Talk:List of mass shootings in the United States in 2020/Archive 1

Split

 *  Support split - Article covering one quarter of the year is now over 50 kB, and should be split to one article per month. Thoughts? --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:36, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose split - not necessary except to alter the context of the data.--Jorm (talk) 16:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose - A split is absolutely not necessary. Having yearly articles for mass shootings was already a split from the original article, List of mass shootings in the United States Ottoshade (talk) 01:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

NPOV dispute
To my eye, this article and the similar articles for 2018 and 2019 set a very low bar when defining a mass shooting. For decades, the commonplace US definition of a mass shooting has, in my experience (I am not putting this on the actual page, so spare me the "no personal research" spiel), mirrored the congressional & FBI definitions currently presented on the main Mass shooting page:

"The United States’ Congressional Research Service acknowledges that there is not a broadly accepted definition and defines a 'public mass shooting' as an event where someone selects four or more people and shoots them with firearms in an indiscriminate manner, echoing the FBI's definition of the term 'mass murder', but adding the indiscriminate factor."

The element of being indiscriminate is usually the signifying factor in the common use of the term, where someone goes to a place and tries to kill numerous people, even though some or all of them have no direct connection to the shooter or the shooter's motives.

To include things like targeted murders that resulted from a disagreement in a bar seems somewhat disingenuous and overly inclusive of crimes of passion or gangland warfare (e.g. drive-by shootings), where most people consider a "mass shooting" to be one where an unbalanced person with a grudge goes to a (semi-)public place and attempts to murder as many random, unexpecting people as they can to make some kind of statement or exact revenge on a group or institution. These crimes are horrendous and frightening, but nevertheless do not appear to follow the de facto common definition of this particular term. This feels like an attempt to portray the country as having more of what the common person would call a "mass shooting" than it actually does (i.e. POV-pushing).

I question the motives behind choosing to use definitions by publications such as Vox, Mother Jones, and Washington Post. These outlets lean from center-left to solid left, according to multiple bias-evaluation sites (allsides.com; mediabiasfactcheck.com; adfontesmedia.com; marketwatch.com). Left-leaning outlets can be fairly assumed to have a gun-control stance and cannot be trusted to be neutral in their reporting and judgment re: mass shootings. A fair measuring stick is unlikely to come from so much weight being given to their definitions while simultaneously watering down or, in the case where two of their definitions suffice, completely ignoring the official definition used by our government and law enforcement.

I think the congressional research group and the FBI are much more reliably neutral and well-informed, and not coincidentally are much more clear and strict about what qualifies.

Finally, while I don't want to disparage someone for dedicating a lot of effort to creating these lists, I think it's concerning that the vast majority of the data has been added by a single person, and I think that also should be considered in questioning the neutrality of these pages. I'll assume they aren't adding invalid data, but the overly-wide definition that allowed this mass of entries vs. lists elsewhere that covered entire decades without being a quarter the length concerns me.

I'm not going to attempt to change the page(s) myself. I'm going to tag the 2020 one with POV-check to see if I can get some seasoned folks to come give their opinions. I'm not claiming to be a domain knowledge guru and I think I should leave actual changes to those who are. But I would caution that right now, in my opinion, these pages look like they fail NPOV and may actually be pushing a POV. Felice Enellen (talk) 09:51, 26 August 2020 (UTC)


 * This has already been discussed at length in previous years' talk pages, and consensus was reached that these yearly articles are fine to use the broad definition, while the main article uses a much more restrictive definition (only including mass shootings that have their own Wikipedia articles). It is made very clear that there are many definitions of a mass shooting. Whether or not the FBI defines "mass murder" as 4 or more killed—versus just 4 or more shot—does not mean that the definition from a widely-cited, notable non-profit organization (Gun Violence Archive) that has documented over a quarter million incidents over a 7-year span, or the definition used in the Stanford University MSA project, etc. are less valid and the incidents don't deserve a place. As for accusations of bias, Mother Jones' definition is actually far more restrictive than Gun Violence Archive's, despite being rated as strongly left-biased on whatever bias websites you look them up on (they only count killed victims and exclude gang-related incidents). Gun Violence Archive itself is not a biased source, and no one knowledgeable in the field would take you seriously if you were to claim such a thing (the organization is run by someone pro-gun and has many volunteers who are pro and anti-gun).


 * No one cites the Congressional or FBI definitions when discussing gun violence because they're outdated and don't update in real time, unlike Gun Violence Archive's data, which is cited regularly by highly-trusted news sources such as NBC News https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-press-blog-latest-news-analysis-data-driving-political-discussion-n988541/ncrd1223551 If there was significant, notable competition that defined mass shooting in a different way, you might have more of a point here. Ottoshade (talk) 21:46, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Conway 11/28
I've read the sources for the for the Conway SC shooting on November 28. None of the sources specifically state that all five were shot. The articles indicate that five were injured, two were transported to a hospital and three "had other medical issues". It seems as though this does not qualify as a mass shooting.Yousef Raz (talk) 04:47, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds like it should be removed then. TomCat4680 (talk) 04:48, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I took it down. TomCat4680 (talk) 22:43, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Numbers per shooting
I put the numbers next to each city to indicate that there have been multiple mass shootings in specific cities. These numbers provide the reader with a quicker reference to which cities are having the multiple mass shootings and how many mass shootings in the given year. Other Wikipedia lists do have numbers similar to this so there precedent. The additional information is small and clutter free. I thought about making another table that indicates which cities recorded multiple mass shootings but putting a number next to each incident as they occur provides the reader with the same information but in a more concise appearance.Yousef Raz (talk) 22:49, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * There should be something on the column's label telling what the numbers mean though to make it clear (i.e. "number of shootings per city on that date" or something similar). I thought it meant number of victims per city at first before I clicked sort by city. What do you think about that idea, ? TomCat4680 (talk) 22:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * How about Parenthetical number indicates the amount of mass shootings that occurred in that city year to date. directly below the section's title?Yousef Raz (talk) 02:39, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah that seems fine. TomCat4680 (talk) 02:50, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Now that it is properly noted and not just numbers next to the cities, I'm more okay with it. I still don't like how it looks fully but since there are cities that are not repeat locations for shootings, there is not a great way to do it. Also please keep in mind that any updates that you add to this page, needs to also be added to the additional pages of mass shootings for List of mass shootings in the United States in 2019, List of mass shootings in the United States in 2018, List of mass shootings in the United States (2000-2009), List of mass shootings in the United States (1900-1999), and List of mass shootings in the United States. As this page started as a copy paste chart style from these pages and it would be beneficial to uniformity and documentation. Leaky.Solar (talk) 15:24, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll adjust 2019 and 2018. The other two are not a yearly list.Yousef Raz (talk) 21:26, 11 December 2020 (UTC)