Re: Terminology - Edit 1
Before modification by Nate at 24/08/2012 11:08:51 PM
I think it's important to differentiate. The term "mass shooting" implies someone who takes a gun and sets out with the purpose of killing/harming as many people as possible. It carries frightening connotations of randomness and anarchy. That's not what happened here.
Yes, it's bad that two people were killed and eight more were wounded, but there has to be a better term for it than mass shooting. Some of the people who were injured were accidentally hit by police bullets as they took down the shooter, after all, so the shooter isn't even responsible for all of those numbers.
I'm not trying to lessen or minimize it, but I'm also trying not to inflate it. Even if it hadn't been a case of one person trying to target a specific other person, even if it had been a lunatic out to kill random people, said lunatic only killed one person and wounded some percentage of eight others (what percentage that was, I'm not sure). Since that still wouldn't meet the definition of a mass shooting, I don't think that's what it should be called.
You could call it a shooting. BBC calls it a "deadly shooting". You could call it a wild homicide, I don't know. But I think that "mass shooting" should be reserved for things big enough to fit its definition.
Yes, it's bad that two people were killed and eight more were wounded, but there has to be a better term for it than mass shooting. Some of the people who were injured were accidentally hit by police bullets as they took down the shooter, after all, so the shooter isn't even responsible for all of those numbers.
I'm not trying to lessen or minimize it, but I'm also trying not to inflate it. Even if it hadn't been a case of one person trying to target a specific other person, even if it had been a lunatic out to kill random people, said lunatic only killed one person and wounded some percentage of eight others (what percentage that was, I'm not sure). Since that still wouldn't meet the definition of a mass shooting, I don't think that's what it should be called.
You could call it a shooting. BBC calls it a "deadly shooting". You could call it a wild homicide, I don't know. But I think that "mass shooting" should be reserved for things big enough to fit its definition.