List of school shootings in the United States | Hacker News Reader

List of school shootings in the United States

en.wikipedia.org

46 pointsm0nikasingh68 comments

I'm curious about what arguments are brought by those resisting the gun laws. When one of these things happens of course there's a call for laws to be restricted, but it doesn't seem to happen. There must be a parliamentary majority against it I guess, but what reasons do they give?

Steelman version please.

One argument I rarely see mentioned: there are basically two Nash equilibria in the problem, one where gun ownership is sparse and one where it is very common.

If I live in a country with very few guns around, say most of Europe, I'm probably better off not having one - it's common for gun owners to be killed with their own gun in a melee, for example. If, on the other hand, any burglar or opportunistic petty criminal has a handgun, I guess I may need one too.

Now, jumping from the "lots of guns" equilibrium to the "few guns" equilibrium, even if you have societal buy-in, is hard - how do you collect all the guns from bad actors who don't want to relinquish them, when there are so many? Maybe it's so hard that it's infeasible (steel man alert) and so you're better off perpetuating and strengthening your gun ownership laws.

You don't have to ban them outright. You could just ban the sale of guns or require a license, that would make it so much harder for a troubled teenager to obtain a gun. You know, like in Europe. You can buy guns there, even assault rifles, just not at 18 without a license.

The vast majority of school shootings in the US have been perpetrated by people who bought licensed guns legally.

Yes, _exactly_.

I was shocked at how easy it was for me to buy a gun. I knew long guns were fairly simple, but when I bought my first handgun I expected a more thorough background check, waiting period, anything. Instead I was able to walk out of the store within an hour with a handgun.

I'm not sure what the answer for disarming America is. Bad actors won't willingly relinquish their guns. Cops won't willingly relinquish their guns. If my threat model is armed I feel as though I should be too.

I definitely agree that raising the bar for ownership is a step in the right direction though.

>>> or require a license, that would make it so much harder for a troubled teenager to obtain a gun

>> The vast majority of school shootings in the US have been perpetrated by people who bought licensed guns legally.

> Yes, _exactly_.

I am confused.

buying gun legally is apparently too easy

I meant a proper license, with training, psychological testing, etc.

Didn’t Australia move from significant ownership to sparse ownership after a school shooting?

There were major changes to laws and "gun amnesties" after several major shootings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_of_Australia#1984–199...

I remember reading an interesting historical perspective on why Americans were not willing to disarm themselves. Pre civil-war, it was because the settlers needed guns to protect themselves as they were few in numbers in a really large country that also saw territorial disputes in the exploitation of resources. The gun made the early Americans feel secure in hostile territories. Post civil-war, some historians claim that many on both sides of the war weren't willing to give up their arms because they weren't confident that the peace would be lasting. Many others were also afraid that the former negro slaves might organise and revolt now that many among them had some military experience. Thus, for the sake of peace, the compromise was made to make disarming a low priority, and a "right to bear arms" was emphasised to reassure the critics.

You are right that when such incidents happen, there are protests by activists to bring tighter regulations and / or even calls to disarm citizens. Some US states have listened and increased regulations in response to such demands - like not making it easy to buy arms without a background check, or limiting what kind of guns can be bought and owned by civilians, limiting convicted criminals from buying arms etc.

An interesting political perspective to emerge in the debate on gun control in the US is that the US politicians on both side are not in favour of disarming private citizens. The theory is that it gives them a ready excuse to militarise and arm the police with even more deadly weapons. And to allow excess use of force by the police against the citizen without inviting much criticism. This fear can be used to dampen democratic political protests, and many do say that the size and scale of protests in US have reduced over the decades, and claim this is a "chilling effect" of militarising the police. (Another interesting tidbit I found really mind-boggling is that the police / FBI can and do actually buy old armaments from the US military!).

Don't forget that in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War some of the first gun control laws were passed. Specifically, the laws restricted ownership of firearms to particular models that the newly freed Black population would be unlikely to be able to afford. The effect was essentially disarmament of the Black population in the South.

I highly doubt that is true - the South had no such inclinations towards the black population. Could we get a source?

