The Morning Briefing: 18 School Shootings?, Immigration Fail, and Much, Much More

Students are evacuated by police from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018, after a shooter opened fire on the campus. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

Good Friday Morning!

Thank God it’s Friday, but don’t forget to pray for the families of the 17 dead and many wounded victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Wednesday. Which brings us to…

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18 school shootings in 2018?

Many media outlets pushed the statistic that there have been no fewer than 18 school shootings in America this year. Politico, TIME, CNBC, ABC NewsWUSA9, the New York Daily News, and HuffPost all reported the statistic.

Many activists also shared the stat, including the president of the LGBT group the Human Rights Campaign.

And Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.):

And MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell:

The statistic came from the gun control activist group Everytown For Gun Safety. By Friday morning, the group had actually removed one of the entries from its website, because the building where the shooting took place was no longer being used as a school.

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Everytown took a rather liberal view on what constitutes a school shooting. Eight of the shootings could be summarized as “Gun fired but no one injured.” Two (including the one that was later removed) involved “attempted or completed suicide, with no intent to injure other person.” One involved a gun being fired unintentionally, wounding two students.

Only seven of the 18 shootings involved an “attack on other person resulting in injury or death.” Even that number proved misleading, however. Three of these incidents involved only one person being wounded by a gun, one of them involved one student being wounded, but not by a gun.

One of these shootings took place at a sorority party, two more in parking lots. One person was fatally wounded in a parking lot fight.

Three could be considered school mass shootings, in a broad sense. On January 22, a student in Italy, Texas opened fire in the high school cafeteria, wounding one student and firing at another student, but missing. On January 23, a student opened fire at Marshall County High School in Benton, Ky., killing two students and injuring more than a dozen others.

In total, all “seventeen” of Everytown’s shootings before the Parkland shooting resulted in a grand total of 5 deaths, two from suicide, one from a fight in a parking lot, and two from a true mass shooting.

Three mass shootings is still too many for a year this young, but it is nothing like the 18 falsely reported. To their credit, PolitiFact and The Washington Post joined conservative outlets such as the Daily Wire, National Review, and The Washington Examiner in correcting the statistic.

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A Congressional fail on immigration.

Senators failed to pass a bipartisan bill to resolve the future of Dreamers, and dedicate $25 billion to border security and some other measures. The bill failed to get the 60 votes necessary for a full floor vote. The vote was 54-45. Another plan, supported by President Trump, also failed, 39-60, CNN reported.

Transgender custody battle.

A 17-year-old girl has been removed from her parents’ custody after they refused to give her trans-sex hormones, suggesting they would be bad for her. The girl’s doctors say she will commit suicide if she cannot take the hormones and identify as a male. The judge is expected to rule on the case today.

If the parents lose, this could become an explosive case, perhaps going all the way up to the Supreme Court. Stay tuned. In the meantime, read more about the case here.

Other morsels:

WaPo: I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise.

No, It’s Not Cowardly to Be Conservative on Gun Rights

‘LOVE TRUMPS HATE’: Leftists Attack Trump Supporter Whose Daughter Was Killed In Shooting

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Media Swallows Militia Leader’s Claim School Shooter Was Connected to White Supremacists

What Kind Of Society Condemns People For Praying After A School Shooting?

A Heretical Bioengineer Asks: What Do the Darwinists Have to Hide?

Are We Free to Discuss America’s Real Problems?

What Did Comey Tell President Trump about the Steele Dossier?

Piers Morgan Goes Off His Rocker With Nikolas Cruz ‘White Supremacist’ ‘MUSLIM’ Tweet

Black Panther Delivers

Flashback 30 Years: Guns Were in Schools … and Nothing Happened

The Religion Of The Democratic Party Is Abortion And Brunch

THERE’S A WAY TO STOP MASS SHOOTINGS, AND YOU WON’T LIKE IT.

Steven Pinker: Identity Politics Is ‘An Enemy of Reason and Enlightenment Values’

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