A more concise excel document of the information is available in the link. On average, mass shootings killed 1.6 and injured 5, and mass bombings killed 13 and injured 54 on average in the U.S.
Mass shootings are a contentious topic, due to the nature of people dying and the disagreements on the proposed solutions to deal with the problem. Regardless, there are other methods of mass murder, many that are more deadly than those by guns and that have more easily obtainable resources required to commit the crime. This includes arson, poison, truck or vehicle attacks, and even potentially bombing attacks; while not the most common methods, most of these attacks can generally kill more people than with guns. As well, many forms of attacks involved multiple sources of attack, such as a shooting which used a gun and a knife, or a bombing attack that involved vehicle ramming first. 9/11 for instance has the distinction of being a hostage situation, vehicle ramming attack, improved bombing attack, and arson, making it rather precarious in regards to it's classification and thus could artificially inflate the numbers. Regardless, good data on the average person killed per incident is not generally available, and there are relatively poor and inconsistent records available, requiring original research to derive an accurate conclusion. While my dataset will be incomplete, it is the most comprehensive source available at the time and I welcome more complete information by institutions with better resources and manpower, as well as time to devote to the project.
For ease of comparison, the definitions used will be 3 or more injured to qualify as a mass causality event, or mass murder event (although in some cases no-one will be murdered), and start from the 1910's for most attacks, or the 1970's for guns and trucks. The reason for the distinction in time frame is the difference in lethality of the attacks; while explosives have remained roughly as lethal for the most part over the last 100 years, firearms, such as "military style" variants or semiautomatic repeating weapons are a recent phenomena, and thus an aggregate source of modern shootings is more relevant to the current political climate, than in comparison to all poison or bombings attacks, for instance. While the argument could be made that a musket is decidedly less lethal than a bomb, the modern argument revolves around modern guns, and thus only modern shootings will be compared to all forms of mass murder by other types. This is also less relevant to the gun control debate, which is at the forefront of the reason for these statistics. While the data itself should be interpreted through an objective lens, invariably politics is impossible to ignore and thus will unfortunately be a major factor in the information and what it reveals, which is that other more easily available weapons can kill more than guns, which require a background check to own, and chemicals that could start a fire or make a bomb often do not.
As a result the data is geared in part to question established narratives and reveal insight in to political positions or the efficacy that gun control could bring if other more deadly weapons could replace guns, in their absence. To answer the basic question of, could criminals kill as many people if they switched to other weapons than guns, that would still be available after a gun ban, the resounding answer is yes, and many of these forms of murder have no means to be further regulated. An example of mass murderers switching to another type of murder than mass shootings and ending up with more crime, would be Australia. Despite only a handful of mass shootings in Australia after strict gun control legislation was enacted, all the mass shootings combined from 1971 to 1996, before strict gun control measures, killed less people than a single arson attack in 2008, which killed 171 people and injured 414, in comparison to 121 killed and 90 injured by all the mass shootings of the previous decades. This hopefully reveals the scope of danger, as many other forms of attacks that are more deadly than guns, even multiple shootings combined, will still be present even with gun control. The average mass shooting kills on average 1.6 people and injures 5 total, for a total of 6.6 total casualties, and only 78 in the 1983-2012 time frame kill more than 4 people, out of approximately 400 events a year or, 12,000 in the time frame. This means less than 1% of mass shootings kill more than 4 people, while dozens of bombings have killed more than this. This information, while objective, nonetheless stands in opposition to many political opinions, which will be impossible to ignore.
In comparison, the deadliest mass shooting in the world, with a 10-round pocket pistol that is legal in an assault weapons ban, killed 67 people in Norway. The deadliest terrorist attack in the world was 9/11, which killed 3,000 people and injured 8,900, which is more than over a decades worth of mass shootings in the U.S., combined. Other attacks, such s the Oklahoma city bombing attack killed 168 and injured 680, while attacks in Iraq with car bombs killed 796 and injured over 1500. An Arson in Iran killed at least 400 people, and a mass poisoning killed at least 459 in Iraq (although debate exists on if this qualifies as murder or not). Explosives, arson, and even poison decidedly kill more people, with mass vehicle-ramming attacks, such as by trucks, just barely exceeding that of guns (such as an attack in Nice, France kill 86 and injuring 458 ). Many other forms of attack can kill more people than guns, and often times more than hundreds of mass shootings combined. Nonetheless, question still exists over the difficulty of making or using these weapons and their average death count. While a sad topic to discuss, the average number of people killed per mass attack, by other types, reveals the relative difficulty of making and using the weapons in part, and directly compares their lethality to other mass causality events, such as mass shootings. While intuitively it doesn't seem to take much to light a fire, drive a car, put poison in bags of food or fertilizer, or even mix two chemicals together to make a bomb, many still question the difficulty of this.