>The Army and Navy Law prohibited the sale of "belt or pocket pistols, or revolvers, or any other kind of pistols, except army or navy pistols", which were prohibitively expensive for black freedmen and poor whites to purchase.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_night_special

If it's prohibitively expensive for everyone, how is the black community targeted unfairly?

The black community was targeted in the same way that poll taxes were used to prevent freed slaves were voting.

Are you seriously questioning whether or not Reconstruction-era white southerners had it out for black people?

I feel they dont work, countries with much harsher gun laws often have more illegal gun violence like brazil and mexico. Semi automatic weapons have been around and reasonably available for almost 120 years but these mass shootings are a new thing. It sounds like a cultural problem, not a gun problem. I live in Israel and almost 18-21 year olds has access to machine guns, many taking them home with them from the base and this type of thing never happens. And even if you do pass them there is still so many guns out there its redundant

Comparing 3rd world countries to a 1st world country is ridiculous.

Look at Australia or Israel. Australia had shootings. Passed a gun control law and... No shootings.

In Israel we have draft law. Everyone knows how to use a gun. In the 90's with the Oslo peace accord gun legislation was reduced. Buying a gun became easy for "self defense".

Suddenly gun violence skyrocketed. Israel quickly changed direction and now even when a soldier goes back home from the army he often leaves his gun behind. Licenses are harder to get and are for a shorter period of time. There are many people with guns and a valid license but strict regulation when applied to the entire country worked.

The one exception is Arab cities which are riddled with crime. This is due to police incompetence and years of neglect. But that's a different subject altogether.

Now I agree that it's not a simple bit of regulation and the USA is a VERY different country. But when done right good legislation saves lives. In the USA you can't even have a computerized database of the gun licenses. You let people sell guns to one another. So many problems that I think most NRA members would agree need fixing. This is pretty toxic.

>Comparing 3rd world countries to a 1st world country is ridiculous.

Maybe 40 years ago, but I think '1st world and 3rd world' countries are more blurry than they used to be. I felt a lot safer in CDMX and Guadalajara than in parts of the Bay Area, and I lived in Mixcuac and Edomex too. Every country has problems.

20 years ago you could consider Israel a 'developing country', and the guns were flowing even more, even jobniks would take their guns home, and mass shootings in israeli society was not an issue. I remember coming back from the base and as a ritual my gf's father checked my gun when i came in his house and put it under his bed til I left on sunday.

See a "gun violence by race" chart and you will see why something that works in Israel or Australia won't work in the USA.

In USA there are 120.5 guns/100 people AND 3.4 gun murders/100000 people In Canada there are 34.7 guns/100 people AND 0.6 gun murders/100000 people In France there are 19.6 guns/100 people AND 0.4 gun murders/100000 people In Germany there are 19.6 guns/100 people AND 0.1 gun murders/100000 people In Italy there are 14.4 guns/100 people AND 0.3 gun murders/100000 people In England+Wales there are 4.6 guns/100 people AND 0 gun murders/100000 people

Sources: Small Arms Survey, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.·Ownership rates are for 2017. Murder rates for the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and Spain are from 2016; otherwise, the latest available rates are used.

Looks like a similar number of murders/gun, interesting!

Because these countries are cherrypicked. If your list included places like Mexico, Brazil, Finland and Switzerland you would have a very different idea of the relation between gun ownership and gun homicide rates.

Also, I personally do not care one whit about gun homicide rates. I care about overall homicide rates, and I think most everyone else does too.

> but these mass shootings are a new thing.

Look at the list before 2000, going back to the early 1900s:

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

Then normalize that by the US population over time. There's nothing new.

> It sounds like a cultural problem, not a gun problem.

Heh... an apt handle and a sense of irony in what you wrote that you seem entirely oblivious too doesn't help either.

Its my old music producer name, just thought those two words sound cool together. Personal attack but no explanation? Maybe you would like a website called reddit?

Ok, I'll say the quiet part out loud [0], you have no basis to criticize anyone in the World about abject violence and about firearm discipline much less critiquing any Culture when your entire Society and Government is based on Crimes Against Humanity, and this isn't me saying it: it's one of your own pilots. He goes so far as to call you terrorists. Which is not entirely far from my view either, but I will defer to people who actually fought those battles muh more than my own on such matters.

