Mass Shooting Conceptual and Operationalization Discrepancies

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Background: The mass shooting phenomenon has gained much attention lately as this phenomenon has increased significantly post-pandemic. Academic researchers and various media outlets have attempted to examine the phenomenon of mass shooting incidents, yet there is little agreement on what constitutes a mass shooting. There is a bimodal view of the primary inclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria are based on the number of casualties or the number of injuries resulting from a firearm. In doing so, the estimates for mass shooting events have significant discrepancies. Further complicating the issue is the threshold number of fatalities or injuries used to include or exclude cases. This paper aims to examine the currently available conceptual definitions of a mass shooting and the impact on a standardized dataset

Methods: The East Carolina Mass Shooting Project (ECUMSP) served as the baseline dataset for the current paper. The dataset was selected due to the broad inclusion criteria for comparing the varying conceptual definitions of other databases. The project examined the following sources of mass shooting definitions: Congressional Research Service, Everytown for Gun Safety, Gun Violence Archive, Mother Jones, Standford Mass Shooting Database, The Violence Project, and the Washington Post.

Author

• Steven Brewer, East Carolina University