Routine Shootings at US Schools and Universities Megathread.

[The Brain]

This discussion is weird to me.

[DGuller]

It's disappointing to me.  While erosion of critical thinking on the left is understandable, it is still depressing, and I believe will prove to be ultimately destructive. 

The good people really have to turn on their brain and think through the news pieces that confirm their worldview before reacting to it, or we'll just be a different kind of non-thinking vegetables.

[The Brain]

turn on their brain

Yes please in one meaning of the term, no please in another.

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm pretty sure the cop deaths at least are US figures, otherwise it would be so small as to defy common sense.  I think same goes for military deaths.  A

From the article:

It is sobering that in 2017, there were 144 police officers who died in the line of duty and about 1,000 active duty military throughout the world who died

I read this as police and military deaths worldwide.  There is no question that the active military figures are worldwide figures.   There is some ambiguity about the police figures. If you interpret it as just US police it doesn't change the math that much, the police + military are now dying at a slightly higher rate, but it is still extremely scandalous that the rates are so close.

part from that, there is mixing and matching of causes of death;  counting some for children while not counting them for cops

On the contrary, it appears to be counting military+police deaths from all on duty causes versus gun deaths only for the kids.  So the real situation appears to be worse thanthe numbers suggest.

[mongers]

I'm pretty sure the cop deaths at least are US figures, otherwise it would be so small as to defy common sense.  I think same goes for military deaths.  A

From the article:

It is sobering that in 2017, there were 144 police officers who died in the line of duty and about 1,000 active duty military throughout the world who died

I read this as police and military deaths worldwide.  There is no question that the active military figures are worldwide figures.   There is some ambiguity about the police figures. If you interpret it as just US police it doesn't change the math that much, the police + military are now dying at a slightly higher rate, but it is still extremely scandalous that the rates are so close.

part from that, there is mixing and matching of causes of death;  counting some for children while not counting them for cops

On the contrary, it appears to be counting military+police deaths from all on duty causes versus gun deaths only for the kids.  So the real situation appears to be worse thanthe numbers suggest.

I think the comparison is a 'valid' one, even if it only generates an interesting discussion here and elsewhere.

I can't be sure, but I'd hazard a guess that the active military deaths, might well be only for the US, as thousands of Iraqi and Afghan military/police have died in the last year alone. 

Now the 1,000+ figure for US military deaths seems high, after all one can only remember a few attacks that have killed a handful of servicemen each time, but when you take into account the total US strength, probably over 1.5 million (wild guess) , and the risky environment they operate in, then accidents, disease and suicide whilst deployed are going to significantly exceed the deaths from enemy action.

[DGuller]

It's a statistical word salad to compare all causes of child deaths to duty deaths of US police and duty deaths of worldwide active duty soldiers, and without even doing it on a per capita basis in the original article.  It's a classic case of starting with a conclusion and then cherrypicking random statistics with no regard to intellectual honesty.  Unfortunately it's very common on the left, which sometimes makes it very difficult to be a liberal statistician.

I will dig into the numbers tonight and try to un-bullshit them to the extent possible, but the conclusion this piece of gross statistical malpractice is steering us towards just doesn't pass the smell test.  What happens with guns in the US is unconscionable, but that doesn't mean that you can't over-egg the pudding in stating that, and do a disservice to everyone by ruining your credibility and dealing collateral damage to others.

[Admiral Yi]

There's no way that's worldwide police and military.  Afghanistan alone has that beat by several orders of magnitude.

[The Minsky Moment]

I can't find DOD casualty statistics for 2017.  The summaries for the 2000-10 period indicate 1000 active duty deaths would be normal.  So I stand corrected on the numbers, DG is correct that there is a big disparity between US police + active military numbers of about 2.2 million and the 57 million school aged children in the US

However the same data show large proportions of accidental deaths and illness related deaths, the majority of which presumably don't directly involve firearms.  A comparable "firearm only" list of military deaths would be considerably lower than the 1144 number. 

It looks like US military and police are about 6 times more likely to die from firearms than a school aged child.  That is still really bad.

[DGuller]

I can't find DOD casualty statistics for 2017.  The summaries for the 2000-10 period indicate 1000 active duty deaths would be normal.  So I stand corrected on the numbers, DG is correct that there is a big disparity between US police + active military numbers of about 2.2 million and the 57 million school aged children in the US

However the same data show large proportions of accidental deaths and illness related deaths, the majority of which presumably don't directly involve firearms.  A comparable "firearm only" list of military deaths would be considerably lower than the 1144 number. 

It looks like US military and police are about 6 times more likely to die from firearms than a school aged child.  That is still really bad.

There are so many things that are not comparable that I don't think it's even worth digging into further, to be honest.  That piece pulled together so many apples and oranges, some of them non-sequitur, that trying to untangle it would make you spend more time on it than the authors did. 

Comparing active duty deaths and firearm deaths is silly, those are two different things, and neither is a subset of the other.  You're talking about extra deaths counted for cops due to non-firearm causes of death, but ignoring the extra deaths counted for children due to suicides, which are not included in active duty death numbers for the cops.  Suicides are a materially bigger cause of death than homicides for all age groups, as far as I know.

[The Minsky Moment]

The military deaths do include suicides as well as vehicles crashes, non-firearm related training accidents, drownings, etc.

[Admiral Yi]

It's all so fucking moot.  Kids are being shot up by gang bangers in Chicago.  So then what do we do?

[DGuller]

It's all so fucking moot.  Kids are being shot up by gang bangers in Chicago.  So then what do we do?

I agree, it is a distraction.  Regardless of statistics, there are a lot of kids getting shot, and they shouldn't be shot. 

My point is that you have to exercise intellectual honesty even when arguing for things that are good, and implying that kids are in more danger than cops and military was one hell of a whopper.  As a reader, you also have to exercise your critical thinking muscle, and don't automatically accept everything that supports your worldview without even so much as a double take.  When you give up the high ground on intellectual rigor, you also give up the moral high ground.

[Malthus]

It's all so fucking moot.  Kids are being shot up by gang bangers in Chicago.  So then what do we do?

I think the problem is that kids are also being shot by family members, other kids, and themselves - probably in larger numbers than by gang bangers.

The solution is both obvious and apparently undoable - adopt the same firearms restrictions other first world nations typically have, which is apparently causally connected to such nations having less kids die in homicides, suicides and fatal accidents overall.

[alfred russel]

Regardless of statistics, there are a lot of kids getting shot, and they shouldn't be shot. 

But there are also a lot of kids that should be shot.

I think the debate should be reframed: rather than how do we stop the kids from being shot, how do we redistribute the shooting of kids from those that shouldn't be shot to those that should be shot.

[jimmy olsen]

Time to go back to school

https://youtu.be/b5ykNZl9mTQ