Gun control isn't going to happen over the next two years. That's the good news.
However, that means gun control advocates are going to come up with some off-the-wall stuff at least until after the midterms. There's an upside here, though, and that's in how they come up with off-the-wall stuff all the time.
They won't necessarily lie so much as manipulate things so that the issue seems a whole lot worse than it really is. Think of it as lies, damned lies, and statistics.
In this case, it's in how different groups look at something that seems as easy to identify as school shootings.
Advocates are urging greater action against school shootings in 2025, saying the only way to slow the bloodshed is a combination of moves from legislators, schools and parents.
Multiple trackers counted an increase in school shootings last year, and experts are calling for solutions ranging from violence prevention programs to better-secured firearms at home.
The multipronged approach could be the only way to affect real change on school shootings under a unified GOP government that is unlikely to make any substantial moves on gun control.
“Make no mistake, these are not right or left issues, these are life or death issues. As 2025 gets underway, there’s no stopping our progress in states across the country because when it comes to the leading cause of death for children and teens, nothing will stand in our way,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps, head of research at Everytown for Gun Safety.
The number of school shootings in a given year can be difficult to count as organizations use different definitions of such events and pull their data from different sources.
Education Week’s school shooting tracker, which only counts incidents that occurred during school hours or at school-sponsored events, found 39 shootings in 2024, with 18 people killed and 59 injured. Those incidents outpaced 2023 but were less than in 2022.
Everytown, however, looks at any time a shot is fired on school grounds, even if no one was injured or killed. The group recorded 219 incidents of gunfire on grounds last year, with 59 deaths and more than 160 injuries.
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Now, let's compare these numbers for a minute.
We're looking at 39 incidents with 18 deaths compared to 219 incidents with 59 deaths. Yet one set of numbers comes from an entity that's legitimately concerned with school safety and the other is only concerned with pushing for gun control.
They can call Everytown a "gun safety" organization or whatever they want, but it's also an organization that routinely focuses purely on gun control.
As a result, they use the most expansive definition possible to chalk an incident up as a school shooting.
They know good and well what people think of when they hear "school shooting" in the media. They're worried their children might have been at risk. However, Everytown includes things that happened when there was no one on campus except those involved in the shooting and lumps it in with things like Uvalde.
However, the definition is even worse than The Hill suggests, because it's not just when a gun is fired on school grounds. It also includes when the bullet hits something on school grounds, again regardless of whether school is in session at all.
I'm sorry, but a stray bullet hitting a school building in the middle of summer isn't remotely on par with a mass shooting on school grounds or even some random kid pulling a gun and shooting at a classmate he doesn't like during lunch.
In both of the latter cases, at least it would seem that students and teachers were in danger. Even a gang gunfight that spills into the school parking lot is something that's terrifying enough that I can see someone putting them all in the same category.
Everytown doesn't do that. They lie by including things they know that no reasonable person would include, then try to downplay the definition and hope that no one will notice.
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