The joke is ultimately on us in the US since we pay for it all in the end.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY3V8FC3VHs

1. Self protection. When the police are minutes away, what can you do for yourself in seconds.

2. Force projection. When someone who is stronger is trying to rape you, how can you stop them.

3. Overthrowing the yoke. If you do not think it can be done, you are NGMI. How many people in drug cartel countries are powerless because of a lack of weapons.

4. The government is providing the guns to everyone else. Fast & Furious gave guns to criminals and the California Representative or Senator who was pushing for gun control while working to smuggle in weapons. The Christchurch massacre was done by an officer of the government.

We have a mental health crisis whenever someone thinks it is a good idea to commit these acts. Every time it is about taking away guns and not looking at root causes, why did the government bury information about concerns with an individual: look at the Miami incident, the Texas Air Force base, and countless other incidents. We look the other way when people are doing things that seem bad, until they pick up a gun, then we blame the gun for the outcome, not the fact that government agencies looked the other way instead of intervention.

> 2. Force projection. When someone who is stronger is trying to rape you, how can you stop them.

I understand the point your trying to make, but this is a bad example. Most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. By the time the victim knows they are in danger of being raped, the perpetrator is already too close, and the gun is much more likely to be used to gain compliance than in a successful self defense.

> We look the other way when people are doing things that seem bad, until they pick up a gun, then we blame the gun for the outcome, not the fact that government agencies looked the other way instead of intervention.

This always struck me as silly excuse. The gun nuts are pretty obsessed with personal liberty. Taking their guns is already beyond the pale, so I have a hard time believing they're going to accept being thrown in a sanitarium whenever they do something antisocial like show up at a school board meeting foaming at the mouth about vaccines...

Is there some connection between opinions about vaccines and school shootings, or are you just demonizing people you disagree with?

Any reasonable person would object to throwing people in a sanitarium just for their opinions, however misguided.

Precisely. How do you keep crazy people from having guns when the only suitable definition of crazy is somebody that has done something terrible (which obviously is too late).

There are ways to intervene short of throwing someone in a sanitarium, and better causes for intervention than holding a fringe opinion.

> The Secret Service found that when youth plan targeted violence, they often tell at least one person about their plans [and] offer specifics before the event

> most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused concern or indicated a need for help

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/preventi...

> I'm curious about what arguments are brought by those resisting the gun laws.

I think it's said quite commonly that they never works as intended, those who will procure guns for illegal use will always have access, and it will only hinder those who do so via legal means.

It makes sense, there are more firearms in the US than their are citizens, which grows every quarter as it's one of the things the US manufactures at scale and often better than most developed nations.

But Switzerland also has the same ratio, the thing is their citizens enjoy some of the best prospects as a Society and have the highest standards of living in all of Europe. And yet... suicide amongst the youth remains high.

Furthermore, things like Ghostguns are over blown in terms of over all numbers, but it further enforces that you cannot stop technology from outpacing Laws: 3d printing AR lower receivers ensures that you will never be able solve it and will only over-regulate for those who wish to do so by legal means and likely make the black market grow.

I agree that gangs and criminals will find ways to illegally acquire guns. However, a large majority of the mass shootings have happened with legally purchased guns.

In the Uvalde shooting today, everything was purchased completely legally.

In the Buffalo shooting, the gun was purchased legally. The high capacity magazine was illegal to possess in New York, but it is legal to purchase and possess in Pennsylvania. All you have to do is drive an hour south and you can buy one with no checks of any kind, and no one would ever know you had it.

In both cases, the police response was hindered by the shooter wearing body armor that could not be penetrated by the police officers' pistols. The body armor is completely legal to purchase with no checks whatsoever.

> In both cases, the police response was hindered by the shooter wearing body armor that could not be penetrated by the police officers' pistols. The body armor is completely legal to purchase with no checks whatsoever.

So, you're making my point for me: it's already too late to curtail the supply of these things in the Market, legal or otherwise, what is needed is to address the overwhelming obvious fact that these people need mental health help.

It's easy to point at Laws and say they're not doing enough, and that is a slippery slope, but even when we do attempt to legislate morality it never ends well since Life is messy and things outside the modeling always occur.

