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According to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), a majority of the violent acts by people with mental illnesses are due to lack of needed mental health services. They also believe that although some violent acts are done by people with mental illnesses, a majority of them are done by people without them.

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Most people with mental illness are not violent. In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence. Research on the relationship between mental illness and violence shows that there are certain factors that may increase risks of violence among a small number of individuals with mental illness. These factors include:

Co-occurring abuse of alcohol or illegal drugs

Past history of violence

Being young and male

Untreated psychosis

The best way to reduce this risk is through treatment. Yet fewer than one-third of adults and half of children with a diagnosed mental illness receive mental health services in a given year.

Where NAMI Stands

We recognize that acts of violence by people with mental illness are usually the result of lack of needed mental health services. Policies and programs must be available and accessible which provide access to:

Early identification and intervention

Appropriate treatment and support

Integrated treatment when there is co-occurring substance abuse

Family education and support

Crisis intervention

Creating new federal or state gun laws based on mental illness could have the effect of creating more barriers to people being willing to seek treatment and help when they need it most. Solutions to gun violence associated with mental illness lie in improving access to treatment, not in preventing people from seeking treatment in the first place.

Federal and state gun reporting laws should be based on these identified traits, not mental illness. NAMI believes that federal standards about people with mental illness being included in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) should be changed.

Inclusion should be based on current scientific knowledge about what may increase risks of violence among persons with mental illness.

States should be provided with clear guidance about who should be reported and who should not be reported.

The highly offensive and outdated wording currently in the NICS reporting law, specifically individuals "adjudicated as being mentally defective," should be eliminated.

Establishing strong safeguards to protect the privacy of individuals whose names are included in federal and state gun reporting databases to make sure that the identities of such individuals are not shared or used for any other purposes.

What NAMI Is Doing

NAMI advocates for the federal government and states should fund programs focused on early identification, early intervention and evidence-based mental health treatments. Investment in research to better identify traits that predict gun violence is also necessary.

How You Can Help

We are a grassroots organization. We rely on people like you to advocate for these services in your community. Connect with your local NAMI to help advocate for funding and create opportunities for partnerships with other community organizations.

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Most people with mental illness are not violent. In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence. Research on the relationship between mental illness and violence shows that there are certain factors that may increase risks of violence among a small number of individuals with mental illness.

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According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, "'gun free zones' have been the target of more than 98% of all mass shootings. This means that less than 2% of shootings happen in places that actually allow guns.

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UPDATED on July 6th, 2019: Original title: "More misleading information from Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety on guns: 'Analysis of Recent Mass Shootings,' Showing how mass public shootings keep occurring in gun-free zones" Originally posted on September 9, 2014.

While the first part of the discussion here goes through each mass public shooting from 2009 to 2014 discussed in the Bloomberg report. At the end of the post, we have a response to Everytown's response to our post.

We have since updated our information up through May 30, 2018.

An Excel spreadsheet that lists all the mass public shootings from 1998 through April 30, 2018 is available here: Case by case discussion of which cases have been in gun-free zones. UPDATED: Broader and updated information on these shootings from 1998 to June 2019 is available here.

The report by Bill Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott on gun-free zones that covers earlier years from 1977 to 1999 is available here (the raw data used in this study is available in a STATA file, though the sums by state and year are available here). We used the cases identified by the New York Times that are discussed in Lott and Landes for years prior to 1977 (series is discussed here, though the web version doesn't have the chart that lists out each case). A case by case discussion on the New York Times cases can be found at the bottom of this page.

Definition of mass public shooting.

We used the traditional FBI definition of mass public shootings in all our posts on this (e.g., here, here, and here). There are several parts to this definition.

1. The official FBI definition of public shootings (both mass public shootings and active public shootings) excludes "shootings that resulted from gang or drug violence" or that occurred in the commission of another crime such as robbery. The reason for this is pretty obvious: the causes and solutions for gang shootings over drug turf are dramatically different than the types of mass public shootings that we see at schools and malls where the point of the attack is to kill as many people as possible.

2. The FBI also includes only shootings in "public places" such as: commercial areas (malls, stores, and other businesses); schools and colleges; open spaces; government properties (including military bases and civilian offices); houses of worship; and healthcare facilities. The reason for this is clear: for example, if the attack is in a home, the attacker is much more likely to know if a gun is owned in the home and who might have access to it. By contrast, when an attack occurs in a public place, the attackers don't know who they have to be concerned might have a gun to stop them. [Residences were included in the FBI's total deaths only "where casualties occurred inside a private residence before a shooter moved to a public area, those incidents were categorized at the location where the public was more at risk." For example, their cases would involve a residence and then a school.] This also has been the breakdown of data in academic studies (see point 3).

3. From 1980 to 2013, the original FBI definition of "mass killings" had been "four or more victims slain, in one event, in one location," "within one event, in at least one or more public locations, such as, a workplace, school," and the offender is not included in the victim count (CRS, July 30, 2015). In 2013, the definition was changed to "three or more killings." The vast majority of academics have continued to use the four or more definition. This includes researchers such as James Alan Fox. See also studies years ago such as Grant Duwe, Tom Kovandzic, and Carl Moody, "The Impact of Right-to-Carry Concealed Firearm Laws on Mass Public Shootings," Homicide Studies, Nov. 1, 2002. Adam Lankford, "Public Mass Shooters and Firearms: A Cross-National Study of 171 Countries," Violence and Victims, January 2016. Lott and Landes, 2001 and John Lott, "More Guns, Less Crime," University of Chicago Press, 3rd edition, 2010. Even groups such as Bloomberg's Everytown, which Snopes cites approvingly, have recently used the four or more definition. The other organization that Snopes cites approvingly, Mother Jones, also has used the four or more definition for most of the period and has only recently well after we did this report started using the three or more definition.

