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U.S. school shootings hit another annual record high
(www.axios.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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This is depressing, but it also bothers me that there's such a large distinction between how the average person would picture a "school shooting" and what these articles are talking about. Is there a name for that in journalism?
Like, if someone told me "there was a school shooting at school X today", like most people I would immediately picture someone walking into the building and firing indiscriminately at everyone. Not, "a couple of teens got in a fight in the parking lot, and one pulled out a gun", or "someone shot at the school's sign". (Which are also horrible, but I feel like we need separate terms)
From the article:
According to the report, the most commonly known situations associated with such incidents included "escalation of dispute," "drive-by," "illegal activity," "accidental firing of a weapon" and "intentional property damage."
Why do we need such a distinction? These are shootings at schools. They are school shootings.
Because a columbine type of school shooting is different than property damage.
And people writing these articles know that "some destructive teens did donuts in the school parking lot at night and shot the stop sign" isn't what people think when they say that a "school shooting" has happened.
If they kill a Columbine -1, is that a school shooting? What if they try to massacre people but there are no fatalities, is that a school shooting? The attempt to make "school shooting" fit only the worst case scenario means we ignore a problem until it has had its absolute worst outcome.
Is it a school shooting if it's two people in a parking lot at midnight on a Tuesday that are selling drugs? I would say no. Calling it a school shooting implies that the school/children are targeted specifically. Being dishonest about the facts backfires basically every time, as it shows you aren't acting in good faith.
Axios didn’t make the term up, the National Center for Educational Statistics did.
Your premise seems to be that these are mostly no big deal and the term school shooting is being used deliberately to conjure images of Columbine. It’s not clear how you reached that conclusion when the number of casualties of school shootings has nearly doubled year over year, per the article.