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>“we just have to accept that these systems will occasionally kill children” I think this a generally a good mindset to have. I just see the hyper obsessive "

>“we just have to accept that these systems will occasionally kill children” I think this a generally a good mindset to have. I just see the hyper obsessive "safety" culture corrupting things. We as a society are so so afraid of any risk that we're paralysing ourselves.

insane_dreamer 1y ago
That sounds a lot like the people who gloss over school shootings because they want to be able to play with guns.
- Dilettante_ 1y ago
  Wow. Incredible framing, leaving absolutely no room for a rebuttal to have any legitimate, reasonable position.
  - insane_dreamer 1y ago
    anyone is welcome to state their legitimate, reasonable position against gun controls
    - Dilettante_ 1y ago
      I believe the de-utility of risk of school shootings is less than the utility of having people have the freedom to own guns.
- rpdillon 1y ago
  Unpopular, but backed by numbers: school shootings are predominantly media hype. There are a total of 50,000 gun deaths in the United States each year. Half of those are suicide. The total number of fatalities from all school shootings in the US since 1990 is 536, with roughly 1100 injuries over the same period. School shootings are very disturbing, but they are also flashy and attract media coverage, and so they are overblown, especially relative to other gun deaths. But I think human psychology leads people to see higher risk in situations where they feel like they have no control. The idea of sending your kid off to school and having them get killed evokes sort of the same helpless feeling as the feeling around a plane crashing when you're a passenger. But when it's inner city gang violence, or a depressed man killing himself in his garage, we don't seem to care as much. This also plays into the narrative around police shootings. There are about 1100 people killed by cops every year in the United States, and that number has stayed pretty consistent over the last decade. But our narrative around it is out of proportion to the actual number of people killed because of the circumstances around the killing. In any case, it's often easier to articulate the cost of freedom rather than its value.
  - slg 1y ago
    Roughly an hour after this comment was made, someone walked into the church at a Catholic school, killed an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old, shot 17 other people including 14 children, and then turned the gun on himself.[1] "Predominantly media hype" indeed. [1] - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-active-shooter-situation-minneapolis-church-catholic-scho-rcna227498 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-...
    - rpdillon 1y ago
      Yep, an excellent illustration of the point. Two dead, a dozen injured. What other gun violence happened this week that we'll never hear about?
      - slg 1y ago
        Has there been some other incident of gun violence this week that resulted in 3 deaths and 17 injuries that hasn't been reported? According to Wikipedia[1] this is the largest mass shooting this year in terms of number of injuries. I guess that isn't worth reporting in the media. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
        rpdillon 1y ago
        You're using media coverage to critique my point that media coverage is overblown. My only point here is that less than 1/10 of 1% of the shooting deaths in the United States over the last 30 years were related to school shootings. This shooting is definitely newsworthy. I'm mostly concerned about the other ~800 shooting deaths, mostly suicides, that statistically happened this week that we don't discuss. Suicides in the US are on the rise, and murder rates are down. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-us/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...
        1y ago

insane_dreamer 1y ago

That sounds a lot like the people who gloss over school shootings because they want to be able to play with guns.

Dilettante_ 1y ago
Wow. Incredible framing, leaving absolutely no room for a rebuttal to have any legitimate, reasonable position.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  anyone is welcome to state their legitimate, reasonable position against gun controls
  - Dilettante_ 1y ago
    I believe the de-utility of risk of school shootings is less than the utility of having people have the freedom to own guns.
rpdillon 1y ago
Unpopular, but backed by numbers: school shootings are predominantly media hype. There are a total of 50,000 gun deaths in the United States each year. Half of those are suicide. The total number of fatalities from all school shootings in the US since 1990 is 536, with roughly 1100 injuries over the same period. School shootings are very disturbing, but they are also flashy and attract media coverage, and so they are overblown, especially relative to other gun deaths. But I think human psychology leads people to see higher risk in situations where they feel like they have no control. The idea of sending your kid off to school and having them get killed evokes sort of the same helpless feeling as the feeling around a plane crashing when you're a passenger. But when it's inner city gang violence, or a depressed man killing himself in his garage, we don't seem to care as much. This also plays into the narrative around police shootings. There are about 1100 people killed by cops every year in the United States, and that number has stayed pretty consistent over the last decade. But our narrative around it is out of proportion to the actual number of people killed because of the circumstances around the killing. In any case, it's often easier to articulate the cost of freedom rather than its value.
- slg 1y ago
  Roughly an hour after this comment was made, someone walked into the church at a Catholic school, killed an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old, shot 17 other people including 14 children, and then turned the gun on himself.[1] "Predominantly media hype" indeed. [1] - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-active-shooter-situation-minneapolis-church-catholic-scho-rcna227498 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-...
  - rpdillon 1y ago
    Yep, an excellent illustration of the point. Two dead, a dozen injured. What other gun violence happened this week that we'll never hear about?
    - slg 1y ago
      Has there been some other incident of gun violence this week that resulted in 3 deaths and 17 injuries that hasn't been reported? According to Wikipedia[1] this is the largest mass shooting this year in terms of number of injuries. I guess that isn't worth reporting in the media. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
      - rpdillon 1y ago
        You're using media coverage to critique my point that media coverage is overblown. My only point here is that less than 1/10 of 1% of the shooting deaths in the United States over the last 30 years were related to school shootings. This shooting is definitely newsworthy. I'm mostly concerned about the other ~800 shooting deaths, mostly suicides, that statistically happened this week that we don't discuss. Suicides in the US are on the rise, and murder rates are down. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-us/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...
        1y ago