Nobody attends an outdoor celebration expecting extreme violence, which, of course, from the perspective of the perpetrator is exactly the reason for selecting such a venue. The recent calamity at the Filipino street festival in Vancouver with ll dead by intentional auto acceleration into a crowd has little in common, superficially, at least, with the indiscriminate flurry of bullets unleashed at the Route 91 Country Music event in 2017 when 60 were slain and over 850 injured.[1] Even so, their similarities along with their differences accentuate two common features of rampageous episodes, which, in turn, contradict popular misconceptions.
- Sudden random assaults are not unique to the United States– nor are they necessarily indicative of a foreboding feature of American culture (at least no more so than for any other society). It does not excuse the permeable nature of mental health access, nor the absurdity of allowing easy access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons, but all countries and most societies experience mass attacks. Sweden recently was subjected to the most atrocious peacetime massacre in the nation’s history with 11 deaths and at least a dozen injured.[2]
Three of the five most horrendous single incident multiple murders of the last 100 years took place outside of the USA. See the chart below.[3]
| Worst Civilian Non-Terrorist Massacres of the Last 100 Years | |
| Incident | Victims |
| 1927 Bath, Michigan, USA, bombing | 44 killed, 58 injured |
| 1982 Sang-Namdo, South Korea, shooting with grenades | 57 killed, 38 injured |
| 2011 Olso and Utøya Island, Norway, bombing and shooting | 77 killed, at least 242 injured |
| 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, shooting | 60 killed, over 850 injured |
| 2019 Christchurch Mosques, New Zealand, shooting | 51 killed, 50 injured |
The precursors to the paranoia and resentment leading toward mayhem are universal irrespective of geography or culture.[4]
Because the news media and news makers conflate mass shootings with general assaults on numerous individuals irrespective of weaponry, America has repeatedly been awarded the contemptible title as the country in the world with the highest level of seemingly arbitrary slaughters. However, a careful scrutiny of rampage killings in China that did not include firearms in relation to similar incidents in America that did involve guns refutes that assumption.
The passages that follow are excerpted from How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds.
The notorious secrecy on the part of Chinese government about problems within its country makes it difficult to find trustworthy data for comparison with other countries. The most recent span with valid numbers for mass murder in China – the largest country in the world in square miles and population with the second biggest economy – comes from the journal Homicide. An analytical report of content from newspaper and agency accounts revealed that there were 165 mass murders – defined as “incidents in which one or more assailants kill four or more victims within 24 hours” – in that nation from 2000 to 2011. There were 696 people killed at the hands of 211 offenders. For the sake of assessing the availability of weaponry in relation to lethality, this documentation from a reliable periodical can be associated with mass shootings in the United States tabulated by Mother Jones (MJ) for the same period (2000 through 2010). The number of SMAs [sudden mass assaults] involving guns in the USA during that span of time was 21.[5]
For comparative purposes, to align the two fields as much as feasible to match operational criteria, the counts were adjusted then computed to yield the following results.
[S]ingle incident multiple murders in China (without a gun) during the first 10 years of this millennium occurred at a rate of 1 for every 11,111,111 persons in relation to the country’s population. Mass shootings in the USA during the same time span would have been experienced by 1 person in 14,133,333. Proportional to the number of people, there were more sudden mass assaults without a firearm in China than rampageous attacks in America featuring one or more guns (regardless of caliber, capacity, or firing mechanisms). The differential was above 20 percent. Even so, the ratio of deaths in relation to the incidents was higher in the United States, averaging 8.6 for shootings as opposed to 4.1 in China when the killing was carried out by other means. The fatalities, on average, more than doubled with utilization of a rifle and/or pistol. These distinctions show that weapon selection may be influenced by availability but that choice, to an extent, predetermines fatalities. Even so, the range of devices selected for multiple murders throughout China proves that, even though deaths may be reduced when firearms are restricted, gruesome massacres will still take place.[6]
The comparison between the two countries introduces the second instructive point.
