On May 7th, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Helen Ubiñas suggested that our definition of what constitutes a “mass shooting” needs to be changed.
The Inquirer defines a mass shooting as one that occurs in public and kills three or more people.
The FBI classifies mass shootings as four or more deaths in a single incident.
Meanwhile, Congress has used the definition of three or more, and the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks mass shootings, defines them as any incident in which four or more people are injured or killed, a classification also used by some national media outlets. (I often wonder why any shooting with more than one victim isn’t considered a mass shooting, but that may be a column for another day.)
Well, this isn’t a mass shooting under the Inquirer’s definition, bit I’m pretty sure that, if it was, there’d be a mass shooting in Philly almost every day of the year.
Quadruple shooting in East Germantown kills 17-year-old boy, wounds 2 other teens and a 7-year-old
Three people were injured and one was killed in the shooting.
by Jason Laughlin and Beatrice Forman | Thursday, May 11, 2023 |7:49 PM EDT
A shooting in East Germantown killed one teenager and injured three other youths, including a 7-year-old child, on Thursday night, the Philadelphia Police Department said.
Police said they received a report of the shooting on the 5900 block of North 21st Street shortly before 6 p.m. A 17-year-old boy who was shot in the face was transported to Einstein Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The other three victims — ages 7, 15, and 16 — were also transported there, where police said they are all in stable condition.
The 7-year-old was shot once in the upper thigh. The 15-year-old boy was shot twice in the head and twice in the back. The 16-year-old boy was also shot once, in the right shoulder.
NBC Channel 10 stated that the 7-year-old was not part of the group, but struck by a stray bullet.
That’s all the Inquirer had, one boy killed, and three others, at least two of whom were male, wounded.
In the meantime, Philly Crime Update tweeted, at 7:59 PM EDT, “🚨TRIPLE SHOOTING at 4800 Tackawanna St. possibly a 4th victim at Einstein stand by”.
The 4800 block of Tackawanna Street, in the Frankford section of Philadelphia, is a mix of older rowhomes and some housing project looking multi-family buildings. The 5900 block of North 21st Street consists of older rowhomes, some of which have been updated and flipped.
Now why aren’t these mass shootings? They aren’t not mass killings, but seven, and possibly eight, people were shot, and I have to wonder: how many of the victims were deliberately targeted? According to the Philadelphia Shootings Victims Dashboard, there have been 603 shootings in the City of Brotherly Love through May 8th, 118 of them fatal. May 8th was the 128th day of the year, and if fewer people have been killed this year than last, that’s still 4.71 people shot per day in Philly.
At least the way I would count it, that’s a mass shooting every day, but let’s tell the truth here: since the vast majority of the victims are black, and the vast majority of the shooters are also black, it’s way, way, way too politically incorrect to call that carnage a mass shooting.
The Inquirer story was updated at 9:10 PM EDT, to include the Tackawanna Street shootings.
It is ideology. “Mass Shootings” must be attributed to “Whites” to justify the push for gun control. Black v Black violence is related to neighborhood issues (i.e.”Gangs”) and crappy urban law enforcement/prosecution. That would disrupt the “narrative” and would highlight urban politics. FJB wouldn’t like that. Ignoring the Black bodies is part of the plan. Tain’t Nuffin.