If you saw pictures earlier this month of thousands of shoes spread out on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, you might have also seen this graphic claiming they represented the more than 7,000 kids killed in U.S. schools since 2012.
But they don't. The shoes represent the number of children killed by all gun violence since the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. That's based on a 2017 study that estimates 1,300 children die every year from a gunshot wound.
The number of people who have died in U.S. school shootings since Sandy Hook is 138. That includes school faculty and staff. So the number of children killed in U.S. school shootings in that time is nowhere near 7,000.
But that didn't stop this image from getting a lot of attention.
