We’ve seen some of the worst acts of mass violence in American history this summer.
That’s why I wanted to bring on an expert in active shooter situations to give some insight into what causes these events and how they might be prevented. There are few people with a better understanding of the situation than the person who created the FBI’s research program on active shooters: Katherine Schweit.
She literally wrote the book on how to stop the killing.
Schweit created the FBI’s definition of “active shooter.” While most media or activist counts for “mass shooting” focus on how many people are shot or killed, the FBI doesn’t have an official definition for the term. Instead, it focuses on identifying people who attempt to carry out random public shootings regardless of whether they are successful.
That makes it narrower than most definitions used by major media outlets, which incorporated many gang or crime-related shootings, but broader than definitions from the Associated Press or Mother Jones that focus on mass shootings where the attacker is able to kill many people. Schweit said that was the goal of her approach since it gives an opportunity to study trends that appear among those who attempt these attacks.
She said nearly all of the active shooters the FBI has profiled over the past decade are young men. Most use handguns. And most are triggered by a combination of different stressors such as financial distress or social ostracization.
Shcweit said the FBI’s research has identified ways that shootings can be prevented. She said a big part of the solution is for people to speak up when they notice the warning signs somebody may be spiraling toward violence. She even explained a recent example where a co-worker successfully stopped a likely attacker after he threatened to carry out an attack.
Plus, Contributing Editor Paul Crookston joins the show to talk about the flood of post-Bruen lawsuits.
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Video of the full episode and clips are also available on our YouTube channel.
7 Responses
Great interview! Having family who works in public schools, children in school, there is much we should be thinking about. Will definitely check out Katherine’s web site, book and podcast.
I thought she was extremely knowledgeable and very grounded. I’d definitely recommend following her work.
I’ve listened to her podcast a couple of times. I haven’t listened to this podcast interview of her yet. She is knowledgeable, but definitely views gun control as a viable solution to mass murders. She is versed in the stats (e.g. low rate of people with mental health problems responsible for mass murders) and so discounts mental health support as a way to alleviate mass murder and yet she is also knowlegeable of the number of semi-auto rifles in civilian possession (“20+ million”) with also very, very low use-rate in mass murders. If she applied the same logic, she applies to mental health, to the AR-15 it would defeat her argument that gun control is the solution to the active shooter issue. For that reason, i don’t think she’ll convince people of her view on gun control that don’t already agree with her.
I think that’s a fair critique.
Now, I’ve watched the podcast with Kate. Overall I liked the interview, but I don’t take her active shooter stats at face value. (e.g. in 2001 we had six active shooter events and in 2021 we had 61, >10x increase). She said multiple times the FBI uses the same definition now as they used 10 yrs ago when she was given the assignment. The definition may be the same, but that doesn’t mean everything else is the same when it comes to reporting each incident. She also says the FBI uses police data as opposed to news articles which academic researchers tend to use.
Neither using the same definition for 10 yrs nor using police reports means it’s accurate.
For one, in 2013 they looked back in time to the early 2000’s to count events that were at that time more than a decade old as opposed to looking at the issue in near real time which they’ve done each year since. They will miss stuff that happened yrs ago as opposed to current events. This is well-documented wrt mass murders (same phenomenon applies to the Mother Jones database created in 2013 that goes back to 1982). When FBI started their reporting there were 21 incidents in 2012 & 17 in 2013 as opposed to just six in 2001. They most likely missed incidents in the past leading to under counts.
Additionally, police reports are written by people with varying views, skill levels, and understandings of the incident. It is possible attention of this issue has generally raised awareness of the topic within police departments. If so that would lead agencies to report more incidents as having an active shooter component which could lead to overcounting in the present.
I think overall it has gone up, but not ten-fold.
Another aspect is active shootings, even by the FBI’s definition (more broad than mass public murder by gun, but less broad than the GVA’s mass shooting definition), is still a rare phenomenon. 61 events designated by the FBI as an active shooting resulted in 103 fatalities and 140 injured in 2021. Contrast that with 2020 FBI stats on homicide (9,630 incidents & 10,440 offenses — 7,482 offenses involving a gun) and aggravated assaults (360,168 incidents & 459,461 offenses — 84,121 offenses involving a gun) to see how rare they are. 240 victims in 2021 represent 1/4 of 1% of the 91,603 offenses in 2020. If they mischaracterize just 1 out of every 1000 incidents of homicide and aggravated assault, they’ll more than double the active shooter incident count.
I’m not trying to discount her view, but even when discussing, “facts and figures” there’s a lot that goes into creating those facts and figures that reasonable people can and will disagree on.
I think these are really fantastic insights. Those are all strong points. It is important to consider other possible factors that could affect the count beyond just incongruent definitions.
Professor James Alan Fox seemed to think there hasn’t been a sizeable increase in the number of mass shootings in recent history. Mainly for the reasons you’ve outlined here. You should check out the episode of the podcast with him if you haven’t listened to it before.
These topics are complicated and not prone to the sorts of quick, easy fixes most people want to see. So, it’s always important to think through and question every aspect of it.
Thanks Stephen. I like Fox’s research for the most part. In one of his books, “Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder”, 4th ed., he states mass murders have remained fairly constant from 1976 (the first year the FBI produced its supplementary homicide report) though 2016 (the last year of data prior to book publication). If I recall correctly the U.S. averaged 28 mass murders per year (1976-2016): 21 involving a gun, 7 not involving a gun.
It seems like it may have ticked up a bit at least since 2016 (on the gun side anyway). I’d love to get a look at his Northeastern University/USA Today/AP mass killing database, but it’s only available to media personnel and researchers. Two years ago he said that any month now the database would be open to the public, but recently when I inquired with him why it’s taking so long, he tells me it’s out of his control. Maybe someday I’ll be able to review the database, but I’m not holding my breath any longer.
It’s interesting that Kate Schweit says she disagrees with him on the topic of mass
(or active) shooting incident counts. Like I said reasonable people will disagree on what goes into the facts and figures. Back in 2014 some well-known public health researchers tried to pooh-pooh on his research in an article they authored on the Mother Jones website. Sometimes Fox doesn’t carry the water for the gun violence (AKA gun control) researchers as much as I think they’d like him to, given his prominence in the field of mass murder and serial murder for more than 40 years now.
I’ll have to listen to your podcast with him. I’ll let you know what I think about it. Thanks again Stephen.