Obviously, a single school shooting is too many, but last month the numbers being thrown around in the media seemed awfully high compared to the media coverage you’d expect.
On Jan. 23, The New York Times reported that a school shooting in Kentucky was the 11th of the year. However, some who looked into the number a little more deeply found, for example, a couple of suicides and one man shooting a pellet gun at a passing school bus.
After Wednesday’s horrific shooting in Florida that left at least 17 dead, the number seemed to vary depending on whom you asked.
Everytown for Gun Safety:
Today's shooting at a high school in #Parkland, Florida is the 18th school shooting so far this year, according to gun control advocacy organization Everytown For Gun Safety.
It's February 14th. pic.twitter.com/kwaIc1ad2p
— BJ Lutz (@bjlutz) February 14, 2018
ABC News correspondent Mary Bruce says 18.
There have been 18 school shootings, just THIS YEAR. It's only mid-February.
— Mary Bruce (@marykbruce) February 14, 2018
NBC News’ Brian Williams is saying it’s the 12th school shooting this year.
.@BrianWilliams @MSNBC just reported this is the 12th school shooting in America in just the first 45 days of 2018. Appalling
— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) February 14, 2018
CBS says 18:
Wednesday's deadly shooting in Parkland, Florida, was the eighteenth school shooting this year. By this time last year, there were seven. https://t.co/PFrimy6L6J pic.twitter.com/ZzpnrKASD6
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 15, 2018
Which is it? Possibly the 5th, 8th, or 19th.
On a far more serious note, just seen early reports of yet another horrific school shooting in Florida. The 8th school shooting in USA this year, & it's only February 14th.
Of course it's nothing to do with the millions of guns owned in the USA. That would be a silly argument.— Robert Llewellyn (@bobbyllew) February 14, 2018
This is the 19th school shooting this year. THE NINETEENTH SHOOTING IN A SCHOOL.
It's February. https://t.co/0aITfZAr52
— Geraldine (@everywhereist) February 14, 2018
If you are not willing to re-examine and renegotiate our relationship to guns and violence, you are a culprit and a coward of the highest order.
This is the 5th school shooting this year and it’s only February. Grow a spine, America.
— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) February 15, 2018
I believe this is the 3rd or 4th school shooting that made national news in the past month. We're in mid February. We're in for a rough 2018. You don't know how serious this situation is till it happens in your backyard.#DouglasStrong #DouglasHighSchool #douglasshooting
— Marckley E. (@marck_ley) February 15, 2018
Just by numbers alone, Everytown’s total of 18 seems to be the one most citizens and journalists rely on — though we’re assuming that total includes the pellet gun and other shootings that happened near a school and in several cases harmed no one.
Katy Tur is with Team NBC, so we’re guessing she’s going with 12.
How in the hell did we let it get to this? https://t.co/4FHgTBPjBy
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) February 14, 2018
Because it is a lie.
— Lee Doren (@LDoren) February 15, 2018
Because the numbers are cooked. Not that this is any better, but it's the sixth shooting to injure students. Some of the other ones were like BB guns fired at school bus windows, etc. Again, 1 is too many. But we lose credibility when we tell unnecessary lies. https://t.co/b9qFVDG5Yg
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) February 15, 2018
Can we get a source for BB guns being counted as a school shooting?
— Reilly Nolan (@ErrantKoi) February 15, 2018
It’s right here if anyone’s interested, courtesy of HuffPost.
The organization defines a school shooting as "any time a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds."
— marilyn maupin (@marilynmaupin) February 15, 2018
Which organization? Why, Everytown for Gun Safety, of course.
If we’re going to have an honest debate about guns, would it be too much to settle on a common definition of “school shooting” first?
* * *
Update:
National Review Online’s Charles C.W. Cooke has had it with people saying there have been 18 school shootings this year:
There haven’t. There have been 3. That’s 3 too many. It is not 18. Go have a look at Everytown’s list, and you’ll see what they are doing.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 15, 2018
Related:
HuffPost accidentally helps debunk the ’11th school shooting’ narrative
