A screenshot of the map. To view the actual map, click here.
This week, Everytown for Gun Safety released an interactive map that indexes each school shooting since 2013 in an effort to draw attention to the pro-gun control group’s solutions for gun violence, which include universal background checks and ensuring that school campuses remain gun-free zones.
According to a press release, the “list includes any incident where a firearm is discharged inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement.”
In other words, Everytown isn’t talking exclusively about mass shootings or mass killings on school grounds but any incident where a gun was fired on a campus, which by that definition may include instances of lawful self-defense or accidental discharges.
Yet, despite this rather glaring oversight, the Bloomberg-funded group is using the map as a tool to advocate for stricter gun laws.
“It should terrify us that there are still nearly three months left in 2015, yet we have endured at least 45 school shootings just this year,” said Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which along with Mayors Against Illegal Guns makes up Everytown for Gun Safety.
“We don’t have to live by lockdown drill as though school shootings are inevitable acts of nature; they are due to a man-made failure of action,” Watts continued. “School shootings are entirely preventable, which is why we should be working to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. We owe it to our children to provide them with a safe learning environment — no other developed nation is subjecting their students to gunfire.”
“As educators we are focused on doing all that is possible to ensure every student has a safe school in which to learn,” said National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García. “Today’s report by Everytown is a stark and sad reminder of the continued epidemic of gun violence that plagues communities all over our country.”
As mentioned, one of Everytown’s touted successes is that it’s been able to defeat “gun lobby’s efforts to pass legislation that would force guns onto college campuses in 14 states and defeated gun lobby-backed bills that would have allowed people to carry guns in K-12 schools in 15 states.”
Alan Gottlieb, the chairman of the Citizens Commission for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Check out our interview with Alan at SHOT Show 2015.
That is to say, Everytown’s been committed to ensuring that schools remain gun-free which is tantamount to making them soft targets for madmen, as Alan Gottlieb, the chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, pointed out in an email to GunsAmerica.
“The one thing it [the map] proves, which Everytown ignores, is that ‘gun free school zones’ do not work and are a magnet for violent and crazy people to commit atrocities in a target rich environment,” said Gottlieb.
It’s more than a bit ironic that the very thing that Everytown is railing against is the one thing that will optimally protect students, teachers and faculty from a crazed and armed sociopath.
At the end of the day if we are to improve public safety across the board we need to empower the people and encourage more responsible individuals to prepare to confront evil should the need arise. That will mean different things for different people, but for many, it will mean exercising their Second Amendment rights.
It is my solemn belief that we will save lives not through hoping and praying our laws work preventatively, but by taking action to learn how to de-escalate, disarm and destroy a threat.
1) Correlation does not prove causation. I am not saying that shooters don’t feel more comfortable with the idea of shooting in a school where no one is armed; I AM saying that to state or imply that gun-free zones are responsible for the shootings is just lame duck logic.
2) To call gun-free zones “magnets” ignores the fact that most of these “violent and crazy” people are students of those schools, or live nearby. You don’t see people from other cities and states traveling to these zones to shoot at people.
3) Many students and teachers used to bring guns to school. I am unaware of when this stopped, but guns were used by parents, teachers and students to kill each other, usually on school grounds. There’s a very long list of such attacks and murders. The significant different is that the shootings were almost always one-on-one/two.
4) School shootings have been occurring since the 1700s, but situations where students went in and started shooting lots of students and teachers only started occurring in the 1960s.
5) Gun control can help to an extent, but the shootings’ real causes need to be addressed if we want it to taper off. In the decades since I was in high school, it seems like most school districts are doing little to nothing to address the root causes, and they can’t do it alone – the issues involve the home and community, too.
6) One change in recent decades is the prevalence and popularity of highly realistic video games where people are scored on their ability to wreak havoc and murder. When I was young, video games had poor graphics and audio, so even if you were killing “humans” they looked like cartoons at best – blobs of color at worst. Now, kids are foolishly allowed from a young age by parents to play VERY violent games that reward them for murder, thus implicitly saying, “it’s okay to shoot people,” as well as teaching them how.
Take a child who is suffering abuse at home, in the community and/or at school, teach him that killing is okay through video games and violent films, and some kids will naturally follow through.
As long as the huge problems of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as substance abuse and poverty, at home, in the community and at school continue to remain unaddressed, the nation is going to see more and more shootings.