- With apologies to Cheryl Wheeler, it is not just the “guns.”[7] The purposeful crash into the Filipino gathering and the news stories from China negate that myth. Besides modern implements such as automobiles, pistols and rifles, rampaging assailants have used sickles, axes, blades, bombs, grenades, arson, even crossbows.[8] Firearms are more reliably lethal than any of those means, certainly, but that is not a conclusive summation. Another take-away is that broad sweeping legislation restricting weaponry, even assuming the possibility of passage, will not, by itself, hedge sensational murder because an instigator will always find a tool for cruelty. This observation should not be taken as another version of the bromide, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” but as a cautionary message that addressing the cognition is as essential as curtailing the ignition.
Preceding the recent vehicular ambush in Canada by less than half a year, a driver in Zhuhai in southern China plowed his car into a group of people exercising outside a sports complex. Thirty-five were killed and 43 severely injured. It was the country’s deadliest attack in a decade.[9]
A particularly disturbing unprovoked violent episode in America involved the attempted poisoning of children by Laurie Dann, who initiated her fourteen-hour onslaught with the distribution of juice boxes and Rice Krispies treats injected with arsenic.[10] Her case in analyzed in the fifth chapter of Why Rampage Killers Emerge: Conditions and Characteristics.[11]
Based on an extensive survey of psychological motivators for selection of devices used in autogenic killing around the world, a conclusion reached in Chapter Five of How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds is: “As destructive as firearms have proven to be, the primacy of their use by rampaging murderers in particular regions of the world is influenced at least as much by prevalence and societal acceptance as their inherent capacity for injury. The same can be said of knives, swords, and daggers.”[12]
| FIGURE: Influences on rampage assailants when choosing weaponry. Personal comfort (comprised of accessibility and familiarity) is considered in relation to appeal (consisting of emotional weight and potential devastation), but the immediate concerns are more influential than consideration based on attraction. |
The method for butchery is a conscious choice made by the killer. Of course, there are more deaths and injuries when guns are employed. Moreover, it is difficult to shrug off the legal allowance of a deadly automatic that can fire up to 1,200 rounds per minute.[13] Even so, rampaging can occur with any type of destructive tool (albeit with a reduced causality count without advanced weaponry).
The fact is worthy of emphasis because in the examination of the predicates to violence a focus on the apparatus rather than the perpetrator’s thought process diverts attention from the offender (and by extension to the offense itself) to the implementation (and by extension the means). That diversion shifts the public debate away from the subtilties of psychodynamics and sociological conditions into the political arena of legislation and law enforcement. Both realms needs to be addressed to eliminate the scourge of autogenic violence that is occurring and has occurred throughout the world in a variety of villainous shades.
A comprehensive intervention, and one that is politically practical, is crisis identification and management by teachers, health workers, first responders, as well as, in some cases, acquaintances including family members. Such an effort calls for ongoing information dissemination, training, and skill development for professionals as well as responsible citizens alike.
The Trump administration’s decision to discontinue $1 billion in grants that supported school-based mental health programs will directly damage efforts to instill that sort of viable systemic approach.[14] Paralleling that sabotage are massive cuts in funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that will result in severe restrictions or even elimination of services for critical care, certified community behavioral health clinics, the criminal justice system and agencies supporting children and families.[15]
In fairness these reductions are actually a reflection of common governmental nonchalance throughout the United States and, as a matter of fact, in virtually every other nation when it comes to deflecting serious physical conflict at the source, that is, in the mind of the actors. Only three states – Connecticut, Illinois, and Wyoming – have set expenditure levels of their total budget above a tenth of one percent (that’s 0.1%) for preventative approaches to minimize victimization.[16] Internationally, “[r]esearch related to mental health financing is extremely limited and rarely clear.”[17] Eight years ago it was estimated that the average spending on general health worldwide was US$141 per person and the investment in mental health per capita was only US$2.50.[18]
Meanwhile, “… 333 million children are living in extreme poverty (as of 2022), struggling to survive on less than PPP [purchasing power parity] $2.15 per day. Children are disproportionately impacted – they make up more than half of the global poor, despite constituting only 31% of the total global population. … 1 billion children are estimated to be multidimensionally poor (as of 2019), meaning that they suffer at least one severe deprivation in the areas of health, housing, nutrition, sanitation or water. … Across OECD [Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development] countries, nearly 1 in 7 children are income poor (as of 2018).”[19] Numerous segments in Why Rampage Killers Emerge are devoted to exposing the emotional stunting and intellectual stagnation related to impoverished environments and the connection to random violence.[20]
Over time official malfeasance may prove to be more deadly than the malicious intentions of a killer or wielding of weapons (however sophisticated).
