you can move all the goal posts to 10 deaths all you want, but then when those become common you'll say "what? only 10 deaths, pff, you need at least 100 for a mass shooting"
i wasn't going to post this yesterday because it didnt seem worth it but reading sheeps posts made me think it was relevant:
the value of human life doesn't work that way. one dead person is bad enough. 10 dead people is massive. at least in my eyes and i hope the eyes of most people. since my time in this country, shootings below 10 or at least single digit number counts (and thats for the dead and injured combined) have almost always been referred to as just "shootings". the media, police, and entertainment used to always refer to these kind of events as "shootings" i very rarely ever heard "mass shooting". thats why i believe a lot of people are numb and question the statistic that is 240 something "mass shootings" this year alone.
most people (not just in this country but around the world who don't know the technical definition) correlate a mass shooting to something like orlando, where 49 people or
massive amounts of life are lost. i believe this to be an objective assumption that any rational person would come to because 49 is massively larger number compared to 7. especially when were talking about human lives being lost in whats believed to be a safe environment.
believe you me, if 240 orlando shootings or Gritty Grapnel shootings happened this year alone, this would be a very
very different conversation. but that is objectively not whats happened this year. this country would most certainly be in a moc5 uproar if that were the reality of things.
i point this out not to argue with you or to deny what you've said. im trying to illustrate what an average american is thinking when they hear the statistic "240 mass shootings this year alone.". i agree that america probably has the highest gun violence compared to all western countries combined (i say probably because it sounds like a very likely and realistic phenomena, but in a world of fake news and statistics im uncomfortable with wikipedia articles. i dont care how "fact checked" they are anymore)
americans have become numb to gun violence because of how much there is. this is true and is not a good thing. its good to want to change that and reduce gun violence. the thing i feel like people dont realize though: americans have accepted some form of gun violence as the necessary evil that spawns from what they feel is the necessary good that is being able to legally protect yourself any time any where. because of this, that list you posted of all the "mass shootings" just looks extremely overblown to a lot of people because a large majority of those aren't what americans know as mass shootings. they may be technically considered that, but most people (and i dont think its only only americans) are expecting a huge amount of casualties or injured to be considered a mass shooting.
that might be the only thing id argue or actually like to take a stab at. id like to know what the thought process was behind setting the mass shooting cap to 3+
in america. like, in other less violent western countries? that makes sense because thats abnormal to them, but 3+ people in a shooting (when there is one) feels like its almost routine in american culture. im not saying any of that to downplay gun violence or people dying in america. im just saying this is how americans are synthesizing these situations and you have to present this kind information based on how they perceive it for them to really understand. coming right out the door and saying theres been over 200 mass shootings in america? americans are of course going to laugh at that because 200 Gritty Grapnels have objectively not happened.
blanket terming gun violence as mass shootings like this imo feels like it does a disservice to solving the problem. especially when "gang violence with probable cause" is a completely different scenario compared to "mass violence for reasons we dont understand". the record needs to be set straight for normie people. citizens and the government clearly have a different perception on what a mass shooting is. i blame the media
