School shootings are extraordinarily rare. Why is fear of them driving policy?

[jimnyc]

This is in no way meant to diminish school shootings or any shootings for that fact. But guns are inanimate objects, no different than someone using a knife, or a vehicle or a baseball bat to kill another person.

But the statistical odds and the numbers show the FACTS. Just like an image I posted yesterday, there are SO MANY other ways of being killed, and MANY of them preventable, but the liberals want to concentrate solely on their agenda, even if it means completely ignoring other means of folks dying needlessly.

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School shootings are extraordinarily rare. Why is fear of them driving policy?

The first recorded school shooting in the United States took place in 1840, when a law student shot and killed his professor at the University of Virginia. But the modern fear dawned on April 20, 1999, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 classmates and a teacher, and then themselves, at Colorado’s Columbine High. Since then, the murder of children in their classrooms has come to seem common, a regular feature of modern American life, and our fears so strong that we are certain the next horror is sure to come not long after the last.

The Education Department reports that roughly 50 million children attend public schools for roughly 180 days per year. Since Columbine, approximately 200 public school students have been shot to death while school was in session, including the recent slaughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. (and a shooting in Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday that police called accidental that left one student dead). That means the statistical likelihood of any given public school student being killed by a gun, in school, on any given day since 1999 was roughly 1 in 614,000,000. And since the 1990s, shootings at schools have been getting less common.

The chance of a child being shot and killed in a public school is extraordinarily low. Not zero — no risk is. But it’s far lower than many people assume, especially in the glare of heart-wrenching news coverage after an event like Parkland. And it’s far lower than almost any other mortality risk a kid faces, including traveling to and from school, catching a potentially deadly disease while in school or suffering a life-threatening injury playing interscholastic sports.

We sometimes seek protection from our fears in ways that put us in greater peril. In responding to the Parkland shooting, we may be doing just that to our kids.

Statistics seem cold and irrelevant compared with how the evil of a school shooting makes us feel. The victims are children, and research on the psychology of risk has found that few risks worry us more than threats to kids. Parents who send their precious children to school each morning are relinquishing control over their safety; that same research has found that lack of control makes any risk feel more threatening. The parents at Columbine and Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas placed their faith in the school systems, trust that was cruelly violated — and mistrust fuels fear, too, for the parents and all of us.

Rest - https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/school-shootings-are-extraordinarily-rare-why-is-fear-of-them-driving-policy/2018/03/08/f4ead9f2-2247-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.675a75c2b66d

[Elessar]

This is in no way meant to diminish school shootings or any shootings for that fact. But guns are inanimate objects, no different than someone using a knife, or a vehicle or a baseball bat to kill another person.

But the statistical odds and the numbers show the FACTS. Just like an image I posted yesterday, there are SO MANY other ways of being killed, and MANY of them preventable, but the liberals want to concentrate solely on their agenda, even if it means completely ignoring other means of folks dying needlessly.

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School shootings are extraordinarily rare. Why is fear of them driving policy?



I believe there are two factors involved:

ONE: The sensation of a mass casualty, public event. Sensation drives the media to push harder, speculate, and
mold opinion. Not to diminish the event, but single shootings such as occur in places like Chicago are not sensational
any longer. Those attacks are part of that cesspool's daily routine and do not drive public reaction - but should. Places
like that are broken, but NOBODY seems to want to fix them.

TWO: It is a perceived loss of "innocence" when there is an attack in a school or other places where kids congregate.
Beginning at home, they should be urged to report any kind of odd and unusual behavior they hear or observe, even if they have
to report it anonymously. That message should also be delivered in the schools with the vow that no retaliation will
come from the administration for making a report. It boils down to individual perceptions that are best sorted out by
professionals.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

RULES FOR RADICALS: "Never let a good tragedy go to waste."

The radical TOTAL GUN CONFISCATION democrats are just sensationalizing them to further their agenda.

[Gunny]

This is in no way meant to diminish school shootings or any shootings for that fact. But guns are inanimate objects, no different than someone using a knife, or a vehicle or a baseball bat to kill another person.

