The worst is the Gun Violence Archive and their “mass shooting index” which gets quoted uncritically in the media, so you get headlines like:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/mass-shootings-days-2023-database-shows/story?id=96609874
"There have been more mass shootings than days in 2023, database shows
The United States has experienced 627 mass shootings so far this year."
The problem is they define “mass shooting” differently from how the public sees a mass shooting.
Their definition is a shooting event where 4 or more people are injured or killed.
So were there 627 events similar to the UNLV situation where a nut with a gun shows up in a public place and starts shooting indescriminately?
No.
Most of the shootings listed on the Gun Violence Archive are situations where there was a party, alcohol or drugs were involved, two parties got into an argument, the argument turned into a fight, and people got shot. That’s not how most people define a “mass shooting”.
I’d argue for a mass shooting definition of “person(s) arrive at a public location with the sole intention of shooting as many people as possible.”
That would rule out the bar fight incidents, or robberies gone bad, or people who go nuts and kill their family in their own house. We should distinguish between psychotic episodes that put the public at risk, vs. normal crime, vs. domestic vioence that does not involve the general public.
So your objection is that they call a mass shooting a mass shooting? What magic number would you like them to use?
No, my objection is they call normal shootings mass shootings with the agenda of making and keeping people scared.
So you’ll only care about children dying in school when the numbers go up even higher than they already are?
You don’t think the nra telling people to be scared and that they need a gun to feel safe is more of the issue?
That’s not how most people define a “mass shooting”.
That’s is I and many others define it…
No. It just takes some basic intelligence to figure out that mass shootings are shootings of multiple people. Sorry that concept is hard for you to understand.
Sad to see this so heavily down voted. A ton of emotional reasoning from people in this thread rather than by logic.
A gang shooting, police shooting, robbery, self defense etc are not mass shootings. Period. Its dishonesty to include those statistics.
