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xxii Introduction reality is that often such dialogues only take place in the immediate aftermath of the event, at a time where emotions are running high and reactions often are knee- jerk (see, generally, Burns & Crawford, 1999 Schildkraut & Hernandez, 2014 Soraghan, 2000 Springhall, 1999). As a result, no real meaningful action is achieved and when the next event happens, society often finds itself back at square one. An important part of that discussion needs to be research. Research is critical when informing policy, but it also helps to provide much-needed context to a prob- lem like mass shootings. Sir Francis Bacon once said that knowledge is power. If that is true, then research is the knowledge necessary to make advancements to- ward the goal of reducing mass shootings in the United States. WHAT IS A MASS SHOOTING? This might seem like an easy question, right? Wrong. The reality is that as com- plex a phenomenon as mass shootings are (Harris & Harris, 2012), defining these episodic violent crimes is equally as challenging. Depending on the way that the description is crafted, mass shootings can look like infrequent events or occur- rences that take place with alarming regularity. The broader impact of the defini- tion has to do with the policies offered in the aftermath of mass shootings. If the severity of the problem is exaggerated by stakeholders (e.g., politicians, the me- dia), then responses implemented may be too broad to address the issue at hand due to overprediction. Conversely, if not enough attacks are recognized under the definition proposed, the responses may be too narrow to be impactful. In their book Mass Shootings: Media, Myths, and Realities, Jaclyn Schildkraut and H. Jaymi Elsass (2016) confronted this very issue. The manner in which a mass shooting is defined depends upon the agency providing the description, and often it is contingent upon a particular end goal or position. Everytown for Gun Safety, for example, has a definition of school shootings that is particularly broad in nature. Under its definition (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2014), incidents where a firearm discharges on school grounds but does not injure anyone counts as a school shooting. The end result of this is that the number of incidents is overin- flated, thereby contributing to hysteria and panic about the safety of students in America’s schools. In reality, however, such events are statistically rare in the con- text of how many children attend K–12 schools each year. In fact, the statistical likelihood of any one of those children falling victim to a mass shooting in his or her school is less than one in five ten-thousandths (Bernard, 1999 Donohue, Schi- raldi, & Ziedenberg, 1998), meaning that the same student has a greater statistical likelihood of being struck by lightning. Furthermore, this relative risk has remained stable over time, meaning that one’s likelihood of victimization is not increasing with each new event. Making these events appear more common, however, leads to a greater demand for action and change, which aligns with the organization’s gun control initiative. Variations in definition have also been found at the federal level. Differences in how these events are characterized can be found among the Centers for Disease