In that regard, what is the average death and injury rate of the different types of mass murders? The following will include the average death and injury rate for mass knife attacks, explosives, arson, poison and truck attacks, in the United States, from 1910 and onwards (and 1983 for firearms). This will contrast the mass shooting figure, which is already well recorded. 9/11 offsets these statistics substantially, and as an outlier, data will be presenting both including and removing the 9/11 death toll in the averages, to provide a sense of scale of what a single attack can do and to remain more accurate. For these reason the figures will both show the statistical average with and without 9/11, to give a sense of clarity and due to the troublesome nature of it's classification. Accidents will also be included and excluded in the figure, to show what could happen or what has happened by accident to represent the danger of the weapons themselves, but will be removed from mass murder figures. Thus three data sets will be present, the average with 9/11, the average without, and the average with accidents included (such as fertilizer plant explosions or accidental poisoning of grain).
According to mass shooting tracker, there were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870. While there are potential problems with the source (which also counts things such as gang violence or mass suicides), it is widely used by pro-gun control sources, making it more bipartisan than others. According to this data, the mass shootings on average resulted in 1.6 killed and 5 injured per incident, which is decidedly less than the 13 killed and 54 injured by explosives. Further, very few mass shootings actually kill over 4 people (Page 2), compared to many other causes of mass murder which regularly kill over 100. Only 78 out of the mass shootings in the last 30 years, from 1983 to 2012, despite some 300-400 mass shootings a year total, in the U.S. have killed more than 4 people. This is roughly less than 1%, or 78 out of 12,000 mass shootings killing more than 4 people, despite the average mass bombing killing 13 and injuring 54 (ignoring 9/11 and the world trade center bombing).
Mass bombings in U.S. with 3 or more injured
A lit of Mass bombings in the U.S. with 3 or more injured from 1910 and onwards, and their average death and injury rate per attack. The average death per bombing was approximately 13 killed and 54 injured, per attack if 9/11 and most of the world trade center attack's injuries are excluded. This is decidedly much higher than the 1.6 killed and 5 injured per attack by mass shootings in the U.S. This means that if shooters switched to bombs, more people would die.
Mass bombings with over 3 casualties, on average resulted in roughly 13 killed and 54 injured per attack, 81 injured per attack when the world trade center attack is included, and 91 killed and 236 injured per attack when 9/11 is included. This is contrast with 1.6 killed and 5 injured per attack in the U.S. on average. While it varies from year to year this is a rough aggregate of those figures. The causality figures do not include the attacker, and just the victims, although due different in records, especially in regards to injuries, these numbers may vary.
While the ease of making a bomb varies with the type of bomb in question, in general the same skill and planning that goes in to a mass shooting, if directed towards explosives, would be more deadly. As tannerite (made from fertilizer or cold packs and aluminum foil or fuel), acetone peroxide (paint thinner and hydrogen peroxide), and air pressure bombs (such as from a pressure cooker or scuba tank) are fairly easy to obtain and create, the question of availability is more or less irrelevant as, these items are less regulated than guns. As all it takes is mixing these chemicals together to make the bomb, it does not require substantial intelligence to do. More sophisticated bombs can also easily be made, which take only a few more steps, such as ETN (made by nitrating Erythritrol, a common sugar), or Picric Acid, and the bombs can be mixed with poison or incendiary agents, or set off inside of a plane or building.
Mass Shooting
-1.6 killed, 5 injured on average
-1% of events kill more than 4 people
-67 people killed in worst instance in world
Other Forms of attacks (In the U.S.)
-Mass Bombing Attack average (13 killed, 54 injured), with 9/11 (91 killed, 236 injured)
-17 out of 37 (46%) killed more than 4 people
-168 killed in second worst attack, 3,000 killed in worst attack (9/11)
