Mass shootings have risen dramatically across the U.S. since the year 2000, according to newly released data from the FBI, The New York Times reported.
Every year from 2007 to 2013, the nation saw, on average, 16.7 shootings, up from 6.4 shootings, on average, from 2000 to 2006,
the report found.
Strikingly, the figures do not include deaths from either domestic violence cases or gang-related crimes, the FBI report noted.
Total mass shooting deaths numbered 436 over the past 13 years with 366 of that figure all occurring in the past six years — marking a steep rise, the Times noted. Since 2000, a total of 557 people were also wounded in mass shootings. They included those on the campus of Virginia Tech; at the Fort Hood U.S. Army base in Texas; inside an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater; and at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
All grabbed national headlines and sparked an outcry over gun safety, protection, and mental health.
The Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 were the most deadly with 32 killed and 17 wounded, while the theater shooting in Colorado, where 12 were killed, saw the most people wounded at 58, the data showed.
The FBI's report came after the Obama administration asked for an analysis of such shootings, using documents from courts, from its own field offices, and from media accounts, the Times reported.
The
FBI study also determined, according to CNN, that in 60 percent of the shootings, the killing spree was over before police could arrive, while 40 percent of the shooters killed themselves after the massacres.
"These incidents, the large majority of them, are over in minutes. So it's going to have to be a teaching and training of the best tactics, techniques, and procedures to our state and local partners," James F. Yacone, an FBI assistant director who oversees crisis response,
told the Associated Press of the report's findings.
One FBI source told the AP that the "copycat" theory of such shootings proved to be real.
"As more and more notable and tragic events occur, we think we're seeing more compromised, marginalized individuals who are seeking inspiration from those past attacks," said Andre Simons, who serves in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.
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