Talk:List of mass shootings in the United States

Any ideas for how to improve this list?

I think I got a decent start on this article, but if anyone has any ideas on how to improve this list, feel free to share your thoughts! Ottoshade (talk) 03:09, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't love the check/cross mark part of the table -- it seems awkwardly like a checklist to complete. Additionally, a lot of these incidents currently listed received only minimal coverage. I'm not sure this article adds much to the existing Mass shootings in the United States page. If it's to be kept, it might make sense to modify it to only include shootings that themselves have Wikipedia articles. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

As for the checkmarks part, what about instead of green checkmarks and red crosses it was {yes}/{no}? And not all shootings are notable enough to warrant an entire article about them, that's why I made this list. Think shootings like this, or this. These aren't enough to warrant their own article, but are definitely enough to be a row in a list, if that makes sense. All, of course, have independent, reliable coverage, usually by several media agencies. Ottoshade (talk) 04:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I think my concern is really the green/red. It looks like the ones with fewer fatalities have not "scored" as highly as the others. As for where to set the threshold for inclusion, I understand your point -- I just worry about the size. With 325+ million people in the United States and some pretty lax gun laws, this list will quickly become unwieldy -- there are already 9 shootings listed in the span of one week, and the article claims to intend to list any shooting since 1966. While I don't actually expect that mass shootings have been linear in frequency, you'd be looking at listing 24,336 shootings if they were. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah the red/green scheme could be removed. And size is a fair concern, but I can confidently say that there won't be anywhere near 24,336 mass shootings listed here, even after 50 years into the future. As noted subtly in the definitions section of the article, Gun Violence Archive has only been tracking shootings since 2013. In total, they have exactly 1,568 mass shootings listed on their website, and so far the number of mass shootings per year has never exceeded 382.

What would be useful, however, is splitting the list into older shootings (pre-Sandy Hook) and newer shootings (post-Sandy Hook). Then what the article would look like is a bunch of older shootings from the 70s and 80s, then you'd scroll down and see the ones since Sandy Hook. Ottoshade (talk) 04:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)Ottoshade (talk) 04:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm curious, why 1966? GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:17, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

That was the University of Texas tower shooting, which began what I like to refer to as "Stage 2" of mass shootings (post Sandy-Hook is Stage 3). It was earth-shattering, and the country had never seen anything like it. Also, it's the starting point for this article that has every mass shooting since that year using their (self-admittedly stringent) definition of "public" mass shootings. Basically, it's the earliest we can construct a full-blown, reliable, complete list. Ottoshade (talk) 04:21, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Update: I overhauled the article and got rid of the checks/crosses thing, and split the article, making it look a lot like how List of school shootings in the United States is laid out. Ottoshade (talk) 15:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Nice, it looks a lot better now. Impressive amount of work on that. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:23, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I've added this point to the article lead just to mention that the article intentionally begins starting from 1966. I think there should be some additional discussion as this article develops about the following things:

• 2018 is such a long section it could easily become its own article. Should each year have its own article? The recent years are likely to get unweildy, but it's also unlikely every year since 1966 would have enough mass shootings to warrant a separate article, especially with the increase in shootings in recent years.
• It's extremely likely there are many more shootings pre-2018 (especially in the past ~decade) that would fit the criteria for this list—should those be added? Are they intentionally excluded or was it more a matter of slowly working backwards from 2018?
• Should 1966 be the starting point? Were there not mass shootings in the U.S. (by this article's definition) pre-1966? That said, I think the term "mass shooting" is fairly contemporary and some cutoff absolutely needs to be in place, even if it's arbitrary. As an example, I notice that none of the definitions mention wartime casualties but I don't think it makes sense to list every Civil War fatality in this list.

GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:45, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I personally like 1966 as a starting point, as the University of Texas tower shooting was really when the notion of a lone gunman shooting many people without a clear cause or gain became prominent (as well as that being an argument for gun control), and incidents like that exploded have since then. Ottoshade (talk) 05:41, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Split

Elaborating on my comment in the section above, does this page need to be split? I just finished filling out the descriptions for the list of shootings in 2018, and the page is now 167KB (see WP:SIZESPLIT). The other years are very short tables, but if we fill in data from lists of shootings like [1] we'll soon have similarly long lists. The alternative would be to only list shootings that have been determined to be notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles, or perhaps there's a middle ground where a main article could list those notable shootings and then link to per-year pages for the rest. Thoughts? Pinging Ottoshade and Leaky Solar since you've actively created/improved this page. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:56, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and BOLDly split out List of mass shootings in the United States in 2018, and trimmed this article to only include incidents that have their own Wikipedia articles. Hopefully this will help keep the page size manageable, and more comprehensive lists can be maintained per-year. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:33, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Ottoshade (talk) 05:27, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

I second this, since we've created the overall event lists for 2018 and 2019, this article can be kept down in size. The limiting factor of only entries with wiki articles is a good way of keeping the list down and a method to not have it a massive article. Leaky.Solar (talk) 17:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Support split - I attempted to split off 1922-2009, but Leaky.Solar reverted my edits. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:28, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

If the split is agreed upon then I have no issue. My main issue with your initial splitting of the article was that all of the dated responses in this section is from 2018 which I noticed after I left my initial post. There was no agreed upon action for the proposal of August 2019 or a formal agreement for the 2018 discussion. Leaky.Solar (talk) 17:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I believe the template was put at the top due to a misunderstanding of what this section was originally about. Simply put, this article was split into per-year articles, and the per-year articles have hundreds of listings per year, while this main article only counts shootings that have their own articles. This was done because otherwise this article would have over 2,000 listings, so it was necessary to split it by year to keep it loadable and feasible, but this main article should and must remain as an overview of the most deadly and notable gun massacres in the US. Ottoshade (talk) 06:08, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Issues with Events Included, Clarifications

The current list has some specious consideration to mass shooting. Most of the noted sources also don't use incidents in which victims include family (instead, being classified as domestic violence and being omitted from lists and databases like gang activity is). Secondary to this, when more than one location is involved or more than one day is, it's considered a spree and/or rampage killing rather than a mass shooting by all modern sourcing. For example, the vague January 2019 Louisiana shootings actually isn't even notable and shouldn't have a Wiki article, however it's both domestic AND not in one location. He killed his parents, then traveled to another county and killed his girlfriend and her parents. This would by no stretch be considered a mass shooting. If anything, domestic incidents with multiple victims happen weekly and nothing about the 1/19 shootings makes them notable.

Second example is the YouTube shooting. Only three were shot - which doesn't meet most of the stated criteria. The four injuries included a woman who hurt her ankle fleeing, which has never been used in stats for mass shootings. In this case, only one source - which uses three and not a definition used in any other manner by anyone else - states victims should be three and not four. No source uses fleeing injuries in the data tallies. Four shot is almost universally accepted now (though standards on how many shot versus how many killed, etc. vary.)

Third example is the Pecan Park "mass shooting". While a notable event for Wiki, it's not a mass shooting, as the event was involving a no-knock warrant and police shooting each other. Two died in the botched job, but there was no "one shooter", no public place and not even three shot by perpetrators. The two shooting victims were the unarmed homeowners shot by cops. The other injuries were inflicted by fragments from shooting through walls.

So, in this page, proposals to clean it up.

• Remove less than 4 victims directly shot, not including the shooter. This is the official government definition as well as now the overall guidelines in reporting.
• Remove less than 4 victims who aren't unknown/unrelated to the shooter.
• Remove incidents in which casualties are not inflicted by a shooter, such as injuries from trampling.
• Remove incidents in which police are involved in inflicting the shooting. Given police response is almost always multiple cops, even if we used the Pecan Park example, the cops injured themselves, which would put it at "excluding the shooter" and we don't know if one cop did all the damage or not.

