Talk:List of spree killers by number of victims

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of mass murderers and spree killers by number of victims: Mass murders which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 20:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Paul John Knowles and Andrew Cunanan

Someone needs to add these two, as they are technically "spree killers", not "serial killers". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.97.165.30 (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Someone needs to add the Columbine High School Massacre. Wasnt that a spree killing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.249.29.184 (talk) 02:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Nope, it wasn't a spree killing. That, and due to the fact that it was actually a school shooting, is the reason, why it is listed among the other school massacres. (Lord Gøn (talk) 10:08, 21 March 2011 (UTC))

Killers who didn't kill anyone

Why are "killers" Nos. 177 - 184 on this list of spree killers if they didn't actually kill anyone? Ozzieboy (talk) 05:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Because the person who created the list made some very, very poor decisions. DreamGuy (talk) 19:25, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh really, did I? You are allowed to be a little bit more precisely here, because as it stands, your statement is not very helpful. What is it exactly, you don't like about the list? Give your critique a little bit of flesh and bones by adding some examples. (Lord Gøn (talk) 19:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC))

"Spree killers" with no victims

Further to the above point, I removed those who hadn't killed anyone, or who had killed a single person, as these do not fit the definition of a "spree killer". Having been reverted I would like to discuss the issue here. I contend that "mass murder by intention" is absolutely not the same as being a "spree killer". The spree killer article contains the definition of a spree killer, and there is no mention of "intention" there. Could we please have some sources for those persons concerned that they are in fact spree killers? Thanks. Miremare 00:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I am going to try to explain it, though bear with me, as it might get a little bit confusing, because what I have to do is to describe some kind of concept the English langauge has no accurate term for, probably, because American criminologists have taken a different approach to investigate the matter of mass murder. All the while I have to prove my point with English sources, which makes it a rather lengthy task.

So, you certainly are familiar with the term "mass murder" generally, which describes a rather wide variety of subjects, ranging from war crimes, terrorist acts, murders committed to cover up another felony, up to a cluster of crimes consisting of shooting and stabbing sprees, school shootings, workplace killings etc. What the main page of the spree killers list is dealing with, is the last group mentioned.

Now, for these mass murders we have several more or less varying definitions, all sharing one essential element, being an arbitrarily chosen number of people killed in the incident – in most cases this number is three, or four. e.g. the definition in the "Crime Classification Manual" is the following:

Any single event, single location homicide involving four or more victims

As you can see, another element often regarded as distinct for mass murder is that all the murders were committed at a single location. Nevertheless, the text then goes on to cite Charles Whitman as a "classic mass murderer", although his rampage involved more than one location, if you include the murders of his wife and mother as part of the whole affair.

Anyway, the manual goes on to define spree murder as a single event with two or more locations and no emotional cooling-off period between the murders, mentioning Howard Unruh as an example.

Now Kelleher, in "Flash Point: The American Mass Murderer", comments on the arbitrity of the victims threshold in the common mass murder-definition, writing that many mass murderers injure far more victims than they kill; however, they must certainly be considered mass murderers by the obvious intention of their actions. For example, if an individual randomly attacks children in a school yard with an AK-47 assault rifle or indiscriminately assaults coworkers with a powerful handgun, yet only manages to kill two individuals while wounding dozens, is he less an intended mass murderer than the perpetrator whose aim was better or whose victims were less fortunate? Certainly he is not. That is the reason, why cases are included, although they do not conform to the general definition of mass murder.

But mass murder is not equal to spree killing by its definition, and therefore there cannot be a "Spree killing by intention", or does it? Well, it depends on your point of view. If you strictly adhere to the definitions given, then they are not the same and it wouldn't work. But let me ask you, is there really that much difference between e.g. a James Huberty and a Martin Bryant? Both killed lots of people in a restaurant, but while Huberty never left his McDonald's, Bryant did not stick to the Broad Arrow Café and continued his massacre in the vicinity and beyond. So, while the similarities between the two are fairly obvious the one would, according to the given definitions, be termed a mass murderer and the other a spree killer. Honestly, I think this is a moot distinction, and looking at the spree killers page Wikipedians themselves obviously aren't sure how to distinguish them from each other, otherwise Patrick Sherrill or Robert Steinhäuser wouldn't be listed there. To make matters even more complicated, Bill O'Brien in "Killing for Pleasure" had no problem with describing Julian Knight, Michael Ryan, George Hennard and Frank Vitkovic as pseudocommandos, a term invented by Park Dietz in an attempt to distinguish different forms of mass murder, although only the latter two are actually mass murderers, while Knight and Ryan would have to be put into the spree killers-category.

