Yesterday there was a shooting on the campus of Texas A&M. Two people were killed. There was also a shooting on a bus heading from LA to the San Francisco area that left one dead, five injured.

Yet the NCB Nightly News did not report on those events until after new and rehashed information about President Trump’s impeachment and Rush Limbaugh’s announcement that he has lung cancer. The CBS Evening News did not mention the shootings at all.

I am stunned that the news media has so little respect for the lives of those who died and those injured. We’ve been hearing the same sound bites concerning impeachment for months; surely the tragic loss of life deserves to be mentioned before more partisan rhetoric from Washington. We have become so used to hearing about shootings that it is hardly news anymore. What a sorry mess US culture had become.

Wow! The Democratic Party has a lot of explaining to do! Nineteen hours after the Iowa Caucuses, only 62% of the results are available.

They promised their new technology would give us more details about the results. But reports are that coding problems with a new app are part of the delay.

A caucus is much different than an election, but these problems still damage voters’ confidence in the overall electoral process. The Russians are probably laughing, “We don’t need to do any hacking to make Americans question voting results. The Democrats are doing the job for us.”

It has been a number of years since either team cheered for in my house (San Francisco, Green Bay) has been in the Super Bowl. So we went overboard with snacks for the big game: SF style garlic fries, pig in a blanket, crackers and cheese . . . We couldn’t even eat it all! Unfortunately, the food was the highlight of the game.

I was glad to see Niners RB Tevin Coleman on the field. I was concerned the separated shoulder he suffered in the NFC championship win would keep him sidelined. But his participation in this game was not enough for victory.

All season the SF defense has been the team star, making the job of the offense easier. Although I am not a technical expert, I thought the defense did not look as sharp in this game as they had in the past 3-4 games of the season. But I don’t want to make excuses for SF that take away from the skills KC exhibited in staging their fourth quarter comeback.

My spouse sometimes says of the Packers that they caused the loss of a game, rather than that the opponent won. That was not the case with the Super Bowl. The Chiefs and Niners were closely matched, the lead changing hands throughout the first three quarters. This season both teams have come from behind to win games. But Sunday Kansas City had the stamina to handle the pressure of the final quarter better than San Francisco.

Of course, I am sad my team lost. But we have lots of tasty left-overs to enjoy! And I remind myself that, while watching the NFL is great fun, in the end it is only a game. So I’ll put away the SF team flag until autumn, knowing next season should be another great one for the Forty-Niners.

The San Francisco Forty-Niners are heading to the Super Bowl!

After they beat the Green Bay Packers to win the NFC Championship, the song “Don’t Stop Believing” blared from the PA system in Levi Stadium. Appropriate, since some of us are still having difficulty wrapping our minds around the spectacular season the team had after last year’s disaster.

The first couple of wins seemed like lucky breaks to me. But as time went on I could see the consistent strength of the defense and the growing confidence of QB Jimmy Garoppolo.

Watching a healthy team play the last three games makes me think they could have had a perfect or near-perfect record if not for a number of mid-season injuries to key players like TE George Kittle. They lost RB Tevin Coleman in the championship game, but the offense continued to operate in fine form.

I watched most of the Titans-Chiefs game; Kansas City’s comeback was impressive. But after seeing the Niners stop Aaron Rodgers and the Pack, I am looking forward to seeing San Francisco do the same to the Chiefs on February 2 in Miami.

Millions of people across the globe, most of them students taking a day off, participated in a “global climate strike” Friday.

Based on my university education in geography-climate and subsequent research, I believe any climate warming is part of a natural long-term cycle. In that case, protesting against it is useless. But let’s just ignore my opinion for now and look at how silly Friday’s event still was if examined holistically and with an open mind by a true man-made climate change believer.

The goals on the climate change protest organizers website are not realistic. One goal is using 100% green energy by 2030. Ten years?!!! All nations putting all their money and the efforts of their entire workforce toward this goal would not accomplish it in 10 years. There is not the capacity to produce that many electric cars (which require fossil fuels to build) or enough charging stations. And electric vehicles are not practical in isolated or less developed areas of the world. This goal would also require the transformation of trucks, planes and boats that deliver consumer goods to people.

