Since the horrific Columbine shooting in April 1999, there’ve been a tragic number of American public and religious school shootings. No matter how “experts” gloss over their statistics, if a single death is a tragedy, mass killings are light years beyond “tragedy.”
Having lost a son in high school – not from shooting, but from another life-altering catastrophe – I can only imagine the tidal wave of grief engulfing the family and friends of those lost children.
Much less reported, though nonetheless a tragedy, is that a disproportionate number of these shootings were perpetrated by those who identify as “transgender.”
Triggered by this latest shooting, I went looking for the real stats, trying to discover how much tragedy is really out there. I sought what most media shy away from.
As a trained journalist, I dug deep, recalling that:
If you want to know how many school shootings have occurred, just check the stats.
I’d learned this in J-School: Numbers never lie. Of course, my pre-Watergate profs assumed credible sources had credible numbers.
Right? Well, maybe. But don’t count on it.
While citing traditionally credible sources, the one that seems most honest in pointing out that nobody knows which stats to refer to as they judge the horrific impact of school shootings, Al Jazeera – a source I never thought I’d cite – said it clearly on August 28, 2025.
Hellbound and Down 