http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/01/31/school-shooting-in-atlanta Comments On: School Shooting in Atlanta by Anna Minard en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sun, 19 May 2013 16:00:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
Not sure why you're getting all fired up there. However, if you don't believe that the term "school shooting" doesn't carry with it a very specific implication, then you're not paying attention. When you tell someone, "There was a school shooting in Atlanta," the connotation is that there was a rampage-type shooting. That is how that phrase has morphed in meaning.

You can argue all you want that, "Guns being shot on school grounds are school shootings by definition." And the thing is that BY DEFINITION, you are right. But phrases often carry with them a common cultural understanding. "School shooting" is one of those, especially now.

So, with that said, you totally missed my point. My point is that there is a larger gun problem. And it's sad that we're ignoring much of the gun violence that takes place in all the places that aren't schools but then sensationalizing any "shooting at a school," even when that "shooting at a school" is only coincidentally at a school.

Look, these things are all terrible. I hate all of it. But I also hate that the reporting on this has decided to skew toward the sensational. This does two things: 1. It functions as a misreporting of events and freaks people the fuck out, and 2. It sensationalizes "school shootings." And you know what the sensationalizing of school shootings (and I mean that phrase in the sense of the rampage shooting with which most of us associate it) leads to? More school shootings.
Posted by lopes]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:15:06 -0800 The Stranger Posted by femwanderluster]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:40:17 -0800 The Stranger Posted by femwanderluster]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:39:01 -0800 The Stranger Posted by More laws to make law breaking illegal]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:35:17 -0800 The Stranger Posted by wxPDX]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:00:29 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Knat]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:02:02 -0800 The Stranger
I don't know which this is, but it sounds like the latter. And last week we had the one at the community college in Houston, which was clearly the latter. Of course, because it was on school grounds, before there were even any details there were the immediate national reports: "School shooting! School shooting!"

Just take a breath, Chicken Little. "Shootings that happen to take place at or near a school" are also shootings that happen hundreds of times around the country every day. The other hundreds get nearly no attention outside of maybe a local news report. And, don't get me wrong, they are a real problem--I would argue the larger problem--but what they are not is the thing that is conjured when someone uses the phrase "school shooting." That is Columbine. That is Springfield, Oregon. That is Newtown.

But, for now, any "shooting that happens to occur at or near a school" jumps onto every breaking news ticker as a "school shooting" because, well, it fits the news narrative--real or conjured--of an epidemic, when the real epidemic is the daily shootings on all the streets and in all the neighborhoods and parks and all of the other places that aren't just schools.
Posted by lopes]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:48:58 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sperifera]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:26:36 -0800 The Stranger Posted by sperifera]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:24:44 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Foggen]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:04:45 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Zebes]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:52:27 -0800 The Stranger
Because if there's one thing we need, it's more guns in grammar schools.

(The above is my prediction for the inevitable NRA press release.)


Posted by judybrowni]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:25:18 -0800 The Stranger Posted by very bad homo]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:21:24 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Max Solomon]]> Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:14:11 -0800 The Stranger