Then there is the problem of finding locations for and building enough solar and wind farms to meet this goal. It is still not known if there are enough areas with consistent wind and sunny days to provide for all the needs of just the US. (And bird and bats deaths are a concern.) Transmission lines – constructed (probably in China) with steel manufactured with fossil fuels – would need to be built from solar/wind rich areas to those without those natural resources. Would building all the green energy infrastructure in 10 years produce more emissions in the short-term than allowing development to continue on its current course?

Many protesters’ signs said adults are stealing their future. Again, they need to look at the details. These extreme eco-plans will literally steal their future earnings. It has been estimated that the cost of any of the climate plans of Democrat presidential candidates (most of which include items similar to climate strike goals) would require our federal income taxes to double. Maybe students in developed nations, with hope of a good paying job in the future, are willing to have a smaller home, take no vacations that require flying and forego the newest cell phone, but people in the developing world cannot afford to have their current meager earnings taxed more.

I appreciate the idealism and energy of young people, but they do not have enough life experience to understand the implications of their demands.

Fifteen-year old Greta Thunberg from Sweden is credited with starting this student movement. She has been staying out of school each Friday for two years to protest climate change. Maybe she should stay in class to learn more so she has the knowledge to find solutions to the problems she sees. But instead she greatly enlarged her carbon footprint by flying across the Atlantic Ocean to speak to protesters in NYC. A totally committed eco-warrior would never do that.

That highlights another problem. Many of those touting pro-environment policies, from casual protesters to professional environmental organization staff, expect everyone else to conserve, but carve out exceptions for themselves. When I was a Girl Scout leader, girls often parroted school teachers’ pollution warnings, but threw away recyclable items. Offshore wind farm plans have been scuttled in the northeast US – where people are usually very eco-conscious – because the towers might affect residents’ ocean views. US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio both promote extreme environmental policies, but drive private vehicles when public transportation is available nearby.

News reports of the Friday protests show many students taking video with cell phones. How many of them get a new phone every few years? Do they know that most of their phones and other electronics are recycled in unsafe conditions in third world countries, often by kids who do not get an opportunity to skip a day of school because they do not even have access to an education?

U.S. emissions are down to the level they were in the 1980s. Developing nations are the biggest polluters. (China’s emissions are more than the US and the European Union combined.) But rather than preaching to (or making demands on) other countries, helping improve people’s everyday lives in these places will do more to cut pollution than government directives. Wealthy nations should help provide an education for those kids who currently cannot go to school, provide more agricultural aid so people have enough to eat, and help governments vaccinate their people against diseases already eradicated here. An educated workforce can network with developed countries’ economic infrastructure, good agricultural techniques keep farmers from burning the rainforests, healthy people are more productive. And that allows families and governments to move beyond mere survival to development, which can be eco-friendly with assistance from Western nations.

Young climate strikers could learn from the old adage “be the change you want to see”. Protesting is not change, it is just noise. My advice to them: pick up trash regularly, recycle everything you can, limit the number of electronic devices you own and keep them longer, feed the hungry in your community, sponsor a third world child’s education (World Vision is one of many great organizations with sponsorship programs), write often to your local and federal officials, join the Peace Corps, and choose a college major in a field that can bring environmental change. If half of Friday’s protesters did these things, we would have a better world pretty quickly.

Actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced today to 14 days in prison for paying to have her daughter’s SAT scores “doctored” to make admission to college easier.

Huffamn took a calculated risk and pleaded guilty right away, in contrast to actress Lori Loughlin who is fighting similar charges against her. Huffman did all the “right” things to get leniency; of course, I can’t say whether the actress was sincere or not.

One mistake I think she made was in the letter to the judge before sentencing. She said she just wanted to give her daughter a “fair shot”. That alone seems to say that she doesn’t understand the ethics of this. A fair shot means the daughter is on a level playing field as other students. Otherwise it is not fair to the others. Huffman also said she was “afraid”. Fear of a child not getting into college??? Many young adults go on to great, productive, happy lives without a college degree.

Apparently Huffman’s daughter struggled in math. So did mine. To my surprise, my daughter managed to be accepted into a small college. She had to take a remedial math class (for no credit) before she could take the college level math class required for her degree. And she struggled through that college level class. I remember tutoring her before one crucial test. Thousands of students have to go through this process. Why should Huffman’s daughter escape that hard work just because she comes from a wealthy family? How about paying for a tutor to teach her the math skills she lacked? It is the child’s responsibility to do the work to achieve their goals.

I understand that our nation cannot put everyone in prison for non-violent crimes. Prisons are crowded enough. But there really is no other way to convince the wealthy that they cannot use their money to get whatever they want. In that respect, 14 days does not seem like enough time.

NBC Universal has made a movie called “The Hunt”. It depicts the rich elites of society making a sport of capturing and hunting down ordinary (and some are reporting, conservative) citizens.

In the wake of three recent mass shootings, the company is pulling advertising for the film, but says the release date will not be altered.

Aside from the apparent inflammatory political viewpoint of the movie, the idea of deliberately hunting other humans is abhorrent, especially in light of recent random murders in Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton. In the current social climate, Hollywood should decline to produce movies that show violence or murder as fun, that dehumanize any segment of society (this film’s trailer has a hunter saying that the hunted people are not human).

President Trump cited video games as a possible influence in the lives of mass shooters – and many laughed. He should have included all media. NBC should really coordinate the viewpoints of their various media platforms. It’s hypocritical, or maybe just company greed, for anchors on MSNBC to call for gun control after every shooting while the film production company glorifies using guns to kill other people for sport. I believe that the media exerts more influence in young people’s lives than the US president and should be held accountable.

“The Hunt” should never be released.

The US recently experienced three mass shootings in just less than a week. In one of those three incidents evidence compiled about the young man accused of the El Paso shooting includes online writings that exude hatred for Mexicans.

Before the investigation was complete (the crime scene is still being processed) or any victims buried, Democrats – especially front-runners in the Dem presidential race – were saying the shooter was influenced by President Trump’s continued calls to end the flow of illegal border crossings. The Dems’ behavior is shameful on many levels.

First, this is a time of national mourning. Their words should be ones of comfort.

Second, although Trump’s rhetoric is often harsh, it is not racist or hateful. Pointing out that a person of another ethnicity is doing something wrong – in this case crossing our southern border illegally – is not in itself racist. Trump is correct that many illegal crossings are for the purpose of trafficking drugs or humans, that decades old border laws have not been enforced, that Congress needs to provide more funds if they want to improve conditions in border detention facilities. If that incited an unstable individual to kill people, then no one should ever point out the truth for fear it will cause violence.

Lastly, if Trump’s words cause mass shootings, there would also be a connection with the Gilroy and Dayton shooters, but there is not.

Words are powerful. It’s important to pick the right word and speak it appropriately, usually gently. If Trump should be more careful with his speech, so should many Democrats. This accusation that Trump hates Mexicans and is encouraging mass shooters causes Latinos to be fearful and Democrats are manipulating that fear for their political agenda. Such language just inflames hatred, fear and division.

Democrats have been shockingly silent about the crowd outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) home, where protestors repeatedly shouted that someone should stab him in the heart. Democrats should be ashamed of their hypocrisy as well as their words.

There are many among the 20 Democrat presidential candidates who don’t have any business in the race. Some have no work experience that can remotely extrapolate to politics. And one lost his last election, proving his time has passed.

That questionable candidate is Beto O’Rourke of Texas. He was a three-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives who lost November’s Senate election to incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. House districts are smaller, with residents somewhat less diverse than larger Senate districts. O’Rourke apparently appealed to the smaller House district but could not win over more voters in the Senate race. Why would his party think he could attract the even wider nationwide following necessary to win a presidential race?

O’Rourke seems to be trying to channel the hip, urban aura of former president Barak Obama. But dancing and internet videos of having his teeth cleaned won’t do that. While I disagreed with Obama on almost all issues, he was a serious candidate. O’Rourke can talk issues (although not always logically), but has gained a reputation of being slightly off-base because he spends more time on trying to look cool.

I cannot see him winning the Democrat nomination. And President Trump, now a seasoned campaigner, would chew him up in the general election campaign. Right now O’Rourke is just using donors money to have fun on the campaign trail. He needs to drop out of the race and allow donors to support more viable candidates.

President Trump’s tweets, including the recent one criticizing living conditions in parts of Baltimore, often use extreme rhetoric. But examining the substance of the Baltimore tweet proves it is valid and worth discussing. More importantly, it is wrong for Trump’s critics to label the tweet as racist.

Trump accused Cummings of hypocrisy for complaining about conditions in US southern border detention facilities while conditions in Cummings’ Baltimore district include areas that are dilapidated and infested with rats. (Bernie Sanders also criticized Baltimore in 2015, comparing some neighborhoods to third world countries – but no one called him racist.)

(It is important to note that Trump does not usually begin a rant against someone, but typically responds when they criticize him. If he criticized the women of color called “The Squad” or Rep. Elijah Cummings (an African American), it’s because they attacked Trump or his policies first, not because of their race.

Trump really needs to learn to ignore some of these comments and not respond on Twitter immediately. Cummings has shown great restraint in recent days, not responding to Trump. But he should have had that same control during the Congressional hearing when he literally yelled at the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security.)

Just because Cummings is black does not make Trump’s comment racist. Trump could say the same (and would be perfectly justified) about any member of Congress (regardless of ethnicity) who criticizes Homeland Security’s care of illegal migrants while their district has extreme poverty and/or homelessness.

Here in Nevada, the homeless in Reno and Winnemucca live in the willows along the Truckee and Humboldt Rivers, respectively. They have no running water or toilets and have to deal with below freezing temperatures much of the winter.

I visited Hawaii this year and took a drive up the Windward (eastern) Coast. There is a huge homeless camp at the Waimanalo Beach Park. These people are “luckier” than most homeless in the US: there are restrooms and cold outdoor showers intended for beach goers which they can use. But no one is passing out toothbrushes or soap from the government, which are provided for border detainees.

Members of Congress are elected to represent their constituents and taking care of the poor and homeless in their districts should take top priority. The funding they provide through the federal budget allows the Department of Homeland Security to deal with problems caused by an increased number of illegal border crossings. The executive branch provides oversight. The legislative branch provides checks and balances by asking questions, making suggestions and giving/withholding funds, but does not have authority to micromanage, such as demanding a certain number of shower facilities or toothbrushes.

It also appears hypocritical for anyone who voted against additional funding for border facilities to complain about conditions there. I have more respect for someone who sincerely holds views opposite of mine than I do for those who complain just to try to score political points.

The two year budget deal negotiated by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Democrats is fiscally irresponsible! I hope Congressmen and Senators with some sense of accountability to the taxpayers can see that the legislation is defeated.

Not that I want to see a government shutdown again. I know too many federal employees affected by those disruptions. But a shutdown seems to have been an excuse to make a deal, avoid any real scrutiny of government spending and push this issue off until after the 2020 elections.

And the ever-spending Democrats definitely won this round. The deal calls for $320 billion in increased spending, with only $77 billion in cuts to offset the increases. Dems are gleeful that there are no spending caps: the debt ceiling (the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow) has been suspended for two years. Basically, only a government is allowed to borrow money beyond their credit limit or ability to repay the loan. But the real-world consequences of debt payments taking up an ever larger part of income hits governments as well as families. The capacity to pay for needed items (defense and transportation infrastructure for governments, food and medical care for families) is strained when debt piles up.

Even without this deal, $1 trillion will be added to the US national debt this year (bringing the total to around $22 trillion). As a candidate, President Trump promised to get rid of the debt. This budget deal shows he is not serious about that goal. An improved economy helps some through increased fees and tax revenues. But if spending continues to outpace income, the only real way out is to print more money. But that would likely collapse our economy, so I doubt that will happen. So we are left with an increased difficulty to pay for/provide government services and a slower road to collapse.

The evening of July 20, 1969, my parents allowed me to stay up late to watch the first man walk on the moon. I’m not sure at that age I understood all that had gone into getting to that place and time. But my dad was a space nut and we had watched television coverage of previous Apollo missions, so I at least understood the general procedure of launching men into space.

I married another space travel fan and continued to follow missions into the Space Shuttle era. I vividly remember watching endless replays of the Challenger explosion while my preschoolers played nearby – thankful they had no idea what had happened.

