Intent matters because in a true mass shooting event, the mass shooting is the intent.
In an argument turned into a fight with multiple shooters, nobody went out that day looking to shoot people. It turned out that way, but that wasn’t their goal when they left the house.
Your explaining the difference but not explaining why it makes a difference.
To matters of gun regulation, of safety in public spaces, of trauma to the affected, of national reputation (pick any one, or all, or something else) why does the intent change anything?
I’ll start off: To have the intention to mass-murder purely for the sake of mass murder could be worth isolating and studying because that is a specific and extreme psychological problem worth solving. However, not all mass killings (with intent, for your sake) will have that psychological trigger at root. A religious or racial extremist, for example, is different than a disaffected teenager.
In this circumstance, intent is interesting if one is interested in those other things (psychological issues in American youth, the spread of religious and racial extremism), but ultimately are secondary issues when it comes to measuring gun violence. A mass stabbing by a racial extremist, or a teenager blowing up their high school with fertilizer would still need to be measured.
You are complaining about this organization’s yardstick, but I don’t hear a compelling alternative from you for this specific measure. You are saying they should be measuring a totally different thing, which is arguably irrelevant to this measure.
It’s like explaining the dufference between murder and manslaughter, it’s the degree of the crime that counts.
If you accept that there is a difference between shooting people as a crime of passion, and shooting people by a systemic hunting of other human beings, there doesn’t need to be a “but why is it different?”
It’s different because one, anyone could fall victim to given enough alcohol and anger, and the other requires someone to be fundamentally broken as a human being.
Are you saying that we should have Allowlists vs. Denylists for types of gun violence that are acceptable? This seems to be the fundamental premise upon which we disagree…
From my POV, intention is immaterial because there are no ‘good’ gun deaths, so splitting hairs has no values.
It sounds to me like you’re saying if you go to a mall and have a mass shooting in a totally sober state, that’s bad, but if you get hopped up on bath salts and then have a good old fashioned shotgun rampage, that’s ok and we shouldn’t count those ones…
I’m saying that the phrase “mass shooting” should only be applied to a situation where the shooting is the reason for the conflict, not an argument, robbery, drug crime, or gang crime.
Further, I’d argue that conflating them all together so you can pump up statistics and make people scared denigrates all the victions of actual mass shootings like Uvalde and Sandy Hook.
… Why are you saying and arguing those things, nobody cares about what you think about the way the statistics are counted when you can compare the data to other countries without guns and without any types of shooting events, mass or not.
Do you not understand what all of these different people are trying to explain to you?
Because all the countries with strict gun laws that you all love to try and compare the USA with, also have strong social safety nets and are not as diverse as the USA…why don’t you compare it with say Mexico or Brazil? Both have super strong gun laws but have no real safety nets and surprise…still have tons of firearm related deaths.
Apparently you have never been to the EU… Canada while quite diverse, is mainly Europeans that immigrant to their. Some of my family came from the EU to Canada and then the USA…so it’s not really fair to act like Canada is super diverse.
Why don’t you answer my question before trying to deflect.
Intent matters because in a true mass shooting event, the mass shooting is the intent.
In an argument turned into a fight with multiple shooters, nobody went out that day looking to shoot people. It turned out that way, but that wasn’t their goal when they left the house.
Your explaining the difference but not explaining why it makes a difference.
To matters of gun regulation, of safety in public spaces, of trauma to the affected, of national reputation (pick any one, or all, or something else) why does the intent change anything?
I’ll start off: To have the intention to mass-murder purely for the sake of mass murder could be worth isolating and studying because that is a specific and extreme psychological problem worth solving. However, not all mass killings (with intent, for your sake) will have that psychological trigger at root. A religious or racial extremist, for example, is different than a disaffected teenager.
In this circumstance, intent is interesting if one is interested in those other things (psychological issues in American youth, the spread of religious and racial extremism), but ultimately are secondary issues when it comes to measuring gun violence. A mass stabbing by a racial extremist, or a teenager blowing up their high school with fertilizer would still need to be measured.
You are complaining about this organization’s yardstick, but I don’t hear a compelling alternative from you for this specific measure. You are saying they should be measuring a totally different thing, which is arguably irrelevant to this measure.
It’s like explaining the dufference between murder and manslaughter, it’s the degree of the crime that counts.
If you accept that there is a difference between shooting people as a crime of passion, and shooting people by a systemic hunting of other human beings, there doesn’t need to be a “but why is it different?”
It’s different because one, anyone could fall victim to given enough alcohol and anger, and the other requires someone to be fundamentally broken as a human being.
Are you saying that we should have Allowlists vs. Denylists for types of gun violence that are acceptable? This seems to be the fundamental premise upon which we disagree…
From my POV, intention is immaterial because there are no ‘good’ gun deaths, so splitting hairs has no values.
It sounds to me like you’re saying if you go to a mall and have a mass shooting in a totally sober state, that’s bad, but if you get hopped up on bath salts and then have a good old fashioned shotgun rampage, that’s ok and we shouldn’t count those ones…
I’m saying that the phrase “mass shooting” should only be applied to a situation where the shooting is the reason for the conflict, not an argument, robbery, drug crime, or gang crime.
Further, I’d argue that conflating them all together so you can pump up statistics and make people scared denigrates all the victions of actual mass shootings like Uvalde and Sandy Hook.
… Why are you saying and arguing those things, nobody cares about what you think about the way the statistics are counted when you can compare the data to other countries without guns and without any types of shooting events, mass or not.
Do you not understand what all of these different people are trying to explain to you?
Because all the countries with strict gun laws that you all love to try and compare the USA with, also have strong social safety nets and are not as diverse as the USA…why don’t you compare it with say Mexico or Brazil? Both have super strong gun laws but have no real safety nets and surprise…still have tons of firearm related deaths.
Not as diverse as the eu?? Not as diverse as Canada? Wtf are you talking about
Apparently you have never been to the EU… Canada while quite diverse, is mainly Europeans that immigrant to their. Some of my family came from the EU to Canada and then the USA…so it’s not really fair to act like Canada is super diverse.
Why don’t you answer my question before trying to deflect.
Sure, and all these different people haven’t said a single thing that counters what I’m saying, telling, isn’t it?
We’ve all countered it. Very telling indeed.