Document Type
Article
Abstract
This study examined firearm lethality and aggressors’ lethal intent on injurious fatal and nonfatal school shootings using data from The American School Shooting Study, which covers 329 school shootings in the United States from 1990 to 2016. We developed a new multidimensional construct for measuring shooters’ determination to kill and examined firearm characteristics while considering confounding factors. We identified 11 distinct categories of shooters’ intent, with most showing a strong desire to kill. Both intent and weapon lethality significantly impacted school shooting homicides. Overall, we recommend that prevention and theoretical models should address both factors.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Criminology, Volume 63, Issue 3, 2025, pages 673-686.
Rights
© 2025 The Author(s). Criminology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society of Criminology.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
APA Citation
Klein, B. R., Schnell, C., Chermak, S. M., & Freilich, J. D. (2025). Examining the effects of firearm lethality and aggressors’ intentions to kill on injurious firearm violence at American schools: A research note. Criminology, 63(3), 673–686.https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.70005