These points were also originally used in the 1999 and 2001 versions of research on mass public shootings by William Landes and John Lott. Of course, it is hard to ignore the statements from some of these killers about why they pick the targets that they do (more details on this in Lott's book are available here).
Gun-free zones are defined as places where general citizens couldn't carry guns.
- Places where only police or military police are classified as gun-free zones.

Stationing a uniformed police officer or security guard in a public area often only gives a false sense of security. Knowing that the uniformed officer is the only person with a gun makes things quite simple for attackers. They need only kill him first. It is the equivalent of having them with a neon sign saying "shoot me first." The media fact checkers seem unwilling to accept is that concealed handgun permit holders take away that strategic advantage from the killers. See this quote as an example of the

"A deputy in uniform has an extremely difficult job in stopping these attacks," Sarasota County, Florida, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman told RCI. "These terrorists have huge strategic advantages in determining the time and place of attacks. They can wait for a deputy to leave the area, or pick an undefended location. Even when police or deputies are in the right place at the right time, those in uniform who can be readily identified as guards may as well be holding up neon signs saying, 'Shoot me first.' My deputies know that we cannot be everywhere."

It is the same reason that air marshals aren't in uniform.

- Places, where it is illegal to carry a permitted concealed handgun, are classified as gun-free zones.

Depending on the state bans on carrying in certain areas.

- Places that are posted as not allowing permitted concealed handgun. A few examples:

Fort Hood Shootings 2009 and 2014

The many school shootings keep on occurring in those schools where permitted concealed handguns are banned (e.g., Parkland 2018, Sante Fe 2018)

In Alameda County, a may issue county, there were only 85 people with concealed handgun permits at the end of 2011 out of an adult population of 1.2 million, a rate of 0.007 percent. Those with permits were mainly judges, prosecutors, and wealthy businessmen.

In Orange County, a may issue county, there were only 551 people with concealed handgun permits out of an adult population of 2.26 million, a rate of 0.02 percent. Those with permits were mainly judges, prosecutors, and wealthy businessmen.

ORIGINAL POST: Why does anyone pay attention to Bloomberg's claims on guns? Take their previous discussions on mass public shootings. As we have previously pointed out, Bloomberg's groups have made serious errors on the number (see also here) and trends of school shootings. Well, that hasn't stopped the media from sympathetically covering Everytown for Gun Safety's recent report on mass shootings (see also here).

Everytown for Gun Safety's recent report on mass shootings contains many errors. In addition, it muddies the discussion on mass public shootings by including shootings in private homes along with ones in public places, and the vast majority of the cases they include are in private homes. But there is a distinction between what motivates mass public shooters who are committing their crimes to get media attention and those who engage in attacks in private residences.

There are seven mass public shootings since at least 1950 that have not been part of some other crime where at least four people have been killed in an area where general civilians are allowed to have guns. These are the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) restaurant in Carson City, Nevada on September 6, 2011, the Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, 2011, [UPDATE] the Dallas shooting of police on July 7, 2016 that left five dead, [UPDATE] the Kalamazoo shooting on February 20, 2016 where four people died in one attack at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and two others in another one (while the Cracker Barrel restaurant didn't ban guns, Uber does ban its drivers from carrying guns and the killer was on the job when he did the shootings and the shooting was done while he was in his car); Las Vegas shooting on October 1, 2017 that left 58 dead [UPDATE]; Melcroft, Pennsylvania attack that left four dead on January 28, 2018 [UPDATE]; and the First Baptist Church in tiny Sutherland Springs, Texas, on November 5th, 2017 claimed 26 lives [UPDATE]. With the new data through June 2019, there are now eight shootings in gun-free zones [UPDATE]. We had previously missed the Radisson Hotel killer on December 30, 1999.

Thus, while CPRC's research and that by Landes and Lott looks at Mass public shootings focuses on the killings where the point of the attack is simply to kill as many people as possible, Bloomberg's numbers overwhelmingly involve killings that have occurred within residences.

The FBI definition of mass public shootings excludes " shootings that resulted from gang or drug violence" or that were part of some other crime. The FBI also defines "public" places as " includ[ing] commercial areas (divided into malls, businesses open to pedestrian traffic, and businesses closed to pedestrian traffic), educational environments (divided into schools [pre-kindergarten through 12th grade] and IHEs), open spaces, government properties (divided into military and other government properties), houses of worship, and health care facilities." For almost thirty years, the FBI defined mass shootings as involving four or more people killed. A complete discussion of the definition and the history of it is available here.

Here are some general points about how to classify mass public shootings that have occurred in gun-free zones.

1) A lot of work is involved in obtaining information on whether the attacks occurred in gun-free zones. This includes calling the businesses or other facilities involved. But many times those organizations are uncooperative and in those cases much time is spent contacting individuals in the area of the attack and asking them if they can provide pictures or other information on the facilities. Indeed, the media virtually always refuses to mention whether the attack occurred in a gun-free zone.

Unfortunately, Everytown for Gun Safety/Mayors Against Illegal Guns did not do this work, and they have also inaccurately stated, ignored, or simply missed facts that are readily available in news stories.

