A number of years ago I got to participate in a mass shooting. About a dozen friends went up to some property we owned with a private range. Range backstop was a big hill.
We placed targets out to about 200 yards. But being the lazy ass people that we were, some of the targets were just stapled to trees.
We sent thousands of rounds down range that day.
And while you all might think that a Tannerite booms are impressive…
We got to watch a 100+ ft tree come down. We’d cut it down with gun fire.
FBI: A “mass shooting” is any incident in which at least four people are murdered with a gun.
Unclear if the exclude gang violence. I think they use to.
Gun Violence Archive (GVA): Four or more people struck with bullets. Nobody needs to die for it to be a mass shooting.
Mass Shooting Tracker: Four or more people hit by bullets.
Note that some of these include the shooter themselves being shot, others don’t.
Some include gang violence others don’t.
The reason we can have more “mass shootings” than there are days in the year is because of the twisted definitions.
When Karen hears “Mass Shooting Incident” she sees dozens of bodies laying on the ground, blood around. When she hears “Four Children Killed in Mass Shooting” She sees the images from Sandy Hook of kindergarteners laying in pools of their own blood.
The reality is that by alarmest standards a “mass shooting” can be two gangs flinging bullets at each other which ends up with 2 on each side getting a stitch or two. Four dead might mean to 17 year old animals dead in a drug deal gone bad.
A “school shooting” can be anything from Sandy Hook (real school shooting) to some animal shot in a drug deal in the parking lot of an administration building used to store buses, after dark.
If it bleeds it leads, if it doesn’t bleed, get more ketchup.
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2 responses to “Words Have Meaning: Mass Shooting”
ISYN (I s##t you not): one “school shooting” cited in Michigan (a) took place at a school that had been shuttered for the better part of a year, (b) on a weekend, (c) late at night, (d) as part of a drug deal gone wrong (or, depending on your perspective, gone right, I suppose).
Definitions: they change the meanings of things!
I saw another “school shooting” cited that was actually 1. a suicide-by-pistol, 2. in the parking lot, 3. at night (possibly on the weekend), and 4. during the summer break when school is not in session and no children are around. And 5. the “victim” had zero ties to that particular school; no children who attend, no business there, certainly wasn’t a student himself, etc.
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If they can’t lie and/or distort, they have nothing.