As for discussion, I propose to also remove incidents in which those injured by bullets aren't included by those hit with bullet fragments, but I'm open to suggestions on that because then you start trying to parse minuscule data. That said, more than a few cases involve people who were targeted being shot, and bystanders were injured with fragments. To me, this would be akin to a shooter hitting three people, and a cop shooting at the shooter hits a fourth innocent behind them. Does this meet the criteria set forth? I'm not sure. The event itself caused the death, but the fourth person wasn't killed by the perpetrator. If we start included those in the list as well, it would get pretty messy, IMO. Seola (talk) 12:59, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

There is no fixed definition of a mass shooting, as this article makes overwhelmingly clear. 4+ actually losing their life or having a lone shooter are not a requirement in many sources' definitions of mass shootings. If it involves 4+ people getting shot in a single incident, and it has notability to have a wiki article, it counts as a mass shooting for the purposes of this list. Ottoshade (talk) 17:48, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I checked this list for one well known event, 14 November 1991 in Royal Oak, MI. It was Not listed. Are there others missing?

I find it odd that some sources would NOT count USPS mass shootings as such and, as far as I could tell, only ONE USPS shooting is listed despite the fact that there were other shootings that I heard about as a youth in the latter part of the last century. I'm not sure if there just weren't enough victims for it to qualify, but I now have to question the minimum number of victims rule and suggest that attempting to shoot at multiple people - whether they hit them or not - constitutes a mass shooting.

Further, I agree with Seola about the questionable entries mentioned, as well as others. I find it odd that some sources (MJ & WP) consider a multi-day shooting to be a mass shooting, since all other sources listed seem to look at such things as multiple incidents. An example of this is the May-June Scottsdale shootings in 2018, which I would classify as serial killings, especially since it happened over 6 days with 7 victims. There are other questionable entries.

I suggest that WP should adopt a standardized definition of mass shootings. I also have feelings about familicide, which I've expressed in a separate entry below. For example, I think the definition should consider the following:

1. The number of shooters is unlimited (e.g. the Tulsa race slaughter of the black community of 1921).
2. It should not be related to gang activity, terrorist activity, organized crime-related and those shootings which were motivated by profit/gain. This would exclude the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, which was the execution of a group of Mafia figures by rivals.
3. I DO feel that incidents where the police or military (including the National Guard, Coast Guard, etc.) shot into a crowd, such as the Kent State shooting of 1970, should be listed. Incidents involving the above-mentioned crime groups should be somehow shown as such in a clear and consistent manner, such as by using a background color or icon, and a different color/icon be assigned to those committed by the police and military.
4. The shooter should've been demonstrably attempting to harm and/or killing a number of people not less than 3 or 4, even if less than the minimum were actually harmed/killed. A horribly inept mass shooter who only wounded/killed two, for example, while shooting randomly into a crowd should be listed despite his/her inability to actually hit more people with bullets.
5. Familicide, where the shooter kills his/her own family, should be clearly indicated as such using a color or icon.
6. The event should have occurred at one time and in one place, public, private or governmental, in a non-stop fashion. To be clear, it could potentially span more than 24 hours if the killer persists in the action over a longer period of time without moving to a distinctly different location (another disconnected part of town, another city or state) while continuing to be engaged. A better explanation may be needed to include the Tulsa race massacre. Thus, the 1949 "Walk of Death" shootings would included, while the 2019 Louisiana shooting would not be.
7. Incidental injuries, such as from debris dislodged by bullets and grenades, someone spraining their ankle or breaking a bone (e.g. a police officer wounds a comrade by accident - but NOT deliberately) while moving, and friendly fire, should not be counted towards the list of injuries and deaths. This would exclude the Pecan Park double homicide by police.

There are other problematic entries in the list but I don't have time right now to go through it.

I think I know what the response is going to be, but I hope I'm wrong.ReveurGAM (talk) 14:05, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Removing Graph

Removing graph as per WP:SYNTH/No original research. There is a difference between providing a list and using that list to produce a graph. The purpose of providing a graph is to synthesize the data so that one may visually observe trends on the aggregate. However, people aren't trying to draw conclusions about the state of this Wikipedia page, which is what that graph actually charts, but instead they are using it to draw conclusions about the frequency of mass shootings over time.

