VIRGINIA BEACH, VA — In the years leading up to the massacre at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, DeWayne Craddock bought two .45-caliber pistols on separate occasions. Craddock had no felony record, making him eligible to buy the weapons, and early evidence indicates he bought them legally.
On Friday, the two handguns — one of which was reportedly outfitted with a silencer — were used to wreak havoc on the gunman’s co-workers. Twelve people died in the attack and several others were hurt.
Mass shootings have become commonplace in America, with the vast majority never making national headlines. Indeed, the mass slaughter was one of 156 mass shootings in 2019 alone — Monday marked the 154th day of the year — and five mass shootings have occurred in the days since the deadly Virginia Beach attack, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Shootings can only be eligible for the database if at least four people are shot or killed, excluding the gunman.
While mass shootings do happen in other countries, the staggeringly high number is a uniquely American phenomena. Americans make up just 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but they own 42 percent of the world’s guns, according to a 2016 study by Adam Lankford, an associate criminology and criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama.
That alarmingly high gun ownership rate leaves Americans particularly vulnerable to public mass shootings, Lankford’s research shows.
“I found that approximately 31 percent of all public mass shooters attack in the United States,” Lankford told Patch on Monday. If mass shootings were evenly distributed, that number would be closer to 5 percent or less, he said.
“That says we have far more than our share of the world’s public mass shootings,” he said.
Comparatively, the United States has about six times more mass shootings than other countries with at least 10 million people. Only Yemen saw a higher rate of mass shootings.
And that number looks even more crooked when limited to things like school shootings, Lankford noted.
In attempting to identify the underlying driver behind the prevalence of mass shootings, Lankford looked at things like homicide rates, suicide rates, urbanization rates, gender ratios and gun-ownership rates. The data pointed to one culprit.
“What the statistical test showed was that firearm-ownership rates seemed to explain why countries have more or less public mass shootings,” he said.
But Lankford doesn’t think gun ownership rates are the problem, but rather access to firearms, specifically when it comes to people who want to cause carnage. With something like more than 200 million civilian firearms in the country, access is abundant.
“What really matters is how easy it is for people to access firearms in a given country,” he said. “And the number of firearms and firearms per capita is a good estimate for that.”
The Virginia Beach shooter, reportedly a former cannon crew member in the state National Guard, bought one pistol used in the attack in 2016 and the other last year, authorities said. One of the guns was equipped with a noise suppressor and police said Craddock also was carrying extended magazine. Even more weapons were found at Craddock’s home, Jim Cervera, the city’s chief of police, told media outlets.
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But uncertainty surrounds what prompted the gunman to carry out the attack. Investigators said he emailed a resignation letter to a superior just hours before the attack, but that he wasn’t being forced out or in the process of being fired. Moreover, his employment status was in good standing and his work performance was satisfactory, City Manager Dave Hansen told reporters.
But there’s a good chance the shooter showed warning signs before carrying out the attack.
Recent research by Lankford, the Secret Service and the FBI unveiled a recurring theme among the deadliest attacks. Each study showed “leakage,” referring to the idea that mass shooters “leak” their violent intentions before going through with their attacks. Sometimes shooters hint of their intentions to online communities; other times it’s to friends, family members and co-workers. Oftentimes, shooters couch their statements, though, making it hard to decipher how serious they are in their intentions.
Lankford said shooters sometimes make it seem as if they aren’t that serious or pretend to be joking. Other times, people hearing their statements can be in denial about the seriousness of the statements.
Virginia, with a gun death rate of 11.9 per 100,000 people, gets a “D” grade on the Giffords Law Center’s annual gun law scorecard, ranking the state 22nd for strength and 32nd for gun deaths. The state regulates gun shows and mandates that workers with federally licensed gun dealers undergo background checks.
But the state doesn’t have so-called “universal background checks” and hasn’t enacted an extreme risk protection order law. Openly carrying a handgun is legal without a permit or license in Virginia.
Authorities have three days to conduct a background check when someone purchases a firearm. After that, a federally licensed gun-dealer can go ahead with the sale. More than 90 percent of background checks provide an answer within minutes, but about 9 percent require further investigation information.
However, the National Firearms Act governs the sale of silencers. Those buying a noise suppressor like the one used in the Virginia Beach shooting must go through an extensive background check that can take as many as eight months or longer before the sale is completed.
The “outrageous thing” for Lankford is how common it is for people who express an interest in mass shootings to still be able to legally buy and own guns. Authorities should be able to use this information to take weapons away from such individuals, he said.
“Not surprisingly, as a general global relationship, dangerous and disturbed people have the easiest access to firearms in the countries that have the most civilian firearms in circulation,” said Lankford.
Messages left with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Virginia Beach police, and multiple law firms in Virginia weren’t immediately returned.