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I keep seeing a claim on social media claiming something to the effect of:

[First world country] has had [small number] mass shootings since [18whatever]
The US has had 7 since Monday.

I'm assuming that they're counting shootings differently for each country to get such a biased outcome, but I can't see where the number 7 came from.

rootmeanclaire
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  • I don't know about Canada, but it looks like there were 10 in the US in the week before 13th June, and 14 in the week before 12th, defined as "4+ victims injured or killed excluding the perpetrator, one location" - http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting - to get it down as low as 7, I imagine they must be counting only "deadly" shootings where multiple people were shot and injured and also at least one non-perpetrator was killed? Do any of these comments have more specific wording? – user56reinstatemonica8 Jun 13 '16 at 07:44
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    We've had similar questions in the past and they didn't work because people started arguing about the meaning of "mass shooting". Please find a specific claim that includes data so this can be answered definitely instead of speculated on. – Sklivvz Jun 13 '16 at 07:47
  • According to "mass shooting tracker dot org" there were 9 mass shootings from Monday 6/6/16 to Saturday 6/11/16. https://massshootingtracker.org/ This organization defines mass shooting as an incident where 4 or more people are shoot, regardless of whether or not anyone died. – DavePhD Jun 13 '16 at 11:39
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    Essentially it all depends on what you mean by 'mass shooting'. This article gives a good explanation of why numbers vary and what the differences are: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mass-shootings-us-numbers-1.3349917 – DJClayworth Jun 13 '16 at 13:16
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    We could also just treat the definition problem as a red herring and present all the data. People love to find reasons to argue about definitions, cause they know how to do that. –  Jun 13 '16 at 15:22
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    The claim is widespread and, by normal definitions, notable. The raw data should be accessible and definitions should not be a barrier to interpretation. For example, 4 or "more people shot" seems reasonable but if the raw data is there than readers can adjust the total to their own definition. A good answer would explain the definition *and* the raw data leaving no ambiguity. – matt_black Jun 13 '16 at 15:43

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