4 ms·

How many school shootings this week?

20 points by ExtraE 5y ago

ExtraE 5y ago
I created this, but it felt wrong to call it a Show HN.
- adamquek 5y ago
  Perhaps a small description of your derived the number and what is the definition of the week would be great.
  - ExtraE 5y ago
    I thought about that, and I might end up adding it. The week is the last 7 days. I’m not sure where to put that on the site so that it doesn’t detract from the visceral impact I’m going for.
    - Invictus0 5y ago
      Maybe I'm a heartless sociopath but seeing the word three in massive font had absolutely 0 emotional impact on me.
      - ExtraE 5y ago
        Probably not—- this is not my area of expertise, I’m not a UI guy. I ~~think~~ hope it will on some people though.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      Put it in an HTML comment. Those looking for it, will find it. Especially given how clean and lean it currently is.
uberman 5y ago
How are you going to keep it up to date? Are you scraping data from the FBI or is this a manual count?
- ExtraE 5y ago
  Manually, for now. I built this last night after seeing a video a kid filmed from the school in Texas. Here’s the extremely bare bones GitHub repo; I plan to build automated scraping at some point. https://github.com/ExtraE113/schoolshootings https://github.com/ExtraE113/schoolshootings
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Can you add sources (not source code) if I click the number?
    - ExtraE 5y ago
      Sure, I will in a few minutes. Edit: done.
bush-bby 5y ago
I don't know how to feel about something like this. Obviously there is benefit in highlighting systematic issues, however it may also be detrimental to highlight the actions of those who are killing for glory... Also I'm not sure I would qualify the shooting in Texas as a school shooting. By that I mean in the U.S. the term in my mind means an act of terror targeting a school, however this seemed more like a grudge match where a gun was pulled. I don't mean to take away from what you've built ExtraE, your effort and creativity are appreciated :)
- analyte123 5y ago
  Right, in most people's minds a "mass shooting" or a "school shooting" means a targeted terrorist-style attack, not an interpersonal or gang dispute that escalated into gunfire and had multiple injuries. Pretty much all counts of mass/school shootings in the US are inflated in this way, possibly to make it sound worse for political purposes.
  - artificial 5y ago
    Couldn’t yesterday’s event be finagled as workplace violence?
    - ExtraE 5y ago
      Maybe. Schools are workplaces. The suspect was 18, according to CNN (first link on Google) so I think it was a student. Anyway, it could be (probably is) both. They’re not mutually exclusive categories.
  - bush-bby 5y ago
    Yeah, I watched the story ran about it last night, and I was honestly astonished at the validity of assertions which were made, maybe it's my youth but I cannot imagine this explicit choice of misnomers and mischaracterizations to capture peoples eyeballs would've flown a couple decades ago.
- ExtraE 5y ago
  Thanks for your comment. I avoided linking to news stories partially to avoid that glorification. As for Texas, this tracks school shootings, not mass shootings. A teacher was shot and injured, students barricaded doors, and it was on a school campus. I think that qualifies—- I would be terrified if that happened to me, wouldn’t you?
hyperman1 5y ago
Funny this comes up today. Belgium is now having a gun alert on a school today. Not a shooting, and I hope they stay rare. Even so, someone here commented we're turning into a little USA. https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2021/10/07/gun-alert-at-kortrijk-university/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2021/10/07/gun-alert-at-kortrij...
ivnubinas 5y ago
References to articles talking about the school shootings would make the website more meaningful.
amelius 5y ago
I'd personally prefer a graph. Also perhaps show how many people were killed.
- ExtraE 5y ago
  Added some of that. May add a graph, but that would require automated scraping to assemble the dataset which I haven't done yet.
lovetocode 5y ago
This is likely misleading because most school shooting statistics include shootings that are school adjacent and not the tragic story from situations like sandy hook or colombine .
- ExtraE 5y ago
  Your facts are correct, but I disagree with your analysis. But yes, this is "shootings that took place at a school" not mass shootings.
ExtraE 5y ago
One week is the last 7 days. "Students affected" is the total student population at the schools where the shootings took place.
colpabar 5y ago
