Routine Shootings at US Schools and Universities Megathread.

[mongers]

Classic meaningless boilerplate BS from a politician:

Just finished update from fed authorities on #FloridaSchoolShooting. It is clear attack was designed & executed to maximize loss of life
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 15, 2018

But he said that it was too soon to debate whether tighter gun laws could have stopped it.

"You should know the facts of that incident before you run out and prescribe some law that you claim could have prevented it," he told Fox News.

But apparently not to soon to go on 'news media' and apply some political spin.

[Liep]

""This is US," the New York Daily News declared on Thursday's front page, highlighting the fact there have been 300 such incidents in schools since the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012.

In those six years, there have been 1,607 mass shootings, with at least 1,846 people killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive."

The Guardian agrees with mongers but uses a more modern language in its title: The New Normal - school shootings every 60 hours

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/15/new-normal-school-shooting-every-60-hours-us-accepts-grim-reality/

[Malthus]

Frankly, I've stopped caring about these shootings.  These things are bound to happen as long as the US continues its highly unusual and unreasonable stance on guns.  Wake me up when the regulations change, and I don't expect that to happen any time soon.

One of the positive aspects of our unusual and unreasonable stance is that since the government doesn't have a monopoly, we're not as cowed by it as people in more reasonable countries.

Actually ... it would appear that Americans have good reason to be more frightened of their government and its authorities than citizens of other, comparable first world nations.

The authorities lock up a far greater percentage of the civilian population, and the police kill far more of them. 

US prison population by percentage is highest rate in the world: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm

US shootings by police: https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-12/when-it-comes-police-shootings-us-doesnt-look-developed-nation

If widespread, unrestrained gun ownership makes people safer from their own government, there is very little evidence in the US situation for it.

[garbon]

Yeah, I think Teach is off his rocker on that front.

Also, concerns about citizens having guns has only made government agents (e.g. cops) more likely to shoot civilians.

[Caliga]

As long as we allow lobbyists and corporations to buy elected officials, it'll never change.

[grumbler]

Guns make everyone less safe.  The stats prove that.  Owning a gun makes you many times as likely to die of gunshot wounds than not owning a gun.  It probably is a pity that it isn't even further more likely than it is, as that gene might Darwin itself out of the US gene pool.

As far as rational discussion on gun control, I don't think it is possible.  If 20 slaughtered six-year-olds doesn't faze the National Riot Association and its accomplices, nothing will.  I got a laugh out of the statement by some NRA (member of supporter, didn't catch which) guy on the radio, where he argued that it wasn't guns that caused the problem, but rather that too many Americans saw violence as an acceptable solution to problems.  I was thinking "now that's just an even better argument for getting rid of all the guns!"

[Iormlund]

Quitters

Hey I am always open to other methods to fighting school shootings. Maybe heavily armed defense drones.

One of the local systems near me(Riverside) has put guns into the school that authorized people can access the gun safe.

I assume it won't work as the teachers would wet their pants. LIBERUL TEACHERS.

No problem. That's where the teacher of History and Moral Philosophy comes in.

[Iormlund]

But that's beside the point. I do believe guns have a deterrent effect on government agents acting with impunity and I do believe an armed populace is less accepting of limitations on its liberty. That's not to say the US and Chinese systems are the only options, but... It does seem like Euros are more deferential to their governments and more amenable to restrictions on their liberty than we are.

Are you kidding? You live in a country where the State can and does regularly gun down its own citizens with impunity.

[Jacob]

To this outsider Americans seem more deferential to government agents in uniform (especially police and the military) than the norm I've seen elsewhere.

[Valmy]

Are you kidding? You live in a country where the State can and does regularly gun down its own citizens with impunity.

I live here and the weird acceptance of this just blows my mind. Or I guess would, but somehow whether or not cops should shoot people without trial became part of the culture wars with it being code for other shit.

[Valmy]

To this outsider Americans seem more deferential to government agents in uniform (especially police and the military) than the norm I've seen elsewhere.

It's complicated.

[The Minsky Moment]

If widespread, unrestrained gun ownership makes people safer from their own government, there is very little evidence in the US situation for it.

Top 10 countries in guns per capita:
USA, Serbia, Yemen, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Uruguay, Norway, France, Canada.

Not sure what inference can be drawn from this.  It certainly doesn't make the case that gun ownership is a good hedge against government oppression. 

Incidentally North Korea and Japan happen to have the same exact level of gun ownership.

[Valmy]

If widespread, unrestrained gun ownership makes people safer from their own government, there is very little evidence in the US situation for it.

Top 10 countries in guns per capita:
USA, Serbia, Yemen, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Uruguay, Norway, France, Canada.

Not sure what inference can be drawn from this.  It certainly doesn't make the case that gun ownership is a good hedge against government oppression. 

Incidentally North Korea and Japan happen to have the same exact level of gun ownership.

But Hitler took away the Jews' guns first!

[Jacob]

Please don't get murdered at school today

[Barrister]

I was going to the dr's office this morning, so I took my kids to school.  On Thursdays my wife usually stays a few minutes to read with Timothy, so I did that.  I heard the school announcements.  They were doing a school lockdown drill.  Not a fire drill, where everyone files out of the building, but a lockdown drill, where everyone gets locked in their rooms.

I don't remember doing lockdown drills as a kid.