A Reason Magazine column focused on school mass shooting incidents shows that there have been 13 mass school shootings since 1966, far below the 27 incidents which the gun control lobby claims have happened this year alone.
The Reason column opens by pointing to a National Public Radio (NPR) report that claimed, “27 school shootings have taken place so far this year.” NPR made that claim after the Uvalde, Texas, shooting.
Reason explains that claims like those made by NPR are ubiquitous because outlets tracking such incidents have each adopted different criteria for what constitutes a school mass shooting.
For example, “Education Week, which tracks all school shootings, defines them as incidents in which a person other than the suspect suffers a bullet wound on school property,” whereas “[t]he Gun Violence Archive counts incidents in which at least four people were shot.” No fatalities are required to qualify as a mass school shooting under Gun Violence Archive’s (GVA) definition, which means “many incidents of street crime and domestic violence count as mass shootings, even if no deaths result.”
Reason then points to a tally on school mass shootings that is maintained by the Scientific American. The Scientific American tally holds to the traditional FBI definition of a mass shooting–at least four people shot and killed.
The Scientific American tally shows 13 school mass shootings since 1966.
Breitbart News reported a similar inflation of reported mass shootings in 2015, noting that Mother Jones editor Mark Follman addressed the left’s exaggerated claims of “355 mass shootings” for the year and pointed out the actual number was about four.
Follman pointed out that when the real definition of a mass shooting was applied–at least four people shot and killed–the record showed there had only been four mass shootings in the U.S. between January 1, 2015, and December 3, 2015.
The four mass shootings listed by Follman are far fewer than the 355 claimed by the left.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.