Posted on 02/15/2018 11:43:56 AM PST by IBD editorial writer
The latest mass shooting, which claimed 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, was a horrible tragedy. But that's no excuse for the flurry of stories parroting a gun control advocacy group's false claims about school shootings.
In the immediate wake of the shooting, headlines starting appearing at major news sites:
"There have already been 18 school shootings in the US this year" — ABC News "18 school shootings in 45 days — Florida massacre is one of many tragedies in 2018"—CNBC "18 school shootings in US in 2018"— AFP "U.S. averages a school shooting every 2.5 days in 2018" — Politico "We're Averaging One School Shooting Every 60 Hours In 2018" — Huffington Post
When not in the headline, this claim shows up in just about every story about the Florida shooting.
So, it must be true, right? Why else would every news outlet be reporting this?
It's not true.
That number comes from a gun control advocacy group — Everytown for Gun Safety — which arrived at 18 only by shoving everything it possibly could into the category of "school shooting."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
We, and Donald Trump, are blessed by the stupidity of our enemies.
Nobody is going to believe there was a school shooting every couple days, and they are going to question the nutcases who push that thought
Fake news now includes misrepresenting accidental shootings and suicides by gun around school as a series of mass murder rampages.
I hate the fake news media. They lie about shootings to bolster their call for gun confiscation.
What else do they lie about? Never mind...
but I don't recommend it - my anti-virus quarantined a file from that site.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the media freak out as much following a shooting as they are this time around. It is unreal.
Thank you.
As much as it’s terrible about all the stuff has happened in this list, calling them “shootings” while discussing them in the same vain as yesterday is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
The Anti-Defamation League is asserting he was a rapid white supremacist.
Bmp
“The Anti-Defamation League is asserting he was a rapid white supremacist.”
If the so-called Anti-Defamation League is saying THAT, then that PROVES he is a DACA boy! Or worse. Maybe he is an albino Kenyan.
Yes, I heard FOX say it. About fell out of my chair. If that’s the case then we should ban schools as they obviously create an unsafe environment.
The media perpetuates school shootings to promote their gun control policy.
Thanks for the list. Unreal
Idiots are a dime a dozen these days,, that’s why the media is full of them.
Sounds like justification for Australian type confiscation.
No guns no crime!
Are you serious?
Try expressing yourself in complete sentences Steve, I’m not a mind reader.
Here’s an old school tip for you for that kind of column. The arguments with details should start in the second paragraph. The first paragraph should contain a very clear thesis argument.
Most of the more intelligent and caring readers who read more than a headline probably make it through the third paragraph, approximately, before reading or doing something else. They move on and only see the piece as a he-said-she-said kind of write-up instead of reading the necessary facts (the evidence) and disseminating those to their friends.
Fox News gives us a New York perspective, which perspective is flooded with anti-Second-Amendment thinking.
If we want a perspective from the Midwest—not counting its most northern or eastern reaches—we would watch news from that perspective instead (e.g., rural Missouri or Arkansas). But then we’d still have the problem of listening to graduates from university English and communication programs dominated by the misogamist, socialist dominatrixes of the left.
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As oil and water, communists and truth NEVER mix.
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And, as the the Sun will rise in the East, the (R)N(C) couldn’t articulate a counter-argument to save their own lives.
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Make no mistake as to who it is with our Constitution in its crosshairs.
An unceasing assault that began in the ‘20s.
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Doesn’t help when *THE* (supposed) ‘stalwart of 2nd A. Rights’, the NRA, loves ‘em some infringement.
Very FEW protectors vs. the Left\RINOs\etc.
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No on will get on the air and refute them. The first time someone says ‘No there have not been 18 mass shootings, most of those reports are of minor incidents’, the response will be, ‘Does it matter? All those children were killed and one is too many’.
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Because, as I’ve said time and time again, the (R)N(C) couldn’t articulate itself out of a wet-paper bag.
NONE of their surrogates\talking-heads have the balls to interrupt and say< “If you want to discuss based on *facts* let’s get down to FACTS; not some talking-points from a Leftist, gun-control group.”
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Which is true, and no one wants to fight a concept with facts. The concept is that school shootings are bad. It sounds idiotic to even say it, because no one opposes that concept. If you set yourself up for being called callous to the victims, it doesn’t matter how many there were. You’re going to put on the defensive.
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Then, the Right needs to learn to shift of the concept to the point(s) at hand: Govt has an AWFUL track record of keeping *anything* SAFE.
Govt schools (public schools), bases, even the Pulse Nightclub (failed immigration/vetting).
You can either be RESPONSIBLE for infringing upon the Rights of others (enter school = disarmed) and liable for said safety, or you are ‘off the hook’ ala police not obligated to assist the general public.
Govt, and the Left, want it BOTH ways.
I posted a similar list on another thread, compiling the events by group. This is not 18 “school shootings” in the sense that normal people think of school shootings.
- Three drive-bys, a fight between adults near the school, and a robbery well after the school day: 5
- University shootings (one negligent, two drive-by, and one drunken fight): 4
- Suicides at a school or building that used to be a school: 2
- Negligent discharges at a school: 2
- Shots fired with no indication that they were intended to hit anyone: 2
- Real school shootings: 3
Jan. 3, East Olive Elementary School
School closed at the end of the previous year. This is the parking lot suicide of a 31 year-old man; no connection to schools.
Jan. 4, New Start High School
This is a random drive-by shooting off school property that hit the school office.
Jan, 10, Coronado Elementary School
A teenager committed suicide at an elementary school; no one else was injured.
Jan. 10, Cal State University, San Bernardino
This was a shooting at a university parking garage. No one was hurt.
Jan. 10, Grayson College Criminal Justice Center
Criminal Justice Club advisor put his real firearm in a box so it wouldn’t be used by mistake during training. After he left the room, a student assumed the firearm in the box was a training weapon and fired it through the classroom wall.
Jan. 15, Wiley College
During a drive-by shooting in a parking lot, one bullet went through a dorm window.
Jan. 20, Wake Forest University
Football player from another college shot and killed at a party.
Jan. 22, Italy High school
This is an actual school shooting, the first of the year! A 16-year-old boy fired a handgun in the cafeteria and hit a 15-year-old girl.
Jan. 22, NET Charter High School
During a drive-by shooting in a parking lot, one bullet caused an “abrasion” to a 14-year-old.
Jan. 23, Marshall County High School
This is an actual school shooting, the second of the year! A 16-year-old boy shot and killed a 15-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl, and injured 18 others.
Jan. 25, Murphy High School
A student with a gun threatened several administrators before going outside and firing into the air.
Jan. 26, Dearborn High School
Another drive-by shooting in a parking lot. No injuries.
Jan. 31, Lincoln High School
During a fight between adults outside a school, at a basketball game, one adult shot and killed the other adult.
Feb. 1, Salvador B. Castro Middle School
The story is that a 12-year-old girl brought a gin to school, didn’t know it was loaded, and accidentally shot five students. I would count this as a school shooting (#3 for the year).
Feb. 5, Oxon Hill High School
A student was lured to the school parking lot at 5:15 pm by an ex-girlfriend to be robbed, and was shot and wounded there.
Feb. 5, Harmony Learning Center
A third-grade student pulled the trigger on a police officer’s gun.
Feb. 8, Metropolitan High School
A teen fired a shot inside a classroom; no one was injured.
Feb. 14, Stoneman Douglas High
A former student shot and killed about 17 students and injured about 14 more, at a high school during the school day. I would call this the third school shooting of the year.
Three school shootings is more than I would like, but it’s completely different from 18 in six weeks.
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