Off the bat, every one of those 258 incidents paints an important picture about the gun violence issue in the US, however there’s a whole lot of people who are going to take issue with their methodology because they’re defining a school shooting as any time

a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims (including zero), time, day of the week, or reason.

And honestly that feels a little too broad for me.

If a gun is simply brandished, that’s just not a shooting. It might be an attempted or potential shooting that was stopped before it started somehow, but by definition it’s pretty hard to call that a shooting if no shots were actually fired. It’s a closely-related and important statistic that should be mentioned along with actual shooting numbers, but lumping it together with incidents where a gun was actually discharged feels like a really disingenuous to inflate the numbers.

They go into a lot of detail on their website about their methodology and what sort of incidents could potentially be counted as a school shooting but I feel like they missed the mark here a bit.

When we hear the phrase “school shooting” I think we all picture a pretty similar scenario, something like columbine or sandy hook where someone brings a gun to a school during a time where they expect students and staff to be present and open fire intending to do harm to those students or staff, not two assholes having a shootout on the school yard at 3AM on a Saturday when there’s no students or staff present, or some parent negligently discharging their firearm in the car while waiting to pick up their child, or any other number of other shooting or gun-related incidents that could occur at a school.

I think it would be more appropriate if the data were narrowed to something like

An incident where a gun is intentionally fired on or at a school property during or up to one hour before or after school hours or any school-sponsored activity where students or staff are present

Leaving one hour to allow for students who are dropped off early or are late being picked up, just kind of linger around the school to hang out, etc.

Which still leaves a bit of wiggle room for the shooters intent, who/what they were aiming at, etc. but that can sometimes be hard to determine objectively so I’d be ok including those, it would also include situations where the gun was fired but no one was actually hit and I’m also ok with including that.

It also would include some situations that aren’t the sort of “classic” mass shooter scenario we tend to envision, like two students with a personal dispute or a gang related incident that happens to play out at school with guns, and I’m also ok including those, the core of the issue is shooting happening at school during school functions involving students and/or staff and that fits the bill.

When we leave the definition so broad it leaves too much room for assholes to deflect and nitpick and say that our arguments are invalid because we’re making up numbers, even though they miss the point that even one school shooting a year is far too many, never mind the countless other similar incidents that occur as well. I think it’s best to get out ahead of that by keeping the definition more narrow.

I work in 911 dispatch, this will vary somewhat from one jurisdiction to another, and this isn’t necessarily relevant to how the stats are collected, but it definitely gives some insight into how I frame these incidents in my mind. If I get a call about someone with a gun at a school there are about 10 ways I might enter it (maybe even more, but these are what immediately come to my mind)

1. Suspicious Person- There is someone with a gun at the school. It’s holstered, someone saw it in their bag, etc. they’re not brandishing it or threatening to use it, and they may or may not be otherwise acting strangely but the gun is just present but otherwise not involved in the situation

2. Disturbance- They’re arguing or fighting with someone but the gun is not involved, just present

3. Domestic - same as a disturbance but the involved parties have some kind of relationship- family, roommates, exes, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.

4. Assault victim- basically a disturbance or domestic where someone is hurt and needs EMS but was not shot (or stabbed, we also have a stabbing code)

5. Armed Subject- Someone has a gun and is using it in a threatening manner but has not fired it

6. Shots fired - a gun has been fired, intentionally or unintentionally, but no one is believed to have been shot

7. Shooting - someone has been shot

8. Active Shooter- the shooter is still there actively shooting (whether or not someone has been hit)

9. Suicide attempt- someone has shot themselves

10. Behavioral/Psych Emergency - there’s going to be overlap with this and some of the other incidents, but we might use this code if the person is having a psych issue, is threatening to kill themselves, etc. and needs to be taken for an evaluation or committed but otherwise no one is injured.

Each of those have their own special considerations, different types and amounts of resources are going to be sent with different priority levels, and ideally our police will handle each situation differently as appropriate (cops in my area are generally pretty good at that, but YMMV) and it feels weird to me that using this database’s methodology a lot of these could potentially all be lumped in as the same sort of “school shooting” incident.