A scientific, methodological survey would take special care in its standards for collecting data. If we introduce bias, say by using a method which produces data which is less complete in the past than in the present, we might come to the wrong conclusions. It could be the case that the statistic is declining, but that this list has fewer records in the past due to the lack of sources represented in this page. In this case, the graph would be deliberately misleading to any casual reader of the article.

Regardless of the accuracy of the data on this page, producing such a graph or establishing standards would be producing original research. This is clearly outside the scope of an encyclopedia and Wikipedia in particular.Kphawkins (talk) 20:11, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Especially given that the inclusion criteria are not like the per-year articles that have specific definitions. Rather, the ones listed here are just ones that have articles of their own, which in itself is based on a case-by-case basis of notability and coverage by sources. Mass shootings have increased in frequency and victim count over the years when you use a consistent definition like Washington Post's list of ones since 1966 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/mass-shootings-in-america/

But the chart that existed before is not a good way to demonstrate that, nor was that chart in the immediate purview of this article. Ottoshade (talk) 17:43, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Familicide Entries Suggestion

Growing up these past 5 decades, "mass shooting" has always meant to me that there was a shooting of several people by one or more assailants who are generally unrelated to the victims at a public location or business/organization/governmental office. While I don't agree that familicide should be considered a mass shooting, I understand that it is considered such on WP. I came here looking for information about mass shootings and, having once looked at a similar list years ago, was shocked by how much longer the list had become (for years I looked at previously) until I noted the familicides.

However, I have a suggestion. I feel that the list presents a somewhat inaccurate - and fear-inducing - picture of mass shootings and, thus, I would like to suggest that entries involving member(s) of a family killing some or all of their family should have a different background color or some other obvious indicator that this was familicide. This will serve to reduce the, IMHO, excessive volume of this list that was most likely caused by journalistic enthusiasm/sensationalism in such a way that people can still see familicides without coming away with the impression that mass shootings are far more prevalent than they really are. This also serves the purpose of demonstrating to readers how likely they are to be killed by family rather than in another type of mass shooting. I feel that the list, with its current state, presents a situation that is distorted and will make people be more fearful.

I don't know how to make the adjustment myself or I would've done so.ReveurGAM (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

It happening at home &/or the victims being related to the shooter doesn't mean it's not a mass shooting.

Highlighting different venues by coloring lines in the table could be useful. One color for those which happened at a residence, another color for those that happened at a workplace, another for those that happened at a place of worship etc. Jim Michael (talk) 11:45, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Order of list

The order of the list is wrong. The data should be listed chronological from top to bottom. As in Prison riot, List of epidemics, 2020 in stand-up comedy, just to name a random few. I thought this was the standard Wikipedia guideline. Aquatic Ambiance (talk) 09:02, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Agreed - the earliest should be at the top. Jim Michael (talk) 11:45, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Separate Article

Why is there not a list like this one but for shootings outside the US? 98.196.107.178 (talk) 17:59, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

• Reply - Be bold! --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:17, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

How are mass shootings defined on this page?

I keep trying to add the Maquoketa Caves State Park Shooting, where a man shot and killed 3 people, and then killed himself, to this list. However, my edit keeps getting reverted. So how are mass shootings defined on this Wikipedia page? The Maquoketa Caves Mass shooting would be a mass shooting according to the Stanford MSA Data Project definition, the Mass Shooting Tracker definition, and the Mother Jones definition according to the definition section of this article.

The Mercy Hospital shooting, the Aztec high school shooting, the Weis Market shooting, the Kirkersville shooting, the North Park elementary school shooting, the 2015 Colorado Springs shooting, the Alison Park/Adam Ward murders, the 2013 Los Angeles airport shooting, the Clackamas Town Center Shooting, the Delisle triple murder, and the attempted Ronald Reagen assassination all fit into the same category as the Maquoketa caves mass shooting, where 3 people were shot [excluding the perpetrator]. So if the Maquoleta Caves Mass shooting does not apply as a mass shooting, we must remove all of the above listed mass shootings from this wikipedia article as well. Silent-Rains (talk) 15:41, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Shootouts?

