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Mass murder (sometimes interchangeable with "mass destruction") is the act of murdering several or more people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time.[1] The FBI defines mass murder as murdering three or more persons during an event with no "cooling-off period" between the murders. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more people kill several others.[2][3][4] Many acts of mass murder end with the perpetrator(s) dying by suicide or suicide by cop.[5]
A mass murder may be committed by individuals or organizations whereas a spree killing is committed by one or two individuals. Mass murderers differ from spree killers, who kill at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders and are not defined by the number of victims, and serial killers, who may kill people over long periods of time. Mass murder is the hypernym of genocide, which requires additional criteria.
Mass murder is also defined as the intentional and indiscriminate murder of a large number of people by government agents; for example, shooting unarmed protestors, throwing grenades into prison cells, and randomly executing civilians.[6] The largest mass killings in history have been governmental attempts to exterminate entire groups or communities of people, often on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Some of these mass murders have been found to be genocides and others to be crimes against humanity, but often such crimes have led to few or no convictions of any type.
The concept of state-sponsored mass murder covers a range of potential killings. It is defined as the intentional and indiscriminate murder of a large number of people by government agents. Examples are shooting of unarmed protestors, lobbing of grenades into prison cells, and random execution of civilians. Other examples of state-sponsored mass murder include:
Mass murderers may fall into any of a number of categories, including killers of family, of coworkers, of students, and of random strangers. Their motives for murder vary.[9] A notable motivation for mass murder is revenge, but other motivations are possible, including the need for attention or fame.[10][11][12]
Examples of mass murderers include King Dipendra of Nepal,[13] Anders Behring Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, William Calley, Ernest Medina, Samuel W. Koster, Adam Lanza, Cho Seung-Hui, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Robert Steinhäuser, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, Matti Juhani Saari, Tim Kretschmer, William Unek, Campo Elías Delgado, Jeff Weise, Woo Bum-kon, Martin Bryant, Ahmed Ibragimov, Baruch Goldstein, Robert Bales, Omar Thornton, Nidal Malik Hasan, James Holmes, Dylann Roof,[14] Andreas Lubitz,[15] and Elliot Rodger.[16]
Acting on the orders of
it is possible to characterize Newtown as an instance of a lot of different social problems: as a mass shooting; as a school shooting; as mass murder; as workplace violence (remember the staff members who were killed were at work); as a crime involving an assault rifle; as a case of a mentally ill person committing acts of violence; and so on. We expect journalists to have a sort of sociological imagination, to help us understand incidents as instances. And we can understand why advocates for gun control, mental health, or other causes might favor particular labels but we need to appreciate there is no One True Classification, that the categories we use are merely tools that may help us better understand what [is] happening in our society.
In the late decades of the 20th century and early years of the 2000s, the most popular classifications moved to include method, time and place. While such classifications may assist in gaining human meaning, as human-selected categories, they can also carry significant meaning and reflect a particular point of view of the commentator who assigned the descriptor.[5]
How such rarely occurring incidents of homicide are classified tends to change significantly with time. "In the 1960s and 1970s,... it was understood that the key feature of [a number of such] cases was a high body count. These early discussions of mass murder lumped together [a variety of] cases that varied along what would come to be seen as important dimensions:
Commentators have pointed out that there are a wide variety of ways that homicides with more than several victims might be classified. Such incidents can be, and have been even in recent decades, classified many different ways including "as a mass shooting; as a school shooting; as mass murder; as workplace violence...; as a crime involving an assault rifle; as a case of a mentally ill person committing acts of violence; and so on."[5]
Analysis of the Columbine High School massacre and other incidents where first responders waited for backup has resulted in changed recommendations regarding what bystanders and first responders should do. Average response time by police to a mass shooting is typically much longer than the time the shooter is engaged in killing. While immediate action may be extremely dangerous, it may save lives which would be lost if people involved in the situation remain passive, or a police response is delayed until overwhelming force can be deployed. It is recommended that civilians involved in the incident take active steps to flee, hide, or fight the shooter and that law enforcement officers present or first arriving at the scene attempt immediately to engage the shooter. In many instances, immediate action by civilians or law enforcement officers has saved lives.[18]
[17]
Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, European Union
World War I, World War II, Genocide, American Civil War, Nuclear warfare
Discrimination, Armenian Genocide, Ethnic cleansing, World War II, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
World War II, Russia, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian language, Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
Cold War, Battle of Stalingrad, Nazi Germany, Battle of the Atlantic, Second Sino-Japanese War
Mass murder, Massacre, Indigenous Australian, Western Australia, Tasmania