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Comment by bush-bby | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how to feel about something like this. Obviously there is benefit in highlighting systematic issues, however it may also be detrimental to highlight the actions of those who are killing for glory...

Also I'm not sure I would qualify the shooting in Texas as a school shooting. By that I mean in the U.S. the term in my mind means an act of terror targeting a school, however this seemed more like a grudge match where a gun was pulled.

I don't mean to take away from what you've built ExtraE, your effort and creativity are appreciated :)

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Right, in most people's minds a "mass shooting" or a "school shooting" means a targeted terrorist-style attack, not an interpersonal or gang dispute that escalated into gunfire and had multiple injuries. Pretty much all counts of mass/school shootings in the US are inflated in this way, possibly to make it sound worse for political purposes.

Couldn’t yesterday’s event be finagled as workplace violence?

Maybe. Schools are workplaces. The suspect was 18, according to CNN (first link on Google) so I think it was a student. Anyway, it could be (probably is) both. They’re not mutually exclusive categories.

Yeah, I watched the story ran about it last night, and I was honestly astonished at the validity of assertions which were made, maybe it's my youth but I cannot imagine this explicit choice of misnomers and mischaracterizations to capture peoples eyeballs would've flown a couple decades ago.

Thanks for your comment. I avoided linking to news stories partially to avoid that glorification.

As for Texas, this tracks school shootings, not mass shootings. A teacher was shot and injured, students barricaded doors, and it was on a school campus. I think that qualifies—- I would be terrified if that happened to me, wouldn’t you?

That is true, good on you.

Well the violence did occur in a school, and the rest of the school reacted the way they were trained to when they hear gunshots. However I think that to share the same category as other events where students show up distinctly with the purpose of indiscriminate violence and bloodshed, is a bit of a stretch. We are simply disagreeing over Diction, therefore we are both correct :D

Also yes I would be beyond terrified I believe, however I'm not sure that relates to your assertion.

I admit it's only sort of related. It's about how schools aren't safe (and don't feel safe) for students.

Anyway, this is "a shooting at a school" so I think by definition that makes it a school shooting, no?

What way would you suggest to change the school shooting issue without highlighting it? This actually could be the best way of doing that: Highlighting the shooting itself but not the terrorist responsible.

I agree that showing the shootings as anonymous events is superior to highlighting the shooters. I also think that this site is an even better version of that, showing how non-unique it makes a person when they commit an act like this. However I just personally believe in nurture over nature. I think that not reporting on anything like that at all will take away as I see it the largest motivation for any act of indiscriminate violence, which in my mind is notoriety of some sort. Then again maybe some see it as a way of killing themselves where there's no chance of turning back, similar to a suicidal person driving into oncoming traffic...their decision may just solely be about them, in which case why would it need to be on the national news in the first place?

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