
March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002 - prostoalex
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-first-march-without-school-shooting-since-2002-united-states/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=86548834
======
prophesi
"there were a total of seven shootings that took place on school campuses in
March 2020. Four of those shootings were classified as unintentional
discharges, one took place between adults on a high school football field over
the weekend and two occurred on college campuses but involved no students."

I find it odd that these don't count, and that they happened in the first
place.

~~~
1123581321
School shootings refer to mass killings or attempted killings directed at
fellow students and staff, usually indiscriminately.

Adding “normal” homicides, suicides, gang violence and accidents that could
happen anywhere, and that happen due to ancient, well understood motivations,
would be too noisy and create the need for a new statistic and term that
exclude them.

~~~
xbmcuser
Anywhere is a misnomer in this case as no other country has such a gun culture
so anywhere in the US is probably more appropriate.

~~~
1123581321
Yes, we are discussing an article about US statistics but I shouldn’t have
assumed that in my more general comment.

------
Rebelgecko
Unless my reading comprehension is off this morning, that claim seems
incredibly misleading.

It seems like they're using two different definitions of school shooting. Even
though there have been multiple shootings at schools in March of 2020, it's
been decided none of them count because they either didn't involve students or
because they were caused by negligence and not a desire to intentionally harm
someone.

However they're not judging other years as stringently. I spot checked a few
years in their cited sources[1][2] and about half the years I looked at seemed
iffy.

For example, look at their data for 2009. Neither of their "school shootings"
actually happened at a school.

For 2004, the only school shooting was a suicide, which is technically a
school shooting but probably _less_ of a threat to students than the 4
shootings at school this March that were caused by negligent discharges.

The only incident they have for 2006[3] was someone who was beaten to death,
not sure how that counts as a shooting. (QUICK EDIT, I'm wrong about this one,
I thought the events were listed in chronological order but they aren't so I
missed some actual shootings)

[1]:
[https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519244.pdf](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519244.pdf)

[2]: [https://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/violent-deaths-and-
sch...](https://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/violent-deaths-and-school-
shootings/)

[3]: [https://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/violent-deaths-and-
sch...](https://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/violent-deaths-and-school-
shootings/school-deaths-2005-2006/)

~~~
garblegarble
The shooting in March 2003 also seems to be a suicide attempt

------
drocer88
There were a lot of firsts in March 2020.

------
pmdulaney
I protest the flagging of any article on Hacker News as being antithetical to
the ethos of free speech. It is unbecoming that HN allows flagging.

------
clarkmoody
Two obvious things:

\- Schools weren't opened for most of the month

\- Article is pushing an anti-gun agenda (not surprising for CBS)

What is glaringly omitted: how is a "school shooting" defined? The article
mentioned some event that happened on campus (in the football field), which
probably counts as a "school shooting" knowing the source of the data is an
anti gun rights group. I wouldn't be surprised if the definition is quite
broad so as to boost the stats.

So this is obvious narrative-pushing. But I might counter with, "See, this is
a great reason to keep the schools closed. Look at the reduction in school
shootings!" Which would fit right in with the level of discourse in American
politics.

On a meta level, I'm genuinely curious how people's attitudes have changed
throughout the COVID pandemic, not only about guns, but about homeschooling,
privacy, surveillance, time with family, etc, etc.

~~~
oliwarner
Yes. It's deliberate facetious. It's making the point that school gun violence
is so widespread, so rampant, so unchallenged, that the only way to avoid it
has been to shut schools completely.

You shouldn't quibble over definitions, worry about narratives or attitudes.
You should consider what can be done to make schools safer environments for
our children.

~~~
ccffpphh
We should ban encryption so shooters can't plan their attacks without being
watched - for the children of course.

~~~
oliwarner
If that's the limit of our ability to consider _something better_ , the kids
don't stand a chance.

~~~
ccffpphh
I mean, it's all about the children right? Anything for the children! Might as
well wrap up each of them in a biosuit with restrained arm movement so there's
absolutely 0% chance of anyone committing any sort of harm whatsoever.

Seriously, get real. Justifying the elimination of natural rights with
"thinking of the children" is a common trope by authoritarians to seize
control.

~~~
oliwarner
What's with this silly nth degree stuff? Why can't you handle the idea of
incremental change? Is the situation really beyond _any_ worthwhile
improvement in your eyes?

I'm not reassured when you describe recurrent mass murder of children as a
trope. Get some perspective.

~~~
ccffpphh
It's such an infrequent event it's literally a rounding error. The only reason
it's even brought up is because it gets attention on the news - which is in
and of itself a feedback loop, as more attention brings more copycats.

I grew up in an area where every other house had dozens of guns. Surprisingly,
we didn't have a school shooting every day. In fact, we had none. I'm not
using anecdotal data to support any argument, but if it were indeed the case
that more guns = more baby and child killings, then I wouldn't be here to
write this comment.

My main concern here is the erosion of natural rights based on the premise
that it is "for the children", which _is_ a trope. It's been used for all
manners of privacy violations, from indefinite detentions, proposals to ban
encryption, PRISM, etc.

If you genuinely care and have an open mind, you'll see it's extremely dubious
as to whether enforcing more restrictions would have any effect, barring
throwing the Constitution in the trash and seizing everything. Conversely, we
can think of the children and ban cars so they stop dying in car accidents,
because no more car accidents will happen.

I'm okay with incremental positive change, but they have to be data-driven and
made respecting the Constitution. The US got this far due to its framework,
its shared values on freedom and liberty, and lack of an oppressive,
overreaching government. It derives its success from the freedom of its
citizens to chart the course of their life, not from the nanny state telling
them what they can and can't smoke, shoot, eat, code, read, write, or drive.

~~~
oliwarner
Rounding error?! The US had 434 mass shootings in 2019, between ~50,000
middle-to-higher institutions. Assuming each of the 434 events happened at
different institutions, you had a 99.132% chance of not being present at a
school shooting in 2019.

But you're at one of these institutions (middle through undergrad) for 11
years? Your probability of being at one of these during a shooting compounds
to 90.86%.

9-in-10 people and their friends had a nice time, but that remaining 1 was
there when four or more of their school were gunned down.

I don't disagree that the Constitution gives Americans a fair whack at
freedom, but it also frustrates democracy. If a clear majority wanted to
change things, even incrementally (background and mental health checks,
storage laws esp child-access, restricting higher form assault weapons),
overcoming the 66% bar really makes progress on [inexplicably] partisan issues
like this impossible.

You've got to weigh up what this law was designed to do, against what it's
permitting today. I think it's obvious we come to a different result when we
balance that equation but I'm not deaf to your views either.

(Edit: Important to note that 434 is the mass shooting number. It's just 1% of
all gun violence in schools.)

~~~
ccffpphh
Most of those events are unrelated violence that just happens to be near
institutions, not actual shootings. This includes gang-on-gang violence
nearby, people shooting themselves in their car, accidental discharges, etc.
Look at the actual numbers involved and the descriptions of the events
themselves. There's a lot of interest in making it seem worse than it is, as
you've clearly demonstrated.

------
crankylinuxuser
Bad statistic. School has been either cancelled or online.

It's be like saying "No electrocutions" in the 1700s or no "social media
anything's in the 1800s".

~~~
havenbarnes
Pretty sure that’s the main point of the article. It took a global pandemic
for us to not have a shooting

~~~
longtom
Maybe not the weapons are the problem, but the lack of the right motivation.

~~~
mcphage
Maybe it's a combination of the two: the weapons, with the right motivation.

