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I don't think most Americans or non-Americans really pay too much attention to school shootings one way or another. But when they see semi-regular news of shoot

I don't think most Americans or non-Americans really pay too much attention to school shootings one way or another. But when they see semi-regular news of shootings at schools resulting in large amounts of children being slain they're inclined to think something is wrong in the US. And when it comes to the pervasiveness of US gun culture and how easy it is to get tooled up over there, they're not wrong. Regardless of implied stat inflation, the US is still the undisputed school shooting champion of the world.

WorkerBee28474 2y ago
> But when they see semi-regular news of shootings at schools resulting in large amounts of children being slain... But they don't. Look at the history e.g. on Wikipedia [0]. It tracks school shootings with >= 4 victims in the last 300 years. To call 10 times in the last 10 years semi-regular is a stretch. Most of those didn't make it into the public consciousness. People will remember Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, and Columbine, but those were 12, 18, and 26 years ago. To call them large numbers of slain is a stretch, that Wikipedia article is events >= 4 deaths. Those 4 include perpetrators, the number of innocent victims is lower. To call them children is a stretch, because a lot of the victims are adults/employees/shooters. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...
- soco 2y ago
  This is still arguing about semantics. Switzerland, the poster child argument of gun culture enthusiasts saying "but also they all have guns" had zero such events, whichever way you choose to define them, above or below 4 killed persons. And nobody cares about the exact number anyway outside the "nah we're fine" group, indeed they just want it safer.
  - WorkerBee28474 2y ago
    > Switzerland, the poster child argument of gun culture enthusiasts saying "but also they all have guns" had zero such events America has 38 times the population of Switzerland. If Switzerland was equally as dangerous you'd expect them to have 1/38th the events. That Wikipedia page lists 35 events. How many would we expect Switzerland to have? A bit less than 1, so either 1 or 0. That matches the observed data. > And nobody cares about the exact number anyway outside the "nah we're fine" group, indeed they just want it safer. Maybe they should. The chance for any student in America being killed in a school shooting is something like 1 in 10,000,000. That's around the chance of being killed by lightning. Not struck by lightning - that's a 10x more common 1 in 1,000,000 - but struck and killed by lightning. How much effort to people put into not being killed by lightning? Not much other than knowing 'don't go outside in a thunderstorm'. The risk of school shootings should give students equal alarm.

WorkerBee28474 2y ago

> But when they see semi-regular news of shootings at schools resulting in large amounts of children being slain... But they don't. Look at the history e.g. on Wikipedia [0]. It tracks school shootings with >= 4 victims in the last 300 years. To call 10 times in the last 10 years semi-regular is a stretch. Most of those didn't make it into the public consciousness. People will remember Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, and Columbine, but those were 12, 18, and 26 years ago. To call them large numbers of slain is a stretch, that Wikipedia article is events >= 4 deaths. Those 4 include perpetrators, the number of innocent victims is lower. To call them children is a stretch, because a lot of the victims are adults/employees/shooters. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...

soco 2y ago
This is still arguing about semantics. Switzerland, the poster child argument of gun culture enthusiasts saying "but also they all have guns" had zero such events, whichever way you choose to define them, above or below 4 killed persons. And nobody cares about the exact number anyway outside the "nah we're fine" group, indeed they just want it safer.
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago
  > Switzerland, the poster child argument of gun culture enthusiasts saying "but also they all have guns" had zero such events America has 38 times the population of Switzerland. If Switzerland was equally as dangerous you'd expect them to have 1/38th the events. That Wikipedia page lists 35 events. How many would we expect Switzerland to have? A bit less than 1, so either 1 or 0. That matches the observed data. > And nobody cares about the exact number anyway outside the "nah we're fine" group, indeed they just want it safer. Maybe they should. The chance for any student in America being killed in a school shooting is something like 1 in 10,000,000. That's around the chance of being killed by lightning. Not struck by lightning - that's a 10x more common 1 in 1,000,000 - but struck and killed by lightning. How much effort to people put into not being killed by lightning? Not much other than knowing 'don't go outside in a thunderstorm'. The risk of school shootings should give students equal alarm.