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Mass public killings create a huge psychic impact but are actually a small percentage of all U.S. mass murders and a miniscule portion of all murders in general, an American criminologist says.

Grant Duwe, who works for the Minnesota State Department of Corrections and is the author of Mass Murder in the United States: A History, has looked at 1,202 mass murders between 1900 and 2009. Of those, 12%, or 142 incidents, were massacres in public such as the Denver shooting early Friday morning and at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Columbine in 1999.

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But those kind of mass public shootings accounted for less than one-tenth of 1% of all murders in general, he said.

“This is no consolation to those who have lost loved ones, but it’s important we keep these events in perspective.”

The reason society believes these mass public shootings have become more prevalent is in part because of media coverage, Mr. Duwe said.