âActive Shooterâ: How an Obscure Term Became a Shorthand for Violence
This law enforcement jargon has proliferated in recent years on social media and in breaking news reports. While it conjures fears of mass shootings, the term is often used imprecisely. Many reports turn out to be false alarms.
The mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999, changed the popular understanding of the term âactive shooter.âCredit...Rodolfo Gonzales/The Rocky Mountain News, via Associated Press
May 4, 2021, 9:02 a.m. ET
For most of the 20th century, âactive shootersâ in the United States were not considered cause for alarm.