Live in NH, these things do happen around here as well, usually pretty rare though. You end up with an abutter that doesn't want/like the hunting, or firearms discharged close to them, they may not know their own property lines, or the person allowing hunting sometimes overestimates their own boundaries.

I personally don't mind hunting, I have a 60 acre lot on one side of me and a 180 acre lot on another, both owners hunt and both allow other hunters to use their land. I've been here 19 years, and 99% of the hunters are respectful and safe, but I had an incident 9 years ago where my wife and I were in the yard with our daughters and our two dogs and we heard 6 or 7 very close rifle shots, all within maybe 6 seconds, with at least 4 cracking past us, one of which we later found in the tree 5 feet from our front door and 10 feet in front of my kids sandbox. I told my wife to bring the kids in the house, put the dogs on leashes and started heading for the treeline when two hunters emerged from my property directly into my backyard, neither was wearing orange jacket, vest, shirt or hat, one was wearing a plate carrier with spare ammo mags, carrying an AR-10 in his best "tacticool" wannabe military way, slung, rifle pointed down but with his finger on the trigger, the other was just carrying a bolt-action 300 Win Mag cannon, for deer. I lost my cool, asked them what the hell they were doing walking on my property armed, with no hunting colors, one looking like a wannabe paramilitary contractor, and explaining how at least four of those shots cracked past us and I knew they were shooting towards my house from less than 100 yards. They claimed to have permission to hunt back there, that they were unaware that my property was in between the two larger lots, had no idea our house was there and then had the balls to ask me if we saw a deer run through our yard and if I'd be cool with letting them "track through", when I told them absolutely not, one guy tried claiming that I "legally had to let them track an injured animal through my property". I told them that I consider anyone walking on my property armed in tactical gear and not displaying as a hunter as an immediate threat and would be forced to grab a weapon and respond to that threat accordingly. They actually called the police on me, claiming that they were just "innocent hunters" and I was "some treehugger threatening to shoot them". I made them get off my property and told them to go stand in the road waiting for the police. When the police showed up 30 minutes later, they spoke to them first, then they came up to me, I explained what happened, the fact that their 7 uncontrolled rapid shots were clearly fired without knowing or caring what was behind their intended target (my home and yard), the fact that I was outside with my wife, kids and dogs that could have been hit, the fact that they came into MY yard armed, zero trigger discipline, wearing tactical gear with no hunting colors. Officer informed me that there is actually no law REQUIRING hunter orange when hunting on private property, but it's recommended to keep from getting yourself shot, but he also said "you could have legally shot both of them dead and there is little we could have done about it, I'm going to tell them that with the recent changes to Castle Doctrine in NH, they're lucky to be alive pulling something like that, and I'm referring them to the NH Fish and Game warden, they'll likely never hunt legally in this state again".

Now again, stuff like this is pretty rare, but it's idiots like the above that can ruin it for everyone. While we now have two neighbors with ranges & steel targets within 200 yards of my house, both were considerate enough to put large dirt berms behind them and have no homes within 1000 yards behind the ranges, and usually only shoot between 10am and 6pm, neither of us fortunately work nights.

If your hearing it from a student, or the parents of students, it's almost certainly bullshit. The shit that has been spreading through my daughter's school 10+ miles from Sanford is insane, snapchat is 100% misinformation, and parents are also spreading the crap they're hearing from their kids on Facebook, scaring the crap out of other parents.

Every single authority is saying hoax right now, I've spent 40 minutes listening to the Sanford police scanner, they're not concerned, casually clearing and checking every part of the school, making sure everyone is accounted for, no talk of actual suspects, shooting, danger, anything.

Yeah, so this hoaxer needs to be made an example of. They should get jail time / juvenile detention time and be forced to spend their years from 18 to 28 working to repay the cities and towns for the costs incurred responding to this bullshit.

My kid goes to Spaulding in Rochester NH, they're now also locking down themselves, apparently out of abundance of caution. The amount of misinformation going around already is insane, my daughter is saying that all of her classmates are sharing multiple casualties at Sanford on social media, which is getting more ridiculous as it continues making the rounds and people add to the bullshit.

Been listening to the Sanford Police scanner for 25 minutes, they're going through the school clearing every nook and cranny while they round up any teachers and students unaccounted for. I've heard no talk of actual shooters, danger, any concern from the officers. Doesn't mean that there 100% wasn't an issue, it's feasible that they could be keeping certain things off their main channel to prevent panic, but extremely unlikely IMO. They did mention that the caller who phoned in the alleged active shooter provided a suspect name, "Mike" something, I won't even attempt say what I think the last name said was, not only because it was difficult to make out, but primarily because I don't want further spread of misinformation / witch hunts.

Portland also allegedly got a similar active shooter report phoned in, state police currently calling that one a hoax as well.

edit Jesus, the parents are just as bad, if not worse than the kids. I guess Facebook parent / school groups with multiple parents posting stuff like reports of 5 dead in Sanford, a shootout in Portland and someone roaming the halls with a gun at my kids school, some are getting deleted but others apparently haven't yet. At least one parent claimed he was headed to the school with his AR, that also seems to have been removed pretty quickly. What is wrong with people? Why would a parent immediately take a text from their child about an alleged shooting at school 15 miles away as accurate enough to post publicly and scare the crap out of other parents before first checking to see if it's credible?