To circumvent this absurdity those distinctions used in the English speaking world were only employed to split the page and keep its size reasonable, while the basic concept behind the entire layout is, what is simply called "Amoklauf" in German, which translated means "running amok" and includes both mass murderers and spree killers. However, there are a few differences between "mass murder" and "spree killing" on the one hand, and "running amok" on the other, which are basically that amok has no restrictions regarding the number of people killed, or the number of locations where the attacks occured, while it is a lot more limited in its scope. Other than mass murder, amok is rarely, if ever connected to another felony, the amok's foremost intent being to cause as much harm as possible. A difference between amok and a spree killing of the kind committed by e.g. Andrew Cunanan is that the amok rarely has the chance to evade capture for an extended period of time, due to the nature of his crime. In fact, most amok cases are over in a couple of minutes, and if the perpetrator has exacted his revenge on his intended targets and still manages to escape it is unlikely he would continue his murder spree.

Nonetheless, despite the insufficencies of the terms "mass murder" and "spree killing" to adequately describe the concept behind this article, they are used, because English speakers are likely more familiar with them than with "amok". And at least to me it seems that "killing spree", "mass murder", "amok", "berserk" etc. are synonymously used in the media anyway, so there is a high probability that Joe Average will understand what this list is about, while conveniently ignoring the fine details.

Furthermore, the problem with "amok" is that it is still defined as a culture-bound syndrome, occuring only among people in South-east Asia, although this claim is not undisputed, and people like Joseph Westermeyer have argued against making a distinction between amok in Asia and similar incidents in other cultures. See here.

So, to sum things up, if we talk about spree killers in this list, we do not refer to the English concept of the spree killer, but to a person running amok at more than one location. And as amok does not necessarily imply murder, or even less mass murder, cases without any fatalities are included.

Hope this explains it all. (Lord Gøn (talk) 18:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC))

It may be true that the average reader isn't aware of the technical differences between spree killing and running amok, but that's surely what we're here for as an encyclopedia; to educate. The average reader would be even less likely, I think, to understand why people who have killed nobody are on a list of killers. I think that either a distinction has to be made, or the title of the article should be changed to reflect its contents. I appreciate the depth and eloquence of your reply, but regardless of the technicalities, to include people who aren't murderers on a list of murderers doesn't make sense, as attempted murder and actual murder are quite distinct things. Miremare 19:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Since I have started this list I had problems finding a name for it that is not fraught with problems. If I had called it "List of amok cases" somebody would have come along and complained that it includes rampages from all over the world. If I'd rename it to "List of rampage killers" somebody might object again to those entries who haven't killed anyone. Regardless of what term I'd use it would be far from perfect and could be subject to complaints. It's an unfortunate fact that the English language lacks a word suitable to describe clearly and unambiguously the subject of this list. Or should I call it "List of SMASI incidents" – SMASI being the acronym used by Hempel, et al. to handle their unwieldy "sudden mass assault by a single individual"? Nobody would understand what it is about, and then there are also cases with more than one offender, making the term as problematic as the other ones.

So, maybe you have any ideas. What word would you use to identify an armed person, running through the streets with the intent to murder as many people as possible, injuring more than 30, but failing to kill a single one of them? (Lord Gøn (talk) 20:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC))

Major problems

This article had major problems:

1) A significant chunk of the examples listed did not in any way conform to the definition of spree killings. Spree killings are in multiple distinct locations without cooling off periods in between. A massacre/mass murder or many examples of "running amuk" simply do not meet these criteria.

2) There was a lot of original research in trying to track down news paper sources to find rarely known examples, but there was no reliable source cited to show that they met the defintion of spree killings or that they were # whatever on a list.

