There Have Been 13 Mass School Shootings Since 1966, Not 27 This Year

There Have Been 13 Mass School Shootings Since 1966, Not 27 This Year

• Don't conflate mass shootings with school shootings.

"...An NPR article highlighting this statistic has been shared frequently on social media. 

The headline, "27 school shootings have taken place so far this year," probably gave many readers the impression that gun-related killings in schools have been especially high this year, even before Uvalde.
...The problem here is that three very differently defined terms are being used somewhat incautiously and interchangeably: 

• school shooting, 
• mass shooting, and 
• mass school shooting. 

Uvalde was a mass school shooting; the 26 previous tragedies at schools this year were not.
The difference is significant. 

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. 

Many of the 26 previous shootings involved disputes between students in parking lots, or after athletic events, and all of them resulted in one or zero deaths..."