Picture of victim being removed from ISIS attack in Tunisia that left 39 people dead

LAST UPDATED: Updated on February 14, 2018. Previous November 1, 2017; April 29, 2016 (originally posted on June 28, 2015) (Detailed discussion on Europe and the rest of the world can be found in Dr. Lott’s new book, The War on Guns. Some other information on Europe is available here):

Post: After the Charleston massacre, President Obama made this comment: “the unique mayhem that gun violence afflicts upon this nation.” Of course, regarding mass public shootings, Obama doesn’t need to look any further than France, which last year suffered 532 casualties (killings and woundings) versus 527 in the US during the first seven full years of the Obama administration from 2009 through January 2017.

But this isn’t a problem limited to France and the US. While most numbers look at shootings where 4 or more people have been killed, smaller attacks are very hard to track in places such as Africa or Southern Asia or parts of South America, which have murder rates 8 or 10 times higher than the rate in the US. Even some of these large mass shootings in Africa only received a couple news stories.

While this post will focus on mass public shootings, attacks really take many different forms and in the rest of the world vehicle and bombing attacks are clearly more frequent.

Our list of the worst mass public shootings collected cases, where at least 15 were killed, has been updated through January 15, 2017. Since 1970, all but two of the 25 worst mass public shootings occurred outside the US. Muslims also committed 23 of the worst 25 mass public shootings in the world. It is possible that we are still missing even some of these large mass public shootings prior to 2000, but any of the ones being missed are outside of the US, Canada, the Commonwealth countries, and Europe.

The terrorist attacks by Al-Shabaab in Kenya, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Lashkar-e-Taiba in India, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Pakistan are the same as the ISIS attacks in France. They are the same regarding the weapons used, the number of attackers, and the choice of targets. All of those countries define these as Islamic terrorist attacks, not battles over national sovereignty. Thus far the US has been lucky that the Orlando, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, and Chattanooga, Tennessee terrorists simply haven’t yet been on the same scale nor have any of them used the machine guns used in these attacks abroad.

Mass shootings were excluded if they were part of a war over sovereignty or ones done by the government. If one were to include these cases, the list would include many more attacks in such places as the UK, Israel, the Phillippines, and Russia. In the case of Russia, we excluded six shootings that were part of the Russian-Chechen conflict. The most deadly was the Beslan School siege of September 1, 2004, which left 385 dead and another 783 wounded. Another at the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow from October 23 to 26, 2002 left around 130 dead and over 450 wounded. Again this is because of the Russian-Chechen conflict. The other cases for Russia are listed at the end.

Deaths from mass public shootings where at least 15 people have been killed (1970 through February 14, 2018). Most of the rest of the world also has much higher casualty rates than the US. A table based on casualties would improve the US ranking.

Africa, Australia, Israel, and the Philippines all have much higher per capita death rates from these large mass public shooters than the US. Indeed, even Europe’s rate for all countries whose borders are within Europe is 20% higher than the US’s. By contrast, the per capita rates in India and Pakistan are fairly similar to that in the US. Indeed the death rate in the US is only about 7% higher than in India and Pakistan. The US makes up about 4.4% of the world of the population (322.8m/7.411b) and accounts for 4.1% of the deaths from these attacks.

The attacks have apparently been increasing over time, though part of that is the explosion in Africa from 2012 on. Since 2012, 83% of all the mass public shoot where at least 15 people have died have occurred in Africa. Prior to 2012, such attacks in Africa reportedly made up zero percent of the attacks. Given the little news coverage given to recent mass shootings in Africa, it raises the possibility that we are simply missing earlier attacks in Africa.

As the bombings in Brussels (35 dead) Pakistan (over 70 dead) over the last week have illustrated, there are many ways to kill people. A comparable number of people died in either of those attacks as the most deadly mass public shooting in the US (49 dead).

The worst public mass shooting is as follows:

Other cases: Montreal, Quebec, Canada had 14 people killed and another 14 injured in a shooting at the École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989. San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015 had 14 killed and 22 wounded in a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center (Islamic related). The Zug Switzerland shooting left 14 people killed on September 27, 2001. The 1966 University of Texas shooting left 14 people dead (wife and mother were killed through other means). Edmond, Oklahoma shooting at a post office left 14 people killed on August 20, 1986. Honduras, November 25, 2015: “Two massacres that killed 15 people in less than 12 hours rocked Honduras and left the country’s top cop in tears on Wednesday. Police say seven were shot in the capital of Tegucigalpa early Wednesday, while eight bus drivers were killed in the northern city of San Pedro Sula late Tuesday.”

Cases to include in the next UPDATE:

Here are some other very recent attacks that didn’t involve shootings.

Nice, France, July 14, 2016: 86 people killed by Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian resident of France, who deliberately drove a 19-tonne cargo truck into crowds.

Istanbul, Turkey, December 11, 2016, at 11 PM: at twin bombings at a heavily attended soccer game at Besiktas Vodafone Arena in Istanbul that killed at least 44 people, mostly police officers, and wounded 155 others.

Berlin, Germany, December 19, 2016: A truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market beside Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin. 12 people were killed and another 56 others injured. The perpetrator was Anis Amri, a Tunisian, who was an Islamic extremist.

UPDATE: Woo Bum-kon killed 56 people over two days in South Korea (April 26-27, 1982). It is hard to include him in the above list because there was no large number of people killed in any one single public place, but instead, he would kill one or two people in a lot of different public places. He also used grenades to kill people.

Other cases: The Zug Switzerland shooting left 14 people killed on September 27, 2001. The 1966 University of Texas shooting left 14 people dead (wife and mother were killed through other means). Edmond, Oklahoma shooting at a post office left 14 people killed on August 20, 1986.

Nigeria. Given that these were attacks by Islamic militants purely against civilians, they are classified as terrorist attacks.

Philippines. Unclear cases.

Digos, Davao Del Sur, Philippines, June 25, 1989: 39 people, many of them children, were mercilessly gunned-down by the communist New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) rebels while they were attending a Sunday mass. This appears to be a battle over sovereignty.

Israel. Given that most of these attacks were conducted by Palestinians, one could argue that these were attacks over sovereignty. Above we have only included one attack by the Red Japanese Army against Israel.

UPDATE: Woo Bum-kon killed 56 people a over two days in South Korea (April 26-27, 1982). It is hard to include him in the above list because there was no large number of people killed in any one single public place, but instead he would kill one or two people in a lot of different public places. He also used grenades to kill people.

A list of terrorist attacks in Europe since 1970 is available here. Also here is a report from the NYPD, though it does not claim to be comprehensive.

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CPRC original research, International Comparisons, mass public shootings

By johnrlott