The knee-jerk reaction to firearms isn’t going to solve the problem. Yes, assault rifles, and automatics should be banned, but if the US wants to follow in Australia’s footsteps, it’s going to take a great deal of unity, which will never happen as long as parties with a vested interest in weapons continue to stir up the pot.
Focus on the real problems, not the physical manifestations of them, such as mass shootings. People do these things for reason, and marginalizing shooters as “crazies” and “terrorists” is not going to help.
Gun free zones are simply mass murder zones. 2nd amendment Brothers and Sisters we must spread the word that the government IS trying to take our guns. OPERATION CHOKEPOINT, Read it, and you will clearly see there is a covert war on the 2nd amendment. It is very important that you inform your friends and family of this, because if Hillary Clinton gets elected gun owners are in danger. Most people are not aware of this, so please spread the word. Our very freedom and quite possibly America is in danger. Google Operation Chokepoint and you will clearly see, our rights are in danger.
Notice that none of the politicians children go to K-12 schools with the rest of most American kids? There at high end private schools, driven there by high end body gaurds, probably paid for by tax dollars. Yet they dictate how “our” children are to be “ptotected”. I have not once heard of any politicians child being “murdered” during a mass shooting. If I am wrong, someone please correct me. “What’s good enough for them, is not good enough for the rest of us”.
I’m surprised she was able to color and stay in the lines….. .
‘…school shootings are entirely preventable…”;
This is True! Israel once had a problem with school shootings… that is up until they began Arming their Teachers.
Problem Solved!
I really do not see what the problem is here. Our 2nd Amendment clearly tells us that we have the right to keep and bear arms, and that this right shall not be infringed. Public places, places that are funded with public money, DMV’s, court houses, schools, all are places where our right to bear arms are especially relevant. Those areas operate under the aegis of our government which is bound by our Bill Of Rights and US Constitution. Private homes, businesses and other properties have the right to ban firearms. That’s how it is. Regardless of what some fool judges, lawyers, and politicians might have to say about it. All we have to do is take back what is rightfully ours. We see this argument being foisted every time some group of subversives try to have hundred year old buildings defaced because one person is allegedly offended by “In God We Trust” or references to the Ten Commandments. Or a kid want’s to wear a shirt with an American flag on it during a made up Mexican holiday. Successfully! It’s my observation that these decisions as they stand absolutely negate any “gun free zones” in publicly funded, government run establishments. It simply does not fit with the premise of our 2nd Amendment, among others. Time to just say no.
How many honestly believes that a person sets out to kill one or many is willing to go up against someone that will shoot back and kill them instead?
Gun free areas are open target set up by Obama and the moronic piglets of DC. If it so safe then why are idiots like these in DC all protected by ARMED body guards if there is nothing to fear?
Save money remove all bodyguards from the president on down then see what happens. they will never do it because these cowards then would never leave their homes in fear of being shot. Remover the armed limo’s and let them drive in a normal auto like the rest of us. They are nothing more than a bunch of lying hypocrites backed by foreign money.
How many honestly believes that a person sets out to kill one or many is willing to go up against someone that will shoot back and kill them instead?
Gun free areas are open target set up by Obama and the moronic piglets of DC. If it so safe then why are idiots like these in DC all protected by ARMED body guards if there is nothing to fear?
Save money remove all bodyguards from the president on down then see what happens. they will never do it because these cowards then would never leave their homes in fear of being shot. Remover the armed limo’s and let them drive in a normal auto like the rest of us. They are nothing more than a bunch of lying hypocrites backed by foreign money.
Wow….a (yet another) tool meant to elicit a knee-jerk reaction from the masses. DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a conspiracy theorist. Having said that, isn’t it interesting that Sandy Hook is not included on the map? Another example of gun-control incompetence?
This just came up here at the University of Arkansas and their satalite education centers , new must attend course on active shooter incidents . Keep in mind the Far Left controll this states campus safety and No guns allowed on campus ! Gun free zones ! They want to teach students how to runaway , play dead and other actions but no guns ever . Thank god we have lots of CCL adults surrounding our campuses but even they can’t enter a parking lot where a bad situation is unfolding . This makes campuses a open target to sick minded killers knowing no resistance against them .
I also know young kids handling firearms are Not a good ideal to much emotion , hormonal ( especially young men) and not seasoned adults making decisions leads to bad bad situations . But professors and other on campus adults should have a right to protect the students . A phone call to campus police or surrounding officers takes many minutes to react which leaves huge gaps in time where a active killer can destroy lives . These far left political persons are the ones creating dangerous places for murderers to have free roaming choice .