It says a “mass killing” is when three or more people are killed in a single incident, regardless of the weapon. In fact, the connection between gun ownership rates and mass shooting rates isn’t unique to the U.S. Finland and Switzerland, two countries often thought of as being very safe, rank just below the U.S.in per capita gun ownership and similarly rank in the top 15 countries for mass shooters per capita. The Mass Shooting Tracker, as its called, differs from other shooting databases in that it uses a broader definition than the FBI’s old four-fatality rule: If bullets strike four people in the same attack, that’s a mass shooting.
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Before Wednesday, the October 1st attack at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg Oregon had claimed the most lives, 10 including the shooter, according to Mass Shooting Tracker. Under this definition, there have been 67 “mass killings” this year. And according to the Washington Post, who obtained the numbers by way of a Reddit mass shooting tracker, we’ve witnessed more mass shootings this year already than the past two. Using these definitions, Grant Duwe, in his 2007 book Mass Murder in the United States: A History, notes: “Excluding those that occurred in connection with criminal activity such as robbery, drug dealing, and organized crime, there were 116 mass public shootings during the twentieth century” (emphasis mine). The president also stressed that mass shootings like Wednesday’s should be “rare, as opposed to normal”, in the United States. “The gun lobby benefits from our ability to save those who would otherwise die, even though those gun shot victims are still just as shot and will never be the same”. “Besides the irrefutable logic of tracking mass shootings this way, another benefit is that it removes medical care (which affects the outcome) from the action (shooting a bunch of people)”, a post on the site reads.
Click on each point on the map below to see details on the mass shootings that occurred in each location.
More than one a day.
The group also said part of its goal is to influence media coverage of mass shootings.
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You’ve probably heard the stat: The U.S. has averaged more than one mass shooting a day in 2015.
