Do we count the shooting at Chabad of Poway as a "mass shooting"?

[GMDino]

(04-29-2019, 05:14 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Seems there were a few heroes that were responsible for keeping the death toll lower.

As to the question posed by the OP (i'll have to take his word that he asked in earnest) I think this should be addressed as a mass shooting. He shot among a mass of people with no particular target in mind.

(04-29-2019, 05:35 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I think this is a very good way to think about it. A mass shooting being a shooting that involves multiple victims with no individual intended target. Seems reasonable to me.

I agree.  That would help us understand "shootings" vs "killings".

I personally believe the shootings are just as bad.

(04-29-2019, 11:47 PM)Dill Wrote: My response then is, no, it is not a "mass shooting."  I'm fine with the definition of 4+ randomly chosen or symbolic/representative victims. But I do think it was a an "act of terrorism," or at least a hate crime.

This reminds me somewhat of the definition of what counts as a "War"; most historians/sociologists/political scientists who study the subject agree on a 1,000 death threshold.

That definition then determines the answer to questions like "How many wars have there been since 1970?"  If the threshold were dropped to 500 or raised to 1,500, the answer would be different.

If we want to understand why mass shootings occur, then we need to agree on what counts as one, whether intent matters, and if so, what sort of intent?  If we can at least get USEFUL answers to those questions, definitions which enable us to determine trends and perhaps their social location and causes, then we ought to be doing that. The point is not just to help reporters and those who compile crime stats, but to understand criminal trends and hopefully their causes.

That "terrorism" label gets stickier.  If we can at least agree with what bfine says below then we can start to get a baseline agreement on how many of these horrible events there are and see if there is indeed anything that can be done to limit them more.

(04-30-2019, 12:22 AM)bfine32 Wrote: More than one shot at random folks. 

Agreed.