But the statistical odds and the numbers show the FACTS. Just like an image I posted yesterday, there are SO MANY other ways of being killed, and MANY of them preventable, but the liberals want to concentrate solely on their agenda, even if it means completely ignoring other means of folks dying needlessly.

--

School shootings are extraordinarily rare. Why is fear of them driving policy?

The first recorded school shooting in the United States took place in 1840, when a law student shot and killed his professor at the University of Virginia. But the modern fear dawned on April 20, 1999, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 classmates and a teacher, and then themselves, at Colorado’s Columbine High. Since then, the murder of children in their classrooms has come to seem common, a regular feature of modern American life, and our fears so strong that we are certain the next horror is sure to come not long after the last.

The Education Department reports that roughly 50 million children attend public schools for roughly 180 days per year. Since Columbine, approximately 200 public school students have been shot to death while school was in session, including the recent slaughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. (and a shooting in Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday that police called accidental that left one student dead). That means the statistical likelihood of any given public school student being killed by a gun, in school, on any given day since 1999 was roughly 1 in 614,000,000. And since the 1990s, shootings at schools have been getting less common.

The chance of a child being shot and killed in a public school is extraordinarily low. Not zero — no risk is. But it’s far lower than many people assume, especially in the glare of heart-wrenching news coverage after an event like Parkland. And it’s far lower than almost any other mortality risk a kid faces, including traveling to and from school, catching a potentially deadly disease while in school or suffering a life-threatening injury playing interscholastic sports.

We sometimes seek protection from our fears in ways that put us in greater peril. In responding to the Parkland shooting, we may be doing just that to our kids.

Statistics seem cold and irrelevant compared with how the evil of a school shooting makes us feel. The victims are children, and research on the psychology of risk has found that few risks worry us more than threats to kids. Parents who send their precious children to school each morning are relinquishing control over their safety; that same research has found that lack of control makes any risk feel more threatening. The parents at Columbine and Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas placed their faith in the school systems, trust that was cruelly violated — and mistrust fuels fear, too, for the parents and all of us.

Rest - https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/school-shootings-are-extraordinarily-rare-why-is-fear-of-them-driving-policy/2018/03/08/f4ead9f2-2247-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.675a75c2b66dWhy does fear drive EVERY policy from the left? They're afraid of more sh*t than Don Knotts in "The Ghost and Mr Chicken".

[Gunny]

RULES FOR RADICALS: "Never let a good tragedy go to waste."

The radical TOTAL GUN CONFISCATION democrats are just sensationalizing them to further their agenda.They don't need a tragedy. They misrepresent EVERYTHING. Fear is reserved for resistance to their "cause" du jour. Fear and or labeling/profiling/use of racism is then used to hammer home incessantly their message until the sheep believe it and the wolves just shut up so they don't have to listen to it anymore.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

They don't need a tragedy. They misrepresent EVERYTHING. Fear is reserved for resistance to their "cause" du jour. Fear and or labeling/profiling/use of racism is then used to hammer home incessantly their message until the sheep believe it and the wolves just shut up so they don't have to listen to it anymore.
You and I ain't wolves though, Gunny. We don't shut up... and neither does president Trump, and they CAN'T... FUCKING... STAND IT.

All the other republican presidents crumpled and bent over when the democrat propaganda wing got into action, but Trump just SPITS IT BACK AT THEM, and it INFURIATES them. He's NOT supposed to DO THAT. He's supposed to SHUT UP and SLINK AWAY.

The BEST part about social media, and boards like this, thank God for big Jim, is that these mealy mouthed little ass clown fascist democrats CAN'T make us SHUT UP HERE. And with that, we find that there are WAAAAY more like us, when if you'd listen solely to the democrat propaganda wing, you'd think that EVERYONE thought just like THEY DO, when NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.

