Flashback - Terrifying Children

[This entry comes from not too long ago, August of this year, and was originally titled How to Shade the Truth. As I pointed out, shading the truth to attract viewers or make a political point is both common and cold-hearted.]

Here is a point of view I might want to push: Although there has not been a lot of news lately about school shootings, they are still a major problem. Parents and students alike should still worry about the safety of schools and demand something be done about gun violence.

If I am CNN, I run a headline on July 26, 2019 saying, “There have been 22 school shootings in the US so far this year.” Wow, that is almost one every 10 days!

They define a school shooting as one where someone was hurt or killed and that happened on school property. It includes incidents of accidental discharge and those where the weapon was a BB gun, because they are “potentially lethal.”

Seeing only the headline would cause many to assume that the shootings involved a K-12 student during regular school time. The examples in detail tell a different story.

They are listed in reverse chronological order. The first three happened in school parking lots or playgrounds during summer break. One of the people shot was 36 years old, riding his bike though a high school parking lot. 

The next two victims were a teen shot in the parking lot after a fight broke out, and a 25-year-old man playing basketball at a Chicago elementary school playground.

Four of the incidents happened at Universities, none of them inside buildings. Likewise, of the remaining thirteen incidents, only six actually happened inside a school. One involved a 16-year-old student “trying to buy marijuana from a 17-year-old student.”

The single incident of note was the well-publicized one death and eight injuries at the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. “Two male students were charged with murder and attempted murder; one of them told police he sought to target classmates who had bullied him.”

Of course school shootings are bad: one is too many. But let’s be honest about it. There were not 22 since the beginning of the year as most people would understand them. A 46-year-old man shot multiple times by his neighbor in a high school parking lot “amid an ongoing argument over a parking spot” is not really a school shooting in any sense of the term. 

This is the kind of shading and spinning that the media often do to achieve the shock factor desired to retain readership and viewership. It pays to read the rest of the article; it pays to question headlines; it pays to use critical thinking. It especially pays when you know they have a hidden agenda or an incentive to get you all upset – which is always.

[These are not only common but cruel. The 22 in the headline became 6 inside a K-12 school during school hours and only one that fits a commonly held understanding of a school shooting. With over 100,000 public schools in the US, these incidents are exceedingly rare - an impression the news media tries to cover up. What are not rare are headlines like this one: “There are kids who simply are scared to go to school.” How is this practice not a form of child abuse?]