5 ms·

ummm, 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 yo

• lolc 7y ago
  Look 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 ago
    It 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 ago
      It'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 ago
      Well 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 ago
    Your 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.
    • lolc 7y ago
      No. If we look at the draconic measures being taken the reaction is way out of line with the problem. If we reacted to the other dangers the same way, society wouldn't function. Schools are turned into high-security institutions, or the appearances of it. Watching kids for fear of them freaking out is not a good signal to send. It means you only care when it's too late.
      • slothtrop 7y ago
        A proper measure isn't about "scale of reaction" it's whether it's effective. These draconian measures are red herrings; I'm not sure they're even meant to prevent anything, because they won't work. They will not prevent school shootings, full stop. It's opportunistic bullshit from legislators.
    • shkkmo 7y ago
      Do you have any evidence that clear backpacks have a meaningful impact of deaths in schools from guns? Is that impact sufficient to warrant the culture of fear that is being incolcated into these poor kids? It's not whataboutism, it's cost benefit analysis.
      • blattimwind 7y ago
        > It's not whataboutism, it's cost benefit analysis. GP didn't make that analysis; they merely implied that nothing should be done about school shootings because more kids get run over. That's whataboutism in its purest form: "We should doo something about school shootings!" - "But what about all the kids getting run over???"
  • slothtrop 7y ago
    Far more school shooting deaths than any other developed country by my count. You're choosing to brush it off because it represents a small percentage of the population. That's a ridiculous position, you could hold the same if school shooting fatalities were in the 10,000s instead of 200s; too insignificant. The weight is in whether it's acceptable or it isn't, not how likely your kid is to get shot. It's been worse in the past 20 years than the 20 years prior. You're either a) tacitly saying that the certainty of future school shootings is absolutely fine with you, or b) that it can't be helped, which isn't true. Pick one. We don't have to accept high rates of vehicular deaths either. Automation will make this moot in the end, but far stronger punishment for inebriated driving is due, among other things.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • lolc 7y ago
      > You're choosing to brush it off because it represents a small percentage of the population. That is what you concluded from what I am saying. Why did you conclude that? > you could hold the same if school shooting fatalities were in the 10,000s instead of 200s; too insignificant Oh but look at those magnitudes! > You're either a) tacitly saying that the certainty of future school shootings is absolutely fine with you, or b) that it can't be helped, which isn't true. Pick one. I did not intend to say either of those things. That's your interpretation. But again, why did you think that? My take: A good chunk of the population in the US is sold on alarmism and "something needs to be done". > far stronger punishment for inebriated driving is due Great. Another non-solution giving the appearance that something is being done. Then when that doesn't work you cry for still more to be done. More punishment. More prying. It's a cycle I won't participate in. I'm disgusted by it! Why aren't we discussing the resources these kids had, or didn't have, facing their adulthood? How come they decided the way to feel in control was shooting their peers? They're not the only ones! A lot of kids feel that. Few act it out. Thankfully. Why do they feel that? No matter, let's watch their backpacks for guns.
      • slothtrop 7y ago
  • MereInterest 7y ago
    Cars are designed to transport people from place to place, and cause death as an unfortunate side effect. Guns are designed to propel bullets at high speed, and cause death as the intended primary effect. There can be other conversations about the effectiveness of public transportation, and how the US infrastructure was designed around cars instead of buses/trains, but there is a pretty big difference beyond the number of deaths caused.
    • banads 7y ago
      What is your point? Everyone knows cars and guns are designed differently. Seems like you are trying to rationalize irrational terror. Statistics show a student should logically be more wary of dying in a car wreck on the drive to/from school than getting shot at school. Are you suggesting our students should ignore math?
    • umvi 7y ago
      At the end of the day, the dead don't really care how they were killed
    • sdinsn 7y ago
      The primary function is irrelevant.
  • root_axis 7y ago
    Funnily enough, you need to be trained, licensed, and registered with the government to legally operate a motor vehicle.
    • LyndsySimon 7y ago
      On a public road, yes. There’s nothing legally stopping you from buying a car with cash, not registering it at all, and driving it on your own property. I recall driving farm trucks (and tractors, etc.) while hauling hay when I was about ten years old.
• umanwizard 7y ago
  Imagine that 1 person in the US died per year by getting hit by stray golf balls, and 10 people per year in France. (I'm not saying this is true; just imagine). It might be true that France has by far the highest stray-golf-ball death rate in the world. But this wouldn't mean it is a significant cause of mortality, or an important object of public policy.
  • grecy 7y ago
    Except that we're talking about innocent children being gunned down at school by their fellow citizens. Utterly preventable and disgusting. You might not think it's a big deal, but the rest of the world is horrified by it. (Also your example is very poor - you should use per capita statistics so countries of different populations can be meaningfully compared.)
    • umanwizard 7y ago
      How would you suggest it be prevented? I suspect it's some variant of “amend the US constitution to allow the federal government to ban guns”. This is essentially impossible in practice due to the political structure of the United States. If your response to that is “well then, change the political structure of the United States” then that would involve a violent revolution or some other chaos, which would almost certainly kill more innocent people than mass school shootings do. > you should use per capita statistics It doesn't matter, since my example was meant to illustrate a point, not to be quantitatively meaningful. But since you asked, the corresponding per capita numbers would be: 3 per billion inhabitants per year in the US. 149 per billion inhabitants per year in France.
      • grecy 7y ago
        > I suspect it's some variant of “amend the US constitution to allow the federal government to ban guns”. Sigh. You Americans have been taught to think in such black and white terms. It's either "have guns" or "ban guns". You honestly think there is no middle ground, which is utterly and completely moronic because virtually every developed country in the world has a way of dealing with this that America is convinced can't work. Even though the evidence is blatant. In many, many countries (including the US actually) citizens are allowed to own certain types of guns, and not other types. I ask how many anti-aircraft guns Americans are allowed to own? Or missile launchers? Or tanks with live rounds? Clearly there are some weapons that regular people can have, and some they can't. All America needs to do is tighten down what's acceptable, just like other developed countries do. For example, I live in Canada. I have a large calibre hunting rifle, and it isn't even registered. My friend has a handgun which is tightly controlled. Australia is similar. So people that "want guns" can still "have guns", but the murder rate is much, much lower in those countries than the US, because other more powerful weapons are restricted or even outright banned. Further to this, it's a simple idea that people should be required to have licenses and training to own a firearm, just like a vehicle. So what if you need to amend the constitution to do that. You've already amended it 27 times - it's not like the thing was perfect the day it was printed and will still be perfect in the year 3500 or some such nonsense. Be very clear, I am in NO WAY talking about "Ban guns" or "Take guns away". I'm talking about restricting certain types of guns, and restricting certain types of people, which of course America has already done. It's really not hard. The rest of the world has done it very well, but you guys are still busy arguing black and white while kids are literally being slaughtered in schools, and people at concerts and movie theatres get gunned down.