1. Introduction: How Mass Shootings Spur Gun Purchases

2. Why the Current Era of Gun Culture Differs from the Past

3. Case Studies, Processes, and Causal Mechanisms

4. Descriptive Trends in Background Checks and Mass Shootings

5. Quantitative Analysis of Mass Shootings and Background Checks, 1999-2020

6. A Configurational Analysis of Mass Shootings and Background Checks

7. Looking Ahead, Has a Ceiling Been Reached?

Alexei Anisin, PhD, is the Dean of the School of International Relations & Diplomacy at Anglo-American University in Prague, Czech Republic. He specializes in both qualitative and quantitative research on political instability, rare forms of political violence and homicide, and holds a deep interest in international politics and historical change.

Mass shootings are playing a role in contributing to a historically unprecedented increase in gun purchases and a theoretical framework to account this increase, identifies causal pathways and mechanisms, then tests these claims on 213 cases and finds support for associations between different types of mass shootings and background checks.