Trauma is widespread and difficult to overcome among survivors of gun violence. Sixty to 94 percent of those who’ve experienced a shooting report some form of mental health distress, according to a recent study. But one group tends to suffer longer.
The study, published in Nature Mental Health in April, compared responses from people who were present or injured during mass shootings to those who experienced another form of shooting.
The researchers found that between 38 percent and 42 percent of survivors of more commonplace gun violence, like community shootings or domestic violence, reported mental health symptoms lasting over a year — nearly double the rate among survivors of mass shootings. Symptoms included post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, fear, panic attacks, and depression.
“What surprised us a bit was that people who experienced non-mass shooting gun violence were more likely to have their symptoms last a year or longer,” said Jillian Peterson, executive director of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center at Hamline University in Minnesota and the study’s lead author.
A mass shooting — defined in the study as four or more people shot in a single incident — is a shared experience that prompts public attention and communal social support, said the study’s coauthor, David Pyrooz, a sociology professor and criminologist at the University of Colorado’s Institute for Behavioral Science. “And that helps to resolve some of the distress that comes from it.”
“When we had the King Soopers shooting, there was ‘Boulder Strong,’ donations, and an outpouring of support from the community,” he said, referring to the 2021 mass shooting. “But when there is a robbery with a firearm, you don’t get that same sort of outpouring.”
The largest discrepancy was in long-term post-traumatic stress symptoms. Among non-mass shooting survivors, 60 percent of those threatened with a gun, 65 percent of people who were shot at but not hit, and 44 percent of those who were hit reported long-term PTSD. By comparison, long-term PTSD among people who experienced mass shootings ranged between 20 and 30 percent, depending on the type of exposure. The researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 10,000 adults.
Survivors of isolated incidents are often specifically targeted, which can hinder recovery. And the violation of safety and trust inherent in violence by someone you know can lead to more severe PTSD than mass shootings, said Mayer Bellehsen, a clinical psychologist at Northwell Health in New York.
In “more direct gun violence, as opposed to mass gun violence, the potential for that to be in environments and relationships that the person is regularly exposed to is also greater,” Bellehsen said. “For example, let’s say, in a family environment, or some close relationships, it’s also potentially possible that those individuals are exposed to higher levels of additional kinds of traumatic exposures, and absence of social supports as well.”
Different environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural factors often shape how survivors recover and whether they can access care. Isolated incidents of gun violence often happen in under-resourced communities, where the aftermath is compounded by stigma, lack of mental health services, or distrust of institutions.
Aqeela Sherrills, co-founder of the Community-Based Public Safety Collective in Newark, New Jersey, stressed the need for affordable therapeutic services in these communities. Community-based violence intervention initiatives like the Trauma Recovery Center at the Newark Community Street Team, which he co-created, provide free mental health sessions to survivors and their families.
Because isolated gun violence incidents are often overlooked, there is a lot of healing needed, said Kyndra Simmons, of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, a national organization focused on reducing violence through community-led hospital-based violence intervention programs that address trauma.
Culturally appropriate services usually rely on workers from the community who understand specific needs, provide bedside support, and connect survivors to long-term trauma case management. As Simmons says, “they need someone to continue to walk with them on that journey after they leave the hospital.”
