Introduction xxiii Control (2014), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (2008), Congressional Re- search Service (Bjelopera, Bagalman, Caldwell, Finklea, & McCallion, 2013), and a joint collaboration between the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Secret Service (Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum, & Modzeleski, 2002 see also U.S. Secret Service, 2002), to name a few. The main discrepancies in definition among these and other agencies and organizations concern the location where the shooting takes place or how many victims (with respect to either fatalities or injuries) must be present for the shooting to be considered “mass.” Even the federal government has weighed in by offering a definition of “mass killing” as part of the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012 (H.R. 2076, 2013). Still, no universally accepted definition by which to categorize these events has been found. Schildkraut and Elsass (2016) proposed a definition that seeks to overcome such limitations while incorporating a reconceptualization of mass shooting events in four key ways: 1. Rather than considering only those killed, the meaning of the term “victim” needs to be reevaluated to account for everyone who is impacted directly by the event. Aside from those individuals also injured in the attacks, there often are many other individuals present at the scene who are victimized and trau- matized by the experience and also could have been killed or wounded in the shooting. 2. The location of the shooting is often public and chosen at random or for sym- bolic value. It is common for these attacks to happen at places of opportunity (such as schools or workplaces for shooters who already have access to such locations). Further, as more perpetrators are becoming mobile (e.g., the 2014 mass shooting in Isla Vista, California, in which the shooter attacked from a moving car), it must be acknowledged that mass shooting events can be spread across several scenes. 3. There is also a time component with mass shootings, such that these events happen within a 24-hour period, though most often they last only minutes or hours (see, for example, Blair & Schweit, 2014). This distinct time period is what differentiates mass shootings from spree killings or serial murders (Mor- ton & Hilts, 2006). 4. The potential motivation of the shooters (though often unable to be confirmed, particularly in cases where the offender commits suicide or is otherwise killed in the attack) also must be considered, as there is a qualitative difference be- tween mass shooters and perpetrators of gang homicides, terrorism, or other episodes of mass violence. Through such reconceptualization, and in an attempt at offering a potential uni- versal definition by which such events could be understood, Schildkraut and Elsass (2016) carefully crafted the following definition of a mass shooting: A mass shooting is an incident of targeted violence carried out by one or more shoot- ers at one or more public or populated locations. Multiple victims (both injuries and fatalities) are associated with the attack, and both the victims and location(s) are chosen either at random or for their symbolic value. The event occurs within a single
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