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FBI: Dramatic Increase in US Mass Shootings

FBI: Dramatic Increase in US Mass Shootings
FBI: Dramatic Increase in US Mass Shootings

The number of shootings in which a gunman wounds or kills multiple people has increased dramatically in recent years in the US, with the majority of attacks in the last decade occurring at a business or school, according to an FBI report.

The study focused on 160 “active shooter incidents” between 2000 and 2013. Those are typically defined as cases in which a gunman in an attack shoots or attempts to shoot people in a populated area, Al-Jazeera wrote.

The majority of the shootings occurred either at a business or school, university or other education facility, according to the study, conducted in conjunction with Texas State University. Other shootings have occurred in open spaces, on military properties, and in houses of worship and health care facilities.

According to the report, an average of six shooting incidents occurred in the first seven years that were studied. That average rose to more than 16 per year in the last seven years of the study. That period included the 2012 shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, as well as last year’s massacre at the Washington Navy Yard in which a gunman killed 12 people before dying in a police shootout.

More than 1,000 people were either killed or wounded in the shootings studied. The gunmen acted alone in all but two of the cases. The shooters were female in at least six of the incidents.

 

Financialtribune.com