was charged with murder in the death of an anti-masker he allegedly quarrelled with, there are no reports of mass shooters targeting anti-maskers as of yet, even as anti-maskers have loudly congregated in public places all across the country. Additionally, it is rare for mass shootings to have a clear, rationally concocted motive (such as fear of a deadly virus, or hatred of those who help spread it through aggressive foolishness), which is part of what has confounded efforts to stop them.
Therefore, the first piece in this News Uncovered series focused on the hypothesis that the surge in mass shootings this year was linked not to spread of the novel coronavirus, but to statewide stay-at-home orders issued to combat it. These orders have a direct statistical link to a decline in cases of COVID-19, which subsequently rose when the orders were lifted, but as with many well-intentioned government policies, stay-at-home orders are not immune to unintended negative consequences. To test the hypothesis, while also adjusting for the mass shooting characteristics noted previously, News Uncovered compared the total number of mass shootings during the 2-month periods before each state's implemented stay-at-home order (for the states that issued such an order) to the total number of mass shootings during the same periods in 2019; then compared the total number of mass shootings when the stay-at-home orders were in effect to the total number of mass shootings during those same periods in 2019; and finally, compared the total number of mass shootings during the 2-month period following the end of each state's stay-at-home order, to the total number of mass shootings during the same periods in 2019.
As shown in the graphic above, in the 2-month periods prior to the state lockdowns, mass shootings were already tragically up 22% year-over-year. During the lockdowns themselves, mass shootings decreased 34.7% year over year, as might be expected due to the sharp reduction in people congregating. In the 2 months following each state's lockdown, mass shootings increased by a whopping 77.5%.
Data from past years shows that mass shootings during 2-month periods tend to vary from the same 2-month period the prior year by an average of 24.2%. Therefore, the 22% increase between the two months preceding each state's stay-at-home lockdown, although tragic, is technically not out of the ordinary, at least for a country where rampant mass shootings are the norm. An increase of 77.5%, however, is extremely unusual. News Uncovered will be looking into potential causes for the post-lockdown surge in mass shootings in the coming weeks, and establish if the cause is increased fears of the virus, the psychological impact of the masses being confined to their homes, or something else entirely. The answer could also shine a light on what causes these devastating events in the first place.
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