3) The information on some of these obscure cases simply were not notable.

4) The whole article was basically just a long list of trivia presented in a scorecard format. It conveyed no overall encyclopedic information and was just a list.

I have therefore made major edits to the article. I removed ones I knew to not meet the definition of spree killers. I removed ones for which the only sources cited were not reliable (reprints of rumors) and/or did not directly support spree killing status over mass murder status. And then to try to get a handle on the trivia aspect, I set an arbitrary cut off point of 15 or more deaths.

I know a lot of work went into this article, but unfortunately the kind of work that went into it was more appropriate for something with a different title (need to get basic description correct - pick mass murder or spree or whatever, not just all at once) and for a personal web site, or at least some publication elsewhere not as concerned with encyclopedic principles like original research and so forth. DreamGuy (talk) 20:31, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but not the article had major problems, your edit did.

1) The fact aside that this list is not, or at least not only, about spree killers, all of those entries you deleted actually met the definition of spree killing, and I mean the one provided in the introductiory part, which is the one applied here. How you can state they do not eludes me. If you had done your homework before grabbing your virtual chainsaw and shredding the article down to its blood soaked trunk, you'd have noticed that your claim is utterly and completely false. Or did you use some obscure new definition of "spree killing" to come to your conclusion? And do you really think that a case of amok can't be a spree killing? Well, I assume Joseph Westermeyer and several others in the field might very well disagree with you.

2) Furthermore, the greatest chunk of the sources used here were regular newspapers, which is almost as reliable as it can get in this matter, and not a single one of them is simply reprinting some rumors as you argued. Your statement that there were no sources cited to show that the cases on this list meet the definition of a spree killer shows only one thing: you didn't read them. And I'm sorry, but if it is, in your eyes, original research to use common sense, then your interpretation of it is way off the mark. A guy killing ten people at two or more locations is, by definition, a spree killer, no matter if he is explixitly named as such in the news. Or have I missed something?

3) What we try to provide here is a worldwide overview. Just because some cases are not notable where you are from, doesn't mean they aren't notable somewhere else.

4) Yeah, it's a list, the title makes that fairly obvious. And, I can speak only for myself, it provides pretty much exactly that kind of information I'd like to get, if I want a quick overview about spree killers. But you may tell me, what kind of information would you expect in a list like this one?

You say you removed the ones you knew to not meet the definition of spree killer. I don't believe that you really knew what you did there, because I have severe doubts that you have wasted hours upon hours of your life checking one source after another to make a sophisticated judgement on each of more than 200 cases. Hell, you even deleted Howard Unruh, Julian Knight, David Gray and Ernst August Wagner, all of them not only spree killers, but also some of the most notable of them all, and your truly arbitrarily chosen limit of 15 deaths is totally useless, not only because of that. (Lord Gøn (talk) 22:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC))

I spent a LOT of time trying to clean up after your edits. We have a constant problem on this project with people using "spree killings" to mean "rampage killings or mass murders or massacres in general". Sometimes I go through and clean those up. The ones I removed (before I gave up and saw how hopeless the article was full or original research and nonsense and had to give up at the admittedly arbitrary 15 victim limit) either did not meet the definition or did not from my research support the definition. Furthermore it is up to the article itself to prove with reliable sources any claim it makes. If your edits do not show clear support for listing incidents here, they should not be listed here! If the case had fewer than 15 victims, I didn't bother to check, because coming up with a complete list of all cases ever is not what Wikipedia is for, and it was becoming too time intensive to try to doublecheck the mass of bad information you added. DreamGuy (talk) 19:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but if you think, this article is not suitable for Wikipedia, then take a look at the following

• List of accidents and disasters by death toll
• List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll
• List of battles and other violent events by death toll
• List of fires
• List of famines

Overall the same layout, though no complaints about striving for historical completition, original research, or lack of reliable sources.

Also I don't understand how you can claim the sources used here are unreliable. When did newspapers become that bad that their usage on Wikipedia became intolerable?

You say you spent a lot of time cleaning up the list, fine, maybe you did, though in the end you merely deleted every case below number 41, being Zhang Yimin, with your first edit, and every case with less than 15 people dead with your second. You think that kind of editing is helping in any way? Deleting almost the whole article, because you think it must be all crap when some of those entries you've researched are? And which cases did you check then. If I read your statement above correctly, you didn't bother to check those entries with less than 15 people killed, which leads me to the question, how you can claim that everything below that threshold is bullshit? Is that your approach to editing an article on WP? Culling it down to a stub, if you think one paragraph is shitty? Anyway, wouldn't it be appropriate to start a discussion on the talk-page to check if their might actually be a reason why there is so much "nonsense" included, before wielding your mighty editors-axe?

Which is, I guess, a fair idea. Explain the problems you have with this list. So far I know that you disagree with some/most/all of the entries, so you might do me a favor and give me a few examples, which cases you think are not spree killings, and then tell me how you come to that conclusion. (Lord Gøn (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC))

As a temporary fix, I moved this article to rampage killers instead of spree killers. The lead will need to be fixed. You need to pick here: either fix the content to actually be about true spree killers or change the name. You do not get to have long list of a specific type of killer with most of the list being inaccurate. DreamGuy (talk) 19:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Page move

The following discussion is copied from DreamGuy's talkpage, who had deleted it on March 30, 2011, reasoning that it's "pointless. topic takes up too much space on my page and comes down to an aeditor with an WP:OWN problem repeated same bad arguments over and over"

As you have now moved the List of spree killers by number of victims, reasoning that it includes "lots and lots of cases that are NOT spree killers", you certainly may want to share your wisdom with me and name a few dozen of those cases that you think are not consistent with your definition of the term. (Lord Gøn (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC))

I already did, but you reverted it. Anyone I removed originally who had more than 15 victims listed was either not a spree killer or did not appear to be a spree killer with the facts available. (I admit that removing all cases less than that was arbitrary, but necessary based upon how bad the rest of the article was.) Cases that take place in one location only by definition are not spree killers. Most massacres are not spree killings. Cases in which the sources were unreliable or did not mention spree killing (or clear facts demonstrating such uncontroversially) also cannot be counted without more solid information. It is up to the editor who adds a case to the list to provide facts from reliable sources showing that they are spree killers. DreamGuy (talk) 19:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Can you be a little bit more specific? Like: John Doe, Number XX on the list is not a spree killer, because ... By simply repeating that "those I removed are not spree killers, and I told you so before" is not adding a lot of information to your previous statements. And if we are at it, please give your definition of "one location". Is it one house, one block, one street, one town, one county? (Lord Gøn (talk) 20:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC))

I don't need to add a list of information, it is you who needs to show they are accurate. I edited that a while back, I don't remember specifics on each one. On top of that, you have so badly formatted that article that trying to bring up the history to show the changes I made compared to the older version crashes my browser from the sheer length of the page and complexity of the chart format. But one location = school, neighborhood, building or whatever in that they did not stop and then go some other discrete location and continue. Walking around shooting in one place is mass murder, not spree killing. DreamGuy (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but you have it backwards. I have added the cases, citing sources for all of them, therefore making every single one of them a legitimate addition to the list. Now, if you come along and want to delete some, or all of them, you have to prove that the information I have provided was wrong, that the sources are unreliable, etc. And you have to do that for each and every case you want to delete. And now, I ask you again: give me a few examples. Which of those hundreds of cases are not spree killers. If so many of them are bad, why don't you just pick one or two of them at random? And then I want to ask you also, when does a neighbourhood end? What is the definition of two discrete locations? How much space does there have to be between them? Sorry, but it is long known that the definition of spree killer is fraught with problems, and location is only one of them. That is the reason why the term actually is not used by law enforcement agencies. In the end your definition of "two and more locations" is likely in no way more justifyable than mine. If you say a neighbourhood is one location, I say my neighbours house is discrete to mine. Who's right now? (Lord Gøn (talk) 21:27, 23 March 2011 (UTC))

