Clustering analysis reveals six distinct mass shooter typologies, suggesting targeted prevention strategies may be effective.
Public mass shootings are a significant public health problem. Identification of mass shooter typologies is an essential step in developing prevention strategies. The Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University extracted 44 devolution and hate characteristics for a set of 197 mass shooters from 1966 to 2025. Through a clustering analysis, six distinct mass shooter typologies were identified based on the extracted devolution and hate characteristics. We then plotted the frequencies of the typologies over time, revealing varying trajectories.
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Treitler et al. (2025) studied this question.
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