A deeper look at mass shooting numbers
seeing this happening. And we're very excited to see what happens next. We'll be back with more information on that. If you haven't already, you're going to hear a lot of numbers and statistics about mass shootings in the coming days. They come pouring at you in cases like this. It could be very confusing. We admit that might even be alarming for some of us here in North Texas, but we want to take a moment to try and break through the noise tonight.
The I teams Ginger Allen. You have been digging into several databases to kind of you know, window this down to something we can all understand and something that makes sense to us, even though the numbers are not necessarily good to look at and we hear so many different numbers, right? Right. It really does get more complicated. I hope I can simplify that for you. We did try to do that. We looked at three different main research databases. We first looked at the mass shooting tracker.
Now, this tracks when more than four people are shot, not killed, but shot. It finds so far in 2023 as of right now, we have had 249 mass shootings in the U. S. That's almost to a day. Now the second study we dug into tracks when four more people are killed and so far in the U. S. The first mass shooting in the U.
S. was shot in the U. S. This year that has happened on average more than once a week involving guns for you. Deep rooted Texans out there right now. This story may take you back decades. August 1st 1966, a Marine veteran walked out on the deck of the University of Texas Tower.
He shot and killed 15 people and injured 31 others. At the same time, he was shot in the back of the gun. He was shot in the back of the gun. He was shot in the back of the gun when they hear when they hear mass killing, Dr James Allen Fox says recent history has obviously changed that he's been tracking cases for more than 40 years through a partnership with the Associated Press and North Eastern University. They formed a database following mass killings. That's cases involving four or more fatalities. Here's the latest on mass killings involving four or more fatalities.
The first one was the first one was the first mass killings yesterday was the 22nd. That's right. More than we've had any other year at least since 2006, probably lost forever. I've been studying this topic for 40 years, and I've never seen. This kind of account in a typical year, he says there are 24 mass killings involving guns and in a typical year, he says six of those are in the same area. The first one was the first one a week and the database shows Texas has had three this year and nine since last year. It is important to note.
We do have a large population here, but the number of people killed in each event also brings us back to Texas. Texas besides having a number of mass shootings, you have some of the larger ones. You can see from this map the number of mass killings in Texas. We have a number of mass killings in Texas. So of course, you're Baldy El Paso, Santa Fe High School. As you look at the number of victims killed per incidents on this chart, three of the largest seven occurred in Texas. That's three of the largest seven mass killings tracked nationwide since 2006.
Next, the IT mask. Where do most of the incidents occur? The location nationwide researchers found 45% of mass killings in Texas. The most common case is commercial retail or entertainment locations. That's a pretty broad group of locations that conclude restaurants, shopping malls, stores like Walmart. Lastly, we wanted to know who are the offenders. Dr Fox's research finds most mass killers are men 20 to 34 years old and predominantly white. He says, according to a study in this journal, the offenders are not involved in the mass killing.
They are involved in the mass killing process. They are involved in the criminal or employment or a financial struggle, and they plan for months. Dr Fox tells us for decades, identifying mass killers has been complicated because profiles often involve warning signs or characteristics shared by most Americans. So just what are those crisis signs? That brings us to the next slide. We'll take a look at the next slide. Dr Fox says, the average rate finds more than a third of mass shooters show five or more of the signs you see there on your screen. So increased agitation, abusive behavior, isolation, losing reality, depressed mood swings, inability to do a daily task and paranoia.
Can I just throw out though that Dr Fox says, you know, all the common characteristics you just talk about. Doesn't it make it harder for us to kind of, you know, get a little bit of attention on how we calculate that. And then we can go back to the data. What do you do? Exactly. And I want to go back to the tracker and the map that we saw because if we talk about the number of incidents that we've had in Texas and the number, our population number, we've had a lot in our state in our area. Can you talk to us a little bit about how that tracks and how we calculate that? I can. And I'm glad you asked.
I've actually got it right here. The only reason I know is because I went back to Dr Fox and asked for just that and he calculated it for us. So we have a lot of information about the number of incidents that we've had in our area. And we've also been able to calculate the number of incidents that we've had in our populated state. Following this latest shooting, Texas ranks 19th for number of incidents nationwide, and we ranked 12th for number of victims killed. And so we're higher than the nation's average. Can I just be honest and saying two things? Thank you for all the research on it.
Second thing. I hope we never have to hear from you on this again. Yeah Oh my goodness. And it's so true. I said to Dr Fox, is your database ever going to be available? Yeah, it's going to be available. Thank you, Ginger. You bet.
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