Geller Lisa B, Booty Marisa, Crifasi Cassandra K
Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, 805 15th St. NW, Washington, DC, 20005, USA.
Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Inj Epidemiol. 2021 May 31;8(1):38. doi: 10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0.
Fatal mass shootings, defined as four or more people killed by gunfire, excluding the perpetrator, account for a small percentage of firearm homicide fatalities. Research has not extensively focused on the role of domestic violence (DV) in mass shootings in the United States. This study explores the role of DV in mass shootings in the United States.
Using 2014-2019 mass shooting data from the Gun Violence Archive, we indexed our data by year and mass shooting and collected the number of deaths and injuries. We reviewed news articles for each mass shooting to determine if it was 1) DV-related (i.e., at least one victim of a mass shooting was a dating partner or family member of the perpetrator); 2) history of DV (i.e., the perpetrator had a history of DV but the mass shooting was not directed toward partners or family members); or 3) non-DV-related (i.e., the victims were not partners or family members, nor was there mention of the perpetrator having a history of DV). We conducted descriptive analyses to summarize the percent of mass shootings that were DV-related, history of DV, or non-DV-related, and analyzed how many perpetrators died during the incidents. We conducted one-way ANOVA to examine whether there were differences in the average number of injuries or fatalities or the case fatality rates (CFR) between the three categories. One outlier and 17 cases with unknown perpetrators were excluded from our main analysis.
We found that 59.1% of mass shootings between 2014 and 2019 were DV-related and in 68.2% of mass shootings, the perpetrator either killed at least one partner or family member or had a history of DV. We found significant differences in the average number of injuries and fatalities between DV and history of DV shootings and a higher average case fatality rate associated with DV-related mass shootings (83.7%) than non-DV-related (63.1%) or history of DV mass shootings (53.8%). Fifty-five perpetrators died during the shootings; 39 (70.9%) died by firearm suicide, 15 (27.3%) were killed by police, and 1 (1.8%) died from an intentional overdose.
Most mass shootings are related to DV. DV-related shootings had higher CFR than those unrelated to DV. Given these findings, restricting access to guns by perpetrators of DV may affect the occurrence of mass shootings and associated casualties.
致命大规模枪击事件定义为四人或更多人被枪杀（不包括行凶者），占枪支杀人死亡总数的一小部分。在美国，关于家庭暴力（DV）在大规模枪击事件中的作用，研究尚未广泛涉及。本研究探讨了家庭暴力在美国大规模枪击事件中的作用。
利用枪支暴力档案库2014 - 2019年的大规模枪击数据，我们按年份和大规模枪击事件对数据进行索引，并收集了伤亡人数。我们查阅了每起大规模枪击事件的新闻报道，以确定它是否为1）与家庭暴力相关（即大规模枪击事件的至少一名受害者是行凶者的约会对象或家庭成员）；2）有家庭暴力史（即行凶者有家庭暴力史，但大规模枪击事件并非针对伴侣或家庭成员）；或3）与家庭暴力无关（即受害者不是伴侣或家庭成员，也未提及行凶者有家庭暴力史）。我们进行了描述性分析，以总结与家庭暴力相关、有家庭暴力史或与家庭暴力无关的大规模枪击事件的百分比，并分析了多少行凶者在事件中死亡。我们进行了单因素方差分析，以检验这三类事件在平均受伤人数、死亡人数或病死率（CFR）方面是否存在差异。我们的主要分析排除了一个异常值和17起行凶者身份不明的案件。
我们发现，2014年至2019年期间，59.1%的大规模枪击事件与家庭暴力相关，在68.2%的大规模枪击事件中，行凶者要么杀害了至少一名伴侣或家庭成员，要么有家庭暴力史。我们发现，与家庭暴力相关的枪击事件和有家庭暴力史的枪击事件在平均受伤人数和死亡人数上存在显著差异，与家庭暴力相关的大规模枪击事件的平均病死率（83.7%）高于与家庭暴力无关的事件（63.1%）或有家庭暴力史的大规模枪击事件（53.8%）。55名行凶者在枪击事件中死亡；39人（70.9%）死于枪支自杀，15人（27.3%）被警方击毙，1人（1.8%）死于故意过量用药。
大多数大规模枪击事件与家庭暴力有关。与家庭暴力相关的枪击事件的病死率高于与家庭暴力无关的事件。鉴于这些发现，限制家庭暴力行凶者获取枪支可能会影响大规模枪击事件的发生及相关伤亡情况。