2) What motivates mass public shootings where the killer is trying to kill or injure as many people as possible to get publicity is quite different from what motivates robbers or gang fights (see Lott and Landes). The solutions to these two types of attacks are also vastly different. The issue of gun-free zones is particularly important for mass public shootings.

3) The word "public" is also key to these cases. Shootings that occur in people's homes will often involve killers who know if guns are owned in the home. And if there is a gun in the home, the killer will know who has access to it. The FBI also defines "public" places as "includ[ing] commercial areas (divided into malls, businesses open to pedestrian traffic, and businesses closed to pedestrian traffic), educational environments (divided into schools [pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade] and IHEs), open spaces, government properties (divided into military and other government properties), houses of worship, and healthcare facilities" (p. 12).

4) There is also the distinction between right-to-carry and may-issue laws. If virtually no one, especially general civilians, is allowed to get a concealed handgun permit as occurs in most may-issue jurisdictions, the area is essentially a gun-free zone.

Our past work has also collected information on which schools are gun-free zones and which ones are not.

Cases Bloomberg's Everytown organization incorrectly reports as mass public shootings in gun-free zones

The Bloomberg discussions are indented and put in block quotes. After the quotes there is an explanation for why they shouldn't be counted as mass public shootings. The Bloomberg report doesn't number these events, but we will assign numbers just to make them easier to reference.

FACTS: There was not a mass public shooting at Ali's Market. Only one person was killed at that store. Permitted concealed handguns can deter many attacks from occurring and can limit the harm that does occur. But permit holders aren't expected to limit the harm for those attacks that do occur to zero. Permitted concealed handguns deter mass shootings because they can limit the harm and take away the incentive that these killers obtain from their warped desire to get media attention.

FACTS: Whether one is looking at the attacks at the Washington Navy Yard or Fort Hood, letting military police carry guns is much different than letting other soldiers protect themselves. While military police tend to be at the entrances to military bases, they largely patrol the rest of the base in the same way that police patrol a city. One no more expects military police to instantly arrive at the scene of a mass public shooting than one expects police to arrive at one. In Alexis' attack, since he worked at the Navy Yard, he knew what entrance to go to that would have only one guard and that is where he went. For related discussions see here and here.

FACTS: This shooting was part of another crime, a robbery of illegal marijuana (see point 2 in the introduction). It was not a mass public shooting where the point of the crime was to kill as many people as possible so as to obtain media coverage.

FACTS: New York is a may issue state, not a right-to-carry state. We don't yet have the number of civilian concealed carry permits, but they seem to be extremely rare. The possession of a handgun in New York State requires a NYS Pistol Permit. In 2012 there were only 154 permits issued to own a pistol in Herkimer county. Over the previous five years, there were 667 permits issued, though not all over those permits own a handgun would have been active at the beginning of 2013 (that implies that there were less than 1.39% of the adult population that even legally owns a handgun). When talking to the pistol permit office, Lott was told that there were zero restricted licenses that allowed people to carry for business purposes (concealed carry licenses that allow a business owner to carry in the course of doing business) and zero restricted for self-defense purposes (e.g., a woman who is being actively stalked).

Report from February 2013: At this point, the Everytown for Gun Safety report mainly repeats cases previously discussed by Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns on MASS SHOOTING INCIDENTS, JANUARY 2009-JANUARY 2013. An earlier report on the problems with their claims about the attacks not being in gun-free zones was never corrected. Here is the analysis of these previous cases.

5) Geneva County, AL, 3/10/09: The shooter killed ten, including four members of his family, before killing himself.
Shooter Name: Michael Kenneth McLendon, 28
Gun details: Bushmaster AR-15, SKS Rifle, Shotgun, and .38 Pistol
Ammo details: Police recovered additional ammunition from his vehicle after the shooting.
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: The shooter had no criminal record and there is no indication he was prohibited from owning a gun.
Not a gun-free zone: It was lawful to carry a firearm in the public intersection and gas station where two of the individuals were shot.

FACTS: Nine people were killed by McLendon. In the first shooting in a house on Pullum Street, five people were killed. There was also a second shooting in another home that left two people dead. Neither were public places. It is true that two individuals were killed in separate public places as McLendon was driving along, but that is not a multiple victim public shooting in which at least four are killed in a public place. However, MAIG's report implies that all these shootings occurred in a public places.

6) Lakewood, WA, 11/29/09: The shooter killed four police officers in a Tacoma Coffee shop, eluding police for two days before being killed as he fled.
Shooter Name: Maurice Clemmons, 37
Gun details: When he was killed, he was in possession of the handgun of one of the officers he had killed.
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: The shooter was prohibited from purchasing a firearm, having been charged with at least 13 felonies across two states. He had posted bail for raping a child just six days before the attack.
Not a gun-free zone: The police officers were armed at the time of the shooting.

FACTS: Lott and Landes didn't define gun-free zones in terms of whether police were allowed to carry guns, but whether private citizens are able to readily obtain concealed handguns for their protection. What is important is that the coffee shop was posted to prevent concealed carry permit holders from carrying. Presumably MAIG understood this point and that is the reason why they focused on police officers being able to carry in this venue. Obviously, however, on-duty police can carry any place. The problem for uniformed police is that they provide an easily identifiable target and it is easy to take them out. Possibly if the attacker had to worry about permit holders who he could not identify, it would have dissuaded him from attacking. While Lott had checked when this event originally occurred, he reconfirmed this information with Dave Workman who lived nearby via email on January 8, 2013.

