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There's a long Wikipedia article about it that's interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_shooter

But basically, it's a law enforcement term for someone looking to randomly kill as many people as possible, without a specific victim. So, no need for hysterics – it's just a police term.

Ah, cool. Thanks.

what hysterics?

That's a response to "It sounds like a too-calm euphemism that an interest group thought up."

More progressive campuses use "Active Harmer" because it may be a crazy person with a machete instead of a gun.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2016/10/06/incident-terminolo...

And in that case referred to in that story it was a crazy person with a machete.

Pretty descriptive IMO. Do you have a better alternative in mind?

No it doesn’t, it sounds like an accurate term to describe an ongoing event which removes ambiguity about the current state of affairs.

It's an old term, nothing new.