Just to pile on the "manipulated statistics" train, the definition of "children" is often stretched up to 18 years (or higher) in order to inflate the number. The term "minors" just doesn't have the same emotional impact. Also, they add up all the numbers across an arbitrary (though significant) time period, so that it's a bigger number.
Also, the "mass shootings" statistic is also inflated by using any incident where four or more people were injured or killed, regardless of the circumstances. It includes police-involved shootings, too. Just like the title of this thread "11 school shootings in 26 days," it's intentionally misleading.
Of that 7000, how many were as a result of gang affiliation or gang crossfire? 7000 kids weren’t killed in school shootings a la Columbine and Parkland.
7000 is a problem, but if, I dunno, 6800 were killed by gangbangers with illegally bought/stolen handguns it begs a different conversation and solution than if they were killed in Columbine-style school shootings with AR-15s.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppealToWorseProblems
That's not the argument he's making. He's pointing out that this specific statistic is rather misleading and makes a poor foundation for public policy.
School shootings are a small but important part of a larger problem. While there might be a targeted solution that is 'optimal' for school shootings, the solutions for gangbangers with illegal weapons will benefit people who happen to die of firearms who aren't in schools. The solutions for AR-15 style massacres will benefit people who happen to die of firearms who aren't in schools.
You know what the solutions are. There's no point in optimizing them for school shootings, you should be trying to optimize them for the entire nationwide gun problem. That includes accidental deaths, suicides, gang/criminal related deaths, and mass shootings.
The bolded part is a great example of why the discussion is unlikely to go anywhere. You see it as a "gun problem," while gun owners see it as a whole range of problems (mental health, gang activity, bullying, accidents, etc) which are exacerbated by guns. If you see it as a "gun problem," then it's understandable that you'd want to reduce the availability of guns. Gun owners, on the other hand, see gun control as something that can only marginally improve on the problems at best, while stripping the law-abiding of the right to self-defense (and other things, but let's stick with that for now), so they would prefer to attack the root causes of the problems. Gun control is much more politically marketable, and easier to write legislation for, than trying to address root causes like mental health, economics, drug trafficking, and culture. It's a lazy shortcut that makes for splashy headlines.