Talk:School shooting

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 January 2020 and 6 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Harria18. Peer reviewers: Sulema James, Sarahjervis71, Youngdn99.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:45, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Terrorism?
This article,, has the Template:Terrorism and is under Category:Terrorism by method, but the text itself does not mention terrorism at all. Not every mass shooting is a terrorist attack. I believe the template and the category should be removed. Mateussf (talk) 23:57, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think so, too, but there are a couple of school shootings that were terrorist attacks. I think the terrorism sidebar and category puts undue weight on that aspect and can make the reader think that most school shootings count as terrorism. Sjö (talk) 17:35, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * "school shotting" by difintion is: a case or an event in which a student at an educational institution—an elementary, middle, or high school or a college or university shoots and injures or kills at least one other student or faculty member on the grounds of that institution. Such incidents usually involve multiple deaths. "Rampage school shootings" are a type of school shooting where no single or specific individual is targeted by the shooter.
 * "School shotting" as a phenomena is part of "school violence" were kids attack their own teaches and peers. It is not an attack by a stranger for whatwver resons, but for peers at the same age who go to school together.
 * This phenomena is related to youth's psychology and to culture of availability of weapons for young people, you can not mix it with terro attacks in schools, which is different category and must be mention seperatly in differnt page. Ain alzaytoon (talk) 14:33, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 November 2019
"A ban on the ownership of handguns was introduced in the United Kingdom (with the exception of Northern Ireland) following the Dunblane massacre.[206]"

In the paragraph above this sentence, it makes many notes of the result of US's legal decision to not limit guns, such as the Vice Principal shooting with a firearm and another claim about virginia law school. This doesn't seem impartial, because the sentence above about the UKs political decisions doesn't also get the same discussion of the result of their decision making. It would be suggested to add the sentence "There have been no school shootings since.", in the same paragraph but after the sentence about dunblane. A source can be found here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/survivors-of-britains-last-school-shooting-write-to-parkland-students 2601:547:901:5F60:60D6:2A92:2B0F:116E (talk) 02:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yellow check.svg Partly done: Moved the orphaned sentence about the political response to Dunblane up to the massacre's listing in the table, reduced "political impact" section to sub-section since the rest of that deals extensively and exclusively with the impact in the US.  Given the lengthy coverage of U.S-centric impacts, the only sentence about U.K. impacts is not warranted for expansion that is already covered in its own article and the remainder should be clearly indicated as part of the United States section.  Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:45, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 November 2019
"By the year of 1997 the Zero-Tolerance for any type of weapon was implemented by more than 90 percent of U.S public schools.[207]". Sentence of concern: "A majority of shooting attacks occur in Gun-Free zones, leading many to believe that they do not actually stop any attacks.[208]"

This sentence as it stands is illogical. Gun-Free zones are already said to be 90% of public schools. It stands to reason, that if they are ineffective, then 90% of school shooting attacks occur in Gun-Free zones. But, it stands to reason, that if they extremely effective, then still 60-70% of school shooting attacks occur in Gun-Free zones, that's much better than 90%. Still, a majority. So, the last sentence has no substance to it. Perhaps it means to say "A relative majority of school attacks occur in Gun-Free zones", if that statement is actually true, in-which case it could be said that they are ineffective or even worse (Though it could simply be a negative correlation). Or, "They have the same rate of school attacks", etc, using "rate" instead of absolute amount. As it stands, it's just confusing and illogical for anyone who reads it. I too can say "A majority of shooting attacks occur in states that aren't Wyoming", but it doesn't quite lead me to believe that Wyoming is doing something amazingly right in the world of preventing shootings, other than having a small population. Regardless of the source at [208], it still needs to be logical, there are plenty of false sources. In particular, source [208] seems to make no academic claim of that anyway, other than a comment by Trump, which the specific article [208] itself happens to say "deserves two pinocchios". So, the source for this claim directly rejects that and then discusses why such a claim is hard to discuss when there are only about 30 shootings to even consider, and definitions of "gun-free" are ambiguous. This sentence should be removed on the nature of it itself, and if it were to stand, the citation [208] directly contradicts it anyway; an article actually in support would have to be used instead (Though again, this sentence should just be removed). 2601:547:901:5F60:60D6:2A92:2B0F:116E (talk) 03:05, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done The IP user is correct. The objected-to statement failed verification  The reference cited actually debunked the statement it was offered to support, and the statement as written was a mis-quoting anyway. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:51, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 November 2019; Request to include this information to list of European school shootings list.
Date: 22.11.2019 Location: Velika Plana, Serbia

There was an incident in Serbia. Armed man entered the school of economics "Vuk Karadžić” in Velika Plana. Reportedly man was middle-aged armed with automatic rifle and bag full of explosive devices. He planed to make a hostage situation but physical education teacher stopped him. No one was shot or killed during this incident and he fired two rounds.