I don't have it backwards. The sources you used DO NOT show that they were spree killers. They support that there were murders (and, disturbingly, some of the ones you include on the list did not have any actual deaths at all), but it's only your interpretation of them is that they were spree killers. The sources used have to show that. If they do not, and they are disputed, then they get removed. That's how Wikipedia works. If you think the term is too vague to be usable, then you ought to welcome the name change for the article. Of course it still needs a lot of editing (not the least of which is the horrible coding for the chart) to meet Wikipedia's standards, but at least there won't be a significant percentage of the article that's completely wrong based upon the title. DreamGuy (talk) 21:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they DO show they are spree killers. No, not all sources actually use that term (which would be difficult btw, because it wasn't even in use a couple of decades ago) but that does not change the fact that they are spree killers by the definition of the term. If I show you the image of an apple and the only source you can find calls it a weird tasting tomato, what is it then? Common sense would say "an apple", but Wikipedia would have to call it "weird tasting tomato", do you want to say that? And if a newspaper reports about a fire, but uses only the phrase "in flames", are we then not allowed to use the term fire in the article? Or in other words: Is a bottle a bottle, because it fits the definition of a bottle, or because somebody says it is one? And if a guy is storming ten different Wal Marts in a couple of hours, shooting dozens of people at random, is he not a spree killer, because his deed fits the definition of the term, or do I have to wait until I find a source for the obvious? If we'd follow your logic in this regard we wouldn't be allowed to call George Washington a human being unless we find a reliable source that does so. Sorry, but only a loon could invent such a rule.

And if you dispute an addition to an article, your opinion still should have some foundation. It's not enough to say: "Content disputed, didn't bother to check myself, but it certainly is crap, so away with it." You have to give at least some reasoning. Otherwise anyone could come along and delete half of an article by claiming it is disputed. The fact remains that the sources provided for all cases are reliable. If there's anything to dispute, it is the definition of spree killer and you can't expect that this will be solved any time soon, if ever. (Lord Gøn (talk) 22:57, 23 March 2011 (UTC))

I already gave the reasoning, you just are ignoring it so you can do whatever you want to do. You need reliable sources saying that they are spree killers. The sources you gave do not say that. Thus you are using oringinal research to include them as spree killers, which means that content needs to be deleted. This is a basic policy of Wikipedia that you cannot ignore. DreamGuy (talk) 15:47, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Even though you gave a reasoning, you yourself admitted that you didn't bother to check all entries, so there is no way you could claim that all of them are disputed, or not sourced sufficiently. The sources given are reliable, and your claim they are not, neither changes that fact, nor does it give you a free pass to remove content without checking them first. WP:VER states that "You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it." Now, everything on the list is reliably sourced, and before you can pass a judgement that the sources do not support the presented material you have to check them all. Furthermore I really have to wonder how far a source has to go, in your eyes, to support the use of the term "spree killer". Does it have to use precisely that term? Am I allowed to conclude that a guy going on a shooting/stabbing spree is a spree killer? What about cases from back in the old days, when the term spree killer wasn't even part of the language? Google News Archive e.g. doesn't find any newspapers using that term prior to the 1950s, and prior to 1985 it was used very very rarely. Am I not allowed to call somebody a spree killer, although his deed clearly fits the definition of the term, just because they had different names for it back then? Imagine a serial killer being only refered to as a mass murderer in the sources, because the term "serial killer" wasn't invented yet, when they were published. If I wanted to write an article about the case, would I have to use the term "mass murderer" although it would be wrong, while being supported by the outdated sources? Or wouldn't it be better to ignore them and use the correct term "serial killer"? And what about non-English sources? I suppose they do not use the term "Spree killer" in China, France or Mexico, but likely do have incidents of spree killing, too. Would I be disallowed then to use sources in Chinese and French, because they don't have words that exactly match the English term "spree killer"?

