Incorrect Data in the Aftermath of Troutman, Oregon

Incorrect Data

When dealing with school safety, it is important to use proper data to drive your efforts.  In the wake of the Troutman, Oregon school shooting, bad data has been put forth and swept along by social media, giving the impression that schools are not as safe as they used to be.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Blaze notes a journalist, Charles Johnson, who examined the faulty data from the group Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  Of the 74 "school shootings mapped by the Everytown group, Johnson found issues with 33.  Everytown included every type of shooting imaginable, including, according to Mr. Johnson, some shootings that were only loosely associated with a school.

Analysis

This spring I released a study called Relative Risks of Death in U.S. K-12 Schools. In that report, the definition of an Active Shooter Incident was defined, using the definition put forth by the US Department Of Homeland Security. That definition is, "An Active Shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area; in most cases, active shooters use firearms(s) and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims.” This definition separates school shootings from shootings that take happen to take place at schools.

From the year 1998 through 2012, there were only 22 Active Shooter Incidents in K-12 schools.  These incidents resulted in the deaths of 50 students and 12 staff members.  Half of those incidents involved no fatalities, while of the other 11, three (Columbine, Red Lake and Sandy Hook) resulted in 46 (70.8%) of the 62 fatalities.

Active Shooter Incidents are terrifying, chiefly because their target selection is random.  That means anyone at the school is a potential target.  Targeted acts of violence, while dangerous, indicate a community violence issue in which the school is involved along with the community.  Active Shooter Incidents are targets of opportunity; schools just happen to be selected as a target because they have a high number of potential victims.  While one can predict violence at school in a violent community, we have thus far been unable to predict when a school will become a target of an Active Shooter.

School safety is a serious issue, and it is one about which we should have an on-going discussion.  We do no one any service at all by making it a fallacious discussion, using bad data.