On March 16, a gunman killed eight people at three Atlanta-area massage businesses, and on March 22, 10 people were gunned down in a Boulder, Colorado grocery store.

Here, John J. Donohue, III, a professor of law at Stanford University, who was an expert witness for the city of Boulder in its assault weapons ban case, discusses mass shootings in the US, the challenges facing police when confronting powerful automatic weapons, and the prospect of gun control laws:

Sharon Driscoll: A police officer was shot and killed during the mass shooting in Boulder by a shooter who had an assault weapon. Can you talk about the dangers first responders face when they arrive to a mass shooting?

John J. Donohue III: One of the most dangerous acts that any police officer can take is approaching a mass shooting incident. An FBI report on 160 active shooter incidents from 2000-2013 found that “Law enforcement suffered casualties in 21 (46.7%) of the 45 incidents where they engaged the shooter to end the threat. This resulted in 9 officers killed (4 of whom were ambushed in a shooting) and 28 wounded.” In other words, in about half of these cases, at least one officer who engaged the shooter was shot.

Driscoll: Are America’s police outgunned by criminals, particularly mass shooters?

Donohue: There is little question that an officer with a handgun is outgunned against someone with an AR-15. But the problem goes beyond assault weapons since the gun industry is trying to upgrade the lethal capacity of many weapons.

Recall that in November 2018 the police officer who charged into a crowded bar to stop the Thousand Oaks massacre was struck by 6 bullets—5 fired by the gunman and 1 fatal shot tragically fired by a California Highway Patrol officer. Moreover, the first person of the 12 killed by that gunman was the armed security guard in the bar. The mass killer, a former Marine, used a Glock handgun with a laser scope, loaded with high-capacity magazines.

Driscoll: Are our police officers concerned about the number of Americans who own, and often legally carry in public, a wide range of firearms? And do they shoot more frequently?

Donohue: Mass shootings are part of the larger problem that police are scared to death of being targets of gun violence in America’s gun-saturated environment. The combination of the huge number of guns and lax regulation poses a significant challenge for law enforcement.

Just as American criminals shoot faster because of the dangers posed by an armed population, so do American police, who legitimately fear the prospect of facing an armed assailant.

As a result, American police officers kill at far higher levels than their counterparts in other affluent nations. Consider this striking fact: in the first 24 days of 2015, police in the US fatally shot 59 individuals, which was greater than the comparable number of 55 shot by police in England and Wales, combined, over the past 24 years.

Read the full article about mass shootings by Sharon Driscoll at Futurity.