Church shootings :differences in offender and incident characteristics compared to other mass shooting incidents in the U.S..

Abstract

This study aimed at identifying the motives and reasons behind why church shooting incidents occur. This was accomplished by looking into incident and offender characteristics of 18 church shooting cases. Data was gathered from news articles, court records, law enforcement documents and other public sources. The incidents included in this study took place between the years of 1974-2015. Various factors and characteristics were examined such as offender criminal history, living situation, warning signs, motive, connection to target, and presence of mental illness, among other things. A total of 25 factors were examined. Among the findings - the average age of offenders at time of attack was 40.17 years, with the overall age range between 22-71 years. Seventeen of the offenders were male; only one was female. Not surprisingly, most of these incidents, 66.7%, occurred on a Sunday.