school shooting here in Arkansas today

link?

I am still is shock over the news anchor being beat to death in LR. I swear she was one of the most beautyful women I have ever seen.

This is another example of the persistently pervasive nature of mankind. Something the politicians will point to when enacting harsher gun-control laws.

Interesting. This seems to be a crime committed in the middle of the night and just happened to happen on a school campus.

Does that really meet the definition of "school shooting"?

I would say that is does not.

Well, the generally accepted definition of "school shooting" is

School shooting is a term used to refer to gun violence in educational institutions, especially the mass murder or spree killing of people connected with an institution. A school shooting can be perpetrated by people who have a mental disorder, expelled students, alumni, faculty members, outsiders, or even regular students who still attend the school. Unlike acts of revenge against specific people, school shootings usually involve multiple intended or actual victims, often randomly targeted. Most of the school shootings that have occurred have ended up with the perpetrators killing themselves and others.

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Then we have the quote from local LE:

"It does not seem at this time that it was a random act," said campus police Lt. Preston Grumbles.

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It is sensationalism to include "normal" criminal activities to drive up the number of "school shooting" incidents, and that's what is happening here.

I think it matters more on where the shooting took place; than who did the shooting.

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Which is why we have "gun free zones" since others agree with you, that WHERE it happens is more important than WHY.

I don't think that WHERE crime happens matters other than to sensationalize things.

As you say:

student(s) vs targeted student(s) --- appears conway was this

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That would most likely have happened anywhere if there was a beef between these 2 people. The fact that it happened on the property of a school doesn't change things. This is what I mean by "normal" crime, where the location is irrelevant as to whether or not the crime occurs.

I don't understand the debate over the definition of "school shooting". We're not dealing with theory here. This is reality. If every shooting at a school from now on happens like this case, then what would you call a school shooting?

Anyway, it doesn't matter. As you know, schools have their own set of rules for guns that are different than the laws for other parts of the state. Accordingly, any shooting at a school carries a special set of considerations because of the anomaly. I personally don't believe there should be an anomaly for schools. However, the anomaly is our reality.

I believe the difference that defines a school shooting is the perpetrator(s) attempt to shoot students IN a school. School shootings occur in hallways and classrooms.

This appears to be a conflict AT a school. The details are a lot more like a gangbanger incident. A dark alley at night between buildings, on a public campus, isn't so much a schoolroom situation. As the story progresses, do not be surprised drugs or a girlfriend are involved. It's got the earmarks of a street conflict, not a "school shooting."

This isn't clips vs magazines, I don't want to see things like this used to support gun free zones. There are differences, we should not blur them.

+1 Tirod

Doesn't this show that the gun free zone didn't work

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No exactly, no more so than anytime a law is broken is shows that the law didn't work. That just isn't the case.

I'd say yes. Since this is a school many people are gathered in a smaller area. Just because "class" isn't in session at the time, doesn't mean these students don't live/congregate on campus. Dorms, frat houses, commons areas, sidewalks, or parkinglots on campus are definitely still considered school(still under school rules/policies/jurisdiction)... to me anyway

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You are correct. Even if the shootings do not involve students, but only visitors, it's still classified as a school shooting if it's on school property.

From the moral/philosophical standpoint..These laws have an intended consequence with them, most of which are something like "to stop or reduce the rate at which an action happens". Doesn't it makes sense that if your law has no effect, or the opposite effect on this intended consequence then one could say the law isn't working?

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Can you show that it has no effect or an opposite effect? Keep in mind you have to be able to show the difference between a correlation and a causation. Can you show where not having the law would have precluded such events?

Remember prohabition on alcohol? No booze allowed, but people still drank. Prohabition was abolished, and people drank.

Well, the generally accepted definition of "school shooting" is

School shooting is a term used to refer to gun violence in educational institutions, especially the mass murder or spree killing of people connected with an institution. A school shooting can be perpetrated by people who have a mental disorder, expelled students, alumni, faculty members, outsiders, or even regular students who still attend the school. Unlike acts of revenge against specific people, school shootings usually involve multiple intended or actual victims, often randomly targeted. Most of the school shootings that have occurred have ended up with the perpetrators killing themselves and others.

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Then we have the quote from local LE:

"It does not seem at this time that it was a random act," said campus police Lt. Preston Grumbles.

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It is sensationalism to include "normal" criminal activities to drive up the number of "school shooting" incidents, and that's what is happening here.

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It's arguing semantics to say that a shooting at a school is not a "school shooting" by citing the technical definition against an LEO's theory.

Can you show that it has no effect or an opposite effect? Keep in mind you have to be able to show the difference between a correlation and a causation. Can you show where not having the law would have precluded such events?

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No, but you can't prove the opposite either, which does little to further the discussion. To prove causation would require a study specific to the question with the requsite controls and study construction. Causation is sometimes difficult to prove in studies involving far less complicated things than human social and criminal behavior.

But we can look at some data that may illuminate the issue somewhat. Utah is one of the few states that allow CCW in schools, and has done so since 1995. There have been no (per my very quick internet search...please correct me if I am incorrect) school shootings nor have there been any instances of "gun incidents" involving either students or teachers. We know that in at least two instances (Applacian Law School and Pearl, Mississippi) where guns were used to limit the shooter's ability to continue their rampage and there are many reports of law abiding citizens using legally carried firearms to prevent criminal behavior. So, while anecdotal, it would seem reasonable to draw the conclusion that while we cannot prove conclusively that legal guns in school would prevent "school shootings" there does seem to be some benefit and a lot less risk than the gun control advocates would have you believe.

This thread is an example of people on the same side who just love to argue. I think somebody argued against my post above, and whatever he said made perfect sense to me...LOL

This thread is an example of people on the same side who just love to argue.

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It's arguing semantics to say that a shooting at a school is not a "school shooting" by citing the technical definition against an LEO's theory.

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Of course it's arguing semantics, because that is important. It is an example of the problems we are up against in the media as far as their bias towards guns goes. Here is, as far as we can tell at this point, a crime that could have happened anywhere. If this had been a shooting between 2 guys over a girlfriend or whatever and it happened behind a 7-11 it probably wouldn't have made the news at all.

Simply because it happened on the grounds of a school now it's going to be added to the list of "gun violence on campus" incidents and will be included in all the statistics going forward.

It's not arguing for the sake of arguing, it's trying to keep reporting, and then the subsequent retelling of the story, honest.

These things matter, the words media uses when gun crime happens matter. It's statistics like this, artificially inflated, that cause us problems when some legislator decided to go "ban" something.

Look at how the current statistic "child gun victims" is calculated. That includes shootings between gang members up to and including age 19.

Would you say that's just semantics? Sure. Does it matter? Absolutely it does when the numbers are used to show why your guns should go. You take out gang shootings or crime related shootings and the "child gun victim" numbers go through the floor, and that doesn't play into that anti's hands. Someone has to try to keep them honest, and by simply repeating the same stuff back we're not helping.