USA Today's reporting is wrong. There are not 971 cases of school shootings. There are about that many "school incidents". Some of those incidents, like the one listed below, are where police responded to a report of someone with a gun and never found the person or gun.
Yes I have. An altercation between two people in a parking lot is different than a school shooting.
Have you looked at the other items listed where there are victims? Multiple times I see that it was an altercation in a dorm room of a college. Sorry, I would consider that an altercation in a residence, not a school shooting. Here's another one that a kid shot himself in the leg and it's counted as a school shooting.
Ah. I now understand why school shooting numbers that people are quoting are so very high as of late.
Shit like Columbine is a school shooting. Shit like that is a shooting that happened to happen at school. If the assailant had used a knife, would you be calling it a "school stabbing"? If you would, then I disagree with that characterization, too.
For lots of folks, the term "school shooting" is strongly associated with the notion that a massacre happened... and not at all with the notion that some folks got into a heated argument, and one of them decided to attack the other with a weapon.
Based on this: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42552320> many things classified as "school shooting" are not what any reasonable person would think of when they hear the term.
A kid shooting HIMSELF in the leg? Yes, it meets an extremely literal definition, but it would be incredibly stupid to -say- lock down a campus because of that.
Did you look at your link?
> Student shot in leg during dispute in parking lot as school was dismissing
That's a school shooting. The parking lot is absolutely part of the campus.