Intuitively, we can all sense the broader harm, but it is remarkably hard to measure. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say mass shootings are a significant source of stress in their lives. Researchers have found that after these events, antidepressant use rises among teenagers living near a school shooting. Gun purchases made in response to events have been shown, grimly, to lead to still more accidental gun deaths.
At first glance, it might seem like mass shootings and car crashes have little to do with each other. But decades of research show that stress and distraction make drivers more dangerous, and driving is one of the riskiest things most Americans do every day. In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, fatal crashes rose in part because travelers traded planes for cars—but there was also evidence of an increase in crashes per mile driven, an increase believed to be linked to the fear and stress that spread nationwide. We wondered whether the country’s deadliest shootings might leave a similar mark.
Why the day after? Because that’s when the nation pays the most attention. As part of our study, we analyzed Google search traffic data, which showed that the day after a mass shooting is when Google searches for “shooting” peak, and when media coverage floods the news and social media. If a shooting were going to affect how the country drives, the day after is when we’d expect to see it.
The result was sobering. On the day after the 10 mass shootings with the most fatalities, traffic deaths rose by an average of 14.3%, about 20 additional deaths nationwide. Put another way, the extra deaths on the road equaled roughly 75% of the number of people killed in the shootings themselves.
Our study, however, cannot tell us exactly why this happens, and it cannot trace any single crash to any single driver’s state of mind. Grief, anxiety, a phone lighting up with notifications, or distraction behind the wheel could all play a role; some mix is likely at work, and we cannot fully untangle them. But the larger lesson here does not hinge on the mechanism. The toll of a mass shooting is bigger than the number in the headline, and much of it remains invisible until we go looking for it in unexpected places.
Of course, none of this diminishes the core tragedy of a mass shooting. But it should change how we picture its scale. When we count only those killed at the scene, we undercount, and what we choose to count shapes what we choose to do about it.
Seeing the fuller toll and how quickly these tragedies move through a highly interconnected country might help us respond more thoughtfully, whether in the media, on Capitol Hill, or in our homes and communities.
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