ByFiona Mangan and Matthias Nowak

This Briefing Paper from the Small Arms Survey maps cross-border arms trafficking in West Africa and the Sahel through case studies on Niger, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, and the two tri-border areas of Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire–Mali, and Ghana–Côte d’Ivoire–Burkina Faso. The study reveals that highly organized trafficking networks move sizable arms quantities across large areas of land north of the Niger River. Arms trafficking south of the river is more characterized by lower-level arms flows and local intermediaries engaging in so-called ‘ant trade’. Actors range from long-established criminals, corrupt officials, and organized trafficking rings, to tribal networks and low-level transporters. Based on field research, The West Africa–Sahel Connection: Mapping Cross-border Arms Trafficking analyzes the links between illicit arms trafficking and other forms of trafficking and organized crime in the region. The study also looks into the impacts of such arms trafficking as well as the responses to it.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2019. 24p.

By William Godnick, with Robert Muggah and Camilla Waszink

This paper provides a review of the impact of small arms and light weapons in Central America in the years following the end of the armed hostilities of the 1980s and early 1990s. In this instance, ‘Central America’ refers to the Spanish-speaking countries of the isthmus—Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama. The definition of small arms and light weapons used here is the one set out by the UN (1997), and covers a wide range of weaponry, including commercial firearms and military weapons that can be used by an individual soldier or small crew.1 ‘Small arms’, ‘firearms’, and ‘weapons’ are used more or less interchangeably in the paper. Military and civilian firearms are the principal focus, but because of the type of violence affecting present-day Central America, other weapons such as hand grenades and home-made pistols are also discussed. Homicide rates, and more specifically firearm-related homicide rates, are the primary indicators used to gauge the impact of weapons on Central American societies. Other indicators given more anecdotal consideration here include armed crime and injury rates, the growth in the private security industry, the costs of firearm-related violence to the public health system, the impact of such crimes on the economy and the effects of armed violence on governance in remote rural areas.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International Studies, 2002. 51p.

By Kate Buchanan

This publication identifies a number of areas where additional steps are needed to tackle the availability and misuse of small arms. It points to promising policy initiatives, draws on lessons learned, and sets out recommendations for action. The main themes addressed are:- Preventing misuse- Controlling supply- Providing assistance to survivors of gun violence- Focusing on gender- Taking guns and ammunition out of circulation- Addressing the demand for small arms- Justice and security sector governance. This publication is designed specifically for government representatives, to provide a compelling people-centred agenda for the next phase of multilateral small arms activity, and will be widely distributed in the lead-up to the UN Review Conference on small arms.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 162p.

By Philip Alpers

This field study focuses on PNG's Southern Highlands Province, a conspicuous hot spot for armed violence and gun-related injury. It provides a preliminary tally of illegal high-powered guns in parts of the province seen as particularly vulnerable to armed violence, and documents the profound disruption wrought by their misuse. Tribal fighters, mercenary gunmen, and criminals provide details of their illicit firearms and ammunition, trafficking routes, and prices paid. The most common illegal assault weapon is the Australian-made self-loading rifle, followed by the US-made M16, both of which are sourced primarily from PNG Defence Force stocks. Many of the remainder are AR-15s obtained from the PNG police.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2005. 138p.

By James Silver; Andre Simons; and Sarah Craun

"In 2017 there were 30 separate active shootings in the United States, the largest number ever recorded by the FBI during a one-year period. With so many attacks occurring, it can become easy to believe that nothing can stop an active shooter determined to commit violence. [...] Faced with so many tragedies, society routinely wrestles with a fundamental question: can anything be done to prevent attacks on our loved ones, our children, our schools, our churches, concerts, and communities? There is cause for hope because there is something that can be done. In the weeks and months before an attack, many active shooters engage in behaviors that may signal impending violence. While some of these behaviors are intentionally concealed, others are observable and -- if recognized and reported -- may lead to a disruption prior to an attack. Unfortunately, well-meaning bystanders (often friends and family members of the active shooter) may struggle to appropriately categorize the observed behavior as malevolent. [...] Once reported to law enforcement, those in authority may also struggle to decide how best to assess and intervene, particularly if no crime has yet been committed. By articulating the concrete, observable pre-attack behaviors of many active shooters, the FBI hopes to make these warning signs more visible and easily identifiable. This information is intended to be used not only by law enforcement officials, mental health care practitioners, and threat assessment professionals, but also by parents, friends, teachers, employers and anyone who suspects that a person is moving towards violence."

