Purpose
Display an array of relevant data about historical events. This particular example visualizes data about episodes of mass shootings in the United States (see notes below about data). View this exhibit on our server HERE.
Download zip file: Archive-mass-shootings.
Data Design Details
This database about mass shootings is based on data made available by Mother Jones on this webpage. We have made slight modifications to this source data as follows:
- We have selected a single internet-based source for information about each incident and mental health analysis so that a clickable See Link button could be automatically created in the Inspector;
- The Location descriptors have been edited so that the state is always given as a two-letter uppercase abbreviation. This makes it very easy to filter incidents based on the state in which they happened.
- The Race of two shooters has been changed from “Other” to “Middle Eastern” (as suggested by the data);
- A number of Venue values which were previously marked as “Other” have now been assigned a category; the categories “Public” and “Domestic” were added to previous categories.
This data is for demonstration purposes and does not claim to be definitive.
Each mass shooting event is described by the massshoot Template, which is comprised of the following Attributes (listed by ID):
- Case: A Text Attribute giving a name for each incident;
- Location: A Text Attribute giving the location of each incident;
- date: A Dates Attribute giving the date on which the incident happened;
- Venue: A Vocabulary Attribute describing the kind of setting in which the incident happening; allowable values are “Domestic,” “Military,” “Public,” “Religious,” “School,” and “Workplace.”
- Fatalities: A Number Attribute giving the number of people killed because of the shooting.
- Injured: A Number Attribute giving the number of people suffering non-fatal injuries because of the shooting.
- total_victims: A Number Attribute giving the total number of killed and injured because of the shooting.
- type: A Vocabulary Attribute giving the type of shooting; allowable values are “Spree” or “Mass.”
- Gender: A Vocabulary Attribute giving the gender of the shooter(s).
NOTE: A delimiter is given for the cases in which more than one shooter, and hence more than one gender, has been involved in shootings.
- race: A Vocabulary Attribute giving the race of the shooter(s).
- mental_health: A Text Attribute describing the mental health of the shooter(s).
- legal_weapons: A Vocabulary Attribute specifying if the weapons were purchased legally.
- warning_signs: A Vocabulary Attribute specifying if any warning signs about the impending shooting were available beforehand.
- lat_lon: A Lat-Lon Attribute specifying the approximate location of the incident.
- type_weapons: A Text Attribute describing the types of weapons utilized.
- weapon_details: A Text Attribute describing details of the weapons utilized.
- weapons_got: A Text Attribute describing how the weapons were acquired.
- Sources: A Link To Attribute with a URL to a webpage with information about the incident.
- mental_health_srcs: A Link To Attribute with a URL to a webpage with information about the mental health of the shooter(s).
The csv spreadsheet for this data has a full summary of each incident in the csv_post_post column. This dataset thus illustrates how to create content for the “body” of each Record, which can be read on the Record post page.