January's Epidemic: 11 School Shootings in 19 Days

[DonViejo]

ABBY OHLHEISER

January 2014 is threatening to become the month when gun violence became a matter of routine in America's schools. Since the start of the month, there have been at least 11 active shooting incidents on a high school or college campus, one for every two weekdays of the month (including New Year's Day.) Those shootings — all on or near school grounds while students were present, and most perpetrated by students themselves — have claimed at least two lives and injured at least 11 students.

But in addition to the actual shootings, the number of shooting scares and threats are on the rise as well. Reports of "active shooters" and precautionary lockdowns have become a part of every school's standard procedures. If it feels like there's "another one" every day now, that's because that's very nearly true. In fact, the latest school shooting (the wounding of a 17-year-old in Hawaii) happened while this very post was being edited.

For comparison, there were as many as 28 school shootings during the entire year of 2013, the 12 months after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 first-graders and 6 teachers in Newtown, Connecticut. In other words, the year our nation had supposedly had enough and was finally going to do something about gun violence.

Here's what the month in school shootings and scares looks like (so far) on a calendar. Orange is a shooting, red means more than one shootings, and yellow is a scare or lockdown, prompted by a report to police. (The two incidents on the 15th and 16th were actually a continuation of one incident, as the same student brought a gun to class on both days.)

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http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/01/januarys-school-shootings/357448/

[villager]

1. Just the healthy exercise of *2nd Amendment Rights*, you "gun grabber!"

Sheesh. Valuing the lives of kids over a bitchin', cool, semi-automatic!

[LiberalEsto]

2. And don't forget there were snow days and MLK Jr. Day

when schools were closed so shootings could not have taken place. .