incidents in which at least four people were injured or killed,
"Injured" is your open door. One person shot AT, and four people with bruises, cuts and sprains from running into stuff, or each other as they ran away, can go on their list as a mass shooting within their definition.
Once upon a time, in a land that now seems far, far away, there had to be 4 or more people KILLED, in the same place, at the same time, to be classified as mass murder. Gun, machete, chainsaw or poison, didn't matter. Kill more but spread out the location or the time and it wasn't mass murder, it was "serial killing".
Then the press started calling mass murder "mass shootings" which they were, when a gun was used. Then they decided to re-write the definition from killed to shot, which allows counting those who are only wounded as well as those killed, which meant a higher "body count" and therefore, many more shootings fell under their new definition.
NOW, the definition is changed again, and counts any and everyone INJURED
(in any way) at the scene of the shooting. People have a strong aversion to being shot and killed, or even just being shot. They willingly injure themselves to get away. I would. You would, its natural. BUT if you can count every scraped knee, cut, or sprain injury ( and of course worse ones) to make a mass shooting, then the number of mass shootings is going to jump tremendously. And, Of course, EVERY mass shooting is equal in their statistics.
To me, it doesn't seem right that a scene such as I gave, with no one actually shot, but 4+ people injured is treated the same as one where 20+ people were killed, and many, many more injured.
It just a numbers game for them, lower the definition until you can "validly" count enough incidents as mass shootings to force the govt to "do something" (meaning pass the laws they say will fix it).
It wouldn't surprise me a bit that, if changing the definition to include all injuries to make it a mass shooting doesn't generate the numbers needed for their agenda to pass, I would expect the next lower definition to be used. What's the next lower definition? Not sure what they will pick, but its not impossible they will decide that a shooting where 4 or more people ARE GATHERED constitutes a mass shooting (no matter what else is involved) and report it as such.
Some of the people in the anti gun movement are true believers, fanatics, jihadists, in their own way, believing nothing they do or say is wrong, because they are doing what they see as "God's work" (and usually without mentioning GOD in any way, shape or form). The rest are mostly what Lenin described as "useful idiots".
They ridicule or demonize, depending on what they think will have the most traction, anyone who defends themselves, or especially others. Many of them feel (and aren't shy about saying so) that anyone who voluntarily puts themselves in harm's way for the good of others is a fool. They feel those who serve in the military (and sometimes even the police) are fools, idiots, and other less complementary terms. They are of lesser intelligence, and lesser value because they do "stupid" things, such as risking life and limb to protect people they don't even know...etc.
Words like duty, honor, country have little or no meaning to them, or at least little or no resemblance to the meaning they have for me and many people I know.
Some of us aren't/weren't "smart" enough to stay home, sit on our behinds, do nothing but make money and whine about the social issue de jour and how the world is such an unfair place.
Thank God for that!