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Mass shootings are violent incidents involving the use of firearms to kill or injure multiple people. There is no standard definition of what number of victims constitutes a "mass" shooting, but in a 2015 report, the Congressional Research Service defined such incidents as having at least four victims (not counting the shooter or shooters themselves, in the event that they are injured or killed). Though mass shootings occur all over the world, the United States has seen them happen with greater frequency than might otherwise be expected from a nation with its level of prosperity and political stability. Outside of the United States, mass shootings tend to be associated with political or civil unrest, or disputes between religious and ethnic groups. Within the United States, the subject of mass shootings inspires strong debates about gun control, the effects of violence in the media, mental health, and the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms.

On December 14, 2012, twenty-year-old Adam Peter Lanza, a native of Newtown, Connecticut, walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and perpetrated one of the deadliest mass shootings by a single person in US history. The incident left twenty children ages six and seven and school staff members dead; the massacre ended only after Lanza took his own life as law enforcement and first responders arrived on the scene. The shooting was the sixteenth and final mass shooting spree that took place in 2012 and came a mere five months after another deadly mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Partly due to the age of the victims, the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School shocked the nation and sparked an intense national debate on gun control and awareness of mental illness at both the state and federal levels.