The difference is less number and more kind/scenario. Look at how they get covered in the media and discussed by the public - the tendency is to talk about “mass shooting” in the sense of a nut (usually with a poorly written manifesto) shooting up a public place but then use the total of cases where more than 3 people are shot in a single incident for how often it happens. These are not describing the same things and will not respond to the same fixes.
But most of those are not the kind of shooting being discussed at all - most of those are things like gang violence, and the numbers killed by nuts going on a rampage is tiny. So tiny that if we were to tally them all up from the mid 60s to May 2021 (time frame chosen because WaPo already did the work, total is about 1400) that we’d still have more people killed in the US in a typical year bare handed.
Gang violence is not going to respond much to the kinds of gun control laws that get proposed to deal with “mass shootings”, in part because those laws tend to target scary-looking rifles above all else and most gang shootings are done with handguns. Even then, they are less likely to be concerned about breaking the law unless the punishment is so draconian that being caught with a gun is a worse risk than being shot by the other guy if things go down.
Nut-with-a-manifesto shooters use whatever guns they have easiest access to, which is why AR-15s are so common - they aren’t an especially good choice for this kind of shooting but they are the most commonly owned rifle in the US by a long shot, if you don’t already have access to one every gun store has them (comparatively cheaply) and has ammo to match the calibers they commonly come in.
The definition by the FBI is the only one I’ve seen. What number works for you?
The difference is less number and more kind/scenario. Look at how they get covered in the media and discussed by the public - the tendency is to talk about “mass shooting” in the sense of a nut (usually with a poorly written manifesto) shooting up a public place but then use the total of cases where more than 3 people are shot in a single incident for how often it happens. These are not describing the same things and will not respond to the same fixes.
But most of those are not the kind of shooting being discussed at all - most of those are things like gang violence, and the numbers killed by nuts going on a rampage is tiny. So tiny that if we were to tally them all up from the mid 60s to May 2021 (time frame chosen because WaPo already did the work, total is about 1400) that we’d still have more people killed in the US in a typical year bare handed.
Gang violence is not going to respond much to the kinds of gun control laws that get proposed to deal with “mass shootings”, in part because those laws tend to target scary-looking rifles above all else and most gang shootings are done with handguns. Even then, they are less likely to be concerned about breaking the law unless the punishment is so draconian that being caught with a gun is a worse risk than being shot by the other guy if things go down.
Nut-with-a-manifesto shooters use whatever guns they have easiest access to, which is why AR-15s are so common - they aren’t an especially good choice for this kind of shooting but they are the most commonly owned rifle in the US by a long shot, if you don’t already have access to one every gun store has them (comparatively cheaply) and has ammo to match the calibers they commonly come in.