If police shoot and injure or kill four or more people (gang, terrorists, bank robbers, etc.), is it as mass shooting?

@AbraCadaver I actually don't know. I'm not sure how much that would skew the data either.

@AbraCadaver Based on their methodology page, it would seem that their only requirement is that 4 or more are shot or killed, excluding the shooter. They do not filter out based on circumstances. Based on that I'd say that yes, police shootings can be counted as a mass shooting.

I honestly don't think I can remember a single police shooting that actually met that criteria though

@xyious There's this one which is a recent case of police shooting and injuring a suspect and 3 children (reportedly no shots were fired by the suspect). Not exactly a case of shooting 4 known criminals, but still an example of categorizing it as a mass shooting when police are the shooters.

@Birjolaxew That definition even included an incident where 5 people were shot while they were trying to invade someone's home. Unfortunately for the would-be home invaders, the homeowner apparently had a sport rifle with a 30-round mag.

A similar example here:gunviolencearchive.org/incident/1329075 "3 bystanders shot by police "

Examples of home invasions, filed under "mass shooting" and "defensive use" gunviolencearchive.org/incident/1305294 gunviolencearchive.org/incident/1292941 So incidents where gunviolencearchive list the shooter as the victim and unharmed, filed under "defensive use" are also considered mass shootings.

@reirab no matter the situation, someone getting shot is a drain on our society and deserves to be counted in the proper statistics.

Unless the number of defensive and police shootings significantly skew the statistics, how much does it matter whether these outliers are included?

@Murphy And with an "assault weapon," no less. But, you know, no one needs those, especially not the 20-year-old who was defending his himself in his own home in this case.

@Barmar On the other hand, the types of incidents that most people think about for the term "mass shooting" are also rare outliers in this list. 4 of the 115 meet the U.S. government's definition, for example.

Indeed, but that's a separate problem. As stated in the answer, practically every statistic about gun violence adopts definitions designed to support some agenda.

Why would injuries not count and fatalities would? A shooting is someone getting deliberately shot, it doesn't seem to matter if they survive or not since most people don't want to be shot which is surely the point.

Worth noting that there already exists a definition for Mass Murder. From Wikipedia: "The FBI defines mass murder as murdering four or more people during an event with no "cooling-off period" between the murders. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more people kill several others." So it makes sense that a Mass Shooting would follow the same definition, but with the less stringent requirement that it merely be injury or attempted murder. Hence the wording used by the Gun Violence Archive, if anyone is wondering where the "4 or more", etc., verbiage came from.

Another question is what would be counted if someone fired off a large number of shots towards people in a public place but had terrible aim and just completely missed? It'd still be a shooting and an act of terrorism, and there'd presumably be extensive property damage, but is it still a "mass shooting"?

Again, it's important to remember that this is the BBC reporting to Britain, where incidents of mass shooting (i.e. multiple people injured by gunfire) are rare enough to be national news, whereas in the US incidents with the same definition are almost daily occurrences. In the US people think of "mass shootings" as only where multiple people are killed because the other incidents are just 'business as usual'.

As a european, the tone of this answer baffles me, especially in the first half. Any shooting where 4 or more people are involved would be a very big deal in europe, and nobody would think its a "loose" definition. I find it absolutely mind-boggling that this is the 115th incident in the US this year and the US population seems to be largely unconcerned.

@Polygnome The reason for the tone in the answer is that most people (at least in the U.S.) use the term "mass shooting" to mean "mass public shooting." Certainly, domestic violence and drug/gang violence are big problems, but they're completely different problems with completely different causes than people randomly shooting up a public venue. Conflating them is not helpful, except to people who are trying to use statistics dishonestly either for the sake of sensationalism to sell news or to advance some agenda.

@Polygnome - even more terrifying for me is the tone of some here saying "sure there were 115 shootings, but one of those was this guy perfectly reasonbly defending his home, so really it's only 114". Apparently 114 mass shootings is nothing to worry about, especially if some of those were 'domestic violence' (presumably someone shooting his/her partner and children?).

@reirab Conflating domestic violence, drug/gang violence, vigilantism and cowboy self-defence, terrorism, trigger-happy cops and whatever else is very helpful to signal a single problem: everyone is armed to the teeth. You say that they are different problems with different causes, but those problems exist everywhere else and there it doesn't end with thousands of people injured or dead by bullets every year - even if you can exchange a fraction of those for people dead or injured by knives.

@reirab Respectfully, I disagree. Shooting four people is shooting four people, no matter if it is a drug/gang war, domestic violence or a random person shooting up other people in public. It is still widespread gun violence. the fact that you think they are different and one is worse then the other is terrifying.

@Polygnome I never said anything about one or another being worse. I just said that they're different problems and that conflating them is not helpful. The fact that you seem to be ok with completely dishonest journalism is terrifying to me.

@DaveyDaveDave Not 114. 4.

@Polygnome it is a useful distinction, though. A majority of violent crime in given cities occurs in just a few neighborhoods in those cities -- those crimes are typically categorized as drug/gang violence. Dismaying as it may be, a group of gang bangers killing each other over a bad drug deal is quite different than someone going into a school and shooting a bunch of kids. When people hear "mass shooting", school shootings are what they care about (and those are still rare).

@bvoyelr It's a useful distinction only in a country where incidents of four or more people being shot is so common that you have to start subdividing them. In a country where cases of multiple people are shot are extremely rare (that's any developed country outside the US!) there is no need to subdivide, and a single incident in any year is cause for horror and concern.

@reirab Under what criteria is the count 4? (Also, what "sport" requires a 30-round magazine?)

(+1) for stating facts and giving opinions and explicitly differentiating between the two

"no regards to fatalities, so a shooting that wounds 4 people and kills no one is considered a mass shooting" -- how on earth is that not eligible to being a mass shooting?!? Some dude pulls out a gun and wounds 4 people and it's ... not a mass shooting? Should it be filed under "unfortunate realities of everyday life" or something?

Another factor that might belong on your list is whether it's a single shooter or many. You later mention gang violence, which could be multiple people shooting one person each in a gang vs. gang conflict. Many would regard this differently than the kinds of imagery the term "mass shooting" invokes as well.

@jpmc26 the GVA does not make a distinction between 1 shooter and multiple shooters, as long as they're involved in the same incident

@jpmc26 furthermore, i don't think that any of the definitions distinguish between single or multiple shooters, see for example the Columbine shooting, which involved two shooters

@Therac different for sure - since amount of people shot goes up with number of guns available, you'd have even more shooting :)

@Erik The environments where everyone is armed to the teeth and gun carriage is mandatory happen to show a refreshingly low rate of mass shootings.

@Therac what environments would those be, exactly..?

@Erik The military is one, obviously. Of course they do get to shoot people...

Yeah, that seems like a poor example. The military isn't exactly know for their lack of using guns.

@Erik Sure. But very few incidents of deliberately using them on friendlies. So shootings clearly don't scale linearly with guns. I'm not necessarily advocating for a society where everyone is armed at all times, but I'm very sure it would be a give and take thing, not clearly worse or better. More shootings, fewer stabbings - you use the tools that are available - that sort of thing.

Eh... mass shootings never involve "deliberately using them on friendlies". Mass shooters are always shooting at people they consider enemies.

Or at least people who need to die. They're not accidents or anything.