Editorial: How to measure the gravity of a mass shooting

What is mass? It seems like a synonym for weight, but that isn’t quite right.

Weight is how we measure the pressure that gravity exerts upon things. But mass? Mass is the actual presence of an item — its length and breadth and density.

Mass has another meaning. It can describe large numbers. That is probably the way we hear about it most. It pops up on an all-too-frequent basis as the measure of a shooting.

The speed with which they assault us is numbing. It is hard to begin to calculate even the most public, deadliest events since Pittsburgh took its place on the list with the Squirrel Hill synagogue shooting in 2018. It is hard because no one uses the same scale.

The most recent was Saturday when 15 people were gunned down at an Allen, Texas, outlet mall — eight died, seven were wounded. Video from the event shows crowds of terrified shoppers running for their lives.

The mass of that incident is undeniable. We struggle with the weight of them all. So far, 115 people have died in 22 mass shootings in 2023 — depending on how the bodies are counted.

Different organizations calculate the casualties in different ways. This can lead to confusion as different parties cite equally valid statistics to support their points. One measure might use two victims or more. One might use four. One might require a degree of randomness — which is why some calculations don’t consider the shooting at an Alabama birthday party in April to meet the criteria.

The FBI does not have a definition of what makes a mass shooting, although it defines mass murder as four deaths or more in a single event. It is ridiculous that the nation’s highest law enforcement agency has not created a calculation for mass shootings given how often they occur. Doing so would give a single, defined measure of what equals mass and stop the debate.

That kind of accounting won’t stop mass shootings, but accurately weighing the gravity is important.