Frequently cited statistics purporting to expose an epidemic of school shootings are highly unreliable. For example, last April the Department of Education issued a booklet in which it was claimed that in the 2015–2016 academic year “nearly 240 schools in this country…reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.”
This number was so shockingly high that National Public Radio followed up the story, contacting each school concerned. But NPR could confirm only eleven of the “nearly 240” school shootings cited in the DoE booklet. Two-thirds of the schools they contacted responded that they’d experienced no such incident. Which is to say, DoE’s claim turned out to be totally fictional. So there’s not much reason to think that the claim of a school shooting every one and a half days this year is any more factual.
