An occasional “hobby” of mine is fact checking the Everytown list of “school” shootings. It’s been awhile so I decided to try again.

Since they don’t actually link to supporting documentation for their claims, I have to — tediously — search for reports. So I only checked the ten most recent listings.

• 10/8/2019 Houston TX Westbury High School
  After hours, on campus. Not school-related, but it meets Everytown’s broad definition.
• 10/8/2019 Athens GA University of Georgia
  Accidentally shot himself. This counts; but personally I think they should separate out college/university incidents with adults.
• 9/29/2019 Buffalo NY Buffalo State College
  Off campus, . Not a school shooting.
• 9/25/2019 Washington DC Aiton Elementary School
  Window struck by stray round from off campus shooting. Again, this meets their definition.
• 9/22/2019 Murfreesboro NC Chowan University
  On college campus, middle of the night, non-students. Technically counts.
• 9/20/2019 Orangeburg SC South Carolina State University
  Off campus fight, moved onto college campus. Ditto.
• 9/19/2019 San Jose CA San Jose State University
  Parking structure. I’m not sure if it was on college campus; reports aren’t terribly clear. I’ll score this “maybe.”
• 9/16/2019 Fayetteville NC Fayetteville State University
  Drug deal gone bad on college campus.
• 9/13/2019 West Valley City UT Granger High School
  Gang shooting at football game. Counts.
• 9/12/2019 Manhattan KS Manhattan High School
  Off campus, after hours. Not a school shooting.

20% of the “school” shootings were not; not even by the expansive Everytown definition.

Another 10% was questionable. I think it was a parking structure near campus housing, but I’m not sure.

Of the seven remaining incidents, four were college/university, not what the uninformed would expect to be schools full of children. And two of those were only coincidentally on campus.

That leaves three real school shootings, involving minors in some way. One of those was only that minors were inside the building struck by a stray round from mobile shootout as the cars passed the school.

But technically, Everytown’s error rate is down to a mere 20%, or maybe 30%. Or 40% (intent matters; no one was trying to hit that school window). Or 60% wrong, if you don’t count the college shootings that had nothing to do with the colleges.

I’ll be generous and give them a 50% “correct” rate. That’s actually up since the last time we played.

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