Despite media and political attempts to redefine mass shootings in a way to make Black males the face of mass shootings, the definition of mass shooting used in this study is 3 or more shooting victims (not necessarily fatalities), not including the shooter. i.e. “Random” incident, where victims are “gunned down indiscriminately.” The shooting must not be identifiably gang, drug, domestic violence, or organized crime-related.
Why limit the type of incidents?
The goal is to track the phenomena of mass shootings in the U.S. and not gun violence as a whole. It is the seemingly spontaneous shooting incidents that are the most confounding when looking for answers about motivation, after the fact.
We source our “Data-Explorer” content from The US Census Bureau, Federal Reserve, Department of Labor Statistics, and other sources.
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