Washington, DC: U.S.. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018. 30p.

By Tanya Mehra, Méryl Demuynck, Colin P. Clarke, Nils Duquet, Cameron Lumley, Matthew Wentworth

This report presents the main findings of ICCT’s year-long research project on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) as a source of terrorism financing. Chapters 2 and 3 take a regional focus and explore this phenomenon in respectively West Africa and the Middle East. Chapter 4 then investigates the possible role that DDR programmes can play in reducing SALW flows. Chapter 5 assesses the existing legal and policy frameworks from a multitude of angles. Chapter 6 reflects on the short and long-term implications the possession and identified use of SALW by terrorist groups has for Europe. The final chapter considers the various direct and indirect ways through which terrorists are ‘Cashing in on Guns’, and lists a number of policy recommendations for the EU to take a step forward in addressing this phenomenon.

The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2021. 147p.

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 Jeff Allison, Mo Canady, and Frank G. Straub

Tuesday, April 20, 1999, was sadly the last day of school for the seniors of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. On that day, two 12th-grade students armed with a semiautomatic pistol, two shotguns, and a rifle murdered a teacher and 12 of their fellow students; an additional 21 people were injured by gunfire, and three were injured escaping from the school. The perpetrators took their own lives in the school library where they had killed most of their victims. At the beginning of the attack, one of the shooters exchanged gunfire outside with the school resource officer (SRO). While the Columbine shooting inarguably contributed to the expanded deployment of SROs in schools, it was not the advent of school-based law enforcement in the United States. There are indications in the research literature that Flint, Michigan, assigned a police officer to its schools in 1953, and the Fresno (California) Police Department first assigned plainclothes officers to its elementary and middle schools in 1968 (West and Fries 1995). The Fresno initiative was an attempt to enhance police-community relations specifically with youth. The federal impetus for increasing the number of SROs can be traced in part to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 as well as the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994. The Cops in School program, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), grew out of the former statute. The latter statute was enacted in response to juvenile and gang violence. Soon after the tragedy at Columbine, which at the time was the worst mass casualty shooting at a school in the United States, the U.S. Department of Education (DoED) and the U.S. Secret Service undertook a study of past school shootings to identify factors that might help prevent future targeted school attacks (Vossekuil et al. 2004). The key recommendation from that study was that all schools should establish behavior threat assessment teams. The report recommended that school administrators, law enforcement officers (especially SROs), teachers, and counselors participate in these teams to address concerning behavior by members of the school community.

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. 2020. 44p.

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 Michael Rocque, Grant Duwe, Michael Siegel, James Alan Fox, Max Goder-Reiser, and Emma E. Fridel

In the past decade, mass shootings, particularly those that take place in public areas, have increasingly become part of the national conversation in the United States. Mass public shootings instill widespread fear, in part because of their seeming randomness and unpredictability. Yet when these incidents occur, which has been with somewhat greater frequency and lethality as of late, public calls for policy responses are immediate. In this policy brief, we review efforts to evaluate the effect of gun control measures on mass public shootings, including a discussion of our recently published study on the relationship between state gun laws and the incidence and severity of these shootings. The findings of this work point to gun permits and bans on large capacity magazines as having promise in reducing (a) mass public shooting rates and (b) mass public shooting victimization, respectively. Interestingly, however, most gun laws that we examined, including assault weapon bans, do not appear to be causally related to the rate of mass public shootings.

Albany, NY: Rockefeller Institute of Government, 2021. 20p.