I'm an advocate for stronger checks in the system, but that doesn't necessarily yield the desired result we are all looking for which is a decrease in gun related crimes by what are clearly mentally disturbed people.

The same thing happened in the Boulder King Soopers shooting shortly after I left which is the same thing that happened almost 21 years before in Columbine: they can be procured legally but fall into the wrong hands all the same.

Hell, there is a joke in Germany that if you want a gun all you have to do is sneak into Swiss persons home since there are so many guns there, too.

My point is you cannot legislate morality, all you an do is educate your populace and ensure that people who need help have access to it as long-term that pays off more than any Law ever could.

Just because it’s possible to buy a gun on the black market doesn’t mean a potential mass shooter would go there. They may not know who to contact or have the social skills to negotiate the transaction, or they may not have the money.

Just as an illustrative example, it’s possible to buy fully automatic weapons on the black market but I don’t think i’ve seen a single case of a mass shooter doing this.

A large majority of firearm deaths are gang related and not mass shootings in public schools or otherwise. The cases you point out are statistic outliers.

> those who will procure guns for illegal use will always have access

That's true for criminals, but what about distressed students? I could imagine that increasing friction would at least result in less deadly weapons being used. School massacres in Europe tend to be less deadly because the attackers are using knifes or self-made explosives that seldom work.

> That's true for criminals, but what about distressed students? I could imagine that increasing friction would at least result in less deadly weapons being used.

See the Columbine massacre, that quite frankly put school shootings into the American psyche. Its not that easy, making firearms more difficult to get is something that should occur: closing loops on fire arm sells at conventions with no screening etc... but this alone won't stop the bigger issue, which I still remain convinced is a mental health issue.

People forget that even before school shootings, 'going postal' was a thing that referred to same thing occurring.

I'm curious about what arguments are brought to flag this post...

It's "off topic" or "going to devolve into a flame war" if I had to guess. Or, sometimes it's "we're tired of seeing US politics on the front page."

It's bogus, in my opinion. Continually ignoring this problem and repressing discussion of it leads to poor outcomes (to put it lightly).

Every time an incident like this happens, Hacker News squares off into its pro and anti-gun camps and has the same futile charade of a "discussion." At some point we have to concede these threads are mostly only useful for catharsis and political sniping, nothing we say or do here is going to have any real effect.

While you're perfectly right, the same argument can be made about just any discussion, be it Java code formatting or enterprise agile implementation... Discussions are useful for those who can get something from them, and can be ignored by the rest.

Unfortunately the arguman.org site appears to be defunct, and the JavaScript from the archived pages doesn't appear to load correctly when using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine at the moment, but I would refer you to these argument maps:

- https://web.archive.org/web/20210419001046/https://en.arguma...

- https://web.archive.org/web/20210510174650/https://en.arguma...

(if you're really, really dedicated you may be able to use 'view source' to dig into some of the arguments provided, although it could be tricky to get a sense for the tree structure of the debate and the vote weightings)

Not a gun owner and I live in the UK, I imagine regular people are more likely to be victims of violent crime (outside a school setting) if they're restricted from owning a gun.

Bans don't work: drugs, abortion, guns, books. It's the most childish reaction to things we don't like.

In a world where you can go to a new city and get a drug grown only in South America within an hour, you'll always be able to get something I can make in my garage in 4 hours.

I’m not from the US and I was a teenager in Australia when the Port Arthur Massacre took place and the post-massacre gun buyback was put in place. I now live in France where there seems to be about 1 civilian firearm for every 5 people. [1]

I became aware of school shootings in the US after Columbine and since then it seems to be a depressingly regular occurrence, as the linked list attests.

What was it like before Columbine? Were school shootings just as common, or less common? Did the rates of gun ownership shift since the 1990s? Has something changed to make school shootings more prevelant, or is it just more in the media?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

teen gang related violence and violence in schools were pretty regular occurrences throughout the 90s but they were confined almost entirely to low income nonwhite communities and tended to be the result of ulterior conflicts. tragically that kind of violence was so routine that it wasn't even considered newsworthy.

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

“This list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it”

> “This list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it”

They missed the most notorious of all by only including 21st Century: Columbine

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