The mass shooting that left 17 people dead at a Florida high school yesterday was, sadly, not the deadliest in our country’s history, nor was it anywhere near the first school shooting of the year. Using data from the group Everytown for Gun Safety, spacial-analytics firm Esri has mapped out the locations of the school shootings. It also included background data, such as when the events occurred, whether they resulted in deaths, and what type of school was targeted. The map shows a concentration of shootings in the northeast and southeast.
According to Everytown, the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland was the 17th school shooting of 2018, marking almost 300 school shootings since 2013.
(Update: Worth nothing here that Everytown has been accused of inflating its tallies, as the Washington Post pointed out today, by including firearm discharges where there are no injuries. Esri’s map is color-coded so that those incidents appear in green. Everytown had initially reported 18 school shootings for the year, but removed one of the incidents after the Post‘s report.)
What’s most upsetting, though, is the fact that it’s only mid-February. “That means we’re on pace for 12 a month, which would more than double the previous high of 65 total shootings in 2017 and 2015,” a rep for Esri says.
If you’re looking for ways to help victims of yesterday’s shooting, I’ve rounded up some options here.
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