Focus on the fear, the unfocused.

I quoted Congress’ definition. It’s 3 or more people shot. You’re using the FBI’s definition. You only get to hundreds of mass shootings per year if you use these definitions, which don’t conform to the colloquial definition, the one most people think of when talking about mass killings.

Ask the person on the street if gang wars are mass killings and he or she will say no, they’re focused murders, in the middle of which there are sometimes civilian casualties. (And if you ask them if the police should stop those murders, a fair number will say “no, let them kill each other.”)

I don’t claim all mass killers are video game fanatics.

I listed 18 people guilty of multiple murders, all of whom were violent video game fanatics and all of whom stated mass murder as their end goal, the killing of as many people as possible, not as many competing gang members, or as many cops, or as many of a political party, or as many of any group by which they felt aggrieved, just as many people as possible.

They all planned and committed unfocused murders. Those are the murders that concern most people. We understand focused murder, and the odds. We don’t accept domestic violence, but we understand it and the odds it will affect us. We (mostly) don’t accept gang violence, but we understand it and the odds it will affect us.

We don’t understand indiscriminate killing, and we don’t accept the odds, no matter how low, because there seems no way to avoid it. We can’t just move to another neighborhood or stay away from drugs and gangs and crazies, because the crazies seem completely random.

Maybe some are, but these eighteen weren’t.