As the US marks the 50th anniversary of man walking on the moon, there are plans forming to return humans to the moon to build a base from which to launch a manned mission to Mars. As an adult who has seen and learned a lot since 1969, I have to ask why.

The original Space Race was far more about politics (beating the Russians at something stunningly momentous during the Cold War) than science. And there was no real limit on the money that could be spent on the space program, in large part because of the international political implications. The current federal budget and deficit are in a far different place. We have Democrat presidential candidates promising “free” healthcare for all and a freshman Congresswoman championing a Green New Deal which would cost the country billions to implement. Meanwhile, the nations roads and bridges are in serious need of extensive repairs or replacement, with some deemed unsafe while continuing to be used. Unless we print unlimited money, the spending cannot go on. We have to decide whether to spend what funds we have to improve life for Americans or on esoteric research.

Even if there were limitless funds, science just for the sake of science is frivolous, the luxury of the intellectual elite. My spouse, one of our children and I are all scientists. I understand research and discovery – and using that information to make the world better. Going back to the moon accomplishes little of value. There’s some evidence pointing to water around the moon’s south pole. So what? It won’t solve water shortages around the world. If it shed light on the formation of Earth or the solar system, it would be interesting, but not knowledge that would make a difference in people’s everyday lives. We are well beyond the Age of Discovery when almost every bit of new knowledge uncovered made a difference.

India – a country with a huge population, most living in crushing poverty in some of the worst slums in the world – is also planning a space mission to the moon, to the south pole region. Governments must stop worrying about world prestige and put greater emphasis on providing safe, healthy environments where their citizens can earn a good living and raise thriving families.

I applaud the accomplishments of the Apollo program. Today’s anniversary marks an exciting time in America, and Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” continues to inspire. But after the celebration, let’s use our money and intellectual capital to solve the pressing problems of the world’s people.

President Trump’s tweet that certain (unnamed in the tweet) members of Congress should go back where they came from was certainly inappropriate. But he has made so many inappropriate remarks that I tend to just ignore them and look at the actual topic of the comments.

After reviewing the history of this remark, I think it may have been a calculated attempt by Trump to stir up controversy. He’s an egotistical showman. He has made crazy, insulting remarks before and emerged unscathed. Why not try it again to highlight the rift between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the four radical Democrat members of “The Squad”? (The Squad consists of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar (Minnesota), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.)

In June, after Squad members voted against funding to alleviate the crisis conditions in detention centers along the southern US border, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief-of-staff wrote a tweet essentially accusing everyone voting for the bill of aiding racists (even if not racist themselves). Speaker Pelosi made a comment that the four didn’t really have a following except in social media. Then Ocasio-Cortez complained that Pelosi was singling out The Squad because they are women of color.

In this incident alone, Squad comments have been almost entirely pointing the finger of racism at others. And these are not the first reverse racism, offensive or insulting comments to come from this group.
* Tlaib has stated she wants a “one state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – that is not so secret code for no country of Israel.
* Omar strongly implied that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), bribed members of Congress to support Israel. In 2012 she tweeted, asking Allah (Omar is Muslim) to help people “see the evil doings of Israel.”
* Pressley does not tolerate differing opinions among other people of color, telling bloggers of left-wing Netroots Nation, “We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.”
* Ocasio-Cortez frequently bends the truth. She falsely identified victims of an Israeli defensive action as Palestinian protestors when the majority were associated with Hamas terrorists. She likened detention centers on the US southern border to Nazi concentration camps, which is not even close to the truth except that people are being detained. Jewish organizations invited her to visit actual concentration camp locations to learn about the Holocaust. The Congresswoman declined. Too inconvenient to know the truth I guess.

Name calling and questioning others’ motives typically does not lead to cooperation or winning people over to one’s point of view. Members of The Squad act as if they believe that because they were elected in their districts, their political positions represent all of America (or at least the Democrat party) and need to be unquestioningly adopted. I can understand wanting to quickly bring change to what they consider injustice. But they need to understand they are just four of over 400 Congressional representatives, and our government still operates under the premise of “majority rules”. A little humility (as freshman in Congress, they do not know everything) and tolerance of others’ views would make their colleagues much more likely to listen to them.