By Topher McDougal, David A. Shirk, Robert Muggah and John H. Patterson

Mexico is experiencing a surge in gun-related violence since 2006. Yet Mexico does not manufacture small arms, light weapons or ammunition in sizeable quantity. Moreover, Mexico has some of the most restrictive gun legislation in the world. It is assumed that a considerable proportion of weapons in Mexico are illegal, most having been trafficked from the United States (U.S.). The volume of firearms sold in the United States and trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border, however, is notoriously difficult to record. Previous attempts have involved multiplicative approximations based upon the quantity of arms confiscated at the border.

San Diego: Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Igarapé Institute, 2013. 31p.

By Mary Ellen O'Toole

This paper presents a systematic procedure for threat assessment and intervention of school shooters. The model is designed to be used by educators, mental-health professionals, and law-enforcement agencies and is intended to help refine and strengthen the efforts of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Its fundamental building blocks are its threat-assessment standards, which provide a framework for evaluating a spoken, written, and symbolic threat, along with a four-pronged assessment approach, which looks at the personality of the student, the student's family dynamics, the school dynamics, the student's role in those dynamics, and social dynamics. The model is not a profile of the school shooter or a checklist of danger signs pointing to the next adolescent who will bring lethal violence to a school. It discusses misinformation about school shootings; how to assess a threat, including motivations; types of threats; factors in threat assessment; and levels of risk. The document cautions that one or two traits or characteristics should not be considered in isolation or given more weight than the others. The text outlines the intervention process and closes with a number of recommendations. Four appendices list methodologies used in the report, suggested readings, and other information. (RJM)

Quantico, VA: Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG), National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), FBI Academy , 1999. 52p.

By Edward Gaughan, Jay D. Cerio, and Robert A. Myers

American public schools are safe places, perhaps even safer than American homes. The tragic school shootings that are the focus of this report have occurred in less than one-hundredth of one percent of schools. The probability of being shot at school is similarly low. But shootings have occurred at schools, have been largely unpredictable, and have raised the anxieties and concerns of students, families, teachers, and the public at large. Between 1974 and 2000, the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) of the United States Secret Service identified 37 incidents. At least 20 incidents have been reported in the national media since 1992, and eight since 1999, and these do not include several planned shootings that were prevented by authorities. Why do these shootings occur? Why do they occur where they do? What can we do to protect our children?

Alfred, NY: Alfred University, 2001. 44p.

By J,M, Nowicki

GAO found that shootings at K-12 schools most commonly resulted from disputes or grievances, for example, between students or staff, or between gangs, although the specific characteristics of school shootings over the past 10 years varied widely, according to GAO’s analysis of the Naval Postgraduate School’s K-12 School Shooting Database. (See figure.) After disputes and grievances, accidental shootings were most common, followed closely by school-targeted shootings, such as those in Parkland, Florida and Santa Fe, Texas.

Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office, 2020. 58p.

By Jay Van Kirk

Mass shootings occur on a regular basis in the United States, and depending on the definitions applied to the shootings an argument can be made that mass shootings of all types occur far more often than what is reported in the media as a “mass shooting.” Unfortunately, school shootings are also part of this analysis of mass shootings, and school shootings in the United States have occurred on a recurring basis since at least 1853. In the modern era, however, school shootings have become more frequent and more deadly as demonstrated by the May 24th, 2022, school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. This heinous crime at Robb Elementary School resulted in the deaths of nineteen children, and two teachers. Although there has been extensive research on mass shooters, mass shootings, and mass shootings in schools, there has not been enough emphasis on the application of homeland javascript:void(0);security principles of target hardening in schools as a risk mitigation factor for mass shootings. In fact, there is much that can be done to keep schools safe through basic target hardening measures, and many of these security updates can be immediately undertaken at the state and local level with relatively minor additional cost to schools and the taxpaying public. This paper references the mass shooting on February 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and makes policy recommendations toward basic target hardening measures which may be applied as necessary within the public school K-12 environment. The school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was selected due to the fact that it has been recently investigated regarding the facts and circumstances of the incident, and provides ample information for analysis of effective target hardening measures.

Des Moines, IA: Des Moines Area Community College, 2022. 17p.

