KaiserJeep wrote:I'd like everybody to take a step back and consider a few things from a perspective that is removed from this most recent tragedy.
First, firearm deaths are only the seventh cause of preventable deaths in the USA:
Secondly, for all of the publicity they generate, mass shootings only account for about 1% of the gun-related deaths. The statistics are in fact heavily weighted towards suicide:
...and I'm with vtsnowedin, people facing unpleasent deaths should have the right to suicide.
Thirdly, what has changed in the recent past is the intensity of media reporting. Actual firearm deaths have been declining for 25 years even while gun ownership surged:
Of course, even a single gun homicide is a tragedy. However, if only one in a million humans is sick enough to commit a mass shooting, with 320 million people in America, you would expect 320 mass shootings per year. The actual rate has been 8.6 mass shootings per year for several years. ("Mass shooting" being defined as four or more victims.)
I'll have to say, these figures indicate there is not a problem, things are improving over time, and no changes are required.
Outcast_Searcher wrote:dissident wrote: Instead of crying rivers of fake tears, the media and the rest of the "community" can make sure that schools have gun control checkpoints and that no student or random clown off the street can enter the building and school grounds fully loaded.
I think it's expensive enough to effectively do that, that you won't see communities universally jumping to make it so.
I attended high school with busing to deal with segregation. So a large (nearly 2000 students) high school with about 400 minority (and mostly hostile, given that they were being bused away from their homes/friends due to politics) -- so there was a lot of racial posturing, some gangs, lots of fights, weapons (not guns, but knives and clubs), etc. This was in the mid 70's.
So they hired security guards and set up checkpoints. So theoretically you couldn't get in the building with weapons. But they rarely frisked the "good" kids, so they could have carried stuff in for their buddies. They couldn't lock the fire doors (fire marshall orders), so unless teachers watched them ALL the time, they'd be open to pass in weapons, drugs, truants, and of course, bold drug dealers. And the check points weren't even always manned (costs, I presume).
Now you have kids organized with smart phones, technology aware, etc.
So unless you build fences all around campuses and man them sufficiently at EVERY gate and frisk everybody, good luck keeping trouble out of the campuses. It's a worthy goal -- I just don't see society spending all that money on every school unless they perceive it as "worth it". Thus far, it mostly hasn't been "worth it" to have most school systems that provide good K-12 educations, so color me skeptical.
KaiserJeep wrote:I'd like everybody to take a step back and consider a few things from a perspective that is removed from this most recent tragedy.
First, firearm deaths are only the seventh cause of preventable deaths in the USA:
dissident wrote:Once again a fine example of skimping on security.
KaiserJeep wrote:
Still, compared to a serious problem like (for example) opiod overdoses, these shootings are small potatoes.
vtsnowedin wrote:dissident wrote:Once again a fine example of skimping on security.
Get real. There are so many schools in the US that protecting them all at a Tel Aviv standard would bankrupt the country before any shots were fired. Think how much we have spent being X-rayed and searched when trying to board a plane post 911. That cost is their enduring victory in spite of the fact they are now dead.
There were several failures at this Florida shooting and we should of course determine what caused each of them and correct it but you can't expect any action will stop future similar events as the possibilities are too numerous for officials to prevent them all.
dissident wrote:In 2015 the US spent $36 billion to fight the war on drugs. There were 90,000 elementary schools operating that year.
Suppose we hire 4 security guards per school. That is 360,000 guards and pay them $100,000 each. We need $36 billion dollars.
According the climate change denier clown, the USA can't afford this.
Return to North America Discussion
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests