Project Description: Mass shooting is a major problem in the United States. The number of incidents is increasing and widespread throughout the country like an epidemic. People are debating on the root cause of and how to prevent mass shootings while the issue remains unsolved.
Our goal is to provide insights about mass shootings in America. We answered some research questions include:
- Have mass shootings changed over time?
- Have fatality rates changed over time?
- Where have mass shootings taken place?
- Who is doing the mass shootings?
- Does mental health play into mass shootings?
- Were the weapons used obtained legally?
Dataset: The visualizations in our project are based primarily on the Mother Jones open-source database that documents mass shootings in the United States from 1982-present. (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/) It captures many attributes of mass shooting events, including number of victims, venue, location, gun type, gun status, race of perpetrator, mental health status of perpetrator.
Language used: d3.js
Insights from data:
- Mass shootings have grown in frequency and the number of victims, especially in the last decade.
- California, Florida, and Texas have had the most mass shootings cases.
- The mass-shooter traits are white race, male gender, age: 8-25, have prior signs of mental health issues.
- The majority of mass shooters had previous signs of mental illness, and many obtained the firearms legally.
To run: Store all the codes in htdocs, and run index.html in xampp