Could the issue with school shootings be the definition itself?
In the wake of the horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that left 17 people dead, media professionals have poured over the information, seeking answers; answers not just related to this specific incident, but answers that may provide ways to stop mass shootings — specifically school shootings — in the United States.
And as information has become available, a startling statistic was released; the shooting in Florida was the 18th school shooting in the United States in 2018.
In the wake of the horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that left 17 people dead, media professionals have poured over the information, seeking answers; answers not just related to this specific incident, but answers that may provide ways to stop mass shootings — specifically school shootings — in the United States.
And as information has become available, a startling statistic was released; the shooting in Florida was the 18th school shooting in the United States in 2018.
The statistic was tweeted out by Everytown, an organization founded by Michael Bloomberg that advocates for gun safety. And as one could imagine, the tweet received recognition from several of the top news sources.
The statistic is mind-boggling, and for obvious reasons, people have struggled to wrap their brains around it; to reiterate, in just 45 days, 18 school shootings have occurred in the United States. But upon further examination of the statistic, it becomes clear that it is not entirely true. Several of the “shootings” included in the statistic have not taken place on school grounds, rather nearby a school. And other events included were suicide attempts. Stand alone, all issues derived from the improper use of a firearm is scary and terrible. However, lumping together all gun related issues into the category of “mass shooting” could be part of the problem — or epidemic — that school shootings have become.
Think about it; one of the arguments for why school shootings have increased in the United States is the “normalization” of the events. The theory says that as more shootings happen and gain a public following, people gain ideas or feel a stronger inkling to carry out such a tragedy. The theory brings up a sad thought, but it’s not an incongruous one. On that note, people have argued that the statistic Everytown released may be slightly embellished. The Everytown website defines school shootings as, “any time a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds.” Which by that definition, Everytown is correct on the its count of school shootings. But not every time a gun goes off on school grounds is it necessarily a mass school shooting. And obviously every case that involves a gun on school ground should be documented. But by showing the amount of school shootings in 2018 without explaining what that means could be misleading. And the misleading information could actually cause more harm despite the good intentions.
By tweeting about how many school shootings have happened in 2018, Everytown was most likely attempting to highlight how large the school shooting issue is in the United States; however, it seems possible that it plays right into the theory that the normalization of school shootings has increased how many happen.
A proposal to change the fate of school shootings may involve breaking the definition and statistics into two categories; those that involve a death — or deaths — other than the shooter and those that do not. By doing this, the large amount of gun mishaps on school grounds are recorded. But it also makes more clear the school shootings that take the lives of others. Both are terrible, but separating the two allows for more of an emphasis to be placed on stopping the mass school shootings. And with a larger emphasis placed on the events, there is a much better chance of the event resonating with people, rather than the event becoming just a statistic.
This is all theoretical talk, so to analyze the affect of how “school shooting” is defined, research would need to conducted. The research could include an analysis of whether there is a correlation between the use of the phrase school shooting and the number of school shootings that include the deaths of people other than the shooter and the number of times a firearm has been fired on school grounds over a set amount of time.
There are clearly many layers to school shootings and the approach to stopping them is littered with conflict. But the process to realize a safe school setting must start somewhere. And that somewhere very well could be redefining the phrase school shooting to help be more specific when conveying information about cases involving firearms on school grounds.
