Fact Check: Is Senator Chris Murphy’s claim that Biden-era gun law led to fewer mass shootings true?

WASHINGTON, DC: A 23-year-old transgender, Robin Westman, opened fire on a Minnesota Catholic school on Wednesday, August 27, killing two children, Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, and wounding 18 others.

After the incident, Senator Chris Murphy took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and mentioned that following the passage of a 2022 gun safety law, mass shootings "began to drop". But is there any truth to this statement? Let us find out below.

Claim: A 2022 gun law led to fewer mass shootings

Sen Chris Murphy, a leading supporter of stricter gun laws, took to X after the deadly Minneapolis school shooting and stated that legislation enacted during former President Joe Biden's administration led to a decline in mass shootings.

He wrote on X, "There is something deeply wrong with a country that chooses to make running for their lives part of kids’ back to school ritual."

"When we finally passed a gun safety bill in 2022, mass shootings began to drop. But it was an unacceptably small start. We must do more," Murphy added. He was referring to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which the former president signed into law in June 2022 after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

The legislation combined gun safety provisions with mental health and school security resources, marking the first congressional gun control measure in nearly three decades.

Meanwhile, the senator's spokesperson clarified that Murphy was referring to the number of mass shootings as measured by the Gun Violence Archive, an online database that showed a decrease in mass shootings in 2024 compared with 2023.  

Fact Check: Partly true, other factors also contributed towards the decline

The claims made in Chris Murphy's X post are partly true. According to PolitiFact, it is difficult to determine whether the 2022 law directly caused the decrease in mass shootings.

As of August 27, data from the Gun Violence Archive showed 642 mass shootings in 2022, 660 in 2023, 503 in 2024, and 286 so far in 2025. Experts believe the law may have played a role, but note that there is no academic research directly linking the legislation to the decline. 

Alex R Piquero, a University of Miami criminology professor and former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, said, "This is not to say that it may not have any impact — it’s virtually impossible to demonstrate any direct causality, but it's important to keep in mind many other potential correlates of that drop, including, for example, an overall drop in crime, return to prevention and intervention strategies and so forth."

Gun violence experts also urged caution in attributing the decline solely to the 2022 law.

Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, explained that the law contained many provisions, making it difficult to pin down its impact. "The law had so many different parts," she said, noting it included funding to support state-level “red flag” laws.

Similarly, Terry Schell, a senior behavioral scientist at Rand Corp who studies firearms and violence, said, "It is exceptionally difficult to determine, empirically, if any national law caused a particular shift in a rare outcome. Even if the mass shooting rate dropped to zero in the years following passage, all that would tell us is that SOMETHING happened in 2023 to reduce mass shootings. It could be this law; it could be something totally different."

Therefore, Murphy's statement is partially accurate. While the 2022 law may have contributed to the decline, other important factors were also at play, making the claim only partly true. 

Minneapolis school shooter was 'obsessed with idea of killing children'

Robin Westman, the 23-year-old shooter, was “obsessed with the idea of killing children,” investigators said on Thursday, August 28.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said the suspect did not appear to have any specific motive behind the shooting. Westman “appeared to hate all of us,” the chief said, adding, “More than anything, the shooter wanted to kill children.”

Officials have released few details about Westman’s background but confirmed that the suspect had previously attended the church’s school and that Westman’s mother had worked there.

Authorities believe Westman approached the side of Annunciation Church, which also houses a school, and fired dozens of shots through the windows using three firearms.