Between 1982 and February 2020,
64 out of the 116 mass shootings in the United States were carried out by white shooters. By comparison, the perpetrator was African American in 20 mass shootings, and Latino in 10. When calculated as percentages, this amounts to 55 percent, 18 percent and eight percent respectively.
Race of mass shooters reflects the U.S. population
Broadly speaking, the racial distribution of mass shootings mirrors the
racial distribution of the U.S. population as a whole. While a superficial comparison of the statistics seems to suggest African American shooters are over-represented and Latino shooters underrepresented, the fact that the shooter’s race is unclear in around five percent of cases, along with the different time frames over which these statistics are calculated means no such conclusions should be drawn. Conversely, looking at the
mass shootings in the United States by gender clearly demonstrates that the majority of mass shootings are carried out by men.