[slg]

Roughly an hour after this comment was made, someone walked into the church at a Catholic school, killed an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old, shot 17 other people including 14 children, and then turned the gun on himself.[1] "Predominantly media hype" indeed.

[1] - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-...

[rpdillon]

Yep, an excellent illustration of the point. Two dead, a dozen injured. What other gun violence happened this week that we'll never hear about?

[slg]

Has there been some other incident of gun violence this week that resulted in 3 deaths and 17 injuries that hasn't been reported?

According to Wikipedia[1] this is the largest mass shooting this year in terms of number of injuries. I guess that isn't worth reporting in the media.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

[rpdillon]

You're using media coverage to critique my point that media coverage is overblown. My only point here is that less than 1/10 of 1% of the shooting deaths in the United States over the last 30 years were related to school shootings.

This shooting is definitely newsworthy. I'm mostly concerned about the other ~800 shooting deaths, mostly suicides, that statistically happened this week that we don't discuss. Suicides in the US are on the rise, and murder rates are down.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...

[slg]

>You're using media coverage to critique my point that media coverage is overblown.

That isn't what I'm doing. I pointed to an instance of a school shooting, asked you if any other shootings of that scale have occurred without receiving similar media coverage, and then pointed to reference material that indicates there have been any in this calendar year.

I truly don't know what point you think you are making. Yes, not every act of gun violence receives the same media coverage as a school shooting. But what is your desired alternative? Should any individual act of gun violence not be reported on because there is so much gun violence? Or are you demanding that every singular act of gun violence should receive national coverage? What is the specific change you want to see in the media coverage?

It is true that school shootings are only one facet of this country's gun problem, but I just don't know how you get from that point to the conclusion that they're "predominantly media hype".

[rpdillon]

I'm saying that if we want to address the bulk of gun deaths, even entirely eliminating school shootings and mass shootings won't move the statistics more than by about 1%. I don't think most adults understand this, because they base their perception on what's reported, rather than reality.

> What is the specific change you want to see in the media coverage?

Editing to answer this, since it's a good question. I'm interested in massively reducing deaths from guns in the US. I think voters turn to the news to understand these issues. I'm worried that politicians will claim to be tackling gun violence through measures that try to reduce the number of high-profile events, while ignoring the larger societal problem that underpins the violence. So what I would like to see in media coverage is using school shootings, which get clicks, to devote time and attention in the article to the larger trends of gun violence in the US to help citizens better evaluate what sorts of measures would be most effective in reducing the bulk of the deaths.

I'm basically trying to push for a setup where we can more effectively tackle gun violence by understanding it well.

[slg]

I think the general argument that the media is not effectively using the attention these events draw is in direct conflict with the idea that these shootings are "predominantly media hype".

Also, I quite frankly think this mindset is naive to how both politics and the media work. Nothing materially is being done to reduce school shootings and today's tragedy is just another example of that. So why the fear that this need for a solution to general gun violence will be satiate by a solution to school shootings? We aren't getting any solution to school shootings either. Plus most of the mainstream media has a desire for neutrality that would prevent them from doing what you suggest. And those that aren't opposed to being seen as partisan and agree with you about overall gun violence are already advocating for greater gun control in a way that is not exclusively set to address school shootings.