First Advisor

Eric Mankowski

Date of Award

Spring 6-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Psychology and University Honors

Department

Psychology

Language

English

Subjects

Domestic Violence, Mass Shootings, Intimate Partner Violence, Suicide, Fatalities, History of Domestic Violence

Abstract

The intersectional study of domestic violence and mass shootings has only recently been the subject of inquiry within the psychology field. Within the past ten years research has been developed to examine the relationship between these two epidemics. What authors have found is that DV does play a role in shooting perpetration (Geller et al., 2021; Glick et al., 2021; Gold et al., 2020; Johnson et al., 2023; Kivisto et al., 2020; Smucker et al., 2018; Zeoli & Paruk, 2019). This study aimed to identify domestic violence as a risk factor to predict, and subsequently intervene before future instances of shootings. 112 shootings were analyzed between the years of 2020 and 2023—they were then categorized as DV-related, non-DV related, and/or History of DV. The tested hypothesis was that DV-related and history of domestic violence cases were correlated with higher fatality rates than cases that were not DV-related. Despite 53.6% of the cases being DV related, no relationship was found between the number of fatalities and the DV-relation of a case. However, the suicidality of the perpetrator is highly affected by the DV-relation of the case (33% of cases had perpetrator suicide). Domestic violence cases were more likely to have the perpetrator commit suicide afterwards compared to non-DV related cases. Further research must be done that widens the definition of mass shootings with a larger sample size to better test the relationship between DV and mass shootings.

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