FACTS: This facility informed Lott in April 2009 that they did not allow guns in the facility for either the people living there or the staff. He called up to ask what their policies had been before the attack.

Here are places listed by Bloomberg's group that may have allowed people with permits to carry in places but that made it extremely difficult or impossible for civilians to get a concealed handgun permit.

10) Northridge, CA, 12/2/12: The shooter arrived at an unlicensed boarding house on Devonshire street, reportedly in search of his girlfriend, and after a dispute shot and killed four people out- side.
Shooter Name: Ka Pasasouk, 31
Gun details: semiautomatic handgun
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: The shooter was prohibited from possessing guns, having been convicted for car theft and felony robbery. While on probation in September 2012, he was arrested again for possession of methamphetamine. According to the district attorney, a prosecutor then released him on probation over the objection of probation officials, who believed he posed a threat to the safety of the community.
Not a gun-free zone: Permit holders were not prohibited from carrying guns in this area.

11) East Oakland, CA, 3/21/09: The shooter used a semiautomatic handgun to kill two police of- ficers after they stopped his car and then fled on foot to an apartment where he killed two SWAT officers with an assault weapon and injured a third before being killed by police.
Shooter Name: Lovelle Mixon
Gun details: 9mm semiautomatic handgun and SKS assault-style rifle
Ammo details: Police said the assault weapon had a high-capacity magazine.
Gun acquired: The shooter took part in a home invasion robbery in Modesto, CA, on February 21 2009 in which a rifle was reported stolen. Police did not comment on whether the stolen rifle was the one used in the shooting.
Prohibiting criteria: The shooter had a lengthy criminal history, including a conviction for armed battery, which would have prohibited him from possessing a gun, and he was on parole for assault with a deadly weapon at the time of the shootings.
Not a gun-free zone: Two of the victims were shot on a public roadway - the 7400 block of Macarthur Boulevard in East Oakland - where no state law would have prohibited a citizen with the appropriate per- mit to carry a gun. All of the police officers killed in the incident were armed.

12) Medford, NY, 6/9/11: The shooter killed four people at a pharmacy, Haven Drugs, and stole thousands of hydrocodone pills before fleeing in a vehicle. During the trial he acknowledged that he and his wife were addicted to prescription medication.
Shooter Name: David Laffer
Gun details: A .45 caliber handgun was used in the shooting. Several other legally registered guns werealso recovered from the shooter's home.
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: The gun was legally registered to the shooter, and there is no evidence he was prohibited from possessing a gun. But five months before the shooting, Suffolk County Detective Kenneth Ripp investigated an identity theft claim made by the shooter's mother, who said the shooter had stolen her debit card. After questioning the shooter and his mother, Ripp advised the Suffolk County Pistol License Bureau that the shooter was dangerous and that his guns should be confiscated. Despite Ripp's report, the guns were not removed.
Not a gun-free zone: We could find no evidence that Haven Drugs posted a sign or had a policy prohibit- ing the carrying of firearms. Current employees declined to comment.

13) Brockport, NY, 2/14/09: The shooter killed a nurse in the Lakeside Memorial Hospital parking lot and a motorist who intervened, and wounded the motorist's girlfriend. The shooter had been fired from the hospital after the nurse filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. He then drove 50 miles and killed another nurse - who had filed a similar complaint against the shooter - and her husband in their home.
Shooter Name: Frank Garcia, 34
Gun details: .40 caliber Glock handgun
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: There is no evidence that the shooter was prohibited from owning a gun. However, he had applied for concealed carry permits and been denied three times. In his 1995 application, he omit- ted information about his criminal record - including arrests for criminal possession of a weapon, assault, and harassment. In 2001 and 2006 he made further omissions, and was evaluated as lacking moral character. But in 2007 a judge reversed the denial and granted Garcia a concealed weapon permit.
Not a gun-free zone: We found no indication that permit holders were prohibited from carrying guns in this area at the time of the incident.

FACTS: All these cities either forbid or make it incredibly difficult for law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns for protection. In Boston, it is so bad that even off-duty and retired police are regularly denied unrestricted license to carry permits. Northridge, CA is part of Los Angeles County, which refuses to issue permits to regular citizens. In September 2011, there were 240 permits in all of Los Angeles County when the population was about 7.6 million adults. That equals a permit rate of 0.0032%. Of the 240 permits, most go to judges and reserve deputies (who are big campaign donors). Ten percent of permit holders are on Sheriff Lee Baca's " gift list " In addition, the attack was at a residential dwelling, not a public place.

Similarly, East Oakland, California is part of Alameda County. In 2010, Alameda County had granted concealed handgun permits to 75 people out of an 1,182,534 - a permit rate of 0.006%.

Just as with Herkimer, NY; Medford in Suffolk County, New York, and Brockport in Monroe County, New York were similarly very restrictive in issuing may issue permits. In Suffolk County, the police and sheriff's departments each handle permits in half of the permits for the county. For the sheriff's office, Robert E. Draffin (the Suffolk County Sheriff's Freedom of information officer) informed us that were 569 sportsman permits (limited to carrying to or from a shooting range or to go hunting) and 79 business permits (where a business owner is allowed to carry only in the course of doing business). For the police department, Inspector Derrocco (613-852-6000, ask for pistol permit department) noted the department "virtually never gives out permits for anything other than sportsman to carry to and from the range and for premises and dwellings." Given that there are about 1.2 million adults in Suffolk County, even assuming that the police department issued permits at the same rate as the sheriff's office, this implies a permit rate of about 0.1 percent and virtually none of these permits would have allowed a concealed handgun to be carried in the pharmacy where the attack occurred. In addition, it should be mentioned that Riccardo McCray was a gang member.

