Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The mass shooting template

Let's face it mass shootings have become so commonplace in the US that they don't get much coverage unless it is something seriously horrific or shocking.  In fact, I've has my suspicions confirmed that the numbers have been twiddled since there are so many of them:

The FBI defined mass murder to distinguish it from serial murder. That definition provides the basis for the unofficial definition of mass shooting that has gained use in recent years. Mother Jones explained the definition in an extensive "Guide to Mass Shootings in America," writing that mass shootings typically involve a single episode in a single location, usually a public place. The Mother Jones definition of mass shooting matches the FBI definition of mass murder in that it includes single incidents that kill at least four victims.
Over on Reddit, the Guns Are Cool community has compiled a list of every mass shooting in the United States this year. The moderators of the subreddit, which doesn't actually appear to be of the belief that guns are cool, use an expanded definition of mass shooting, listing every event in which "four or more people [including the shooter] are shot in a spree." Under the Reddit definition, a shooting spree that wounds at least four people, but doesn't kill them, is still a mass shooting.
Including Monday's mass shooting, the Reddit list for 2013 is nearing 250 incidents. That's an average of one mass shooting almost every day.
With so many mass shootings, even those that fit the frequently used definition rarely prompt a presidential response. Perhaps it's not surprising that many of the violent acts cataloged by Reddit escape national attention.

Let's just make it easy for ourselves, and use this template from now on.

If the above doens't work for you, there's always this one:

2 comments:

  1. How dare you!!! It's too soon!!! Don't you politicize this tragedy!!!

    The Cult of the Gun has won. They control America, they deem that mass shootings are the price all Americans must pay for the rights of fanatics to parade around with their AR-15s at farmer's markets.

    The NRA, Gun Manufacturers, and the quiet gun owners are soaked in the blood of children and innocent Americans.

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  2. Laci, I agree with you that people who are wounded should count. Though then it would only be fair to include in the number of defensive gun uses times when the assailant isn't killed. There have been a number of times here where you have stated that the number of these incidents are quite small and use the FBI number for justifiable homicide.
    The challenge of course is that the FBI doesn't collect data of people injured by someone defending themselves.

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