The findings from two separate reports released in the last month—one by the FBI and the other by progressive investigative media outlet Mother Jones—have been offered up as evidence that "mass shootings" are occurring more frequently than ever. The truth, however, is a little more complicated.
...Why does the Mother Jones list suffer from an underreporting problem that gets worse for the earlier cases? Due to a lack of detailed information about the search methodology used to compile the list, it's difficult to say with complete certainty. The most likely reason is that the Mother Jones list relied exclusively on news reports as a source of data, and news coverage tends to be less accessible for the older cases.
...But when we look at annual rates derived from the more complete dataset above, we see that only two of the 11 highest rates have occurred within the last eight years. Instead, six of the 11 highest rates were observed during the eight-year period between 1988 and 1995.
...Reducing the occurrence of mass public shootings is implicit to the debate over whether they have recently increased. Yet asking why mass public shootings have recently increased, even if only modestly since the mid-1990s, is the wrong question. Rather, what truly needs explaining is why the mass public shooting rate during the 1996-2006 period (an annual average of 1.00) was lower than at any time during the last 30 (or even 40) years.
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