14) Oak Creek, WI, 8/5/12: The shooter killed six people at a Sikh temple and injured three others, including a responding police officer, before killing himself.
Shooter Name: Wade Michael Page, 40
Gun details: 9mm semiautomatic handgun
Ammo details: Page reportedly bought three 19-round magazines when he purchased the gun.
Gun acquired: Page acquired the gun at a local gun shop a week before the shooting.
Prohibiting criteria: Page was involved with the white supremacist movement but he does not appear to have been prohibited from purchasing a gun. Federal officials investigated Page's ties to supremacist groups more than once prior to the shooting, but did not collect enough evidence to open an investigation.

FACTS: From FoxNews.com: "No guns [were] allowed in the temple," Kulbir Singh, an attendee of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, told FoxNews.com. "Everyone knows that it's not allowed, anywhere in the temple."

FACTS: Lott spoke the spa after the attack and was told that the killer knew "nobody there had a gun." It was a family establishment, and the killer knew the family's policy on guns in the workplace. The person at the spa indicated that they were sure that neither the sisters nor their husbands had guns at the spa and that the killer who was the brother of the women knew that was the case. While the official policy at the spa isn't clear because the conversation was very short, the important thing was that the killer knew that there were no guns for people to defend themselves there. This was a small family owned establishment so it is most likely that this was the official policy of the family. Note that they have the wrong date on this event. (UPDATE: Mayors Against Illegal Guns originally claimed that this event occurred on February 22nd, but the event actually occurred on February 20, 2012. After Lott wrote his analysis, they corrected the data but did not update their discussion of gun-free zones.) Note also that the business has since closed.

16) Hialeah, FL, 6/6/10: The shooter killed four women, including his wife - who had just separat- ed from him. He injured three others before shooting and killing himself. The shooting occurred in Yoyito-Cafe Restaurant, where the shooter's wife was employed as a waitress, and in the park- ing lot immediately outside.
Shooter Name: Gerardo Regalado, 38
Gun details: .45 caliber handgun
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: The shooter had a concealed weapons permit.
Prohibiting criteria: There is no evidence that the shooter was prohibited from owning a gun. However, relatives said the shooter had abused and terrorized women in the past, and had been imprisoned in Cuba for a particularly violent incident, but he did not have a criminal record in the United States.
Not a gun-free zone: We could find no indication that guns were prohibited in this area. Guns are prohibited in Florida restaurants only in areas primarily devoted to the serving of alcohol.

17) Washington, DC, 3/30/10: Three gunmen killed four and wounded five in retaliation for an-other murder.
Shooter Name: Nathaniel D. Simms, 26; Orlando Carter, 20, and unnamed 14-year-old juvenile
Gun details: An AK-47 assault rifle and 9mm and .45-caliber handguns
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: The adults were reported to have lengthy criminal histories, which prohibited them from purchasing guns, and the 14-year-old was too young to purchase or own a gun.

18) Mount Airy, NC, 11/1/09: The shooter killed four people outside a television store before eventually surrendering to the police.
Shooter Name: Marcos Chavez Gonzalez, 29
Gun details: Assault rifle
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Not a gun-free zone: It was lawful to carry a firearm in the area of the shooting.

FACTS: Indications are that the attack was part of gang related crime. As explained above, that would exclude it from the mass public shootings done specifically to harm people as distinct from other types of violent crime.
Other recent cases pointed to by gun control advocates

2) San Francisco, January 12, 2015: four were killed in a stolen parked car.

3) Palestine Texas, November 16, 2015: 6 killed on a residential property

4) Houston Texas, August 10, 2015: 8 killed in a residential property

5) Bulington, Washington, September 23, 2016: mall shooting

6) Orlando, Florida, June 5, 2017: 5 killed at office

More detailed information on other cases
There are a few other cases that we have collected that we will link to here.

Orlando business shooting, June 5, 2017, A gunman fatally shot five of his former coworkers then killed himself during a mass shooting at Fiamma, an Orange County business, Monday morning, according to sheriff's officials. Called business and was told that this business didn't allow employees to have weapons there.

Yet another mall shooting where guns were banned: Monroeville Mall near Pittsburgh, February 8, 2015

The Melbourne Square Mall in Florida is yet another gun-free zone, January 17, 2015

Seattle Pacific University shooting took place in yet another gun-free zone, June 5, 2014

6 killed, seven wounded in Mass Public Shooting in Santa Barbara, a giant gun-free zone, May 24, 2014

Mass shooting yesterday at FedEx facility in Kennesaw Georgia took place in yet another "gun-free zone", April 30, 2014

Maryland Mall Shooting at yet another gun free zone, January 25, 2014

At a tribal court hearing over an eviction of Cherie Lash Rhodes, Alturas, California (February 20, 2014).

The Azana Salon & Spa shooting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (November, 2012).

Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 27, 2012. Talked to Joe Bailey who has worked at the comapny since 2007 and he informed us that the factory did not allow permitted concealed handguns there before or after the attack.

Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting (July, 2012). The Cinemark movie theater chain posted signs at their theaters ( See here).

Cafe Racer, Seattle, Washington, four killed at restaurant (May 30, 2012).

Another shooting in a another gun free zone: Binghamton, NY(April, 2009).

