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> America doesn't have a school shooting problem because all human societies develop shooting problems, it has them because America specifically squeezes its yo

> America doesn't have a school shooting problem because all human societies develop shooting problems, it has them because America specifically squeezes its youth in ways that makes them more violent. That's actually a good point you're making against yourself, because I went to a public school from grades 4-12, and spent 5 years in state college. Not once was a gun fired. And most people will say the same. What you listed are again exceptions... America has 300MM people, 400MM guns, some crazy violent demographics, yet the "school shooting" incidence in the last 40 years can be counted on two hands. And from what I've heard, have been steadily decreasing. Even if they were 10x the rate, they would still be exceptions to the rule.

Ygg2 13y ago
> Yet the "school shooting" incidence in the last 40 years can be counted on two hands. Wow, you are either not informed, not human (got like 100 fingers per hand?) or using some very narrow definition of school shooting (like children below 6 in Michigan). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the...
- powertower 13y ago
  I've seen that list many times before and was even going to post it myself. I'm guessing you just skimmed over it and did not read the notes. So let me rephrase, how many school shooting can you count on your hands that you knew about? I'm guessing you won't make it pass your two hands. I'm not going to count crime infested ghetto area school shootings that involve a 70% dropout and incarceration rate, where one student shoots another over some argument over a girl. Nor gang related violence in those same schools. They will do that in and out of school as much as anywhere else. It's not related to any particlar place or time. I'm not going to count a depressed kid that goes into the school to commit suicide in the bathroom. Nor someone that purposely shoots someone else in the butt and gives up. Or attempts to murder one single person at school because they don't know were that other person lives and it's convinent... All those things have nothing to do with schools. What I'm going to do is only count real school shootings that involve someone walking in and trying to kill as many people as possible. And weight that against all the non-school shooting events in relation to the the number of pupils, schools, and days. Guess what happens then? Data should always be filtered, outliers removed, then normalized or standardized.
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    So its choice 3. Enough to know that it's larger than ten. And knowledge of shootings is like the worst possible criteria. How many people you knew that died of asthma? Why not count the crime infested ghetto? They are also result of current politics in one way or other. I'm guessing with enough applied statistic any conclusion you wish can be reached. Also even by that statistics you'll reach a conclusion that American has a lot of school killings compared to other countries of similar wealth.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    This is practically a lesson in the misuse of data. However you define the metric you're measuring, you should be comparing America to other countries. By any measure, America has more school shootings than most other countries.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]

Ygg2 13y ago

> Yet the "school shooting" incidence in the last 40 years can be counted on two hands. Wow, you are either not informed, not human (got like 100 fingers per hand?) or using some very narrow definition of school shooting (like children below 6 in Michigan). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the...

powertower 13y ago
I've seen that list many times before and was even going to post it myself. I'm guessing you just skimmed over it and did not read the notes. So let me rephrase, how many school shooting can you count on your hands that you knew about? I'm guessing you won't make it pass your two hands. I'm not going to count crime infested ghetto area school shootings that involve a 70% dropout and incarceration rate, where one student shoots another over some argument over a girl. Nor gang related violence in those same schools. They will do that in and out of school as much as anywhere else. It's not related to any particlar place or time. I'm not going to count a depressed kid that goes into the school to commit suicide in the bathroom. Nor someone that purposely shoots someone else in the butt and gives up. Or attempts to murder one single person at school because they don't know were that other person lives and it's convinent... All those things have nothing to do with schools. What I'm going to do is only count real school shootings that involve someone walking in and trying to kill as many people as possible. And weight that against all the non-school shooting events in relation to the the number of pupils, schools, and days. Guess what happens then? Data should always be filtered, outliers removed, then normalized or standardized.
- Ygg2 13y ago
  So its choice 3. Enough to know that it's larger than ten. And knowledge of shootings is like the worst possible criteria. How many people you knew that died of asthma? Why not count the crime infested ghetto? They are also result of current politics in one way or other. I'm guessing with enough applied statistic any conclusion you wish can be reached. Also even by that statistics you'll reach a conclusion that American has a lot of school killings compared to other countries of similar wealth.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  This is practically a lesson in the misuse of data. However you define the metric you're measuring, you should be comparing America to other countries. By any measure, America has more school shootings than most other countries.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]