Sites to learn more:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trump-pelosi-and-the-squad-are-fighting-over-who-belongs-in-government

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/15/trumps-tweets-the-squad-heres-what-we-know/1736706001/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/aoc-squad-revolts-ayanna-pressley-says-no-more-black-faces-that-dont-want-to-be-a-black-voice

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-squad-rashida-tlaib-ayanna-pressley-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-ilhan-omar-gayle-king-interview-2019-07-17-today/

Gun control advocates have no shame, and obviously no compassion or sensitivity.

Last night a meeting (masquerading as a vigil) was held at the Highlands Ranch, Colorado STEM school where one student died and several were injured Tuesday. If people had known the “vigil” was organized by a student arm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, maybe they could have anticipated how the program would go.

Instead of a typical vigil, where friends and family speak about the victims, speeches advocating gun control were made by two Colorado legislators and a volunteer from a gun control organization. Students, frustrated that they couldn’t speak, began to leave. Some shouted “mental health” at the speakers. It is interesting that they seem to understand that addressing mental health issues (one suspect had “f____ society” painted on his car) need to be addressed more than gun control. Teens are not ignorant or stupid, and using them to promote a political agenda is an insult.

Any vigil for students should be to honor Kendrick Castillo, who died a hero after rushing one shooter, and those injured. A vigil is a way to promote healing for all the traumatized students.

Castillo deserves far more than the “vigil” speakers gave. John Castillo, Kendrick’s father, praised his son for being a hero. “I want people to know about him,” he told ABC News. That didn’t happen last night.

The tepid apologies given by organizers and the legislators did not acknowledge responsibility for what happened. I hope Colorado voters refuse to re-elect these exploiters.

I was shocked by events today – not as much by the actual school shooting in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, but by the lack of news coverage.

I turned the television on about an hour after the incident began. I was looking for my usual mid-day news fix and clicking through the cable news channels.

FOX News was running coverage of the shooting, but no one else was. I am not sure if the lack of interest by the news networks was because our nation has become so used to school shootings (8 this school year)* or they were more concerned about promoting political agendas. This shooting was not an ordinary story. In the first hour I watched coverage, there were reports of two, possibly three shooters, multiple injuries. The STEM school was still in lock-down.

When there is a major breaking news story, I will go back and forth between channels to make sure I catch all the details. During the hour I observed today, MSNBC and CNN mostly ran stories about the Mueller report and Joe Biden’s presidential poll numbers. Everything we hear now about the Mueller report is just a rehashing of old news. Biden might be news if he had done/said something new, but the anchors were just discussing his rankings in the polls. There was also a long story on CNN about air pollution – certainly a far more important topic than the life and death situation facing the children at the Highlands Ranch school. (Just in case you cannot tell, that last sentence was sarcastic!)

At the top of the next hour CNN finally had a brief update. The NBC broadcast channel broke into regular programming for a seven minute special report.

I am not saying we need prolonged media coverage. I especially hate when reporters accost parents to ask about their feelings in these situations. But to have no mention of the incident for an hour (not even on the ticker scrolling at the bottom of the screen), trivializes the lives of the students involved. It shows misplaced priorities since none of the topics being discussed were timely, let alone more important than these children and teens.

I want to know what is going on in the world, but that information gets more and more difficult to find as news channels spend most of their time on rehashing political comments from our lawmakers.

*I am only counting incidents that occurred on school grounds, during school hours and clearly intended to harm the student population and/or staff. If you look at details of the 33 shootings often cited (links below), they include arguments (mostly between adults) outside stadiums at football games, random gunshots that hit people in school vehicles and unintentional accidental firing of guns (A separate discussion can be held about whether the guns should have been on campus). Those incidents are not school violence as most of us define it. It is fine to include those in discussions about overall gun violence, but inaccurate and misleading to include adult/gang/off-campus violence when talking about school shootings. It is interesting that news outlets that give little real time coverage of school shootings choose to inflate the number of incidents afterwards.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shootings-2018-how-many-where.html
https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where.html

update 5/8/2019: The suspected shooters are in custody, but unfortunately one student victim has died.