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How Many School Shootings? All Incidents from 1966-Present
- jjmarr 2y agoA homeless guy shot another homeless guy on my university campus a few weeks ago. It's hard to consider that a school shooting even though it happened on-campus.
- anigbrowl 2y agoYou probably would if you'd been in the immediate vicinity. Being shot at (even inadvertently) has a way of changing your persective.
- Dylan16807 2y agoGetting scared enough to change your perspective sounds like a reason to specifically not expect the people involved to be objective or correctly categorize the event.
- anigbrowl 2y agoIF there are people involved in a situation where there's a risk of death, that's an objective fact. There is no 'correct classification' issue here. The article collects all shootings that happen on school properties, you can derive subcategories from that. On the other hand, if your selection criteria is, say, 'shootings where someone tries to kill as many students/teachers as possible' you'll omit a lot of very real shooting incidents. It's better to have more data than less.
- Dylan16807 2y agoThat has almost nothing to do with what I said. But to address your new points, I think very broad collection is fine as long as people don't treat the raw entry count as a particularly useful number.
- makeitdouble 2y agoThe impressive part is that kind of thing just naturally happens, and the discussion comes around whether it fits the school shooting framing or not.
- feliciousx 2y agoyeah, i can’t imagine raising my kid in an environment where they could actually die from a gunshot. i don’t understand how this is so normalised in a first world country
- bagels 2y agoIs there some place where it is not possible to be shot? Even space is not safe, Russia brought guns with them.
- makeitdouble 2y agoThis could be one of the most difficult part to appropriately convey with words. There are guns everywhere, in every country. In the most peaceful places there will be some portion of cops allowed to wear guns, there will be hunters with permits etc. There will always be a non-zero chance to be shot. But whether that non-zero chance is 0.00001% or 1% makes a world of difference and will have deep impacts on how we live our life, talk to people, deal with confrontations. A low enough probability brings radical changes.
- tdeck 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_to_Prevent_This,%27_Says_Only_Nation_Where_This_Regularly_Happens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_to_Prevent_This,%27_...
- jjmarr 2y agoFunnily enough, this was at Toronto Metropolitan University. We have a safe injection site on campus because it's downtown.
- throwaway529 2y ago[flagged]
- DeathRay2K 2y agoAs a measure of the safety of schools, it seems perfectly reasonable to consider that a school shooting.
- seabird 2y agoCalling a crime-related shooting in the parking lot of a school at 1am on a Saturday a school shooting is not what most people are discussing when talking about school shootings.
- thih9 2y agoI find it shocking that there can be different types of school shootings - and that there is time to discuss their classification.
- tredre3 2y agoYou're being obtuse. Assuming GP is stating the truth and it happened in a school's parking lot in the middle of the night, then the entire location is incidental and not meaningful in the least. It's simply not helpful to group them with the shootings that happen during school hours and target students/staff.
- motorest 2y ago> You're being obtuse. No, not really. Think about it: who is somehow trying to argue away school shootings based on arbitrary assertions? Do you think you can argue away the gun violence out of school grounds? I would dare say that gun violence is bad all around, but here we are, trying to argue that some episodes should not count because of reasons. That would certainly reassure those attending those schools, as well as their family and communities.
- amenhotep 2y agoArguing that gun violence is bad all round is fine. But this isn't that? It's exploiting the special emotive value of the term "school shooting" - something that will obviously be read to refer to a specific kind of circumstance that everyone understands - in an attempt to colour as many possible instances of gun violence with the seriousness with which the authors think they should be regarded. Or so it seems to me.
- motorest 2y ago> A homeless guy shot another homeless guy on my university campus a few weeks ago. It's hard to consider that a school shooting even though it happened on-campus. You find it hard to consider a school shooting a shooting taking place at a school?
- decremental 2y ago[dead]
- 827a 2y agoDepends on how the data is used. Also if you've ever been to a school like NYU, you'd naturally ask: Where does the school start and end?
- motorest 2y ago> Depends on how the data is used. How can you misuse data on school shootings? Let's go a different way. Say you arrive home and you hear that there was a shooting at a school. What can possibly lead you to argue "oh that doesn't count, because X" ? > Also if you've ever been to a school like NYU, you'd naturally ask: Where does the school start and end? Why do you believe this is any relevant? I mean, to start off can you point out which incident fits your hypothetical scenario?
- suraci 2y agowtf people are homeless homeless guys in a school a homeless guy in a school with a gun a homeless guy shot another in a school and all you care is if it's a school shooting??? wtf am i the only one who think all of these listed above are unacceptable???
- decremental 2y ago[dead]
- 827a 2y agoWhat are you doing, personally, to improve any of those things (beyond just wasting time on the internet)?
- ccppurcell 2y agoMaybe they don't live in America. I have paid taxes in countries with good social safety nets for example, which helps alleviate homelessness.
