No matter how you look at the facts, America has a problem with indiscriminate, nameless killings of innocent people in public places. There is no clearly defined definition of a mass shooting that is agreed upon by all. This creates a void for researchers to bend the definition to their preference, making a concentrated effort to see the big picture that much more difficult. If we want to solve this phenomenon, we have to define what a mass shooting is. You can’t solve a problem if everyone has a different definition of the problem. For time's sake, we’ll use the FBI’s definition. Mass murder is four or more deaths occurring during the same incident. Using this definition, there has been 162 shootings since Obama took office in 2009. More than the previous four presidents combined. In fact, it’s almost tripled and Obama still has eight months left in office.
The research and opinions on mass shootings are shattered at best. When Obama, in frustration, on June 18, 2015 said, "This type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency," critics pounced on his statement, saying that comparing the frequency of mass shootings in America to Europe does not paint the right picture because as John Lott Jr., a gun rights analyst, has said, “If you are going to compare the U.S. to someplace else, if you are going to compare it to small countries, you have to adjust for population.” Fair enough. So according to the research of Jaclyn Schildkraut and H. Jaymi Elsass, if the ten most “advanced” countries in the world had the same population as America, only Finland, Norway, and Switzerland would have as big of a problem as we do. However, it’s worth noting that the U.S. still has more shootings, but less casualties in total. The other countries aren’t even close in comparison. The only similarity that America shares with these countries is the prevalence of guns. Adam Lankford, a criminal professor at the University of Alabama, found that countries with higher gun ownership rates had more public mass shootings. In fact, gun ownership is the strongest, if not the only, indicator of mass shootings.
Without adjusting for population, from 2000-2014, Finland only had two incidents of mass shooting. Norway and Switzerland had one as compared to the 133 shootings in America. So when Obama said other countries don’t have mass shootings, he was wrong. It’s the frequency of mass shootings that matters. Sure you can adjust for population, make your argument, then say other countries would have as catastrophic of a problem, but you would be adjusting the reality where 487 Americans died only to become a useless statistic.
The most disturbing hurdle we have before us is that we only know what a mass shooting is when we see it on the news. There is no second thought as to what exactly a mass shooting is. To us, the public, it’s the angry loner stereotype, with access to guns, in a public setting, and killing for no reason while in reality mass shootings can happen for a variety of reasons whether it’s gang related, a robbery, terrorism, etc. When there are different definitions of the problem, there are different solutions. How are politicians supposed to pass clearly defined legislation for an undefined problem?
