Why Are There So Many Conflicting Numbers on Mass Shootings?

No one would argue over whether the horrific massacre at a Las Vegas concert on Sunday, which claimed the lives of 58 people and injured over 500 more, fits the definition of a mass shooting. Nor does anyone quibble over that classification for the Orlando nightclub shooting that killed 49 and injured 53, or Sandy Hook, or Virginia Tech, or any of the other outbursts of gun violence that have claimed hundreds of lives in past decade alone. But what about the Plano, Texas man who fatally shot his estranged wife and seven other people at a private party just last week? Or the 25-year-old man who opened fire during a church service in Antioch, Tenn. just a few days earlier, killing one parishioner and wounding seven, many of whom remained hospitalized days later? Under the current federal definition, authorized by President Obama in January 2013, a “mass killing” must involve at least three deaths and occur in a “place of public use,” disqualifying both the Antioch and Plano incidents. A Congressional Research Service Report published two months later acknowledged a lack of consensus on the issue and used its own definition, which required four or more deaths, not including the shooter, occurring in a public place and a gunman “who select victims somewhat indiscriminately.” As others have already noted, there is a widespread disagreement on what constitutes a mass shooting. The Washington Post‘s Christopher Ingraham identified three broa...
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