Q: It has been reported that the recent massacre in Las Vegas was the worst mass shooting “in modern U.S. history” … as opposed to just “in U.S. history.” For context, when did modern U.S. history begin and, if there were worse mass shootings before that date, what details can you provide about them?
—Stuart Mosher, Auburn
A: James Alan Fox, a criminologist and author who studies mass killings, recently told CNN that "modern U.S. history" reflects the fact that official historical data on the subject is incomplete and doesn't go back that far. In addition, the definition of "mass shootings" has varied through the years.
“That’s the problem with active-shooter data when you try to go back several decades,” he told CNN. “It’s a matter of ability to recover cases. Lots of newspapers weren’t digitized, news archives aren’t always maintained. There’s no historical data.”
Resources like Gun Violence Archive’s Mass Shooting Tracker and Mother Jones’ Guide to Mass Shootings in America often track data back only a few years, with Mother Jones’ research starting at 1982. The FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, which also provides data for tracking, was issued for the first time in 1968.
Fox told CNN that Howard Unruh’s 1949 shooting rampage, in which he indiscriminately killed 13 people in Camden, N.J., is considered the first shooting involving the typical modern-day mass shooter profile.
Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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