Category 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 →

School Shooting Database and Propaganda

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What you name something is very important. One might look upon their congressman and say “politician”. Someone else might look upon the same representative and say “insufferable, deranged, syphilitic git”. Both might be accurate. Important then is the “School Shooting Database” hosted by the Federal Government as part of the Department of Homeland Defense. The phrase “school shooting” creates in the mind of the reader some very specific notions. For the average American, it means mass homicide events like Parkland, Sandy Hook and Columbine. It does not mean a stray bullet from a inter-gang confrontation two blocks away at two in the morning. Honest Disclosure, Noble Purpose, Clumsy Word Use Per the project’s web site, “The K-12 School Shooting Database research project is a widely inclusive database that documents each and every instance a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of … Continue reading →

Good Guy with a Gun?

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Much has been made in public discussion about a slogan popularized (though I doubt originally penned by) the National Rifle Association, namely: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Ignoring that no such absolute statement is true (e.g., “all politicians are criminals”), it is a good slogan to ponder. What is the efficacy of armed response to an attacker? We at the Gun Facts project have covered this question quite a bit on the Guns and Crime Prevention page, and there is no use going through all that again. But in terms of mass public shootings (MPSs), and we’ll include active shooter events (ASEs) in this tally as well, the situation has better clarity due to the fact there is an indisputable violent event happening. Many defensive gun uses (DGUs) may be against unarmed attackers or have a lower … Continue reading →

Mental Health and Homicides

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It is time to tap dance on landmines and begin the Gun Facts investigation of the intersection of mental health and gun violence. This will be an ongoing project, as it appears to be a determinant variable in mass homicides (and hence, mass shootings). Main Takeaways Three forms of mental impairment are tightly associated with spree and serial killers. 74% of mass shooters had some form of genetic or induced disorder. Deinstitutionalization has removed dangerous people from being closely monitored In-patient psychiatric care was replaced, in part, with psychotropic medications, some of which can amplify violent desires. Triggering the Investigation News reports too often detail that mass public shooters had prior histories of mental health issues. One need only look at some of the twenty-first century’s mass murderers (the rogues galley at right being a representative sample) and you can tell there is something fundamentally different and dangerous about them. … Continue reading →

Everytown Agitprop

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Michael Bloomberg, the avenging fallen angel for the gun control industry, is a progenitor of Everytown, the new gun control juggernaut. This organization has been the subject of scathing reviews given their habit of making statistical claims for which they do not cite their sources, or citing sources that are in effect gun control organizations. In short, they are con(wo)men. People interested in honesty concerning gun control (the Gun Facts mission) forward me Everytown emails. Of late, emails emanating from Everytown have devolved into the absurd. So, as a public service to those who like debunking political fraud (and have yet to read the book on modern propaganda analysis), here are some selected snippets from Everytown emails and a bit of backlash. A world where it’s fine to shoot first and ask questions later. A world where anyone can carry a gun anywhere — schools, churches, bars. A world where … Continue reading →

Only Scattered School Shootings

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School shootings are actually pretty rare, though you would never know if you listened to gun control groups. USA Today recently illustrated the point, even while attempting to sensationalize the topic. In a story titled “Deadly school shootings since Columbine”, the paper created a timeline showing when such events occurred. I suspect their goal was to make each tragedy easy to find and read about. What it really showed was how infrequent such events are. In the slider bar at page top, there are multi-year gaps between such events.  This matches data from the federal government that noted a low mortality rate and a steadily falling rate of school deaths. This is one point that needs to be stressed: Things have been getting better for the past couple of decades. Violence against children is falling, with the occasional lunatic mass murderer causing angst. Statistically speaking, your child is safer than … Continue reading →