The United States now enters the phase of mass executions.

[Jehanne]

2 executions in one day in a country is not 'mass' anything.

The title is indeed misleading.

I am not too far off.  On December 26, 1862, the United States government, under the orders of President Abraham Lincoln, hanged 38 Dakota tribe Indians:

DPIC -- The Largest Mass Execution in US History

And, so, it does not take 81 prisoners to constitute a "mass execution", as the DPIC website is not the only one to use the phrase "mass executions".  I will concede that 2 in one day, or even 3 in one day may not be a "mass", but would 38 in one month constitute a "mass execution"?  In any case, even if States were to execute 50 individuals per month, it will still take over four years to clear the various death rows.  Perhaps a better OP title would have been "execution spree", and so, if you want to change it to that, that would be okay with me:

The Hill -- Oklahoma’s planned execution spree underlines death penalty’s errors

[Anomalocaris]

Words and terms should be used in accordance to their commonly accepted meaning, not misused to generate emotive impact.

Generally, mass executions do not refer simply to any instance where a number of executions occur within a short period of time.     Mass executions as normally understood refer to having many executions in a short time for the same reason.

For example, Russians shooting a bunch of Ukrainians at the same time for the same reason of putting up resistance in newly occupied town, that is mass execution.      The Soviets shooting large groups prisoners in their jails for the same reason that the invading Germans are approaching and there is no space on evacuation trains to hold prisoners, that is mass execution.    The Soviets shooting 7000 surrendered polish officers in one month because stalin decided as a matter of policy to deprive the polish nation of trained leaders who would not be friendly to the USSR, that is mass execution.   When many of conspirators involved in the assassination of President Lincoln were all hanged for the conspiracy on the same gallows, that is mass execution. 

when many felons who separately committed many different instances and types of capital crimes in different jurisdiction are schedule separately to be executed, but the scheduled dates by coincidence happen to fall within a short period, that may be too many executions, but it is not mass execution.

[arewethereyet]

2 executions in one day in a country is not 'mass' anything.

The title is indeed misleading.

I am not too far off.  On December 26, 1862, the United States government, under the orders of President Abraham Lincoln, hanged 38 Dakota tribe Indians:

DPIC -- The Largest Mass Execution in US History

And, so, it does not take 81 prisoners to constitute a "mass execution", as the DPIC website is not the only one to use the phrase "mass executions".  I will concede that 2 in one day, or even 3 in one day may not be a "mass", but would 38 in one month constitute a "mass execution"?  In any case, even if States were to execute 50 individuals per month, it will still take over four years to clear the various death rows.  Perhaps a better OP title would have been "execution spree", and so, if you want to change it to that, that would be okay with me:

The Hill -- Oklahoma’s planned execution spree underlines death penalty’s errors

I don't know about you, but I am not currently living in 1862.

[Anomalocaris]

2 executions in one day in a country is not 'mass' anything.

The title is indeed misleading.

I am not too far off.  On December 26, 1862, the United States government, under the orders of President Abraham Lincoln, hanged 38 Dakota tribe Indians:

DPIC -- The Largest Mass Execution in US History

And, so, it does not take 81 prisoners to constitute a "mass execution", as the DPIC website is not the only one to use the phrase "mass executions".  I will concede that 2 in one day, or even 3 in one day may not be a "mass", but would 38 in one month constitute a "mass execution"?  In any case, even if States were to execute 50 individuals per month, it will still take over four years to clear the various death rows.  Perhaps a better OP title would have been "execution spree", and so, if you want to change it to that, that would be okay with me:

The Hill -- Oklahoma’s planned execution spree underlines death penalty’s errors

Notice it is a mass execution because each execution was done for the exactly the same reason.

[Thumpalumpacus]

No one is arguing for or against the policy of the death penalty. It's being pointed out that your exaggeration does your point no favors. Your title is a bit click-baity to me.