- suraci 2y agowell, that's a good question I'm afraid there's nothing i can do to improve this the only thing i can do is trying to avoid rationalizing it there are so many things like this that I'm incapable of changing
- motorest 2y ago> What are you doing, personally, to improve any of those things (beyond just wasting time on the internet)? Pretending it's not a problem is a good start. From the looks of this thread, that seems to be a low-hanging fruit that's already out of reach for some. Also, resorting to ad-hominem arguments is a show of bad faith. Your random person on the street has absolutely no influence on how someone has access to a gun.
- jjmarr 2y agoAs the original commenter, I live in Toronto, Canada. It's pretty simple: homes are too expensive. One bedroom in an illegal sublet of an eighth of a house can be C$1000+/month. Why would anyone pay money to live in a de facto homeless shelter when one can be homeless for free? If we want to fix this, we need to build more supply. The system we have now has too much regulation and permitting designed to block development, so the only stuff that gets built is single family luxury housing or extremely large multifamily apartment complexes.
- ein0p 2y agoI wonder why the school shootings went up so much under Biden, and why we heard so little about it.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoGuessing because, post COVID, school was back on again. School shootings are down during summer too. Depressing.
- sahila 2y agoSchool being back on isn't a satisfactory answer to why there's a such a large increase. It went from 124 in 2019 to 349 in 2023, nearly 3x as many shootings. I don't know the answer but I would guess it's either Covid's social isolation effects on people, more societal stress with high inflation, an impending recession, and unknown job future for many, or Tiktok/social media becoming a bigger part of our lives.
- pastor_williams 2y agoMy assumption was that something about the reporting changed. But I also don't know the answer.
- Mistletoe 2y agoI think it’s more that the world lost its collective mind after Covid in 2020.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- petemill 2y agoLooks more like the rate of increase started going up in 2018
- alienchow 2y agoCOVID. People in semi house arrest mode deprived of social interaction forgot how to be decent human beings. Shortly after I left the US, I vividly recall reading the news about a 6yo shot dead in his mum's car by a road rager on the freeway, and wondered why I ever stayed in the US for so long. Dodging the Gilroy garlic festival shooting because I took over Sunday on-call for a teammate should've been the first sign.
- mgarfias 2y agoare they still counting a pair of gang bangers shooting each other in the parking lot a school shooting?
- seabird 2y agoYes. >The definition used for the K-12 SSDB is: a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims (including zero), time, day of the week, or reason.
- ikawe 2y agoCounting yes, but the charts in the article show that the largest group of shooters is students. About 1/3 are unrelated to the school or have an “unknown” relationship . It’s a short list of charts - worth a quick scroll through if you didn’t already.
- what 2y agoWhy can’t a gangbanger also be a student?
- cancerhacker 2y ago[flagged]
- Dylan16807 2y ago> preconceived racist notions of the data Is "gang banger" automatically racist? And even if it is, saying that data should be excluded doesn't sound like it's playing into any stereotypes. And when they criticize the previous data collection, that's not "preconceived", it's a real observation.
- tough 2y agoplenty of very white nazi gang members on those bands
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- abraxas 2y ago[flagged]
- gddgb 2y ago[flagged]
- WorkerBee28474 2y agoBy their definition, if an unused bullet is thrown at a brick wall on school property, that is a shooting. It doesn't even need a casing or propellent.
- sourcecodeplz 2y agoYou know you can discharge a bullet by hitting with a rock right? You don't need a gun.
- WorkerBee28474 2y agoNo, you can discharge a cartridge by hitting it with an improvised device. A bullet is just the metal bit in the front of the cartridge that goes flying. Hitting a bullet with a rock does nothing except maybe dent it.
- CobrastanJorji 2y agoInteresting that 2% of school shooters are the school's police officer. I guess that's not surprising, since they're presumably the only person who'd regularly have a gun on campus.
- what 2y agoBecause this DB doesn’t just consist of what most people would consider a school shooting, but likely includes any discharge of a firearm on school property.
- CobrastanJorji 2y agoI haven't seen the raw data (and I'm surprised they require you to request it), but since 280 or so of the incidents are "accident," and since police officers have guns, I imagine a good chunk of that 2% would be police officers accidentally firing their guns.
- motorest 2y ago> Because this DB doesn’t just consist of what most people would consider a school shooting, but likely includes any discharge of a firearm on school property. And that's perfectly fine. That's exactly the problem that concerns people. No one is saying "well my kid got shot but thankfully it was by the police/security guard and not a rando".
- _zagj 2y agoNote that the surge in school shootings is despite a marginal secular decline in household gun ownership: https://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf https://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shipp02 2y agoHow have 40% of the perpetrators escaped? Seems a little high given how sensitive of a subject school shootings are.
- seabird 2y agoIf somebody got into with somebody else after the high school football game and popped a few off before running away and nobody snitched, they're not going to find them. Take note of the "parking lot" and "escalation of dispute" data points.
- motorest 2y ago> How have 40% of the perpetrators escaped? Seems a little high given how sensitive of a subject school shootings are. What's the success rate of catching any random shooter?