Why is everyone so caught up with the definition of "school shooting", and why isn't anyone providing any sources to back up their own personal definitions of what it means? The links below are the top 3 results when I googled "school shooting definition", and they all boil down to "a shooting that happened at a school." https://www.britannica.com/topic/school-shooting https://www.britannica.com/topic/school-shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-455.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-455.pdf I ask this in good faith: why does the definition have to be so specific? What is the problem with defining a "school shooting" as "a shooting that happened at a school"?
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  When people hear "school shooting", they're generally envisioning something like Columbine - an event with a large number of casualties, targeting students as a group, and lasting until the shooter(s) is killed. They are not thinking "drive-by gang shooting at 9pm that happens to be on or near school property". They're not even generally thinking "student kills another student after argument." Labeling all of these categories (and more) with the same label leads to emotionally-driven political opinions and policies, which are often inappropriate and not proportional to the actual problem.
  - ExtraE 5y ago
    No one is suggesting that "near school property" counts. (The rest of your argument may be in good faith).
- second--shift 5y ago
  > why does the definition have to be so specific? The definition has to be specific because the words "school shooting" mean different things, mentally and emotionally, to different people. Another commenter posted that "a weapon discharged in a school parking lot, at midnight" would count the same quantity as a Columbine. To me, those two events just aren't of the same gravity. (to be clear, NO shootings in and around schools, involving children or otherwise, is the correct number of school shootings to have, in my opinion). I, at least to align the definition with my take on the common thought process, need the definition to include schoolchildren in danger or harmed/worse. It's too ambiguous to include "oops i pulled the trigger aiming at the ground, on a weekend" in the same category as Columbine or similar tragedies. If we want to get serious about solving the problem, it starts by quantifying the problem. Otherwise it isn't falsifiable, and is unscientific.
EnglishLFC 5y ago
This is extremely misleading. The source data is the problem here, no account is taken about what constitutes a "school shooting". For example, if someone parks in a school parking lot at midnight and discharges a weapon, that is counted as a "school shooting" because it's on school grounds. In reality it's not what anyone considers to be a school shooting, and none of the school children are affected. Lots of shootings happen in the parking lot at high school football games, one woman got shot outside an early learning center in a domestic dispute and that too is included as a "school shooting". There are many other incidents like these which are not what we know as "school shootings" but are included in some school shooting data sites. The problem is serious enough and there is no need to add hype to it by using poor source data. All you do is create the opportunity for counter-arguments that have nothing to do with the actual issues.
- ExtraE 5y ago
  If you click on the "Three." that will take you to my source. These are school shootings, not mass shootings. "School shootings", by my definition, are shootings that happened at a school. Would you like to propose an alternative definition?
  - EnglishLFC 5y ago
    Yes, I looked at your source data. I mentioned one case of a woman being shot outside an early learning center in a domestic dispute. That is clearly not a "school shooting". You need to understand the source data before trying to represent it in a meaningful fashion. If a "school shooting" happens outside a school when there are no children actually in school at the time (during vacation for example), how many children are actually affected? If a shooting happens in a school parking lot at 3:00 am because two people decided to meet there for a drug deal and it went bad, is that really a school shooting? If you want to go with a simplistic "it happened on school property", then maybe we should be tracking "grocery store shootings", "nail salon shootings" and "corner of 3rd avenue and West Isles street shootings"? When the term "school shooting" is used it connotes something very serious that has an impact on parents and children alike, society in general has an idea of what is meant by "school shooting" and to ignore that to keep it simple, merely exacerbates the problem and like I said, opens up the opportunity for argument that distracts from the very serious nature of the issues at hand.
Fred27 5y ago
Only Americans could quibble over what consitiutes the definition of a school shooting. Everyone else just expects to have no events per week that might meet even the broadest definition.

20 points by ExtraE 5y ago

ExtraE 5y ago

I created this, but it felt wrong to call it a Show HN.

adamquek 5y ago
Perhaps a small description of your derived the number and what is the definition of the week would be great.
- ExtraE 5y ago
  I thought about that, and I might end up adding it. The week is the last 7 days. I’m not sure where to put that on the site so that it doesn’t detract from the visceral impact I’m going for.
  - Invictus0 5y ago
    Maybe I'm a heartless sociopath but seeing the word three in massive font had absolutely 0 emotional impact on me.
    - ExtraE 5y ago
      Probably not—- this is not my area of expertise, I’m not a UI guy. I ~~think~~ hope it will on some people though.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Put it in an HTML comment. Those looking for it, will find it. Especially given how clean and lean it currently is.

uberman 5y ago

How are you going to keep it up to date? Are you scraping data from the FBI or is this a manual count?

ExtraE 5y ago
Manually, for now. I built this last night after seeing a video a kid filmed from the school in Texas. Here’s the extremely bare bones GitHub repo; I plan to build automated scraping at some point. https://github.com/ExtraE113/schoolshootings https://github.com/ExtraE113/schoolshootings
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Can you add sources (not source code) if I click the number?
  - ExtraE 5y ago
    Sure, I will in a few minutes. Edit: done.

bush-bby 5y ago

I don't know how to feel about something like this. Obviously there is benefit in highlighting systematic issues, however it may also be detrimental to highlight the actions of those who are killing for glory... Also I'm not sure I would qualify the shooting in Texas as a school shooting. By that I mean in the U.S. the term in my mind means an act of terror targeting a school, however this seemed more like a grudge match where a gun was pulled. I don't mean to take away from what you've built ExtraE, your effort and creativity are appreciated :)

analyte123 5y ago
Right, in most people's minds a "mass shooting" or a "school shooting" means a targeted terrorist-style attack, not an interpersonal or gang dispute that escalated into gunfire and had multiple injuries. Pretty much all counts of mass/school shootings in the US are inflated in this way, possibly to make it sound worse for political purposes.
- artificial 5y ago
  Couldn’t yesterday’s event be finagled as workplace violence?
  - ExtraE 5y ago
    Maybe. Schools are workplaces. The suspect was 18, according to CNN (first link on Google) so I think it was a student. Anyway, it could be (probably is) both. They’re not mutually exclusive categories.
- bush-bby 5y ago
  Yeah, I watched the story ran about it last night, and I was honestly astonished at the validity of assertions which were made, maybe it's my youth but I cannot imagine this explicit choice of misnomers and mischaracterizations to capture peoples eyeballs would've flown a couple decades ago.
ExtraE 5y ago
Thanks for your comment. I avoided linking to news stories partially to avoid that glorification. As for Texas, this tracks school shootings, not mass shootings. A teacher was shot and injured, students barricaded doors, and it was on a school campus. I think that qualifies—- I would be terrified if that happened to me, wouldn’t you?

hyperman1 5y ago

Funny this comes up today. Belgium is now having a gun alert on a school today. Not a shooting, and I hope they stay rare. Even so, someone here commented we're turning into a little USA. https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2021/10/07/gun-alert-at-kortrijk-university/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2021/10/07/gun-alert-at-kortrij...

ivnubinas 5y ago

References to articles talking about the school shootings would make the website more meaningful.

amelius 5y ago

I'd personally prefer a graph. Also perhaps show how many people were killed.

ExtraE 5y ago
Added some of that. May add a graph, but that would require automated scraping to assemble the dataset which I haven't done yet.

lovetocode 5y ago

This is likely misleading because most school shooting statistics include shootings that are school adjacent and not the tragic story from situations like sandy hook or colombine .

ExtraE 5y ago
Your facts are correct, but I disagree with your analysis. But yes, this is "shootings that took place at a school" not mass shootings.

ExtraE 5y ago

One week is the last 7 days. "Students affected" is the total student population at the schools where the shootings took place.

colpabar 5y ago

Why is everyone so caught up with the definition of "school shooting", and why isn't anyone providing any sources to back up their own personal definitions of what it means? The links below are the top 3 results when I googled "school shooting definition", and they all boil down to "a shooting that happened at a school." https://www.britannica.com/topic/school-shooting https://www.britannica.com/topic/school-shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-455.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-455.pdf I ask this in good faith: why does the definition have to be so specific? What is the problem with defining a "school shooting" as "a shooting that happened at a school"?

Ancapistani 5y ago
When people hear "school shooting", they're generally envisioning something like Columbine - an event with a large number of casualties, targeting students as a group, and lasting until the shooter(s) is killed. They are not thinking "drive-by gang shooting at 9pm that happens to be on or near school property". They're not even generally thinking "student kills another student after argument." Labeling all of these categories (and more) with the same label leads to emotionally-driven political opinions and policies, which are often inappropriate and not proportional to the actual problem.
- ExtraE 5y ago
  No one is suggesting that "near school property" counts. (The rest of your argument may be in good faith).
second--shift 5y ago
> why does the definition have to be so specific? The definition has to be specific because the words "school shooting" mean different things, mentally and emotionally, to different people. Another commenter posted that "a weapon discharged in a school parking lot, at midnight" would count the same quantity as a Columbine. To me, those two events just aren't of the same gravity. (to be clear, NO shootings in and around schools, involving children or otherwise, is the correct number of school shootings to have, in my opinion). I, at least to align the definition with my take on the common thought process, need the definition to include schoolchildren in danger or harmed/worse. It's too ambiguous to include "oops i pulled the trigger aiming at the ground, on a weekend" in the same category as Columbine or similar tragedies. If we want to get serious about solving the problem, it starts by quantifying the problem. Otherwise it isn't falsifiable, and is unscientific.

EnglishLFC 5y ago

This is extremely misleading. The source data is the problem here, no account is taken about what constitutes a "school shooting". For example, if someone parks in a school parking lot at midnight and discharges a weapon, that is counted as a "school shooting" because it's on school grounds. In reality it's not what anyone considers to be a school shooting, and none of the school children are affected. Lots of shootings happen in the parking lot at high school football games, one woman got shot outside an early learning center in a domestic dispute and that too is included as a "school shooting". There are many other incidents like these which are not what we know as "school shootings" but are included in some school shooting data sites. The problem is serious enough and there is no need to add hype to it by using poor source data. All you do is create the opportunity for counter-arguments that have nothing to do with the actual issues.

ExtraE 5y ago
If you click on the "Three." that will take you to my source. These are school shootings, not mass shootings. "School shootings", by my definition, are shootings that happened at a school. Would you like to propose an alternative definition?
- EnglishLFC 5y ago
  Yes, I looked at your source data. I mentioned one case of a woman being shot outside an early learning center in a domestic dispute. That is clearly not a "school shooting". You need to understand the source data before trying to represent it in a meaningful fashion. If a "school shooting" happens outside a school when there are no children actually in school at the time (during vacation for example), how many children are actually affected? If a shooting happens in a school parking lot at 3:00 am because two people decided to meet there for a drug deal and it went bad, is that really a school shooting? If you want to go with a simplistic "it happened on school property", then maybe we should be tracking "grocery store shootings", "nail salon shootings" and "corner of 3rd avenue and West Isles street shootings"? When the term "school shooting" is used it connotes something very serious that has an impact on parents and children alike, society in general has an idea of what is meant by "school shooting" and to ignore that to keep it simple, merely exacerbates the problem and like I said, opens up the opportunity for argument that distracts from the very serious nature of the issues at hand.

Fred27 5y ago

Only Americans could quibble over what consitiutes the definition of a school shooting. Everyone else just expects to have no events per week that might meet even the broadest definition.