There are, in fact, places in the world where people are shocked and surprised when mass shootings take place.
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While the shocking, high-profile cases at churches, movie theaters and schools get the attention every month or so, mass shootings – by anyone’s definition – are much more common.
The redditors who started the tracker deliberately wanted to use a broader definition that would capture instances similar tothe Lafayetteshooting, as well as other multiple-casualty events. However, that data should be read with a caveat.
It is impossible to know whether the number of such incidents has risen in recent years, because the databases go back only a couple of years.
Two databases that track mass shootings – shootingtracker.com and gunviolencearchive.org – depend on news accounts and are not official.
So with these different definitions of “mass shootings”, you get different headlines like these. That’s why there is a need for more distinct vocabulary, says Deborah Azrael, the associate director of the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center. But starting in 2013, federal statutesdefined “mass killing” asthree or more people killed, regardless of weapons. “In some ways, it’s a mess because everyone calls these mass shootings”, she says. “This sickening and senseless gun violence must stop”, tweeted Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders.
James Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University, argues that mass shooting incidents have not increased, according to the FBI’s historical definition of four or more killed.
He said that changes in news media coverage and in the availability of news accounts of shootings have led many people to believe that the number of shootings has been increasing. Roughly 30 percent had at least two people killed, while more than five people were killed in 15 reported shootings. By The New York Times’ count, a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such shootings this year.
“All of a sudden instead of being told to think about the evil person who did it, we are subconsciously told to think about the tool they used”, NRA news contributor and Navy Seal veteran Dom Raso said. A majority of mass shootings – 57% – were incidents of domestic or family violence, according to a recent report from Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control advocacy group.
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Our freedom is killing us.