Sources of this information:

NekoKorisnickoIme (talk) 04:29, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Not really qualified for this list as nobody was (fortunately) actually shot.  Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:48, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Serious Question: Why isn't the gender (male), and then race (White) of nearly all school shooters explored, barely mentioned in fact?
If most mass/school shooters were People of Color, half the article would be focused on this. No time or attention in this article is taken to explore the overwhelming demographic identity of school shooters (White males) and how this glaring detail is patently and systematically ignored, first and foremost, in the media. In reporting of these incidents very little to no attention is given to the gender or race of "the shooter," which is the term that seems to be the most commonly used. Anything to avoid talking what is really going on, and by whom it is being perpetrated by.

This systematic avoidance alone warrants attention, as does its systematic avoidance in the subject of mass/school shootings themselves.

I am unable to do this research and besides, as a female, I would quickly be called "man hating" for pointing out or bringing attention to the obvious. (I likely will still be, despite these being very valid and reasonable questions.)

Shannon — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShannonMcCoven (talk • contribs)


 * That is an extremely good point, and I'm pretty sure there will be discussion of it somewhere in reliable sources. If so, it is definitely eligible for addition to that article. Here are a few to start off with: https://news.sky.com/story/why-are-white-men-more-likely-to-carry-out-mass-shootings-11252808  https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/a35mya/nearly-all-mass-shooters-since-1966-have-had-four-things-in-common  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/08/forever-war-white-male-hegemony-mass-shootings  -- The Anome (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I've now added some data to the article: from what I can see, school shooters are very disproportionately male, not just compared with the general population, but also with other perpetrators of homicide. However, the evidence for a whiteness correlation is far weaker, and probably lost in the noise on such a small sample: it would be interesting to have general-population ethnicity statistics for the relevant age range, but I haven't got them, so I can't make a judgment about this. As ever, more studies on this, particularly peer-reviewed academic papers, would be very welcome. .-- The Anome (talk) 17:57, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Update: Note also this fact-checking article by Politifact, which seems to concur with the above: most school shootings are indeed committed by white males, but perhaps not disproportionately so compared to their representation in the general population. -- The Anome (talk) 18:11, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * ...and I've just removed all of this, and moved it to the mass shooting article, having realised that all the sources above talk about mass shooters in general, not school shooters: getting appropriate references for school shooters alone remains an open task. -- The Anome (talk) 18:37, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

.

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2020
In the page called "School Shooting", it is also known as "School massacre". 109.201.34.198 (talk) 13:55, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * ❌. That doesn't seem to be the case. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 14:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2020
This section under United States says, "At least 68 schools that experienced a school shooting employed a police officer or security guard; in all but a few, the shooting ended before any intercession. Security guards or resource officers were present during four of the five school shooting incidents with the highest number of dead or injured: the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the 2018 Marshall County High School shooting in Kentucky, and the 2001 Santana High School shooting in California.[180][190]" however this appears to possibly be incorrect information.

The current "top" five school shooting incidents for highest number of dead or injured is:

Virginia Tech - 33, 23 (56) Columbine - 15, 24 (39) MSD - 17, 17 (34) Sandy Hook - 28, 2 (30) Thurston High School - 4, 25 (29, but technically 2,25 for 27 total)

But I could've misinterpreted how the count is done as well, depending if you include murders that occur prior to the "school" shooting. Regardless, this section should be removed until an accurate count can be tabulated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:fea8:bd66:1c00:d1d2:6052:adf9:dd0a (talk) 02:52, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: this article from the Washington Post is cited, and the analysis is done there. Generally, secondary sources interpreting data is preferred over interpreting the data ourselves, and that's what they've done there. If other secondary sources disagree, then a change would be in order (or obviously if something significant happens like a very deadly shooting, after the publication of that article). Elliot321 (talk &#124; contribs) 22:06, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Goiania
please change ((Goiania)) to ((Goiânia)) 2601:541:4580:8500:D953:611:9F7D:634A (talk) 21:23, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ — IVORK Talk 02:35, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Lack of sources/citations and tone
Noticing a lot of statements made and statistics given with no citation throughout the article. Occasional references to sources but with no title/page number given (eg: an unlinked reference to (Ferguson, 2009) following a statement).

Some tonal concerns here too — eg: referring to an “archaic notion” that video games may be linked violence — reading too much like an opinion, especially without sources. General clean-up probably needed. Blindpanopticon (talk) 02:18, 27 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Adding to this, the Sex and Gender section is just a single sentence with no citation: "Almost all perpetrators of school shootings were born male and identified as male at the time of the shooting." Baranxlr (talk) 07:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Nearly 100% of school shootings are in the US. This data should be in
According to CNN 2018 article.