Atlantis Plastics, Inc shooting on June 25, 2008 left 5 murdered at a factory in Henderson, Kentucky ( see here).

Trolley Square Mall in Utah (February, 2007).

Omaha, Nebraska mall shooting (December 2007).

John Lott has about 327 postings on gun-free zones available here.

For those who object to the New York Times list of mass public shootings, the very beginning of this post also shows a graphic for the last twenty years and the rate of shootings in gun-free zones is also high. Given that very few states had right-to-carry laws prior to 1977, to the extent that the New York Times missed attacks, our numbers will likely underestimate the rate of attacks in gun-free zones.

UPDATE: Everytown provides a response to our post here.

Regarding the count of whether mass public shootings occurred in gun-free zones, Everytown brings up a total of four cases.

- Two of the four cases that they raise were cases that we agree with and clearly listed as cases where a shooting had occurred where general citizens were able to have guns: The IHOP shooting in Carson City and the Tucson, AZ shooting with Giffords.

- On the Herkimer county case, note what we pointed out above that Everytown didn't respond to: there were zero restricted licenses that allowed people to carry for business purposes (concealed carry licenses that allow a business owner to carry in the course of doing business) and zero restricted for self defense purposes (e.g., a woman who is being actively stalked). Even less than 1.4% of the adult population even owns a handgun in the country. A license to own a handgun is not the same being able to carry it.

Why ignore our points in writing up their responses? If Everytown had responses, you would think that they would provide them.

Biker gang fight in Texas May 2015. Gang fight doesn't meet FBI criteria.

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UPDATED: Mass Public Shootings keep occurring in Gun-Free Zones: 94% of attacks since 1950

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UPDATED on July 6th, 2019: Original title: "More misleading information from Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety on guns: 'Analysis of Recent Mass Shootings,' Showing how mass public shootings keep occurring in gun-free zones" Originally posted on September 9, 2014. While the first part of the discussion here goes through each mass public shooting from 2009...

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According to the Washington Post, in the US there are 326 million people and 393 million guns. This means that there is 67 million more guns in the US than people. The population includes men, women AND children so it includes everyone not just a select amount of people in the US.

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There are more than 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States, or enough for every man, woman and child to own one and still have 67 million guns left over.

Those numbers come from the latest edition of the global Small Arms Survey, a project of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

The report, which draws on official data, survey data and other measures for 230 countries, finds that global firearm ownership is heavily concentrated in the United States. In 2017, for instance, Americans made up 4 percent of the world's population but owned about 46 percent of the entire global stock of 857 million civilian firearms.

With an estimated 120.5 guns for every 100 residents, the firearm ownership rate in the United States is twice that of the next-highest nation, Yemen, with just 52.8 guns per 100 residents. In raw number terms, the closest country to the United States is India, with 71.1 million firearms in circulation. These numbers do not include firearms owned by law enforcement agencies or militaries.

On gun ownership, the United States stands out among the world's wealthiest nations, with an ownership rate more than three times higher than the rate in the next-highest country, Canada. The gun ownership rate in the United States is more than six times higher than the average among similar wealthy nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Obama years were a boom time for America's gun manufacturers, which doubled their annual output between 2009 and 2013, fueled in part by fears of a federal crackdown on gun ownership that never materialized. "In the United States alone civilians acquired at least 122 million new or imported firearms during the period 2006-17," the Small Arms Survey found.

If global gun ownership is concentrated in American hands, American gun ownership is concentrated even more narrowly in the country's gun-owning households. As of 2017, Gallup found that 42 percent of American households reported owning guns. With an estimated 118 million households in the United States, per the U.S. Census, that would mean that the country's 393 million guns are distributed among 50 million households. The implication is that the average gun-owning household owns nearly eight guns.

A separate Harvard-Northeastern study published in 2016 found that 3 percent of American adults (individuals in this case, not households) own half the nation's firearms. Combined with the latest Small Arms Survey estimate, that would mean that 3 percent of American adults own nearly one quarter of the world's civilian firearms stockpile. It's worth noting, however, that the Harvard-Northeastern study, which was based on a survey of gun owners, estimated a much lower number of guns in circulation: 265 million as of January 2015.

Because there is no official tally of American gun ownership, there's a margin of error around any estimate of either gun ownership or the number of guns in circulation. Some gun owners may be disinclined to answer survey questions, for instance, which would result in an undercount of the number of households and individuals owning guns.

Similarly, any estimate of the number of guns in circulation has to make an assumption about attrition - the number of firearms that are destroyed or otherwise become unusable in any given year. The number of guns in circulation could be subject to overcount or undercount, depending on how researchers model the effects of attrition.

Regardless, the big-picture trends are not in dispute. Measured in rates or in raw terms, the United States is the civilian gun capital of the world.

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Analysis | There are more guns than people in the United States, according to a new study of global firearm ownership

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There are more than 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States, or enough for every man, woman and child to own one and still have 67 million guns left over. Those numbers come from the latest edition of the global Small Arms Survey, a project of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

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According the New York Times, "Researchers have extensively studied whether there is a causal link between video games and violent behavior, and while there isn’t quite a consensus, there is broad agreement that no such link exists." This means that there is a correlation between violence and video games but violent video games don't directly cause shootings or violence with guns.

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Said one expert: "The data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive."

Politicians have long blamed violent video games for mass shootings. But experts say there is no real causal link between games like Doom and deadly real-life violence. Credit... Christian Petersen/Getty Images

After two mass shootings over the weekend that killed 31 people and wounded dozens more, powerful Republicans, including the president, blamed an old bogeyman: video games.

"We must stop the glorification of violence in our society," President Trump said on Monday in a White House address on the shootings. "This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace."

Mr. Trump's words echoed those of Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader. In an appearance on "Fox & Friends" on Sunday morning, Mr. Patrick implored the federal government to "do something about the video game industry."

"We've watched from studies, shown before, what it does to individuals, and you look at these photos of how it took place, you can see the actions within video games and others," added Mr. McCarthy on a different Fox show.

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transcript

Trump Says Video Games an Issue in Shootings

"It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence," Trump said.

We must stop the glorification of violence in our society. This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence. We must stop or substantially reduce this, and it has to begin immediately. Cultural change is hard. But each of us can choose to build a culture that celebrates the inherent worth and dignity of every human life. That's what we have to do.

"It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence," Trump said. Credit Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

Armed with little and often unconvincing evidence, politicians have blamed violence on video games for decades. Their rhetoric quickly ramped up in the 1990s, after games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom popularized the genre of violent first-person shooting games. Since then, video games have been blamed for shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, and many others in between.

Researchers have extensively studied whether there is a causal link between video games and violent behavior, and while there isn't quite a consensus, there is broad agreement that no such link exists.

According to a policy statement from the media psychology division of the American Psychological Association, "Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlational connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities."

Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University, led the committee that developed the policy statement. In an interview Monday, he said the evidence was clear that violent video games are not a risk factor for serious acts of aggression. Neither are violent movies, nor other forms of media.

"The data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive," said Dr. Ferguson. "Literally. The numbers work out about the same."

The Supreme Court has also rejected the idea. In striking down a California law that banned the sale of some violent video games to children in 2011, the court savaged the evidence California mustered in support of its law.

"These studies have been rejected by every court to consider them, and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively," Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion. He added: "They show at best some correlation between exposure to violent entertainment and minuscule real-world effects, such as children's feeling more aggressive or making louder noises in the few minutes after playing a violent game than after playing a nonviolent game."

Shortly after Mr. Trump's address, the hashtag #VideogamesAreNotToBlame began trending nationally on Twitter, with most tweets mocking the idea that video games were to blame for either of the shootings.

If video games did indeed cause some mass shootings, one might expect such events to be common in Japan or South Korea. Both countries spend more per capita on video games than the United States, according to Newzoo, and have huge video game communities. Japan is home to video game makers like Nintendo, Sega and Sony, while South Korea has a highly developed competitive video gaming industry.

But Japan and South Korea - both of which have very strict laws limiting gun ownership - have among the lowest rates of violent crime in the world, and mass casualty events are quite rare.

A screenshot from Wolfenstein 3D, a first-person shooter released in the 1990s. Credit... Jamaway/Alamy

Mr. Trump's administration studied the issue previously and came to no significant conclusion about connections between mass shootings and violent video games.

After last year's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Trump administration convened a federal commission on school safety. The commission's final report downplayed the role of guns in school shootings. Instead, it called for improving mental health services, training school employees in firearm use and rolling back rules developed during the Obama administration that were aimed at ensuring minority children weren't unfairly disciplined by schools.

The commission's 180-page report devotes a chapter to what it calls "violent entertainment," including video games. After hearing from a variety of researchers and other experts, the commission officially recommended that state and local educational agencies have internet safety measures in place, and the enforcers of voluntary ratings systems - such as the Motion Picture Association of America's practice of assigning ratings like "PG-13" and "R" to movies - should review and improve their policies.

It made no specific recommendation in regards to video games.

In some cases, the perpetrators of mass shootings are quite clear about their motivations. On Saturday, a 2,300-word manifesto appeared online minutes before the shooting in El Paso, Tex., in which 21 people were killed. The second line of the hate-filled, anti-immigrant manifesto says the attack "is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."

Law enforcement officials were investigating whether it was written by the shooter. They were interviewing the suspect, Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old white man who lived about a 10-hour drive from the Walmart where the shooting took place.

Video games are, however, mentioned in the manifesto. "Don't attack heavily guarded areas to fulfill your super soldier COD fantasy," it advised, referring to the popular Call of Duty franchise of games in which players usually embody the roles of soldiers.

People who commit mass shootings sometimes identify as video gamers, but James Ivory, who studies media and video games at Virginia Tech, cautioned to be aware of the base rate effect. Of course some mass shooters will have played violent video games, he said - video games are ubiquitous in society, especially among men, who are much more likely to commit mass shootings.

"It is very similar to saying the perpetrator wears shoes," Dr. Ivory explained. "They do, but so do their peers in the general population."

Gamers in Tokyo play Call of Duty last year. A manifesto that appeared online minutes before the shooting in El Paso, Tex., made a reference to the game. Credit... Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Researchers have some good data on what causes people to commit violent crime, but much less data on what causes them to commit mass shootings, in large part because they happen relatively infrequently.

There is no universally accepted definition for what constitutes a mass shooting. For a long time, the F.B.I. considered it to be a single shooting in which four or more people were killed. By that definition, a handful occur in the United States each year. Using a definition with fewer victims, or including those injured but not killed, a few hundred occur each year.

Either count pales in comparison to the other one million violent crimes reported each year.

While cautioning that he was hesitant to imply that most mass shooters fit a specific profile, Dr. Ferguson listed some commonalities. They tend to have mental health problems, sometimes undiagnosed, a history of antisocial behavior, have often come to the attention of law enforcement or other authorities and are what criminologists call "injustice collectors," he said.

