The shift represents a "sea change," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which recently held a meeting in Washington to discuss shootings like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WEAPONS OF WAR USED IN MASS SHOOTINGS LIKE THIS ONE Shooters know these assault-style rifles maximize casualties.
One of the decree stipulations was to create an internal division in charge of monitoring and investigating police shootings, like the fatal shooting earlier this month of a homeless man in broad daylight.
It also witnessed some of this year's most notorious mass shootings, like James Dalton's spree in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Cedric Ford's workplace shooting in Hesston, Kansas, both in late February.
"We are already used to shootings like that".
"Shootings like this, sadly, no longer seem to matter to the national campaigns," he said.
"After the school shootings, like Columbine, they cracked down on everything -- no wallet chains, nothing.
School shootings like that at Columbine High have generated grief counseling and communal sympathy.
(The Times excluded some fatal shootings, like pellet gun accidents, that are normally included in the federal statistics).
Some shootings, like Columbine, are perpetrated by people of whom no one would ever have expected such violent acts.
While shootings like the one at Virginia Tech are extremely rare, suicides, threats and serious mental-health problems are not.
