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News & ArtsThursday, January 31, 2013
Guns School Shooting in Atlanta
Posted by Anna Minard on Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 1:07 PM
Says CBS News:
Authorities say a 14-year-old has been wounded in a shooting at an Atlanta middle school and a suspect has been taken into custody.
Atlanta police spokesman Carlos Campos says the wounded student has been taken "alert, conscious and breathing" to Grady Hospital... Atlanta Fire Cpt. Marian McDaniel says the teen was shot in the head. McDaniel says a teacher suffered minor cuts and bruises, but was treated on the scene about 2 miles south of downtown.
For now, the shooting suspect has been "tentatively identified as a student" and has been taken into custody.
3
Ah, if only the 14 year old victim also had been armed and there'd been a shootout in homeroom.
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.)
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.)
4
If only the other kids in school had ALSO been armed with Psychotropic Drugs and violent video games, they might have had the fightin' spirit to defend themselves!
8
Can we please make a choice now to differentiate between "school shootings" and "shootings that happen to occur at or near a school"? The former being reserved for senseless attempts of mass murder and the latter for things like "two people get into a beef and one pulls a gun."
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.
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.
9
@6, 7: With the way these stories seem to be absolutely saturating the news lately, it seems to me that there should be an hourly counter instead.
10
@8 maybe it is because we want our places of education, and other places where we send our kids, to not be shot up. Guns being shot on school grounds are school shootings by definition. If a lot of people die, it's still a school shooting but it's also called a massacre or rampage. Get it?
14
@ 10--
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.
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.
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