By Philp Alpers

In New Zealand, 250,000 licensed shooters own an estimated 1.1 million firearms, enough for one in each occupied dwelling and sufficient to outnumber the combined small-arms of the police and armed forces by a ratio of 30 to 1. We own 11 times as many guns per capita as the English and the Welsh, 60% more than the Australians but less than half as many as the residents of the United States. An additional 14,000 guns are imported to New Zealand in a typical year. Any New Zealander with a basic firearms licence may legally buy and keep any number of sporting rifles and shotguns in any home without any official records of the guns being kept anywhere. Police have no statutory authority to monitor the size and content of such a gun owner’s collection. Each day an average of seven firearm offences involving danger to life are reported to the police, while one in five homicides are committed with a firearm. In a typical year 91 New Zealanders are shot to death: one for every four days. Of these, 75% are suicides, 12% accidents, 11% homicides, while in 2% of cases the cause is undetermined. In an average year, 13 children aged 15 or younger die from gunshot wounds. Our gun death toll is 10% higher than the toll from cervical cancer. For every ten New Zealanders who die from HIV/AIDS, fifteen die by gunshot. Gun death is three times more common than death by fire. In addition to gun killings, non-fatal gun injuries result in one New Zealander being hospitalised on average every four days. Of all victims of gun homicide in this country during 1992-94, most (52.5%) were shot by a licensed gun owner. Almost all victims (95%) were killed by a familiar male. Half were shot by their partner, an estranged partner or a member of their own family. Of the perpetrators, 82% had no previous history of violent crime, while none had a history of mental illness.

Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Police Association, 1996. 38p.

By Philip Alpers

In New Zealand, 250,000 licensed shooters own an estimated 1.1 million firearms, enough for one in each occupied dwelling and sufficient to outnumber the combined small-arms of the police and armed forces by a ratio of 30 to 1. We own 16 times as many guns per capita as the English and the Welsh, 60% more than the Australians but less than half as many as the residents of the United States. An additional 14,000 guns are imported to New Zealand in a typical year. Each day an average of seven firearm offences involving danger to life are reported to the police, while one in five homicides are committed with a firearm. On average, one person dies by gunshot in New Zealand every four days. Despite a common certainty that firearms are increasingly misused, there has been little local research. Although critical data on the misuse of firearms are collected by police, these are not made available.

Wellington NZ: New Zealand Police Association, 1996. 33p.

Edited by Nils Duquet

This edited volume offers an in-depth and detailed insight into Project SAFTE’s research findings. In-depth country studies were conducted in eight EU member states by research teams from the Flemish Peace Institute, SIPRI, SSSA, Arquebus Solutions, Small Arms Survey and Bureau Bruinsma. The in-depth qualitative research methodology involved desk research and semi-structured interviews with key international actors and stakeholders such as Europol, EMPACT Firearms, Interpol, SEESAC and the Office of the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator. The volume sheds light on how illegal firearms markets are structured in the EU and shows how terrorists access these.

Brussels: Flemish Peace Institute, 2018. 484p.

By Columbine Review Commission

The Commission conducted 15 meetings open to members of the public. The Commission received statements from an extensive list of State and local officials and private persons who had experience with or information concerning the event; Commission staff reviewed thousands of pages of official and unofficial documents, reports, and studies. Two recommendations related to crisis response actions. First, law enforcement policy and training should emphasize that the highest priority of law enforcement officers, after arriving at the scene of a crisis, is to stop any ongoing assault. Second, there should be an increased emphasis on training appropriate personnel in preparation for and responding to large-scale emergencies. Two recommendations pertained to improved communications for critical emergencies. First, law enforcement agencies should plan their communications systems to facilitate crisis communication with other agencies with whom they might reasonably be expected to interface in emergencies. Second, Colorado should continue to develop a single statewide digital trunked communications system. Other categories of recommendations pertained to advance planning for critical emergencies; interaction with media representatives; tasks of school resource officers; detection by school administrators of potential perpetrators of school-based violence and administrative countermeasures; medical treatment for attack victims; reuniting attack victims and their families; identification of victims' bodies and family access to bodies; and suicide prevention in the aftermath of traumatic incidents.

Denver, Colo. : Columbine Review Commission, 2001. 174p.

By The Office of the Child Advocate

In January, 2013, the Office of the Child Advocate was directed by the Connecticut Child Fatality Review Panel to prepare a report that would focus on Adam Lanza (hereinafter referred to as AL), and include a review of the circumstances that pre-dated his commission of mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The charge was to develop any recommendations for public health system improvement that emanated from the review. Authors of this report focused on AL’s developmental, educational, and mental health profile over time, the services he received from various community providers, and ultimately his condition prior to his actions on December 14, 2012. Authors looked for any warning signs, red flags, or other lessons that could be learned from a review of AL’s life. It was not the primary purpose of this investigation to explicitly examine the role of guns in the Sandy Hook shootings. However, the conclusion cannot be avoided that access to guns is relevant to an examination of ways to improve the public health. Access to assault weapons with high capacity magazines did play a major role in this and other mass shootings in recent history. Our emphasis on AL’s developmental trajectory and issues of mental illness should not be understood to mean that these issues were considered more important than access to these weapons or that we do not consider such access to be a critical public health issue.

Hartford, CT : State of Connecticut, Office of the Child Advocate, 2014. 114p.