And now the left is trying to convince everyone that in November, it's going to be BLOOD BATH and the dems are going to TAKE OVER EVERYTHING, the congress, the senate, AND THE EARTH... the UNIVERSE! Well... where have we heard that before? Could it have been Hitlery was going to win in a landslide? Gee... I think so. These fuckers are NOT worth listening to. EVERYTHING they spew is BULL SHIT.

[Gunny]

You and I ain't wolves though, Gunny. We don't shut up... and neither does president Trump, and they CAN'T... FUCKING... STAND IT.

All the other republican presidents crumpled and bent over when the democrat propaganda wing got into action, but Trump just SPITS IT BACK AT THEM, and it INFURIATES them. He's NOT supposed to DO THAT. He's supposed to SHUT UP and SLINK AWAY.

The BEST part about social media, and boards like this, thank God for big Jim, is that these mealy mouthed little ass clown fascist democrats CAN'T make us SHUT UP HERE. And with that, we find that there are WAAAAY more like us, when if you'd listen solely to the democrat propaganda wing, you'd think that EVERYONE thought just like THEY DO, when NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.

And now the left is trying to convince everyone that in November, it's going to be BLOOD BATH and the dems are going to TAKE OVER EVERYTHING, the congress, the senate, AND THE EARTH... the UNIVERSE! Well... where have we heard that before? Could it have been Hitlery was going to win in a landslide? Gee... I think so. These fuckers are NOT worth listening to. EVERYTHING they spew is BULL SHIT.Bush didn't run away either. He just ignored their existence. While there is some satisfaction in being right and serving the shit back, it just gives them more ammo for their shit machine.

Pretending they don't exist gives them NOTHING. A lot harder to do too.

I want the people that have the power to do something to do it. They don't hear us. Not sure why. The NO! I let out over that Omnibus Bill should have been loud enough. The Senators from THIS state WILL be hearing from me about mid-terms though. I just haven't looked up which way they voted yet.

[Kathianne]

Bush didn't run away either. He just ignored their existence. While there is some satisfaction in being right and serving the shit back, it just gives them more ammo for their shit machine.

Pretending they don't exist gives them NOTHING. A lot harder to do too.

I want the people that have the power to do something to do it. They don't hear us. Not sure why. The NO! I let out over that Omnibus Bill should have been loud enough. The Senators from THIS state WILL be hearing from me about mid-terms though. I just haven't looked up which way they voted yet.

Cruz voted against it.

[Gunny]

Cruz voted against it.Figures. I don't like him :). I know there're some "brand names" talking crap on the tube hiding behind the military spending as an excuse. I agree the military needs the money. I DIDN'T however hear anything about WHAT or HOW that spending is going to be offset.

I heard the every-optimistic swami's are predicting a 2.9% growth in the economy instead of the previously predicted 2.5% growth. I think if you ass BOTH predictions together you're STILL not going to pay the price of this Bill.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Bush didn't run away either. He just ignored their existence. While there is some satisfaction in being right and serving the shit back, it just gives them more ammo for their shit machine.

Pretending they don't exist gives them NOTHING. A lot harder to do too.

I want the people that have the power to do something to do it. They don't hear us. Not sure why. The NO! I let out over that Omnibus Bill should have been loud enough. The Senators from THIS state WILL be hearing from me about mid-terms though. I just haven't looked up which way they voted yet.
Are you kidding... Bush was a pussy. They hammered him just as bad as they're hammering Trump, but Trump gives it back.

You don't any shit, I don't take any shit, no one takes shit from someone that they know is lies and outright BS. I'm GLAD Trump gives it back. There's not a person on earth that should have to listen to the unhinged, hysterical garbage the left vomits out. That IS, one the of BEST qualities of Trump in my opinion. I'd do the exact same thing if I was president.

But I'll go ya one better... if I was a BILLIONAIRE, I'd start a new twitter, a new facebook, and I'd put these leftist jerkoffs out of business. The only ones left on their POS websites would be THEM, they'd be nothing more than an echo chamber for them to listen to THEMSELVES.

I've heard you say more than once on here... "I DON'T BACK DOWN," well why should Trump?