By William Krouse and Daniel J. Richardson

In the wake of tragedy in Newtown CT, Congress defined “mass killings” as “3 or more killings in a single incident” (P.L. 112-265). Any consideration of new or existing gun laws that follows mass shootings is likely to generate requests for comprehensive data on the prevalence and deadliness of these incidents. Despite the pathos of mass shootings, only a handful of researchers and journalists have analyzed the principal source of homicide data in the United States—the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—to determine whether those incidents have become more prevalent and deadly. According to the FBI, the term “mass murder” has been defined generally as a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered, within one event, and in one or more locations in close geographical proximity. Based on this definition, for the purposes of this report, “mass shooting” is defined as a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, and in one or more locations in close proximity. Similarly, a “mass public shooting” is defined to mean a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, in at least one or more public locations, such as, a workplace, school, restaurant, house of worship, neighborhood, or other public setting. This report analyzes mass shootings for a 15-year period (1999-2013). CRS analysis of the FBI SHR dataset and other research indicates that offenders committed at least 317 mass shootings, murdered 1,554 victims, and nonfatally wounded another 441 victims entirely with firearms during that 15-year period. The prevalence of mass shooting incidents and victim counts fluctuated sporadically from year to year. For the period 2007-2013, the annual averages for both incidents and victim counts were slightly higher than the years from 1999-2007.

Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2015. 51p.

Edited by Rajeev Ramchand, Jessica Saunders

This report, part of RAND's Gun Policy in America project, presents a collection of essays that synthesize the available scientific data on topics pertinent to firearm policy in the United States. In particular, the authors examine mass shootings, firearm and ammunition taxes, the effects of the 1996 National Firearms Agreement in Australia, whether mental illness is a risk factor for gun violence, and law enforcement approaches to reduce community gun violence.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021. 115p.

By Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra. and Christopher Poliquin

There have been dozens of high-profile mass shootings in recent decades. This paper presents three main findings about the impact of mass shootings on gun policy. First, mass shootings evoke large policy responses. A single mass shooting leads to a 15% increase in the number of firearm bills introduced within a state in the year after a mass shooting. This effect increases with the extent of media coverage. Second, mass shootings account for a small portion of all gun deaths, but have an outsized influence relative to other homicides. Third, when looking at bills that were actually enacted into law, the impact of mass shootings depends on the party in power. The annual number of laws that loosen gun restrictions doubles in the year following a mass shooting in states with Republicancontrolled legislatures. We find no significant effect of mass shootings on laws enacted when there is a Democrat-controlled legislature, nor do we find a significant effect of mass shootings on the enactment of laws that tighten gun restrictions.

Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2019. 59p.

By Vivian S. Chu

As the Internet has become a significant venue for facilitating commercial transactions, concerns have arisen regarding the use of this medium to transfer firearms. This report discusses the sale of firearms and ammunition over the Internet, with a focus on the extent to which federal law regulates such activity. A review of the relevant factors indicates Internet-based firearm transactions are subject to the same regulatory scheme governing traditional firearm transactions. Over the years, this has raised concern about the possibility of increased violation of federal firearm laws, as well as challenges that law enforcement may face when attempting to investigate violations of these laws. A review of the relevant factors also indicates that the sale and transfer of ammunition are not as strictly regulated as firearms, and that these changes came into effect in 1986. Lastly, this report highlights recent legislative proposals, S. 3458 and H.R. 6241, companion measures introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg and Representative Carolyn McCarthy in the 112th Congress that would affect online ammunition transactions.

Washington, DC: U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 2012. 11p.

By Ralph Larkin. 

On April 20, 1999, two Colorado teenagers went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School. That day, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve fellow students and a teacher, as well as wounding twenty-four other people, before they killed themselves. Although there have been other books written about the tragedy, this is the first serious, impartial investigation into the cultural, environmental, and psychological causes of the massacre. Based on first-hand interviews and a thorough reading of the relevant literature, Ralph Larkin examines the numerous factors that led the two young men to plan and carry out their deed. Rather than simply looking at Columbine as a crucible for all school violence, Larkin places the tragedy in its proper context, and in doing so, examines its causes and meaning.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007. 265p.