How will the Trump administration grapple with America's gun violence?

We're about to see how an unabashedly pro-gun president handles a terrible school shooting

Students leave Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

We can discuss the murder of 16 students and a coach at a high school in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday without talking about guns if it will make you feel safer. But it wouldn't be a very realistic conversation.

Since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 young children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, were murdered, "there have been at least 273 school shootings nationwide," including on college campuses, The New York Times reports. "In those incidents, 439 people were shot, 121 of whom were killed." Since Colorado's Columbine shooting in 1999, when two students murdered 12 of their peers and one teacher, "more than 150,000 students attending at least 170 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus," The Washington Post adds. "That doesn't count dozens of suicides, accidents, and after-school assaults that have also exposed children to gunfire."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.