One shooting a week in US schools

in #usa7 years ago

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  • The USA has suffered 200 shootings in schools during the last five years

  • Donald Trump says his Administration will face "the difficult issue of mental health" after the shooting in Florida

It is a tradition. The common element is the perpetrator: a person with psychological problems, who had shown signs of unstable behavior. But the scenario changes. In the last four months it has been a country music concert, a church, and, now, an institute. Before it was a disco (2016), another church (2015), a cinema (2012), a primary school (2012), a Sikh temple (2012), and a university (2007 and 2014). Always in public places. The outcome is usually the killer's suicide, although with some exceptions.

The exact numbers of armed incidents in American schools are difficult to determine, because since 1995 the Congress of that country has prohibited the creation of any national registry of deaths by firearms. But the Archive Against Violence of Firearms has recorded 239 shootings in schools and universities since December 14, 2012.

It's a shooting in a school every seven days and 13 hours. More than four per month, without discounting holidays, non-school days, or holidays. In 2018, those records may jump through the air. In the first 23 days of the year there were 11 incidents with firearms. Only on January 23, a student murdered two classmates and injured another 15 at a Kentucky school.

The criterion of the Archive Against Violence of Firearms is rigorous: only incidents that have occurred in the academic center during school hours or extracurricular activities, and in which there have been dead or injured by bullets. If someone is cut a glass that jumps through the air as a result of a bullet, is not counted.