A shooter killed two people and injured 17 others while they were at church on the opening day of a Catholic school in Minneapolis. In reading the news report, I was stuck by this towards the end.
There have been more than 140 shootings reported in elementary and secondary schools in 2025 thus far, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
More than 140 school shootings so far this year? That is insane.
One has to wonder why these people target schools. One reason may be that it is a soft target. But with added school security, there are even softer targets like shopping malls, parks, and other open public spaces. Perhaps the shooters had bad experiences in schools as places where they were bullied and intimidated and otherwise made to feel inadequate, leaving them with feelings of rage against the institution and all who are there, even if they were not directly responsible for their unhappiness. Also, killing children, especially younger ones, garners much greater media attention, which momentary and posthumous fame is what some of these killers seek.
At least some people are realizing that platitudes are not an adequate response.
Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, who has led Minneapolis since 2018, said earlier in the same conference: “Children are dead. There are families that have a deceased child. You cannot put into words the gravity, the tragedy or the pain of this situation … Those families are suffering immense pain right now. Think of this as if it’s your own.”
He continued, visibly angry: “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church.”
But Trump of course, who I doubt ever prays, came out with the prayers trope saying “Please join me in praying for everyone involved!”
It will not be long for the transphobes to exploit the fact that the shooter is reportedly transgender, in order to obscure the problem of the easy availability of guns that leads to rampant gun violence.
Local news, Kare 11, confirmed the shooter’s name was Robin Westman, 23. Westman grew up in Richfield, and Westman’s mother worked at Annunciation school in some capacity. Westman applied in Dakota county to change their birth name from Robert to Robin because they identified as a female, per court documents obtained by the Guardian. That request was granted in January 2020.
It is a sick society that does almost nothing to prevent such tragedies.
More than 140 school shootings so far this year?
Out of 238 days (34 weeks) now in ’25 -- that’s not even one per schoolday!
Far-leftists are just so oversensitive. Real Americans barely blink at such stats.
/Republican mode
To quote the Onion (which has probably already got the headline out anyway):
I can think of two possible reasons why these shooters might choose to target schools specifically -- one because it’s a highly transgressive choice of target and two because of the strange cultural hang-ups the people of the US seem to have about schools.
The first is the easiest to consider. If the point of the act is to revel in infamy and attract horrified attention then it makes sense to choose a target that is as transgressive of cultural norms as possible. Killing schoolchildren fits the bill very well. On the other hand, if this were the main reason then we would probably expect similar numbers of attacks on hospitals, old people’s homes, nurseries and other places associated with defenceless innocents.
The second seems to have more explanatory power. I’ve never experienced the US school system, but it does seem to hold a special kind of cultural fascination if US TV and film output is anything to go by. There seems to be a whole genre of school-based drama with well-defined tropes, ideas and norms in US culture that I’ve never seen from other cultures. Yes, there are occasional British or European TV series set in schools or with schoolchildren or teachers as characters, but it doesn’t stand out as a genre. The drama comes from other things and is not considered integral to the setting. I may be very wide of the mark, but everything I’ve seen of the way US culture treats secondary schools portrays them as a locus of deep psychological significance and emotional turmoil, and if this is reflective of underlying conditions then I can well imagine how it might create deep resentments in people.
@ cartomancer
You may be looking for a solution to a mystery where there is none.
At this point I think it’s just one of those quaint cultural traditions that may once have had some underlying reason, but now persist because that’s just what everybody does, like eating turkey at Thanksgiving.
I am a little surprised that no one has come out with a gun-themed “thoughts and prayers” prayer wheel, like those used in Tibet. Whenever a mass shooting occurs, you just give it a spin, and thoughts and prayers are generated with each passing rotation.
At this point it might be wise to attach little motors to them as well.
cartomancer @ # 3: Yes, there are occasional British or European TV series set in schools or with schoolchildren or teachers as characters…
Eh? The British boarding-school story genre goes way the hell back, from Tom Brown’s School Days (1857) to Hogwarts; George Orwell gave it a good thrashing in 1940.
Pierce R. Butler, #7
Boarding school as a genre, yes. But that’s not about the vast majority of British schools -- it’s a fantasy version of a tiny percentage of schools for the very rich. Its appeal is precisely in how different the life at such places is from most people’s experience of education, and how deliberately archaic such arrangements are. Almost nobody reading such stories will relate to the setting from personal experience.
And, in reality, traditional English boarding schools tend to mess you up in very significant ways -- even if by some quirk of fate you’re not bullied or sexually abused. Which is not what the stories tend to show.
cartomancer @ # 8: … it’s a fantasy version of a tiny percentage of schools …
I can’t argue that (much -- the “Boys’ Weeklies” yarns that Orwell harpooned seem more bourgeois) -- but in terms of lit’ry (sub)genres, the American “special kind of cultural fascination” for high school soap operas does not stand alone.
We can clearly connect that to the general prolonged adolescence in which USAstan leads the globe -- buncha spoiled brats, to put it as concisely as possible. Had I more time/energy/brains, I’d like to contrast that with our current deplorable gerontocracy, but nothing worth typing comes to mind so far.