But “mass shooting” is a term without a universally-accepted definition, which complicates news coverage of events such as Sunday's massacre in Las Vegas. The FBI does not officially define “mass shooting” and does not use the term in Uniform Crime Report records. Some media reports, such as those of our Wonkblog colleagues, and advocates use a broader definition used by the Mass Shooting Tracker maintained via Reddit, an online forum. By this count, the San Bernardino shooting is the 355th mass shooting this year. The political debate about strategies to prevent mass shootings might dominate news coverage in the coming days, but there is no agreement on what “mass shooting” even means.

Source: Washington Post October 04, 2017 11:37 UTC