Many of the news reports today (I’m thinking specifically of NPR, but there are others) refer to the Las Vegas tragedy as “the worst mass shooting in modern American history.”
Why the qualification of modern? Was there a worse shooting some time before the modern era (whenever that is)?
Probably it’s just idiom, and scans/reads better. But it’s also possible that they’re trying to stay out of muddles like “do Civil War battles count as mass shootings?”
Colonists shooting at [del]Indians[/del] Native Americans, perhaps?
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This articlediscusses some other early examples. It depends in part how you define mass shootings, and whether some events qualify as battles instead. By putting in the qualifier “recent” you can avoid some of the controversy over what qualifies.
Then you’ve got mass killings of Native Americans, like Wounded Knee. Over 150 Indians died, and 25 soldiers; but was this a mass shooting or a battle of sorts? You’ve also got Sand Creek and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the latter committed against white emigrants in Utah by a Mormon militia.
OK, so I’m not the only one who was wondering about this. (Although the more recent reports seem to have dropped the “modern” part, from what I could tell.)
Here’s another article listing other massacres, generally against blacks or Native Americans.
Tulsa in 1921 might qualify Tulsa race massacre - Wikipedia although not all the deaths were due to shooting (and there wasn’t a single shooter).
On a related note, the worst school massacre in US history occurred in 1927 Bath School disaster - Wikipedia, when bombs were set off in an elementary school.
Modern US History classes usually cover ~1870 to present.
So Early American history ends just after the Civil War.
Most of the other shootings linked to above took place after 1870, so that’s not the definition of “modern” they are evidently using.
In this sense, “modern” is a weasel word that means the writer cannot remember any other event with a larger death toll, doesn’t have the time to look it up, and their boss is screaming at them to post online already.
But USA’s legal system and its democracy dates to the war of Independence ?
first past the post ?, winner takes all votes from a state ?, electoral colleges ?
and something to do with only the 5th amendment still being interpreted literally word for word.
“modern USA” surely began with its constitution. You can’t have it and not have it at the same time.
No, “USA” begins with the Constitution. “Modern USA” begins some time later.
Its arbitrary. However, it seems in the US, modern history is post Civil War, which is what I remember from high school: pre-civil war history and the socio-economic tensions that lead to the Civil War, and then Modern History which was after.
They could easily solve the problem and be the “first” to say worst mass shooting of the 21st century.
That would only mean within the past 17 years. They have to be more sensationalistic than that.
Have the names of the victims been published anywhere? I have a cousin and his wife who live in Las Vegas. He has not answered his phone; I have failed to find any information online (Google, ask.com) about names of victims…
Moderating
There is another thread on this incident in MPSIMS. It would be better to ask this question there.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, of 120-140 members of a wagon train, is the sort of thing that you have to bear in mind from nonrecent history.
Mountain meadows killed 120–140 by Mormon"Death Angels". Likely the worst.
Wounded Knee was a “battle or sorts” that turned into a debacle/massacre.