Here's a great example of the news and social media cycle misleading folks: How many of you have heard or even possibly repeated '18 school shootings so far this year'?
I heard it for the first time from my friend I share the office with. He was surprised and said "That's a lot". I heard that and my response was "that doesn't sound right, I know for sure we haven't had 18 of these types of events. What counts in that number?" He was unable to answer. After a little sleuthing I found out (just as the same time that the
Washington Post ran an article on it. To sum up what I found, out of 18 of those shootings:
- Eight had zero injuries or killed (and as best I can tell, nobody was targeted, i.e. appeared to be taking a shot/s at a building, etc).
- Four had single injuries
- Two were single suicides (one by a student, another by an adult who stopped in a school parking lot in the evening).
- Two had single killings
- Three had multiple killed / wounded (oddly though, a middle school shooting with five injuries was listed as accidental)