美國槍擊案：今年第355起大綱

Americans were exposed to the terror of mass gun violence again on Wednesday, this time at a social services center in San Bernardino, California. The initial reports revealed a distressingly familiar pattern: A heavily armed active shooter or shooters, at least 14 people dead and more injured, harrowing images of law enforcement and first responders rushing to get the area under control, and stunned people -- some of them wounded and bleeding -- streaming out of the facility.
週三，美國再次遭受大規模槍支暴力，地點位於加州聖伯納迪諾社會服務中心。最初的報告揭示了一個熟悉的悲慘模式：一個或幾個武裝槍手，至少14人死傷，悲慘的執法畫面，首批應對人員控制局面，驚愕的人羣——其中有人受傷流血——涌出該建築。

It seems like we've seen this time and time again. But mass shootings occur even more frequently than many people realize, because most of them don't make the national news.
我們好像對這個場景見過許多次了。但大規模槍擊案發生的比人們所知的更爲頻繁，因爲多數槍擊案不會成爲全國新聞。

Over on Reddit, the Guns Are Cool community has compiled a list of every US mass shooting this year. According to their count, Wednesday's burst of violence was the 355th this year.
Reddit網“槍酷”欄目統計了今年發生的槍擊案。據統計，週三暴力案件是今年第355起。

The moderators of the subreddit -- which is not actually of the belief that guns are cool -- use a broad definition of mass shooting, listing every event in which "four or more people [including the shooter] are shot in a spree." Under this definition, a shooting that wounds at least four people, but doesn't kill them, is still a mass shooting. That means the mass shooting in San Bernardino wasn't even the first one on Wednesday -- one woman was killed and three people were injured in an early morning shooting in Savannah, Georgia.
該版版主——他並不相信槍真的很酷——給大型槍擊案做了一個寬泛的定義，“四人及四人以上（包括槍手）中槍”的槍擊事件。根據這一定義，槍擊導致至少四人受傷未危及生命也算是大規模槍擊案。這就意味着發生在加州聖貝納迪諾的案件並非週三唯一一起——當天早晨，佐治亞州薩凡納市一名婦女遭槍殺，三人受傷。

The number and frequency of mass shootings in the US has become an increasingly heated point of debate over the past few years. The FBI doesn't have an official definition of mass shooting, and there are disagreements over how to count the incidents.
過去幾年，大規模槍擊案的發生頻率和傷亡人數日益成爲討論的焦點。聯邦調查局（FBI）對大規模槍擊案沒有官方定義。事件的統計方法也有爭議。

Mother Jones, for example, uses a much narrower definition of of this form of gun violence. In its "Guide to Mass Shootings in America," the publication defines a mass shooting as a single episode carried out by a single shooter in a single location, usually a public place, that kills at least four people. Mother Jones also excludes most crimes that are primarily related to gang activity, armed robbery or domestic violence. Using this definition, there have been 72 mass shootings since 1982, the most recent at Umpqua Community College, in Roseburg, Oregon, in October.
例如，瓊斯媽媽對此類槍支暴力的定義就具體很多。在《美國羣衆槍擊事件指南》將羣衆槍擊事件定義爲“由一名槍手在同一地點（一般爲公共場合）至少槍殺四人的事件”。瓊斯媽媽還把幫派活動、持槍搶劫或家庭暴力等多數犯罪排除在外。根據此定義，自1982年以來共發生72起大規模槍擊案。最近的一次是10月份發生在俄勒岡州的烏姆普誇社區大學。

Vocabulary

harrowing: 痛心的；悲慘的