- Ralo 2y ago[flagged]
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- jrflowers 2y ago> More kids die every year from Pitbull attacks than they do from school shootings Mr. Worldwide is absolutely not known for killing children.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AStonesThrow 2y agoya don't ban the dogs, ya drug 'em Bing showed me 5 varieties of doggie prozac and Trazodone https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/antidepressants-for-dogs/ https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/antidepressants-for...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- happytoexplain 2y agoNot only is there obviously an uproar about pitbulls, it also has nothing to do with the topic. In fact, anecdotally, I think the majority of people I know who are pro-gun-control also think we should ban pitbull breeding.
- Ralo 2y agoI'm saying it's clearly people pushing an agenda when there's bigger threats. I'm pointing out that if it was truly about children dying, they would focus on bigger dangers, like suicide (#1 cause of death for teens), drugs, or Pitbulls. Yet there's constant calls to ban guns in the US. When was the last time a senator had a speech about banning Pitbulls?
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- everyone 2y agoIs this globally or in one specific country though? It doesnt say anywhere on the page as far as I can see.
- riffraff 2y agoIt's in the USA, you can see the tableau data showing the states and such. Also school shootings are not really a thing outside the US, e.g. there's been a handful in Europe in this decade.
- aidenn0 2y ago> All shootings at schools includes when a gun is fired, brandished with intent to harm, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time, or day of the week. This definition is broad enough to encompass e.g. someone barricading themselves in an apartment a few blocks away with a 5.57 rifle and shooting at the police; this happened at my daughter's HS, and a bullet did land on the campus just because the campus is large and was in the same general direction. It also seems like it would be broad enough to include a police officer drawing their duty weapon on a student threatening another student with a knife (also happened at my daughter's HS), but I'm less sure about that. Neither of those would be considered "school shootings" by the vast majority of the population.
- motorest 2y ago> This definition is broad enough to encompass (...) And that's perfectly fine. This criteria covers all conceivable scenarios where a kid going to school can be shot. Isn't that the whole point?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- aidenn0 2y agoWhen people talk about "stopping school shootings" they don't tend to want to substitute a student with a knife getting arrested at gunpoint with that student stabbing another student.
- bdangubic 2y agothis may be a bit unfair. stopping school shootings by any sane argument is ALWAYS about gun control. as an exercise - take any definition of a school shooting you desire. then compare USA with any country on the planet of your choosing (you can even pick random geographical area spanning random number of countries) and see whether the childhood our children are subjected to are comparable. we have failed and are continuing to fail our children, regardless of how you choose to define what school shooting
- _zagj 2y agoI understand it's an emotional topic, but the article is just dry data, and flagging it (along with half the comments in this thread) was unnecessary. I wouldn't even care that much if it weren't for the fact that HN clearly penalizes accounts based on how their submissions and comments are flagged by other users. @dang could you please unflag it?
- _zagj 2y agoBTW the point of my submission was to highlight the anomaly that the number of school shootings (and victims) is paradoxically surging despite gun ownership declining and murder rates--while spiking after 2020--still being well-below historic highs: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/briefing/murder-rate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/briefing/murder-rate.html
- m4r1k 2y agoAbsurd that 2021-2024 saw massively more shootings than 1966-2020 combined. Clearly it’s getting out of hands. What’s the reason behind this huge rise?
- chneu 2y agoWithout any research I'd wager mental health among teens and young adults is very bad. They don't really have a future. At least not a fun one to look forward to.
- morgengold 2y agoNo one knows for sure, but if I take the perspective of a socially alienated young person who is angry, resentful, and feels a growing desire for revenge, I would say hours of screen time, social media dynamics [1], and widespread economic insecurities only worsen the situation. It is easy to become resentful and aggressive when you are isolated and feel left behind. Additionally, it is much easier to become radicalized as an isolated individual online. I believe that in the last century, it was more difficult to become radicalized from your own bedroom, and people had more social interactions, even if they weren't actively seeking them out. [1] Anxiety surges in GenZ around its introduction: https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/ https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/
- _zagj 2y agoI suspect the copycat effect is a large part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting_contagion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting_contagion The media has historically, starting with Columbine, been extremely irresponsible when it comes to school shootings, showing little of the discretion that it does when it comes to youth suicide (for which they've adopted professional standards informed by CDC, WHO, etc. recommendations: https://afsp.org/ethicalreporting/ https://afsp.org/ethicalreporting/), to the point that it's given perpetrators fame that's endured decades after their demise: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/us/school-shootings-columbine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/us/school-shootings-colum... And they're doing this not just out of recklessness, but out of a pretty clear bias and desire to leverage these events to produce support for gun control.
- pmags 2y agoThere seems to be a disingenuous attempt by many respondents to get readers to focus on definitions and ignore the trends. I suggest you to look at the second graph showing the fatal/wounded data pretty much mirrors the incident data. Then ask yourself if this is problematic. EDIT: Here's one account of what these statistics mean for those involved: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/health/teacher-shooting-parkland-florida.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/health/teacher-shooting-p...