By one widely accepted definition, the shooting that killed one person, injured 22 others and ruined the celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory on Wednesday does not qualify as a “mass shooting.” Not enough people died.
So common is random gun violence in the United States that we must distinguish between those shootings that were merely fatal and those in which four or more people lost their lives. Let us hope that the wounded recover and that the Kansas City murder can continue to rank among the merely mundane, everyday horrors that are now incorporated into the American way of life.
But that classification does not do justice to this increasingly common American phenomenon in which gunshots turn the joy of celebrants into terror.
Initial reports suggest that a private dispute, rather than politics or ideology, led to the Kansas City shootings, so it was not an act of terrorism by the common definition that makes us think of the hijacked planes and the 9/11 attacks. . It appears to have had no political motivation of the kind that led to the 2015 Christmas party massacre by local Islamic extremists in San Bernardino, or the killings of black people by white supremacists at a church in Charleston, North Carolina. Sur, in 2015, in Buffalo, New York, supermarket in 2022, a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2023, and many other shootings in which people were targeted because of their race, religion or politics.
It may be more similar to incidents like the one in Orange County last year, in which a man tried to shoot his ex-wife to death at a local bar and ended up shooting eight other people, three of them fatally. Or any number of incidents in which an armed person at a party, baby shower, wedding, or other celebration felt entitled to settle scores with deadly violence.
Regardless of the motivation, however, the result is terror, as the word is generally understood. The terrorist exercises violence and fear, and undermines people's self-confidence and sense of security. What is it but terror that the ever-present threat of gun violence makes Americans think twice before gathering in public places to share our pride and pleasure in football teams, parades, music, freedom or for others?
At this point, those fleeing for their lives care little whether the perpetrator was motivated by ideology, personal grievance, or self-obsession. Gun violence turns places of sanctuary and celebration—schools, churches, synagogues, dance clubs, Super Bowl victory parades—into targets. People who so grossly abuse their right to bear arms are terrorists.
It is a peculiar characteristic of America that we politicize even the perception of this kind of terror. Democrats focus on mass shootings and criticize Republicans for defending easy access to the guns that make them possible. Republicans are stepping up the fight against street crime and criticizing Democrats for allegedly being too soft on shooters. But all gun violence – even now, as homicide rates plummet – inflicts terror. Foreign agents and domestic white supremacists who want to destroy America are achieving their goal. Or rather, American gun policy and Americans with guns are doing it for them.
