Mass shootingUnderstanding mass shootings in America
At least 17 people were killed Wednesday afternoon in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The gunman, a former student at the school, was armed with a rifle and multiple magazines, officials said. The shooting came 23 days after a 15-year-old student shot 16 of his classmates, two of them fatally, at Marshall County High School, in Benton, Kentucky. The FBI does not count “mass shootings,” but rather “mass murder,” which the bureau defines as an event in which four or more people are killed — excluding the perpetrator, and not including domestic violence incidents — at one time. Despite the attention they garner, mass shootings account for just 2 percent of gun deaths in the United States.
At least 17 people were killed Wednesday afternoon in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The gunman, a former student at the school, was armed with a rifle and multiple magazines, officials said.
The shooting came 23 days after a 15-year-old student shot 16 of his classmates, two of them fatally, at Marshall County High School, in Benton, Kentucky.
The Trace offers useful information about mass shootings in the United States.
Tragedy and spectacle
There is no official definition of “mass shooting,” though it is often understood as an incident in a public place that claims four or more lives, and attracts widespread media coverage. In the last five decades, these events have become far more common.
Other groups use a much broader definition for what counts as a mass shooting, sweeping in incidents that happen in homes, and where there are four or more casualties — not just deaths. Gun Violence Archive tallied 385 mass shootings using this broader definition in 2016, resulting in at least 457 deaths and 1,546 injuries.
The random nature of indiscriminate gunfire unleashed without warning is all the more frightening because it can happen anywhere. Just in the past four years, gunmen have massacred worshipers at a church, moviegoers at a theater, people at a gay nightclub, and young children at an elementary school. In July 2016, a 25-year-old Army reservist who was reportedly angry over police shootings of unarmed black men killed five police officers and wounded 11 others during a rampage in Dallas.
Mass shootings are both tragedy and spectacle. As a result, they attract a huge amount of attention, which tends to distort views about the prevalence of incidents, the most common victims, and how the weapons that are used are obtained.
