The Locus of Dread for Mass Shooting Risks : Distinguishing Alarmist Risk Beliefs from Risk Preferences

Data from three surveys before and after the 2022 mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde provide a natural experiment to assess perceptions and valuations of mass shootings. The degree of overestimation of mass shooting risks surged following these tragedies. The odds of believing that mass shooting risks exceeded other firearm homicide risks more than doubled after these shootings. More than one-third of respondents viewed mass shootings as a greater threat to themselves than other firearm homicide risks, and a similar number viewed them as a greater threat to the public. A risk-risk choice experiment examined the tradeoff rate between deaths from mass shootings and from other firearm homicides. People generally viewed prevention of deaths from mass shootings as being equivalent to preventing other firearm homicides. However, respondents who believed that mass shooting risks were a greater threat both to themselves and to the public than other firearm homicide risks treated mass shooting deaths prevented as if they were 37.5% greater than the stated amounts. Risk-risk tradeoff studies and stated preference studies more generally should account for whether respondents’ perceived risk levels differ from the risk values stated in the survey. The principal manifestation of dread for mass shootings is through risk beliefs. Irrational fears may intrude on elicitation of risk preferences, making it essential to account for perceptional biases in stated preference studies of risks