  When looking at mass shooting incidents, suicidal shooters seem to carry an
even more extreme sense of terror and brutality. The current study aimed to
examine how mass shooters suicidality and suicide behavioral threshold
influence the severity of the mass shooting. We employed Bayesian Mindsponge
Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 194 mass shooters (incidents with
four or more victims killed) from 1966 to 2023 in the United States (U.S.). The
data were retrieved from The Violence Project Database, originally supported by
the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice. Based on the
statistical analysis, we discovered that mass shooters with suicidal ideation
were more likely to kill two more victims on average than their non-suicidal
counterparts. For suicidal mass shooters found dead on the scene (either by
self-killing or suicide by cop), their victim count rises by around four on
average when compared to non-suicidal mass shooters. The findings were reasoned
through the information-processing perspective of the Mindsponge Theory. Based
on the findings and reasoning, we suggest that mass shootings should be
considered within larger socio-cultural settings instead of attributing it to
be driven primarily by diagnosable psychopathology. Also, promoting an
appropriate interpretation of the values of life and death can be an effective
way to alleviate the effects of suicidality on mass shooting severity.
