Thursday, February 15, 2018

So, About Those 18 "School Shootings" So Far In 2018

So with the bodies still warm in Florida after the latest shooting by someone with known issues, we're again seeing a call for gun control and banning firearms instead of something useful like a proposal for armed guards at school or serious interventions for people who make credible threats of violence and have mental health issuess

Interestingly, I'm seeing the Everytown for Gun Safety claim of there being "18 school shootings so far in 2018" being parroted all over social media.

But when you drill down into the statistics, they're not what most people would think to be actual school shootings.

Instead, Everytown cunningly defines a school shooting as: "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." Talk about moving the goalposts on the term.

A pretty good list is found here with descriptions - King 5 News.

You'll note that darn few of the Everytown list are actual "School Shootings" in the classic sense where someone shoots up a school.

At least one is a police officer's negligent discharge when a student was able to trigger it in the officer's holster.

Two are suicides in the parking lot apparently after school hours.

One is drive-by shooting.

One was a pellet gun breaking a school bus window apparently with no one on the bus.

Most occur outside the school building and are the result of fights whether between students actually attending the school or people just happening to be close by.

Most led to no deaths and nine of the Everytown school shootings had no injuries at all.

In other words, Everytown is badly misleading people when they claim there's been a mass of school shootings this year, but then again, you knew that already. The problem of course is the uninformed do not realize this is a confabulated statistic and are panicking thinking this is a massive problem that requires drastic gun-banning solutions.

3 comments:

ProudHillbilly said...

I did get a chance to correct that today. I did it without swearing but the word "lie" WAS used in a couple forms.

Paul said...

Why is it you never see these mass shootings at parochial schools yet so often at public?

Is it a better class of student? Is it a more caring set of parents? Or is it the fact parochial schools have GOD in their schools while public ones do their best to erase God from their teachings?

How about the answer being all three. More caring parents, and thus a better class of student, tend to be willing to send their children to schools where morals are taught. And morals come from religion (where there is no vote on what is 'moral' and what is not. Where there is no 'choices' that none are good or bad.)

We need to reform our snakepits we call 'public schools'. They used to have prayer in such schools. They used to read passages from the Christian Bible over the PA system once a day. They used to teach morals in schools. Nowdays it seems it's all about 'transgender rights'. You cannot even wear a Christian t-shirt to schools these days!

Think about it folks. Mass shootings at parochial schools just don't happen (except at St. Mary's Parochial School in Newburgh, N.Y. in 1891 and Bremen school shooting in 1913!)

Old NFO said...

No surprise... sigh