Finally I'm going to refer you back to WP:HEAR, Do not confuse "hearing" with "agreeing with". I understand very well what you are saying, but I do not agree with you, nor do I agree with you that WP:OR bites here. Neither is there an analysis or synthesis of material to advance a position in the list, nor are any facts, allegations, ideas, or stories presented that are not already published by reliable sources. The definition of the term "spree killer" is published by reliable sources, therefore I am allowed to use it to describe any person who fits that definition. If you are talking about a red, hot stream of molten rock leaking from cracks in the side of a volcano, I may call this stream lava. This has nothing to do with original research. (Lord Gøn (talk) 18:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC))

This is very simple: if the reliable sources do not use the word spree killer, then you cannot say they were spree killers. Period. And since the facts as presented in a bunch of those cases do not have reliable sources AND clearly do not fit the actual definition of spree killers, they should not be there. I do not need to check every single last one to spot an overall problem. If I go through all the ones with more than 15 victims listed and find that half of the content is bad, that's a reasonable enough basis to say the rest is unreliable as well and demand proper sourcing from you -- sourcing you should have provided in the first place. DreamGuy (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

First, you never detailed how you come to the conclusion that "a bunch of those cases do not have reliable sources". You keep repeating that, but until now you have not proven it in a single instance. Second, the cases do fit the definition of spree killer as presented in the introduction, a definition which is justified by reliable sources. That it is not the definition you prefer doesn't really matter. Third, your interpretation of WP:OR seems quite out of whack. If we'd follow it that strictly we wouldn't be allowed to write that somebody is going, if the source says he's walking. Or, if a source stated that somebody was stabbed to death, there would be no way we could write that he was killed; sure, he was stabbed, and died because of that, but it would not be a killing until a reliable source uses that word. Fourth, if you'd go through the ones with 15 or more victims and find half of them being bad, that's a meagre 7,5 cases out of more than 200! Or way less than 10% of the whole article. How can you reasonably jump to the conclusion that it is justified in this case to delete all of the rest without checking? It's like reading a small section of an 40kb article, finding half of it wrong, and going straight to deleting everything below the introduction without bothering to read any further. Finally, what kind of sources would you have accepted then? Are newspapers only good enough, if they are using headlines like "Spree killer murders 6" or "Angry man goes on shooting spree killing 9, wounding 5; horrible deed makes him worst spree killer of Nantucket island" so you can make a judgement by quickly skimming through the references?

Now, you hinted that half of the first 15 cases do not fit the defintion of a spree killer, so I ask you, which of them do you mean? Is Woo Bum-kon among them, who ran through several villages, killing 56 people in seven or eight hours? Or William Unek, who killed 36 in Malampaka and the adjacent area in 12 hours? Or Martin Bryant, who killed 20 people in the Broad Arrow cafe before continuing his killing spree in the near vicinity and ending up a few kilometres away at Seascape where he also killed several people? What about that guy from Siquijor who hacked 32 people to death while stalking them on their way home from church? Mutsuo Toi who killed 30 people in several separate houses – not a spree killer according to your definition? What about Campo Elias Delgado who killed a girl and her mother in one apartment, then his mother and several students in another, before ending his shooting spree in the Pozzetto restaurant? And what is your opinion on Tian Mingjian who first killed several people at his army base before hijacking a jeep and driving to Beijing where he continued shooting people? What about Wirjo who ran through the whole village of Banjarsari hacking 19 people to death with a machete after killing his own son? Would Michael Ryan fit, in your eyes, for shooting a woman to death in a park before walking through Hungerford, killing 15 others. Is Domingo Salazar, who killed some of his relatives and then murdered others in several different houses and in the street of Roxas, not a spree killer? Isn't Eric Borel either, who killed his parents and half-brother in Sollies Pont and then 12 more in Cuers? What about that guy who dashed through the bazaar in Ternate stabbing people left and right, or Florentino Basobas, who ran through the streets of Quezon hacking 15 people to death with a parang, or Antakin, who did the same while running through the streets of Keningau? And finally Harphul Singh, who killed 15 people with a shotgun while making his way through Tohana – is he, too, not a spree killer? Just to remind you, a spree killer is somebody who kills people in a short time in two or more locations, and all of those mentioned above killed people at two or more locations within minutes or hours. If those cases, where the perpetrators were simply running through the streets, bother you, well, they might be in a grey zone, though it is explicitly stated in the introduction of the list that they are included, and looking at how some authors applied the definition of spree killer in their books, it seems acceptable to do that without causing an outrage. (Lord Gøn (talk) 21:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC))