A new survey titled “Exposure to Mass Shootings in the United States: A National Survey” and published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (SPPE) claims that approximately 6.95% of U.S. adults reported having been present at the scene of a mass shooting (17.93 million), and about 2.18% sustained injuries during such incidents (5.6 million). The beginning of the paper starts by stating: “Mass shootings, defined as incidents where 4 or more people are shot with a firearm, have become a significant public health concern in the US.” But the survey questions have little relationship to that definition.
This study was concerned with direct exposure to mass shootings, which were defined as “gun-related crimes where 4 or more people are shot in a public space, such as a school, shopping mall, workplace, or place of worship.” This definition was a compromise between the Congressional Research Service’s definition of a mass public shooting and the Gun Violence Archive’s mass shooting definition, designed to be inclusive of individuals who were injured and accessible to the public.
“Exposure to Mass Shootings in the United States: A National Survey,”Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, March 7, 2025.
This discussion ignores the rest of the Congressional Research Service’s (CRS) definition, which excludes murders “attributable to any other underlying criminal activity or commonplace circumstance (armed robbery, criminal competition, insurance fraud, argument, or romantic triangle).” The CRS notes that “a large percentage of those incidents were drug- and/or gang-related.” The survey questions also ignore the “public space” part of the definition.
The SPPE survey asks:
“Have you personally ever been physically present on the scene of a mass shooting in your lifetime?” (No definition of a mass shooting seems to have been provided to the respondents, and there is no mention of a public place.)
“Were you physically injured in the incident? (which could include being shot, trampled, or something else that caused physical injury).” (This is obviously much broader than those who are normally counted as injured from a mass shooting or mass public shooting.)
The SPPE survey is just using the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) definition as it doesn’t limit the attacks to public places or instances that don’t involve another crime. While the survey has information on the year they were exposed to the mass shooting and three-quarters of the respondents provided a date, the study doesn’t provide any information on when those shootings occurred. The GVA has data over the eleven years from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2024. If one takes the initial definition that the paper starts with “4 or more people are shot with a firearm,” there were 5,183 of these attacks, with 7,666 killed (including 402 suspects) and 32,960 injured (including 332 suspects). However, not all these cases fit the initial definition of four or more people shot. Even if we assume that rate held steady over 44 years and that no one experienced more than one attack, the total number of people killed or wounded (including attackers) would reach only 162,504—just 2.9% of the 5.6 million reportedly exposed. And since gun control activists argue that mass shootings have increased over time, applying a constant rate across all 44 years almost certainly overstates the actual number of people shot.
If the survey was serious, it would have asked very different questions and made it clear to the respondents what “mass shooting” meant.
