United States National Church Shooting Database, 1980-2005 (ICPSR 25561)

Version Date: Mar 30, 2010 View help for published

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Derek Bixby, Center for Homicide Research; Amy Kielmeyer, Center for Homicide Research; Dallas Drake, Center for Homicide Research

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25561.v1

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Founded in 1999, the Center for Homicide Research has made it its mission to increase case solvability and decrease the occurrence of homicide incidents. In working toward this goal, the Center has put together various databases of national homicide incidents. The Church Shooting Database uses online newspaper archive articles to document all cases of shootings on church property within the United States from 1980-2005. While extensive studies have been done exploring the details of other public shootings such as school campuses and workplaces, the phenomenon of shootings in churches has been left relatively untouched. Taking into account variables about the offenders, victims, and circumstances of each shooting, the database attempts to describe each incident as well as explore how the church context may play a role in the shooting.

Bixby, Derek, Kielmeyer, Amy, and Drake, Dallas. United States National Church Shooting Database, 1980-2005. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2010-03-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25561.v1

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Philanthrofund Foundation, Gill Foundation, Minnesota State Bar Foundation, Otto Bremer Foundation

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1980-01-01 -- 2005-12-31
2007-08-15 -- 2007-12-13
  1. Variable information for the variables HANDGUNS, SHOTGUNS, RIFLE, AUTO, and EXPLOSIV were not contained in the original documentation; therefore, the values were left unmodified.

  2. To preserve respondent confidentiality, codes for the variable NAMECHUR (Name of Church) has been replaced with blank codes.

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This study used online newspaper archive articles to document all cases of shootings on church property within the United States from 1980-2005.

The database includes all cases of the discharging of firearms occurring on any church property within the United States from 1980-2005. Circumstances were not taken into account when including the incident into the database and, consequently, not all cases have any wounded or deceased victims.

The study uses cases involving the discharge of firearms on church property in the United States from 1980-2005.

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2010-03-30

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:

  • Bixby, Derek, Amy Kielmeyer, and Dallas Drake. United States National Church Shooting Database, 1980-2005. ICPSR25561-v1. [distributor], 2010-03-30. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25561.v1

2010-03-30 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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