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We should do many more things to stop school shootings, including getting guns out of the hands of children. It's also important to understand how rare school

We should do many more things to stop school shootings, including getting guns out of the hands of children. It's also important to understand how rare school shootings remain in the US. The shooting rate is pretty swingy, with some years fewer than 5 school experiencing at least one death, and other years as many as 40. Assuming 20 schools a year have a shooting death and 128,000 schools, that's a 0.01% chance each year that your child will attend a school where a shooting happens, or a 0.2% chance (260 deaths) across a 13-year primary and secondary education. That's way too high, but it's not going to happen at all at 99.8% of schools over a 13-year period. In that same 13-year window, ~45,000 children will be killed in a motor vehicle incident, meaning that assuming equal distribution over schools, there's a 35% chance that a student at your child's school will be killed via a motor vehicle during their childhood. If refusing to go to school for a 0.2% chance of a shooting is rational, how is getting a car not equally so? After all, except for the teens driving at age 15.5 and up, these kids are passengers, and have no control over their safety in a car, just like they have no control of their safety at school.

jstarfish 3y ago
> That's way too high, but it's not going to happen at all at 99.8% of schools over a 13-year period. [...] ~45,000 children will be killed in a motor vehicle incident, meaning that assuming equal distribution over schools, there's a 35% chance that a student at your child's school will be killed via a motor vehicle during their childhood. > If refusing to go to school for a 0.2% chance of a shooting is rational, how is getting a car not equally so? All valid points. I know the stats are what they are--by rights they should be terrified of being on the road--but this is about optics. The lack of any response to what they [incorrectly] perceive as a threat sends the message that nobody cares about them. If enough people feel unsafe at work, security patrols will increase to project the appearance of safety. In this case, we're dealing with scared children...it wouldn't take banning all guns to change that. Shitshows like Uvalde do the opposite-- where even the cops are seen quivering in fear. Unlike their usual nonsense ("I can't get a job, my Munchausen's is flaring up!" or "You're abusive for not buying me a car!"), the kids have no demands on this one. They're begging for help. Ignoring that is only going to foster resentment, antisocial and sociopathic behavior; we give money to the poor to keep their knives away from our throats (and alas, food stamp programs are being defunded as we speak). These kids are the same demographic we expect will take up arms (irony) to defend the country when/if we have any kind of foreign conflict; meanwhile our two adversaries have been working very hard over the last decade to groom them for defection by selling them the idea that they can have everything for free under Communism. My point was mostly that I wouldn't blame them for welcoming a change in management. We do nothing to win anybody's hearts or minds. Even the case in TFA, in Canada-- we treat kids like a pool of idiots to exploit with blinky lights, loot crates and smartphones, and signal that we'll just leave them for dead if they feel threatened. The psychologists they go cry to have peers helping companies engineer these very outcomes.

jstarfish 3y ago

> That's way too high, but it's not going to happen at all at 99.8% of schools over a 13-year period. [...] ~45,000 children will be killed in a motor vehicle incident, meaning that assuming equal distribution over schools, there's a 35% chance that a student at your child's school will be killed via a motor vehicle during their childhood. > If refusing to go to school for a 0.2% chance of a shooting is rational, how is getting a car not equally so? All valid points. I know the stats are what they are--by rights they should be terrified of being on the road--but this is about optics. The lack of any response to what they [incorrectly] perceive as a threat sends the message that nobody cares about them. If enough people feel unsafe at work, security patrols will increase to project the appearance of safety. In this case, we're dealing with scared children...it wouldn't take banning all guns to change that. Shitshows like Uvalde do the opposite-- where even the cops are seen quivering in fear. Unlike their usual nonsense ("I can't get a job, my Munchausen's is flaring up!" or "You're abusive for not buying me a car!"), the kids have no demands on this one. They're begging for help. Ignoring that is only going to foster resentment, antisocial and sociopathic behavior; we give money to the poor to keep their knives away from our throats (and alas, food stamp programs are being defunded as we speak). These kids are the same demographic we expect will take up arms (irony) to defend the country when/if we have any kind of foreign conflict; meanwhile our two adversaries have been working very hard over the last decade to groom them for defection by selling them the idea that they can have everything for free under Communism. My point was mostly that I wouldn't blame them for welcoming a change in management. We do nothing to win anybody's hearts or minds. Even the case in TFA, in Canada-- we treat kids like a pool of idiots to exploit with blinky lights, loot crates and smartphones, and signal that we'll just leave them for dead if they feel threatened. The psychologists they go cry to have peers helping companies engineer these very outcomes.