There is a near-universal image of a school shooting. Students running out of their school, hands in the air, as police with rifles go in.
In a general sense, school shootings in America involve students shooting other students. That's not what happened in Wisconsin this week.
A school resource officer shot and wounded a student at Waukesha South High School on Monday when the student refused to drop a pellet gun. On Tuesday a school resource officer shot and wounded a student at Oshkosh West High School after the student attacked him with a knife.
Those are officer-involved shootings in a school. Not a school shooting.
It is important to point-out the difference. Not simply because facts matter, but because school shootings carry so much weight.
Parents are terrified of school shootings. Advocates and activists use school shootings to drive phony stats about guns. And politicians use school shootings to push unnecessary laws.
We're already seeing some lawmakers politicize this week's shootings.
There are a lot of questions left to answer, and there needs to be some thought about what schools need to do to keep students safe.
But let's be clear, the police did everything they should to keep their schools safe from students with weapons. These weren't school shootings.
Photo Credit: Fox 6