Tag: mass shootings

There Have Been 13 Mass School Shootings Since 1966, Not 27 This Year

For many people, the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting—which claimed the lives of at least 19 children and two adults—seemed all the more horrible after they learned it was the 27th school shooting so far this year. That fact makes it harder to view Uvalde as any kind of isolated incident.

An NPR article highlighting this statistic has been shared frequently on social media. The headline, “27 school shootings have taken place so far this year,” probably gave many readers the impression that gun-related killings in schools have been especially high this year, even before Uvalde. Naturally, the prospect of 26 other previously unnoticed mass shooting events in schools should provoke alarm. It should also raise eyebrows.

The problem here is that three very differently defined terms are being used somewhat incautiously and interchangeably: school shooting, mass shooting, and mass school shooting. Uvalde was a mass school shooting; the 26 previous tragedies at schools this year were not.

The difference is significant. Education Week, which tracks all school shootings, defines them as incidents in which a person other than the suspect suffers a bullet wound on school property. Many of the 26 previous shootings involved disputes between students in parking lots, or after athletic events, and all of them resulted in one or zero deaths. These deaths are still incredibly tragic, of course. But they are fundamentally unlike what happened in Uvalde.

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America doesn’t actually lead the world in mass shootings

The claim that the US has by far the most mass public shootings in the world drives much of the gun-control debate. Many argue that America’s high rate of gun possession explains the high rate of mass shootings.

“The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” President Barack Obama warned us. To justify this claim and many other similar quotes, Obama’s administration cited a then-unpublished paper by criminologist Adam Lankford.

Lankford’s claim received coverage in hundreds of news stories all over the world. It still gets regular coverage. Purporting to cover all mass public shootings around the world from 1966 to 2012, Lankford claimed that the United States had 31 percent of public mass shooters despite having less than 5 percent of the population.

But this isn’t nearly correct. The whole episode should provide a cautionary tale of academic malpractice and how evidence is often cherry-picked and not questioned when it fits preconceived ideas.

Lankford’s study reported that over the 47 years there were 90 public mass shooters in the United States and 202 in the rest of world. Lankford hasn’t released his list of shootings or even the number of cases by country or year. We and others, both in academia and the media, have asked Lankford for his list, only to be declined. He has also declined to provide lists of the news sources and languages he used to compile his list of cases.

These omissions are important because Lankford’s entire conclusion would fall apart if he undercounted foreign cases due to lack of news coverage and language barriers.

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‘School shooting’ definition has recently been changed to make it look like they are more frequent now

“Uvalde was a mass school shooting; the 26 previous tragedies at schools this year were not,” Reason continues to report, continuing with the definition that at least three people have to be killed (in most cases, four) in order for an incident to officially be considered a mass shooting, according to the Gun Violence Archive itself.

Using this metric, there have only been a total 13 mass school shootings since 1966, going back to the infamous clock tower incident at the University of Austin on Aug 1 of that year.

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Media Silent as Armed Woman Kills Active Shooter with AR-15 As He Opened Fire on Graduation Celebration

Within just 24 hours, two potential mass shootings unfolded — one at a school in Uvalde, Texas and another in Charleston, West Virginia. Only one of the incidents had police involved and had the shooter surrounded. Unfortunately, this was the most tragic and deadliest one at Robb Elementary.

In Charleston, however, another potential mass shooting unfolded hours later in which the shooter — armed with an AR-15 — targeted children at a graduation party outside of an apartment complex. Unlike Robb Elementary, the apartment complex hadn’t been “hardened” and police hadn’t trained two months earlier on how to deal with a mass shooter.

Also, unlike Robb Elementary, there were no school resource officers on the scene to protect the children. Fortunately, however, also unlike Robb Elementary, private individuals aren’t banned from carrying guns. This is why the only person to be killed as the Charleston mass shooting unfolded — was the shooter, 37-year-old Dennis Butler.

According to police, Butler had sped through the area earlier that day and parents of the children at the party told him to slow down. This apparently caused Butler to snap and he left only to return later with an AR-15 — which he acquired illegally — and began firing on the crowd of children and parents.

“Butler then left the complex, but later returned, parked in front of the 1300 Renaissance Circle complex and pulled an AR 15-style rifle,” said police. “Butler fired his weapon at people attending a graduation party.”

Because West Virginia is a permitless carry state, open carry and concealed carry are both legal for all U.S. citizens. One must be 18-years-old to open carry while one must be 21 or older to conceal carry. Those under 21 can still conceal carry but must apply for a Provisional Concealed Handgun License.

Luckily, a woman at the party was carrying and when Butler began firing into a crowd of children and parents, she pulled out her pistol and ended the threat, killing the would-be mass shooter before anyone was harmed.

“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said.

According to police, Butler had an extensive criminal record but they did not go into detail. Chief Hazelett told reporters Thursday night that no charges will be filed against the woman who killed Butler.

She should be celebrated in her community instead.

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