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Unpopular opinion: basically no one dies by guns in schools so don't even bother with clear backpacks.
by umvi 7y ago
Unpopular opinion: basically no one dies by guns in schools so don't even bother with clear backpacks.
- zepto 7y agoExactly. Force schools to quantify this risk against others. More kids die cycling to school than by guns.
- qxnqd 7y agoSchools aren't responsible for kids who die cycling to school.
- zepto 7y agoNo, but they are responsible for not subjecting them to unreasonable policies.
- nguoi 7y agoDo clear backpacks increase the risk of dying from cycling?
- werfds 7y agoNo, but if we're forcing the kids to have clear backpacks because of an infinitesimal risk, we should ban them from biking to school, being driven to school and playing in the school football team. Which is ridiculous.
- nguoi 7y agoThat's a poor comparison though. Both of the others provide other benefits: a method of commuting to school or exercise. Potentially even scholarships. Fashionable backpacks do nothing.
- zepto 7y agoFreedom from arbitrary restrictions does something.
- Mirioron 7y agoImagine you're a teenage girl and you need to carry sanitary products with you. I imagine that for some of them this is essentially a nightmare scenario. That's a direct harm to kids.
- nguoi 7y agoThis is a good point and I hope they can work around it (such as by allowing small opaque bags inside the bag).
- deathanatos 7y agoAt which point the clear outer bag is defeated.
- tomatotomato37 7y agoSome schools actually have banned things such as biking to school, along with playing tag, balls, and even running during recess over the same safety boogieman. It's frustrating how the whole freedom vs security balance thing falls off a cliff when children's rights are discussed. Sources edit: https://www.bicycling.com/news/a20026414/why-biking-to-school-is-banned-in-some-areas/ https://www.bicycling.com/news/a20026414/why-biking-to-schoo... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/03/parents-outrage-over-school-ban-on-running-in-playground/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/03/parents-outrage-... https://www.thehealthjournals.com/youre-not-it/amp/ https://www.thehealthjournals.com/youre-not-it/amp/
- zepto 7y agoThat sounds like prison.
- linuxftw 7y agoAs a child, it is exactly prison, it's not 'like' prison. You are controlled in location, action, and speech. You are told when to use the restroom, when to eat. Feeling sleepy today or maybe not getting along with an obnoxious inmate? Too bad for you, you're powerless. I personally believe most school violence is induced by the prison-like nature of schools. They are inmate riots of 1.
- noonespecial 7y agoNo. But clear backpacks do nothing at all to make them safer. And everyone with half a brain knows this. It conditions the entire population to accept security theater and government surveillance as part of everyday life. This sets the entire society up to be unable to resist government overreach in the future. Clear backpacks increase the risk of death from tyranny.
- nguoi 7y ago>But clear backpacks do nothing at all to make them safer I must be missing most of my brain then because, to me, this sounds unfounded.
- zepto 7y agoWhat sounds unfounded?
- drdeadringer 7y agoI think the quoted part about "clear backpacks do nothing at all to make them safer" is what the commenter found unfounded.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoSomeone who wants to pack heat to school isn't gonna be stopped by a clear backpack. They'll cut out a texbook or hide it on their person. Look to the TSA's track record to see why making the formerly hidden visible doesn't actually help that much.
- nguoi 7y agoLook at how that same argument fails to apply to suicide statistics being reduced by removing access to guns or falls from bridges. You're trying to apply a logical train of thought to an inherently illogical act of homicide. But even if you can apply that, it doesn't work. The gun and ammo you can fit in a textbook is smaller than what can fit in a backpack. Backpacks are good at carrying things, that's why we - and school shooters - use them. So if someone wants to pack heat, they'll be less effective. Maybe the effect from this is insignificant. But how sure do you have to be for the risk of dead children to be less bad than someone not being allowed a cute backpack?
- cbm-vic-20 7y agoHigh-school kids playing football are more likely to die directly or indirectly from playing than they are from being shot.
- Jako33 7y agoYeah you are right. Following your logic and your risk assessment, I assume you are getting your children firearms rather than bicycles for Christmas, Happy Holidays...
- ravenstine 7y agoMore people die of hypothermia every year than get killed from mass shootings.
- hanniabu 7y agoHmmmm, we should also ban bicycles and sidewalks! /s
- TheSoftwareGuy 7y agoPart of the problem is not just the actual risk, but the perception of risk. People deserve to not feel like they are going to be shot when they show up to an educational institution, and that feeling has been withering away lately
- homonculus1 7y agoThat's the vast majority of the problem, to be specific, as that perception is far out of proportion to the actual risk. So address the fearmongering and contextualize how rare these incidents are, insteading of blaming gun owners and further eroding civil liberties.
- foldr 7y agoSchool shootings are unacceptably frequent in the US, regardless of how infrequent they are in an absolute sense. Many countries go decades without a single school shooting.
- homonculus1 7y agoThe framing of this comparison is fraught due to unequal bucketing. Most other countries are the size of US states or even cities, so they can boast individually low numbers while in the US everything gets bundled together. The US should instead be compared to something like all of Europe or all of Western Europe.
- crazypyro 7y agoPerhaps, a comparison versus the rest of the G7? https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-world-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-...
- homonculus1 7y agoI suppose I'm conflating school shootings with mass shootings which is what most people worry about, a la Columbine or Parkland. The figures in your link are mostly gang violence, which is a completely separate although valid issue. We do absolutely have higher rates of targeted gang violence than other countries, which after controlling for factors like density and poverty is highly correlated to young urban male demographics that aren't as prevalent in other developed nations. There is no single policy that can solve the numerous social and systemic failures that generate this problem, but due to the nature of these vendettas they would assuredly be carried out with knives and shanks in the absence of guns.
- grecy 7y agoummm, please explain? Surely the US has by far the highest gun murder rate in schools among developed countries. EDIT: The down votes are interesting - are you down voting because what I said is not true, or because you just don't like that it is true?
- lolc 7y agoLook up how many kids are killed by cars. Then go see how many are killed by guns outside school. Then check how many are killed by guns in school.
- shadowgovt 7y agoIt is an interesting aspect of human psychology that more people are afraid of a mass shooting in a school, though far more students will graduate knowing someone who died in a car crash than someone who died in a mass shooting. ... but it is how human psychology works, so the school must account for it.
- Mirioron 7y agoIt's essentially the same thing as air travel safety vs cars. What seemed to work for air travel is to make it into trivia so that any time this point comes up somebody repeats back the trivia.
- slothtrop 7y agoWell 9/11 is etched in the collective psyche, still talked about, and the toll there wasn't great either. Acts of terror terrify. I don't think it's so much that people worry about the odds, they just categorically do not want to accept regular school shootings as a normal thing. Why should they?
- blattimwind 7y agoYour argument is very, very weak whataboutism. Just because people die of other things more frequently does not mean that you are not supposed to prevent deaths. Your argument suggests that we should not be bothering with a justice system at all, because far more people die of cancer and heart disease than are murdered or crippled, therefore it would be dumb to put any money down for preventing and prosecuting murders.