Right now there are approximately 2500 human beings on the various death rows across the United States, both at the state level with 50 or so individuals who are on federal and military death rows.  Given the state of SCOTUS, there is nothing that is preventing these individuals from being executed, except, of course, time.  I suppose that one could argue over the adjective "mass", but, to me, when a society is executing multiple individuals per day, such falls into the "mass executions" category.  Unlike scales of obesity, I must admit that there is no universal standard that can be appealed to, except, to say, that of the several dozen or so Western-like democracies, only the United States & Japan are executing prisoners, and with Japan, they perform their hangings during the last week of the year, usually, a few days before New Year's Eve.  But, as we are talking about living, sentient human beings, I believe the adjective in my OP to be an appropriate one.  I think that it is disgusting to execute a human being, but to have more than one execution on the same day is even more despicable.  I realize that the linguists at Merriam Webster may not agree with me on this one but the "special circumstances" makes the adjective, I believe, an appropriate one.

Then when you're using your personal definition of a word, perhaps you could give us a heads-up? Nonstandard usage causes communication problems. The cogent writer of polemic aims to deliver his or her point as clearly as possible precisely to avoid the distraction of miscommunication.

Do with that what you will.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

No one is arguing for or against the policy of the death penalty. It's being pointed out that your exaggeration does your point no favors. Your title is a bit click-baity to me.

Right now there are approximately 2500 human beings on the various death rows across the United States, both at the state level with 50 or so individuals who are on federal and military death rows.  Given the state of SCOTUS, there is nothing that is preventing these individuals from being executed, except, of course, time.  I suppose that one could argue over the adjective "mass", but, to me, when a society is executing multiple individuals per day, such falls into the "mass executions" category.  Unlike scales of obesity, I must admit that there is no universal standard that can be appealed to, except, to say, that of the several dozen or so Western-like democracies, only the United States & Japan are executing prisoners, and with Japan, they perform their hangings during the last week of the year, usually, a few days before New Year's Eve.  But, as we are talking about living, sentient human beings, I believe the adjective in my OP to be an appropriate one.  I think that it is disgusting to execute a human being, but to have more than one execution on the same day is even more despicable.  I realize that the linguists at Merriam Webster may not agree with me on this one but the "special circumstances" makes the adjective, I believe, an appropriate one.

(bold mine)

If a living, sentient human being is killed by a drunk driver in Los Angeles on the same day that another living, sentient human being is killed by a drunk driver in New York, would you refer to that as a 'mass killing'?

Boru

[Jehanne]

I concede. Unless it's 10 or more human beings in a single day, the phrase would not apply.

[Anomalocaris]

I concede.  Unless it's 10 or more human beings in a single day, the phrase would not apply.

it doesn’t matter if it it 100 human beings in a single day.   it is not the number that makes it a mass execution.   it is a single instigation that makes it a mass execution.

[Jehanne]

This thread has drifted far from my original intent and purpose; but, here is one related definition:

Mass killing – Joan Esteban, Massimo Morelli, and Dominic Rohner define mass killings as "the killings of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under the conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims."[23] Valentino defines the term as "the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants",[24] where a "massive number" is at least 50,000 intentional deaths over the course of five years or less;[25] this is the most accepted quantitative minimum threshold for the term.[23][26]

50K deaths over 5 years would be amount to 28 deaths per day.

Wikipedia -- Mass killing

If you look in the bottom of the article, the 10 to 20K killed in Iran are classified as being a mass killing even though the killings occurred over the course of a decade.

I am not an expert, but, I will ask someone I know who is.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

This thread has drifted far from my original intent and purpose; but, here is one related definition:

Mass killing – Joan Esteban, Massimo Morelli, and Dominic Rohner define mass killings as "the killings of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under the conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims."[23] Valentino defines the term as "the intentional killing of a massive number of noncombatants",[24] where a "massive number" is at least 50,000 intentional deaths over the course of five years or less;[25] this is the most accepted quantitative minimum threshold for the term.[23][26]

50K deaths over 5 years would be amount to 28 deaths per day.

Wikipedia -- Mass killing

If you look in the bottom of the article, the 10 to 20K killed in Iran are classified as being a mass killing even though the killings occurred over the course of a decade.

I am not an expert, but, I will ask someone I know who is.

‘Mass killing’ and ‘mass executions’ are not the same thing. Based on your metric, the Dakota executions mentioned above stand as the ONLY mass execution in US history. Nine judicial killings over two months don’t even crack the top ten.

Boru