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Monday, March 26, 2018

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 million. 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.

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why? Because one dead child in what is supposed to be a safe environment is one child too many.

Would the person that wrote this column ask the same question had their child been murdered while attending school?

Anonymous said...

Soros Soros Soros
Bloomberg Bloomberg Bloomberg

Anonymous said...

This is easy to answer but most of you clowns can't understand it for some reason...

The reason why is this: Because they want to take just our guns so when or if any govt official decides to pull a china move and become dictator we can forcefully remove them... It has nothing to do with hunting, or for fun, or to go to the range, or to be cool... Although that is some of the reason's why people love guns... The main reason is tyranny...

Seems to me, you people love being slaves, and love being trashed on and abused and anything else...

Anonymous said...

Because using the children is straight out of Adolph Hitler's playbook. Any time it's for the chillldren, beware!

Anonymous said...

By these measures the statistical likelihood of dying in a terrorist attack is even smaller and yet we are ready to ban all Muslims.

Jim said...


"...you clowns..."

If you want people to consider what you have to say, you would do well to stop insulting them.

Anonymous said...

9:41, Texting and driving kills over 4,000 teens EVERY YEAR. Did anyone march to ban cell phones to save those lives?

Over 4,400 teens commit suicide EVERY YEAR due to cyber-bullying. Did anyone march to ban Facebook to save those lives ? Nah, they love their kissy-face selfies.

Over 10,000 people die EVERY YEAR from DUI's. Did anyone march to ban alcohol to save those lives?

On average 12 students die every year from playing football (about the same as die in a school shooting!) Did anyone march to ban football to save those lives?

Basically, guns are as dangerous to students as football, and far less dangerous than social media, cell phones, and alcohol. Your selective moral outrage proves that this is not about kid's lives, but about politics.

Anonymous said...

Our tyrannical government rulers {congress and MGA} MUST disarm all patriots in order to implement their next phase of the plan.
Disarming is the plan, everything else is just the excuse to do so.

Anonymous said...

I'm more afraid of my government than a random crazy with a gun. If I encounter that random crazy with a gun I know my best chance at survival is a random armed good Samaritan.

Unknown said...

^^ this!!!