Schools are safer than they were in the 90s • Hacker News Board

Re: Schools are safer than they were in the 90s

#91

Post by mlechha » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

danielvf wrote: post #6

mlechha wrote: post #3

Shouldn't the comparison be made against school shootings world wide? Or at least be normalized for overall crime rate or something?

The numbers are so tiny that comparisons are pretty much irrelevant. Since 1996 there have been just 8 mass k-12 shootings (incidents involving 4 or more school deaths, excluding the assailant), in a nation of 330 million people. That's so far into small numbers territory that any comparisons are guaranteed to be overwhelmed by noise.

When making a decision as to whether something is small, large, or tiny one needs a scale. What's the scale here? For example, if the rest of the world combined has had 12 mass k-12 shootings, then American accounts for 40% of the total shootings which is a huge fraction. So in my original question I was trying to find the right scale.

Edit: In a comment below, this article was linked https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-.... Indeed, on this scale we see a very different picture!

Re: Schools are safer than they were in the 90s

#92

Post by craftyguy » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

allthenews wrote: post #88

craftyguy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the point you are trying to make is that it's worth giving up a few human lives every year to maintain the status quo?

How is it that people are so convinced that guns serve no purpose other than murder of innocent children? This isn't just about obstinately maintaining some "status quo" out of spite for one political party. Guns are tools, and the vast majority of gun owners use them responsibly and more often to positive effect. Let's put it this way: how many incidents of violence did you NOT hear about because simply brandishing…

Please don't assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a gun-hating person. I own several firearms, that I use for sport and hunting. I am in favor of making it harder for people to purchase guns. Most people don't actually need firearms. Funny how humans have made it several hundreds of thousands of years without them, and have managed to protect themselves and hunt food. They are a tool, but an extremely powerful tool in the wrong hands.

Why is it that we require tens of hours of training in order to operate a car, and just a few more to drive bus loads of people, but require absolutely nothing to purchase a tool capable of inflicting just as much, if not more, damage? That's fucked up.

Re: Schools are safer than they were in the 90s

#93

Post by banned1 » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 3:10 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #41

banned1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other countries are not defined by the idea that people have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Europe is of course defined by the ECHR rights to life, liberty, and so on. This does not include "the pursuit of happiness" but it's not really clear how the school shootings help with that.

First, Europe is not a country.

Second, the ECHR mainly concerns itself with the "duty of states" to protect life, not the people's right to life itself.

Here is Article 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_2_of_the_European_Conv...

It is relatively recent that courts have even rules on this, primarily with McCaan v UK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCann_and_Others_v_United_Kin...

In the US, the right to life and liberty supersedes the right to safety. Based on the founding documents, Americans, because they are HUMANS, are born with the right to protect their lives and to pursue happiness. There is no right to safety (as there is no "RIGHT TO HAPPINESS") as safety would be something that OTHERS would have to provide YOU. Nothing that others must provide you can be a right.