By William S. Pollack, William.; Modzeleski, and Rooney, Georgeann

In the wake of several high-profile shootings at schools in the United States, most notably the shootings that occurred at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, the United States Secret Service (Secret Service) and the United States Department of Education (ED) embarked on a collaborative endeavor to study incidents of planned (or "targeted") violence in the nation's schools. Initiated in 1999, the study, termed the Safe School Initiative (SSI), examined several issues, most notably whether past school-based attacks were planned, and what could be done to prevent future attacks. The SSI findings highlight that in most targeted school-based attacks, individuals, referred to as "bystanders" in this report, had some type of advanced knowledge about planned school violence. Despite this advanced knowledge, the attacks still occurred. This study aimed to further the prevention of targeted school-based attacks by exploring how students with prior knowledge of attacks made decisions regarding what steps, if any, to take after learning the information. The study sought to identify what might be done to encourage more students to share information they learn about potential targeted school-based violence with one or more adults. Six key findings were identified. Given the small sample size and the exploratory nature of the study, generalization from these findings may be limited. The findings are: (1) The relationships between the bystanders and the attackers, as well as when and how the bystanders came upon information about the planned attacks, varied; (2) Bystanders shared information related to a threat along a continuum that ranged from bystanders who took no action to those who actively conveyed the information; (3) School climate affected whether bystanders came forward with information related to the threats; (4) Some bystanders disbelieved that the attacks would occur and thus did not report them; (5) Bystanders often misjudged the likelihood and immediacy of the planned attack; and (6) In some situations, parents and parental figures influenced whether the bystander reported the information related to the potential attack to school staff or other adults in positions of authority,

Washington, DC: United States Secret Service and United States Department of Education, 2008. 15p.

By The Federal Commission on School Safety

Communities across the country are responding to school violence with a number of measures, including assigned school resource officers (SRO). School administrations, law enforcement agencies, families, and community stakeholders are diligently working to protect children and education personnel from school attacks. The National Police Foundation (NPF), in collaboration with the COPS Office, created the Averted School Violence (ASV) database in 2015 as a platform for law enforcement, school staff, and mental health professionals to share information about ASV incidents and lessons learned with the goal of mitigating and ultimately preventing future injuries and fatalities in educational institutions. The database includes school incidents beginning with the Columbine High School attack (1999) and continuing to the present day. The NPF has partnered with stakeholder groups National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) and the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA) to conduct research and analysis on improving school safety. This report examines a dozen case studies of targeted violence incidents thwarted by the positive and often heroic actions of classmates, school administrators, SROs, and law enforcement agencies. It also includes recommendations and lessons learned from all cases in the ASV database. In addition, a companion publication entitled Targeted Violence Averted: College and University Case Studies presents information on post-secondary averted violence incidents and lessons learned to support student safety.

Washington, DC: Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, 2018. 180p.

By Peter Langman, Anthony Petrosino, and Hannah Sutherland

School shootings are the subject of debate in the media and in communities across the United States, and there is much discussion about prevention and the root causes of such attacks. But what does research say about these tragic events and their perpetrators? Do all shooters fit a specific profile? And what meaningful steps can schools and communities take to reduce the likelihood of these events? In concise, clear language, this research brief, produced by the WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center, describes and refutes five common misconceptions about school shootings and suggests an evidence-based strategy to reduce the probability of attacks. The authors conclude that schools and communities are better served when presented with a balanced perspective informed by the wealth of available research about perpetrators, their varying motivations, and pre-attack behaviors.

San Francisco, CA: WestEd Justice and Prevention Research Center, 2018. 5p.

By Jaclyn Schildkraut

The first five months of 2021 saw high-profile public mass shootings in cities across the United States of America, like Atlanta, Georgia (March 16, 8 dead), Boulder, Colorado (March 22, 10 dead), Indianapolis, Indiana (April 15, 8 dead), and San Jose, California (May 26, 9 dead). Following a year where such events rarely made headlines as the nation found itself in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, these incidents revived the public discourse about mass shootings in America, as well as how to prevent and respond to such tragedies. This dialogue raised an important question: As society returns to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic, what does the future of mass shootings look like? To answer this, it is important to understand the trends associated with the phenomenon of mass shootings. The first issuance of this policy brief in 2018 examined 51 years (1966-2016) of mass shootings data based on a comprehensive database from researchers Jaclyn Schildkraut and H. Jaymi Elsass.3 As described below, the researchers developed their own definition that became the foundation of this analysis given deficiencies with existing classifications and data sources. This updated brief provides analyses including an additional four new years of data since the original 2018 policy brief to identify changes in trends and broader considerations for policymakers, particularly given the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact and lessons learned from specific shootings within this period. Specifically, this brief presents and analyzes a total of 55 years of mass shooting data from 1966 to 2020, including frequency, injury and fatality, location type, weapon usage, and perpetrator demographics. The appendix contains information on only the most recent four years of data from 2017 to 2020.

Albany, NY: Rockefeller Institute of Government, 2021. 25p.

By Joshua Horowitz and Casey Anderson.

When gun enthusiasts talk about constitutional liberties guaranteed by the Second Amendment, they are referring to freedom in a general sense, but they also have something more specific in mind---freedom from government oppression. They argue that the only way to keep federal authority in check is to arm individual citizens who can, if necessary, defend themselves from an aggressive government. In the past decade, this view of the proper relationship between government and individual rights and the insistence on a role for private violence in a democracy has been co-opted by the conservative movement. As a result, it has spread beyond extreme militia groups to influence state and national policy. In Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson set the record straight. They challenge the proposition that more guns equal more freedom and expose Insurrectionism as a true threat to freedom in the United States today.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. 287p.