Courtesy of WaPo:
The Washington Post has spent the past year determining how many children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the Columbine High massacre in 1999.
Beyond the dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatized.
The federal government does not track school shootings, so The Post pieced together its numbers from news articles, open-source databases, law enforcement reports and calls to schools and police departments.
Since March, The Post has taken a closer look at states with fewer local news sources and searched more deeply for less visible public suicides and accidents that led to injury.
The count now stands at more than 208,000 children at 212 schools.
The Post has found that at least 131 children, educators and other people have been killed in assaults, and another 272 have been injured.
In 2018 alone, there have already been 13 shootings — the highest number at this point during any year since 1999.
The Post goes on to make the point that school shootings remain rare, and only a small percentage of school students are affected by them.
But I would counter with the fact that in most developed countries the number of school shootings are close to zero.
Which does not seem to make ours all that rare. At least not in America.
Instead I would argue that they are becoming less rare every year.
The Washington Post has spent the past year determining how many children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the Columbine High massacre in 1999.
Beyond the dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatized.
The federal government does not track school shootings, so The Post pieced together its numbers from news articles, open-source databases, law enforcement reports and calls to schools and police departments.
Since March, The Post has taken a closer look at states with fewer local news sources and searched more deeply for less visible public suicides and accidents that led to injury.
The count now stands at more than 208,000 children at 212 schools.
The Post has found that at least 131 children, educators and other people have been killed in assaults, and another 272 have been injured.
In 2018 alone, there have already been 13 shootings — the highest number at this point during any year since 1999.
The Post goes on to make the point that school shootings remain rare, and only a small percentage of school students are affected by them.
But I would counter with the fact that in most developed countries the number of school shootings are close to zero.
Which does not seem to make ours all that rare. At least not in America.
Instead I would argue that they are becoming less rare every year.
