On the day before the Orlando nightclub massacre, a man named Juan David Villegas-Hernandez walked into his home in Roswell, NM, and shot to death his wife and four daughters, aged 3, 7, 11, and 14.

On that same day, in Panorama City, Los Angeles, a man, name unreported in the media, killed his ex-girlfriend’s two daughters, aged 13 and 17, before turning the gun on himself. There were seven total murders by gun in Los Angeles that weekend.

Also on that day, June 11, one was killed and three were injured in a shooting in Stockton, CA. One was killed and three were injured in Charlotte, NC. Four were injured in Webster, MN.

You probably haven’t heard about these “minor” mass shootings. They were covered in small blurbs in the local news media, barely at all in the national press. They represented a small percentage of the roughly 40 gun murders and unknown number of gun injuries that occur every day in the US. At the Mass Shooting Tracker, we only track incidents in which four or more people are shot. Part of the reason is practical. It would be far too difficult to track every incident in which even three people are shot in the US.

There’s a bifurcation in the way the American news media covers incidents of gun violence. Broadly, events can be divided into two sorts: those that generate high numbers of casualties and receive wide coverage, and on the other hand a daily drum beat of slaughter that barely receives local, much less national coverage. It is the latter type that generates the vast majority of gun casualties. Unfortunately, gun violence in this country has grown so routine that shootings in which 4, 5, or 6 people die are no longer considered newsworthy. Massacres that in other countries would be considered national tragedies may receive a blurb in the Associated Press here, at most. They are now accepted as a natural and unavoidable part of American life. As time goes on, the level of carnage required to grab our attention grows. This should not be, and it does not have to be.

In part, it’s a matter of definitions. For a long time, the media has used the FBI’s definition of a “serial murder” as a proxy for mass gun violence. This definition only counts incidents in which four or more are killed. We think this does not capture the whole picture. In war, the term “casualties” includes the wounded as well as dead. Recognizing that gunshot wounds can be grievous and lead to a lifetime of pain, disability, and psychological trauma, we should use the same definition to measure casualties of gun violence at home. Otherwise we aren’t telling the whole story. To give one example, in 2012 a man named Travis Steed shot 18 people at the Karma Ultralounge Nightclub in Memphis. Miraculously, he killed just one person. Under the old definition used by the media and the FBI, that event would not be considered a mass shooting. The media’s emphasis on the number of killed discounts the wounded, who often experience trauma just as terrible as soldiers wounded on the battlefield.

At the same time, the media puts an inordinate amount of emphasis on the motives of the shooters. Shooters who are deemed to have political motives, or who are deemed mentally ill are more nefarious and deserving of coverage. Shootings committed in the course of domestic abuse, or on the streets of a black neighborhood are considered mundane and therefore not worthy of coverage. It is assumed that high profile shootings are somehow fundamentally different than other incidents of mass gun violence. But is this really the case? Is the angry young man who murders his family really that different from the angry young man who shoots up his school, or his workplace, or his street corner? Or did they just happen to choose a different target for their rage? One thing is for sure: it doesn’t matter much to those who are shot.

Where do we draw the lines between mental illness, politics, and plain old rage? Was Eliot Rodger, the woman hating Santa Barbara shooter, committing a political act, or was he mentally ill? Jared Loughner seems clearly mentally ill to us, but his lengthy manifesto and the fact that he targeted a congresswoman indicates that he was somehow politically motivated, albeit in a way that made sense only to him. The young man in the inner city who shoots up a street corner is surely filled with rage, but he could also be said to be politically motivated in that he wishes to make a statement to rivals, or eliminate them. Meanwhile, many people who commit violence against their spouses and families have a mental illness.

Take Omar Mateen, the latest object of media psychoanalysis. He clearly had some political motives, but he also had mental problems, which seem to have manifested themselves as uncontrollable anger. He abused his wife. Imagine if Omar Mateen had decided to murder his wife and/or family instead of shoot up the Pulse night club. He would have been just another run of the mill domestic abuser, unworthy of media coverage.

The point is, human beings are complex creatures. Individual motivations are extremely difficult to objectively assess. As scientifically minded analysts seeking to understand a social phenomenon, we must look at the variables that we can accurately measure. In almost all mass shootings, a young man is involved. He is angry, he may be mentally unstable, he wants to make a statement with violence. And of course, he has access to guns. Quantifying human motivations for mass shootings is incredibly hard, but we can easily quantify the outcomes in terms of deaths and injuries.

At Mass Shooting Tracker, we look at all incidents of gun violence in which four or more people are shot. We do not care about the motives of the shooter. We believe that the distinction between “high profile” mass shootings and other “routine” mass shootings is a false and meaningless construction of the media. Often the only difference between the two is who the shooter chose to target, or the skin color of the shooter and victims, or whether medical care was available to the victims in time to save their lives.

Some people dismiss the Mass Shooting Tracker for including “minor” events along with “major” events such as Orlando, but it is far more often the case that events that should be major national news are completely ignored. There are tragedies happening on a daily basis in this country that are not being reported.

We encourage the media to do a better job of telling these stories. We should not prioritize some victims of gun violence while ignoring others. The American public must be made aware of the full picture of the unfolding tragedy in this country, not just the occasional shooting that rises to the level deemed worthy of coverage. The public needs to hear not just the abstract numbers about numbers of mass shootings, but the stories of lives shattered and lost. As long as complacency rules, nothing will change.