Mass Shooting

A mass shooting is an incident involving multiple victims of firearms-related violence. The United States' acknowledges that there is not a broadly accepted definition, and defines a "public mass shooting" as one in which four or more people selected indiscriminately, not including the perpetrator, are killed or injured, echoing the FBI definition of the term "Going Postal". However, according to the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, signed into law on Jan 2013, a mass shooting is defined as a shooting resulting in at least 3 victims, excluding the perpetrator. Another unofficial definition of a mass shooting is an event involving the shooting (not necessarily resulting in death) of five or more people (sometimes four) with no cooling-off period. Related terms include School shooting.

A mass shooting may be committed by individuals or organizations in public or non-public places. in recent times have used the tactic of mass shootings to fulfill their political aims. Individuals who commit mass shootings may fall into any of a number of categories, including killer of family, of coworkers, of students , and of random strangers. Individuals' motives for shooting vary.

Responses to mass shootings take a variety of forms, depending on the context: number of casualties, the country and political climate, among other factors. The news media and other types of media cover mass shootings extensively, and, often, sensationally, and the effect of that coverage has been examined. Countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia have changed their gun laws in the wake of mass shootings. In contrast, the United States' constitution prohibits laws which disallow firearm ownership outright. There are more mass shootings and more guns in the United States than any other nation in the world, and about half of the world's mass shootings occur in the U.S., which averages one mass shooting a day (using the definition of four people injured) and owns about half of the world's guns.