[1] CBS News, “Florida School Shooting Ranks Among America’s Deadliest,” updated January 2, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-school-shooting-ranks-among-americas-deadliest/; CBS News, “Las Vegas Shooting Victims’ Kin to Split Proceeds from Gunman’s Estate,” posted April 21, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-victims-kin-split-proceeds-stephen-paddock-estate/; Sanstuti Nath, ed., “No Terror Link”: Canada Cops on Vancouver Car Rampage that Killed 11,” New Delhi Television World, posted Apr 27, 2025, https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/lapu-lapu-festival-car-rampage-cops-rule-out-terror-angle-after-vehicle-hits-crowd-in-vancouver-8269241; Rio Yamat and Ken Ritter, “FBI Documents Give New View Into Las Vegas Shooter’s Mindset,” Associated Press (AP), posted online March 30, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/las-vegas-shooter-9bbd180cf3aa6d3ea1a37bbfb7144ae1.
[2] AP, “Sweden’s Worst Mass Shooting Leaves at Least 11 Dead, 5 Seriously Wounded at Adult Education Center,” audio posted February 5, 2025, https://audioboom.com/posts/8649063-sweden-s-worst-mass-shooting-leaves-at-least-11-dead-5-seriously-wounded-at-adult-education-center; Alex Croft and Tara Cobham, “Sweden School Shooting: Everything We Know So Far about Campus Attack which Left 11 Dead,” Independent, posted [February 2025?], https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/sweden-school-shooting-everything-we-know-about-the-five-people-shot-at-an-adult-education-centre/ar-AA1yp447.
[3] The chart refers to rampage killings according to the definition employed in the Introductions of Why Rampage Killers Emerge: Conditions and Characteristics and How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds. S. Lee Funk (Washington D.C., Academica Press, 2024. Data: History News Network, “The Deadliest Mass Killings in American History by a Lone Shooter,” posted 2013, updated March 3, 2018, https://www.hnn.us/article/the-deadliest-mass-killings-in-american-history-by and Victoria Simpson, “The Deadliest Mass Shootings In History,” World Facts, posted September 10 2020, https:// www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-deadliest-mass-shootings-in-history.html.
[4] Assiduously traced in Why Rampage Killers Emerge.
[5] S. Lee Funk, How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds (Washington D.C: Academica Press, 2024), 147, referencing Susan M. Hilal, James A. Densley, Spencer D. Li, and Yan Ma, “The Routine of Mass Murder in China,” Homicide Studies 18, no. 1 (February 2014): 88, 90-91, table 1; Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen, and Deanna Pan, “US Mass Shootings, 1982–2021: Data from Mother Jones’ Investigation,” Mother Jones, updated May 26, 2021, embedded spread sheet, https://www.motherjones.com/politics /2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/; Keith B. Richburg, “Man Kills 3 Children In Latest Chinese Kindergarten Attack,” Washington Post,” posted August 5, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost .com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/04/AR2010080402314.html.
[6] Funk, How Rampage Killers Interpret, 148-149. Based on massacre tallies, in Follman, Aronsen, and Pan, “US Mass Shootings, 1982–2021”; Hilal et al., “The Routine of Mass Murder,” tables 1, 4; population applied for median year, in United Nations Population Estimates and Projections, “World Population Prospects (2022 Revision),” continuously updated, https://worldpopulationreview.com /countries.
[7] “If It Were Up to Me,” Penrod and Higgins Music/Amachrist Music/ACF Music Group, October 1, 1997.
