After Florida Tragedy, Media Caught Pushing Anti-Gun Propaganda on 2018 School Shootings
The tragedy at Majority Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Wednesday has rekindled the debate on gun laws, but the media, in particular, have been caught trying to push anti-gun propaganda on the public.
For example, an ABC News article began, “There have been 18 school shootings in the first 45 days of 2018, according to a nonprofit group.”
The New York Daily News started their list of school shootings with the sentence, “There have been 18 school shootings so far this year, including one that claimed 17 lives at a Florida public school Wednesday.”
“Within the first couple months of 2018, there have now been 18 school shootings across the United States,” began an article from WUSA9.
Despite the tragic event that happened Wednesday, The Daily Wire pointed out that the media’s definition of a school shooting is being loosely used in these situations.
In January, two people shot themselves on school campuses. One was a man who shot himself in the parking lot of his former school and the other was a teen who shot himself in a bathroom.
There were four instances where a bullet was shot through a window of a residential hall or classroom. No one was reported injured after each incident.
A student fired a gun on a campus in Alabama on Jan. 25, but no one was hurt. The next day in Michigan, someone fired shots from a car in a parking lot, but no injuries were reported.
Earlier this month, a third grader in Minnesota accidentally pulled the trigger of a police officer’s gun, but no one was injured. A shot was also fired inside a high school in New York without any reported injuries.
There have been quite a few injuries as a result of gun violence on school property.
A teenage girl was wounded after she was shot by a teenage boy inside a cafeteria in Italy, Texas on Jan. 22. That same day a 14-year-old boy was injured in a shooting in Gentilly, Louisiana. At an accidental shooting in Los Angeles on Feb. 1, 5 children were reportedly injured. A teenager was hurt after being shot outside of a high school in Maryland on Feb. 5.
Sadly, three students have died as a result of a shooting at a school.
On Jan. 20, a football player in Winston-Salem, North Carolina was shot and killed. In Benton, Kentucky, two people were killed and 15 others were shot at Marshall County High School on Jan. 23. As a result of a fight at a high school in Pennsylvania, a 32-year-old man was shot and later died on Jan. 31.
None of this is to say that any kind of shooting at a school is not tragic. As President Donald Trump said in a tweet after Wednesday’s shooting, “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.”
Americans across the country would prefer the number of school shootings to be at zero, but it is important to know the facts to be able to ask lawmakers to create a better plan to keep schools safe.
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