This list currently includes several shootouts. If shootouts are to be included, the list should also include the Matewan massacre of 1920 which resulted in 10 deaths. Nosferattus (talk) 04:29, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Weapon

Would it be feasible to include some sort of information as to the weapon(s) used? Something as simple as a number from 1 to 7 indicating which of a handgun (1), a semiautomatic (2), and/or something else (4). For example 5 = 1+4 would mean the use of both a handgun and something other than a handgun or a semiautomatic. Or maybe interchange 2 and 4 if the three powers of two are ordered by perceived effectiveness, thereby shrinking my example of 1+4 to 1+2. Vaughan Pratt (talk) 19:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

"Mass shooting" definition

@Silent-Rains and Love of Corey: With this edit, Love of Corey removed a number of incidents from this page on the apparent basis that they don't qualify as "mass shootings" (per a discussion here). However, on this very page, there are multiple definitions of what our sources consider "mass shootings". Some use "one location", but others use a more broad "same incident" (suggesting multiple locations would be acceptable). In particular, the 1933 Cleveland shooting and 2023 Yakima shooting articles seem, to me, to meet the definition of a "mass shooting" at least as defined here. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:19, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Dear Locke Cole,

The first three definitions say one location so we can ignore them. The last three say "at a public place." This can be tricky since many spree shootings happen at a mix of public places & private residences.

I think "in one incident" is also a vague phrase. For example, with the 2023 Yakima shooting, is the shooters suicide the same incident as the shooting? It happened at another location hours later. The Dover firebomb attack was a similar situation, where the perpetrator went to another location before committing suicide. In that article, his death is not counted as one of the causalities. Without the shooter counted, the shooting had three victims. Other Articles with three victims, such as the Vestavia church shooting and the Thornton shooting, are not counted as mass shootings.

However, I think that the 1933 Cleveland shooting does count as a mass shooting because eight of the victims were shot within the same vicinity. I think that the Midland–Odessa shootings could also meet the definition of a mass shooting. This article, "Several drivers were shot along that stretch of road, at Olive Garden, Market Street and Twin Peaks." Although the statement does not specify how many drivers were shot, 23 of the injuries and three of the deaths were not mentioned elsewhere in the article if I read it correctly. Silent-Rains (talk) 16:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Memphis 3/29

Mass shooting in Memphis it is listed in [[2]] and idk how to add it lol Melofy (talk) 18:54, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Why start at 1920 when deadliest was 1890?

The deadliest mass shooting ever in the US by far was the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890. Was this inconvenient because it was perpetrated by the government against an indigenous population while in the process of disarming them? 98.186.207.4 (talk) 23:10, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree, if they (who ever they are) can list a raid by police on a crack house and people died as a mass murderer then Wounded Knee should definitely be included. 140.82.133.162 (talk) 00:25, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

The Waco siege of 1993 also qualifies. -- Frotz(talk) 01:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

The April 13, 2017 Fresno shooting was not a mass shooting

The April 13, 2017 Fresno California shooting was not a mass shooting. There were five days between the first shooting (with 1 victim) and the second shooting (with 3 victims), so this incident doesn't fit any of the commonly accepted definitions of a mass shooting (i.e., four or more people shot at approximately the same place and time). EschewObfuse10 (talk) 19:18, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Identity

Don't we know the names of any of these mass shooters? It's a little hard to believe that all of them have been anonymous or remain unidentified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 00:54, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Michigan State University shooting

@Lettler: The two definitions of mass shootings that allow 3 victims both exclude gang-related shootings. The Michigan shootings were gang-related, which is why I don't think they qualify. CodeTalker (talk) 16:38, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I believe we generally use the Gun Violence Archive definition of a mass shooting (and the Mass Shooting Tracker definition to a lesser extent) for this page. Seven people shot at one location in one incident definitely counts as a mass shooting in this page, whether it be random, domestic, gang-related, etc. Lettler^{hello • contribs} 16:58, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

"List of mass shootings in the United States in 2024" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect List of mass shootings in the United States in 2024 has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 December 8 § List of mass shootings in the United States in 2024 until a consensus is reached. Silcox (talk) 19:08, 8 December 2023 (UTC)