[8] AP, “Grief Wracks Parents after Brazilian Ax Attack Kills 4 Kids,” posted April 6, 2023, https://apnews .com/article/brazil-school-violence-day-care-attack-b1ef73027c7df16c474612b57ff2946b; AP, School Rampage in Brazil Leaves 8 Dead, Many Wounded,” WDBJ, posted March 13, 2019, https://www .wdbj7.com/content/news/School-rampage-in-Brazil-leaves-8-dead-many-wounded-507121591.html.
[9] Jennifer Jett and Henry Austin, “China Removes Memorials and Censors Online Outrage after Deadly Car Attack Shakes Public,” National Broadcasting Company, posted November 13, 2024, https://www .nbcnews.com/news /world/zhuhai-car-attack-china-removes-memorials-censors-online-outrage-rcna179917.
[10] Joyce Egginton, Day of Fury: The Story of the Tragic Shootings that Forever Changed the Village of Winnetka (New York, NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991), 259; Encyclopedia of School Crime and Violence, A-N, ed. Laura L. Finley (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 20110), s.v. “Dann, Laurie.”
[11] Funk, 196-204.
[12] Funk, 154.
[13] See, Liberty Safe, “What are the Fastest Firing Guns?” https://www.libertysafe.com/blogs/the-vault/fastest-firing-guns?srsltid=AfmBOopKEdgdgzNsgd7b1rM_XJk-6ZTu6 _rdDvqYm7t6xMWSWsBuqjyx.
[14] For more on this topic refer to: Collin Binkley, “Trump Administration Cuts $1 Billion in School Mental Health Grants, Citing Conflict of Priorities,” AP, posted April 30, 2025, https://apnews.com/article /school-mental-health-grants-trump-biden-dei-00bec2d96371f023ac56fe3f32f3e92f; Natalie Eilbert, “As Part of $1 Billion in School Mental Health Cuts, Wisconsin Loses Roughly $8 Million,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, posted May 2, 2025, https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/health/2025/05/02/trump-cuts-funds-for-mental-health-professionals-in-wisconsin-schools/83407768007/; Brooke Schultz, “Trump Ends $1 Billion in Mental Health Grants for Schools,” Education Week, posted April 30, 2025, https:// www.edweek.org/policy-politics/trump-ends-1-billion-in-mental-health-grants-for-schools/2025/04; TYT(The Young Turks), “Republican Hypocrisy is Overwhelming,” YouTube, posted [May 3, 2025?], https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks/shorts.
[15] Paolo del Vecchio, “Trump’s Mental Health and Addiction Problem,” STAT, posted April 21, 2025, https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/21/samhsa-elimination-trump-kennedy-rfk-jr-substance-abuse-mental-health-aha/.
[16] Everytown Research & Policy, “Which States Dedicate Funding To Violence Intervention Programs?” Everytown Gun Law Rankings, posted 2025, https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/violence-intervention-program-funding/.
[17] Faraaz Mahomed, “Addressing the Problem of Severe Underinvestment in Mental Health and Well-Being from a Human Rights Perspective,” Health and Human Rights Journal 22, no. 1 (June 2020): 36.
[18] Ibid, 37.
[19] End Child Poverty, “Child Poverty FAQs,” accessed May 9, 2025, https://www.endchildhoodpoverty .org/facts-on-child-poverty. “PPP is a popular macroeconomic analysis metric used to compare economic productivity and standards of living between countries.” Investopedia Team, reviewed by Caitlin Clarke, fact checked by Pete Rathburn, “What Is Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), and How Is It Calculated?” Investopedia, updated July 31, 2024, https://www.investopedia.com/updates/purchasing-power-parity-ppp/. “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a unique forum where the governments of 37 democracies with market-based economies collaborate to develop policy standards to promote sustainable economic growth.” Office of Economic Policy Analysis and Public Diplomacy, “The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),” U.S. Department of State, accessed May 9, 2025, https://www.state.gov/the-organization-for-economic-co-operation-and-development-oecd.
[20] Funk, 71-118, 140-148, 223-231, appendix.