• pivot_root@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    A horrifying fact:

    In 2024, 2023, and 2022, there were 132, 139, and 123 gun violence incidents in schools [1]. Totaling 384, by the pigeonhole principle [2], it’s a guarantee that some (not necessarily mass-) shooting takes place on the anniversary of at least one other shooting.

    Edit: Updated statistics to be more selective about the incident type.

      • pivot_root@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        3 days ago

        I cited where I found those statistics. Their methodology included events such as brandishing firearms, bullets hitting schools, and premeditated school shootings. It’s not mass school shootings with fatalities occurring nearly every day of the year, but my point still stands: there have been enough of them in general that the pigeonhole principle applies.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 days ago

          Except you stated 349 school shootings. When that’s wildly incorrect. Gang members shooting at each other near a school is not a school shooting. Brandishing a firearm near a school is not a school shooting. Bullets hitting a school building from gang violence is not a school shooting.

          Even NPR did a section on how inaccurate these statistics are.

          https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent

          • pivot_root@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            The data can be filtered. I can’t figure out how to get a breakdown of it by incident type and year, but filtering to incident types that aren’t plausibly unrelated (murder-suicide, escalation of dispute, anger over discipline, and targeted domestic dispute), the data from my source shows 1185 incidents and 1366 casualties recorded since 1966. The total number of incidents of all types is 2981.

            Assuming the ratios for incident types don’t fluctuate, only 40% would fall into the categories I filtered for. With the combined total for just 2023/2024 being 679, that’s still 269 incidents over two years. I’ll correct my previous comment.

            As for the NPR article you linked, the source I’m using is aware of it and mentions it in their methodology page. They try to account for the lack of granularity by using multiple sources and cross-referencing them.