Phrasing suggestion for clarity
I’m the US portion of the chapter on information “by region”

Original:

“…the number of such incidents in the United States was one less than in the other 36 countries combined; in the vast majority of the United States incidents, perpetrators used guns.[3][185]”

Proposed: “…the number of such incidents in the United States was just one short of greater than the next 36 countries combined; in the vast majority of the United States incidents, perpetrators used guns.[3][185]” 2601:180:8301:4B50:0:0:0:43 (talk) 23:51, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Senior Seminar
— Assignment last updated by Hinrichs23 (talk) 21:15, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective
"No Limits or Monitoring of TV and Internet" - while FBI is a highly credible source and I personally lack any deeper knowledge of the subject matter, the criteria detailed in the guide section seem universal or common enough to be useless for threat assessment and at the very least borders on moral panic:

- Student have unrestricted and unsupervised access to a TV and the internet

- Student favors watching television over family activities

- Student may be more proficient with computers than their parents

- Student may desire privacy from their parents

- Student have the opportunity to watch depictions of violence on TV (which to my knowledge are subject to FCC regulations) and in video games (subject to the graphical fidelity of 1999)

- Student have the opportunity to consume disturbing subjects on the internet

To be fair the two citations are given undue weight, bordering on quoting out of context, and even with the three cited cautions doesn't fairly represent (perhaps even misrepresents) their relevance to the threat assessment model of the source publication. The assessment model described in the source groups some 50 traits, characteristics and behaviors (like the two cited) into 4 areas, and emphasizes that "the key to identifying a potentially dangerous threatener ... is that there is evidence of problems on a majority of the items in each of the four areas". It further states "It should be strongly emphasized that this list is not intended as a checklist to predict future violent behavior by a student who has not acted violently or threatened violence. Rather, the list should be considered only after a student has made some type of threat ... . If the assessment shows evidence of these characteristics, behaviors and consistent problems in all four [areas], it can indicate that the student may [carry out a violent act]." 79.138.18.89 (talk) 11:46, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Indonesia?
Why in this page is lacking a documentation regarding "School Shooting in Indonesia". i hope someone can understand this question, and i pray to everyone who find any right document about it. 2404:8000:1027:85F6:7854:A010:B237:B520 (talk) 09:30, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 May 2023
In the list for Asia there's a mistake. Instead of Year it should be Deaths. Heisenwiki (talk) 17:26, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Cannolis (talk) 17:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Visualization of US school shootings
The visualization aims to provide an impactful view regarding the problem of school shootings in the United States for the period between the first shooting (1999) and today (2023). The graph presents, on a chronological basis, the recorded attacks, the number of people affected in the shootings, and the fatalities.

Nessa00 (talk) 23:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 October 2023
There is one word "schooting" in the text instead of "shooting". Ryozombaku (talk) 14:17, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ as a non-controversial change. Rusty4321  talk contribs 15:10, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 December 2023
Hi, there is a missing school shooting in the Canada section of regions. On Feb 14, 2022, 18-year-old Jahiem Robinson was fatally shot in the back by a 14-year-old student at Toronto High School, David Mary Thompson Collegiate Institute. Link to articles: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/shooting-david-and-mary-thomson-collegiate-1.6351375 https://globalnews.ca/news/8620740/toronto-school-shooting-charges-david-mary-thomson-collegiate-institute/ https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/a-bright-smile-community-mourns-grade-12-student-fatally-shot-inside-toronto-high-school-1.5784102 The incident is also on the highschool Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Mary_Thomson_Collegiate_Institute Tantan334 (talk) 02:35, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.Shadow311 (talk) 16:28, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

The whole "by region" section
Most of this article's issues stem entirely from this section. Now, it has a lot of content that IMO is encyclopedic, so it shouldn't be removed from Wikipedia, but given how much scholarship there is on the concept of school shootings it is my opinion that this article should be focused on the broad concept and not specific incidents. We have a bunch of lists related to this so I'm sure the content in this section can go... somewhere, but I'm really not sure what to do with it. Any suggestions? I'm inclined to split it off in some manner, though directly would be a mess. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:39, 27 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Outside of the United States section (which should probably be split into a prose article about school shootings in the US) none of these sections have any prose content - and there isn't really continental coverage of school shootings so I doubt there would be. The whole list section is just a mess and I don't know what to do about it :/ PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:45, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I removed the whole section. I assume someone will revert me, but hey, WP:BRD. It is a massive drag on this article to have an illogical, inherently incomplete list (that is duplicated by several other lists we have!) Removing it solves the maintenance issues, and I fail to think of any other solutions. It makes no sense here. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:09, 30 April 2024 (UTC)