"The problem is, you could take that profile and collect 500,000 people that fit," he said. "There are a lot of angry jerks out there that don't go on to commit mass shootings."

Violent video games are much more likely to be trotted out as an excuse, however, in certain situations. For a forthcoming study, Dr. Ivory and his colleagues studied 6,814 news accounts of mass shootings. They found that in coverage of mass school shootings specifically, video games were more than eight times as likely to be brought up when the shooter is white than when the shooter is black.

"We should think about when we are more comfortable looking for something else to blame," he said, adding, "I haven't heard any senators talk about video games when an immigrant commits a crime."

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Video Games Aren't Why Shootings Happen. Politicians Still Blame Them. (Published 2019)

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Said one expert: "The data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive." After two mass shootings over the weekend that killed 31 people and wounded dozens more, powerful Republicans, including the president, blamed an old bogeyman: video games.

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According to this article, "There is a strong correlation between the loss of religion in the United States and increased mass shootings." In the same years that the amount of people practicing religion has gone down, the amount of severe mass shootings has gone up.

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The highest aim of civilization is to ensure the preservation of its people's lives. The continued development of America's mass shooting epidemic, reflected in the tragedies of Las Vegas and New Mexico, warrants an investigation of the causes of this evil. Ultimately, the root of this problem extends beyond the material alone. While guns enable mass shootings, they do not promote them. The initial cause of a mass shooting, the motivator, is the separation of a person from their sense of morality, allowing them to harm others without any regard for the consequences of their action. Ultimately, the substantial increase in mass shooting tragedies is caused by the corrosion of morality at the hands of a declining American culture. This decline is most evident in the developing trend of fading religious influence on society.

There is a strong correlation between the loss of religion in the United States and increased mass shootings. In the same time period that the number of people practicing religion has dropped within the United States, the number of severe mass shootings has increased significantly with each decade. However, this relationship extends beyond a correlation alone; causation is also sensible. Historically, while religious differences have often caused violence between cultures, religious homogeneity has created stability within a culture. Throughout European history, Christianity served as the foundation of society, justifying the authority of kings to rule and organizing the schedule of all of society around masses and religious holidays. Some would fear excessive application of religion to the modern society on the basis of its greatest past failures such as the Crusades, but I respond that human progress has largely mitigated the influence of religious extremism in the western hemisphere. With a developed understanding of human rights in the west, predominantly western religions such as Christianity have not waged war based on their theologic claim to power for centuries. In the context of the current world, society can access the benefits of religious homogeneity to societal stability more reliably than ever.

While many would like to dismiss this history in the face of new applications of logic and science to society, the weight of thousands of years cannot be dismissed like a grain of salt. We must not overlook the fact that, in shifting from religion, we enact tremendous change to the structure of our society. Centralized communities no longer meet and celebrate the same religious events every week. People no longer acknowledge a consistent set of moral truths. There are clear societal harms to these changes. Without a close, defined community, people are susceptible to anxiety and isolation. Without defined moral standards, people fall easily to evil, nihilistic values. These concerns are not speculative alone. When we look closely at the lives of mass shooters like Stephen Paddock and Nathaniel Jouett, we see individuals corrupted by feelings of isolation and anger that could have been remedied should our society have maintained the benefits of its religious structure. America's trending shift away from its religious values is a tremendous change, and in reflection of these recent events, it is one of reckless detriment.

While religious differences have often caused violence between cultures, religious homogeneity has created stability within a culture. "

- Charlie Kraemer

I would like to clarify that I do not see the loss of religion as the sole cause of mass shootings, and do not feel that a complete restoration of past religious values is the only step that should be taken to halt further tragedy. This is a nuanced issue exacerbated on a variety of fronts, including the excessive availability of semi-automatic weapons. However, I do feel that consistent moral standards, often established by religious tradition, serve to better the character of the majority of a society, and therefore play an important role in mitigating mass shootings.

If America seeks to address its gun violence problem, it must do so not only by reducing the capability of the corrupt to harm others, but also by combatting their motive to do so. In this process, we must be precautious and look to the ultimately altruistic values of most religions in order to dispel potential extremism. Should religion be properly implemented into society, we can now be met with the best of two worlds: the careful dedication to moral standards of traditional religion, and the stronger respect for all human dignity of the modern western world.

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Lack of religion contributes to societal violence

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The highest aim of civilization is to ensure the preservation of its people's lives. The continued development of America's mass shooting epidemic, reflected in the tragedies of Las Vegas and New Mexico, warrants an investigation of the causes of this evil. Ultimately, the root of this problem extends beyond the material alone.

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According to news.gallop.com, "79% now say the spread of extremist views on the internet bears a great deal or fair amount of blame, up from 57% in 2013 -- a 22-percentage-point increase." People are blaming extremist views and extremists for mass shootings in the United States.

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More Blaming Extremism, Heated Rhetoric for Mass Shootings

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Story Highlights Mental health system faulted by 83% for not flagging dangerous people Blame on extremist internet views has risen from 57% in 2013 to 79% now 58% blame inflammatory political rhetoric, up from 36% in 2013 WASHINGTON, D.C.

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I think that lack of morals and religion in society is the biggest cause of gun violence. This is because when someone has a lack of morals or religion in their life, they will do whatever they want to and have no guidelines that they live by. This is no physical thing that can be identified and taken care of, it is much bigger than that. Lack of morals and religion is a person's choice which you can't take away from them.