4 ms·

Shouldn't the comparison be made against school shootings world wide? Or at least be normalized for overall crime rate or something?

danielvf 9y ago
The numbers are so tiny that comparisons are pretty much irrelevant. Since 1996 there have been just 8 mass k-12 shootings (incidents involving 4 or more school deaths, excluding the assailant), in a nation of 330 million people. That's so far into small numbers territory that any comparisons are guaranteed to be overwhelmed by noise.
- pjc50 9y ago
  > incidents involving 4 or more school deaths That number seems suspicious; you'd get a very different answer if your criterion was "any gunshot wound at a school", for example. But that definition might be a better match for what people think of as a school shooting. (e.g. Northern Ireland had a very large number of terrorist attacks where a warning was given allowing evacuation - would they not count as terrorist incidents even if nobody was killed? I suspect not)
  - toast0 9y ago
    Any gunshot would at a school probably includes a very different pattern of behavior. If someone wants to murder (or maim) a specific person, or small group of people, they may carry that out with a gun, because it's expedient, but might switch to a knife if guns aren't available. If someone wants to murder (or maim) a large number of people, guns or explosives are really the only practical means; mass knifings have happened, but are even more rare than mass shootings.
- mlechha 9y ago
  When making a decision as to whether something is small, large, or tiny one needs a scale. What's the scale here? For example, if the rest of the world combined has had 12 mass k-12 shootings, then American accounts for 40% of the total shootings which is a huge fraction. So in my original question I was trying to find the right scale. Edit: In a comment below, this article was linked https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-against-36-other-countries-put-together/ https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-.... Indeed, on this scale we see a very different picture!
testvox 9y ago
Why? That would seem to pick up lots of factors unrelated to the issue of school shootings in the United States.
dv_dt 9y ago
https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-against-36-other-countries-put-together/ https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-...

danielvf 9y ago

The numbers are so tiny that comparisons are pretty much irrelevant. Since 1996 there have been just 8 mass k-12 shootings (incidents involving 4 or more school deaths, excluding the assailant), in a nation of 330 million people. That's so far into small numbers territory that any comparisons are guaranteed to be overwhelmed by noise.

pjc50 9y ago
> incidents involving 4 or more school deaths That number seems suspicious; you'd get a very different answer if your criterion was "any gunshot wound at a school", for example. But that definition might be a better match for what people think of as a school shooting. (e.g. Northern Ireland had a very large number of terrorist attacks where a warning was given allowing evacuation - would they not count as terrorist incidents even if nobody was killed? I suspect not)
- toast0 9y ago
  Any gunshot would at a school probably includes a very different pattern of behavior. If someone wants to murder (or maim) a specific person, or small group of people, they may carry that out with a gun, because it's expedient, but might switch to a knife if guns aren't available. If someone wants to murder (or maim) a large number of people, guns or explosives are really the only practical means; mass knifings have happened, but are even more rare than mass shootings.
mlechha 9y ago
When making a decision as to whether something is small, large, or tiny one needs a scale. What's the scale here? For example, if the rest of the world combined has had 12 mass k-12 shootings, then American accounts for 40% of the total shootings which is a huge fraction. So in my original question I was trying to find the right scale. Edit: In a comment below, this article was linked https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-against-36-other-countries-put-together/ https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-.... Indeed, on this scale we see a very different picture!

testvox 9y ago

Why? That would seem to pick up lots of factors unrelated to the issue of school shootings in the United States.

dv_dt 9y ago

https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-against-36-other-countries-put-together/ https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-...