Since I've got nothing else, I'm putting my hope for my children's safety in HISD being too 'urban' to have this issue.
Mass shootings at schools are largely blown out of proportional, statistically speaking. There are roughly 100,000 schools. And even if you're that one school that gets selected, there are hundreds of students per school. Knowing what to do is much more important in the event of a shooting than worrying about getting killed in a mass shooting.
Don't disagree that chances of dying like this are low. But, death isn't the only adverse consequence. When 10 people are murdered on a campus of a thousand, everyone on the campus knew someone that was killed. Everyone was on site of a murder rampage. Each victim has family members who are deeply affected. The count of people affected is larger than the number of students on campus. To say nothing of the less intense but wider impacts on the community. I've seen a coworker charged with a felony - it cast a pall over the whole office. I wouldn't get too reductionist about your statistical chances just because you're not likely to actually die in a mass shooting.
Here is a statistic for you: We have 57x the number of school shooting compared to the other G7 countries. If you add the other six countries together they have more people. https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-world-trnd/index.html
Well for sure school shootings happen more in the US than in other countries because it's a cultural thing. That doesn't change the fact that they are still incredibly rare and are largely blown out of proportion. What I mean by that is that while sure, school shootings have become more popular with this current young generation than they were with previous generations, but you'll take that over the murder rate being literally double what it is today like you had with previous generations.
Here is another fun number. Nearly 100 people die each day from gun violence. The pro-gun crowd doesnt care. The anti-gun crowd is largely ambivalent about it. We only talk gun control when we have mass shootings. And then we only talk about idiotic measures like banning semi-automatic rifles. If we as a country really care about gun violence, we should be concerned about the daily deaths just as much as the mass shootings. If we can reduce those daily statistical deaths, it will directly impact mass shootings.
To put that in context though, approximately 102 people die each day in car accidents in the US. The "nearly 100" number that you are citing is actually 96 and of those 96, 59 are suicides. The number when it comes to intentional homicides with guns is 35.
I agree with you. I wouldn't characterize the left as ambivalent to daily violence though. There's just some hurdles to jump. The first is that you're not going to get good media coverage on some interpersonal incident of gun violence. Without the media coverage, no one hears your message. That makes the mass shootings a good banner event where you'll get coverage and everyone is paying attention and you can say your bit about gun control. The second hurdle is defeatism on the type of gun control. The advocates have already lost on umpteen different approaches and expect to lose again. They are looking for the lowest hanging fruit, which they think is banning the AR-15, so they can register some kind of win. They saw an assault weapons ban in the past. Effective or not, they need to show they can get any kind of win that won't get struck down in court. If a national registry or something like that was thrown in their laps they'd take it, but they know better than to think they could win on something like that. So I don't think it's ambivalence. I think it's just the extreme legal and political weakness of their advocacy makes it look like they don't care. I can go on some random website and say I want abolition of the second amendment and confiscation of all guns (which I sometimes do) and I won't look ambivalent, but I won't look very effectual either.
I think the issue is that they are just looking for a "win" and like you say, they aren't interested in if it would be effective or not. Their goal is pushing anti-gun legislation, they aren't really concerned about violence.
I believe their goal is pushing anti-gun legislation, but I doubt they aren't really concerned about the violence. I think deep down, everyone--except for those afflicted with the most psychopathy--are concerned about the violence. I think this is why the NRA looks like such a bunch of A-holes too (well, that and the fact that they have people like Ted Nugent acting as a spokesperson). Even though there's probably a lot of really good people in the NRA, their brass knows this is war of attrition. Every bit of legislation that goes against gun owners is lost ground that will be damn hard to make up. But of course, the NRA also has the membership, the money, and the clout to keep on winning. They are also firmly entrenched as a "going concern." The NRA has a management that is VERY well compensated, and just for the sake of their own financial preservation, they don't really have much motivation to promote any common sense gun legislation.
Well sure, on some level everyone cares about violence and everyone is against it, the problem comes due to the different opinions as to what should be done about it. Even worse, the different groups get so lost in trying to push for their "side" that they lose focus about what really matters and end up just looking to score political points and "get wins" at any cost. You see this kind of thing on both sides and that's what I meant by saying that they weren't really concerned about violence. I'm basically saying that the political game at some point took over as the primary concern.
What? You are saying the anti-gun crowd is not concerned about violence? Then why are they anti-gun? Are you saying the anti-gun crowd only cares about mass shootings, and is ok with everyday gun violence? Not sure I would agree with that. I've never heard the anti-gun crowd say they were ok with any kind of violence.
I'm saying that the political game is what really matters to them at this point. That's why they'd push for gun bans that they know won't actually move the needle, they just "want a win" even if it does nothing. In fact, I'd say that people on both sides at this point are dug in and are focusing more on the political game that is being played than they are on the actual problem such as it is.
one guy tried to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb so we all had to start taking off our shoes to board a plane. then one guy tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his underwear so we had to start subjecting ourselves to having our crotches and private areas groped by a bunch of federalized mall security guards. we shredded the 4th amendment because of two isolated, statistically insignificant events. but any talk of sensible gun control/regulation is immediately shut down as unconstitutional and a violation of our rights. i wish the 2nd amendment extremists cared that much about the rest of the bill of rights. but our politicians are so controlled by the NRA that we cant even get them to fund a study on causes of gun violence. dan patrick is so controlled by the NRA that he will go on national TV and say video games, abortion and a half dozen other things are the causes of gun violence in america, but wont mention guns at all.
It's funny, people say this all the time as if it is factual, but the NRA doesn't really contribute much to campaigns or donate much to candidates. I mean, just because politicians don't support attempting to strip civil rights from the people doesn't mean that they are bought by a special interest group.
and your last comment goes back to my point that i wish 2nd amendment extremists cared that much about the rest of the bill of rights. any talk of sensible gun regulation = "strip civil rights from people". but most of these 2nd amendment extremists had absolutely no problem with the 4th amendment being torn up.
