So how many school shootings have there been?

There's been a meme going around Facebook showing the locations of 18 school shootings so far this year:

Eighteen school shootings.  That sounds bad. Even one school shooting is too many.

That statistic comes from Everytown for Gun Safety, which is an advocacy group that keeps track of incidences of gun violence.  Their definition of a school shooting is, according to the CNBC article,  "any time a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds".  The article goes on to say that when this happens, it counts as a "school shooting", whether or not that shooting results in injury or death.

Whenever I hear the term "school shooting", I usually think of someone on the grounds of a public PK-12 school that, while a school is in session, picks up a firearm, points it at someone, and, with the intent to injure or kill, fires.  I don't usually think of colleges, although those are also schools and I shouldn't ignore shootings that happen there.

The "eighteen school shootings" statistic from Everytown includes the horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and another shooting at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky.

That statistic also includes:

• a suicide at a school in Sierra Vista, AZ
• a shooting in a school parking lot in Oxon Hill, MD, after school hours
• a rifle that went off at a school in Los Angeles; a 12-year-old brought it to school and she was charged with "negligent discharge of a firearm".  Four students were injured.  I'm unclear if this was a case where the person pointed the gun at anyone with intent to injure or kill.
• a case in Maplewood, MN, where a third grader pressed the trigger on a school liason's gun.  The gun was outfitted with a trigger guard, but it discharged anyway.  No one was injured.
• a case in Denton, TX, where a college student picked up a gun belonging to an advisor, and, thinking the weapon wasn't loaded, discharged it.  She ended up shooting through the wall.  No injuries were reported.  (Note:  The gun is always loaded!)
• a suicide by a man in St. John's, Michigan, where a man died by suicide in the parking lot of a school that had been closed for the past seven months.  (Everytown has removed this incident from their list of school shootings.)
  

Definitions matter.  And a closer look at the circumstances behind each shooting matters.  But sensationalism sells and gets attention, and if you can define a "school shooting" as "any time a firearm is discharged on school grounds", you can get more "school shootings", you can get more attention, more outrage . . . more donations?

On the other hand, take away the six shootings I listed above, and you still have twelve shootings that have happened on school property since January 1, 2018.

That's twelve shootings too many.

One shooting is too many.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.