Tag Archives: school shootings

TASSS and Accuracy

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There is a lot of public confusion about school shootings. Some of this is intentional, due to data manipulation by activist groups. Some of it is because researchers are highly inconsistent about definitions and approaches. The good news is that there is a high-quality database that shows us a lot of interesting information about shootings in K–12 schools. The bad news is that the raw data is not publicly available, but we’ll get to that gripe later. Takeaways Media-cited K–12 shooting databases overstate such events by 40%. Most K–12 shooting events are in major metro areas and exceed their population-based share. Many K–12 shooting events share M.O. profiles of street gang retaliatory action. 26% of K–12 shooting perpetrators are “unknown” and not charged. Reliable Sourcing A small number of databases have been generated by sundry people and organizations in an attempt to document school shootings. Some of these data sets … Continue reading →

K–12 Shooting Stats

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School shootings are reasonably rare, though you would never know if from reading stories in the mainstream media or listening to people who maintain databases of questionable quality. Fortunately, the federal government did a deep dive into the subject, and from that we come to some interesting conclusions about who is actually in danger at K–12 schools and why it only reinforces what we know about gun violence in general. TAKEAWAYS The most commonly media-cited K–12 school shooting database is overstated by 40%. Most K–12 shootings are over disputes that align with inner-city and street gang subcultures. School-targeted shootings (which include mass shootings) occur at about half the rate of “nominal” dispute/gang shootings. Targeted shootings, because they are planned, come from generalized grievances, and use “cattle pen scenarios,” have a higher body count than the more common one-victim dispute shootings, though the latter occurs twice as often. What is a … Continue reading →

School Shootings Stats

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“We don’t live in more violent times. We live in more televised times.” – Marilyn Manson He is right and wrong, and one influences another. And such influences affect what happens in schools. A really long-term study has some clues. Take-aways Television bent the curve on the frequency of mass school shootings around 1966. Average death rates in school shootings has doubled since 1966. High school males are the top problem spot. 175 years of “data” A recent (2017) academic paper sought to dig into school shootings going all the way back to 1840. Audacious, but we have to accept that mining data before the advent of modern national media is a bit risky. A school shooting might have only made county news in 1899, but it’s national news today. Before wee dive in, we’ll note that the definition used in this paper was broad. Specifically, “An event is included … Continue reading →

Schools, Guns and the Secret Service

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The U.S. Secret Service released a report that exposed no real secrets but did amplify what we know or thought we knew about school shooters. Okay, that is not quite accurate. Their report titled “Analysis of Targeted School Violence” reviews all the documented cases of when someone specifically directed violence at people in K12 schools from 2008 through 2017, almost a full decade of data. This compilation, of course, included school shooters of every variety. What the report reveals is kinda what we thought about school shooters in general, but it is good to have some solid numbers to substantiate our understanding. Instead of boring you with all 58 pages provided by the Secret Service, I’ll run down and comment on some of the important highlights. A little fragile Before diving into the numbers, the entirety of the report covers 41 incidents. This is a smallish number, and thus some … Continue reading →