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Over and over and over again throughout history, harsher law enforcement and invasion of personal privacy has failed to appreciably reduce crime or violence or murder. At best you merely create divisions in society between the privileged and the desperate that hides the problems from the privileged and wealthy so they can ignore it until eventually it boils over because the privileged and wealthy members of society are shielded from actually seeing the systemic problems that everyone else is dealing with.
That alone accounts of a huge amount of our violence.
https://www.niagararecovery.com/blog/drug-related-crime-stat...
But now, yes, the nature of threats to US citizens have changed. There has obviously been a decrease in the whole drug and gang violence side because of interdiction and enforcement. Meanwhile a massive expansion of the whole "school or workplace shooter" thing. Law enforcement has not changed to effectively meet this threat yet, so it seems like it's happening with impunity. Just as in the 90's law enforcement had not changed to meet the drug violence threat yet, so drug violence seemed like it happened with impunity back then.
We just need for law enforcement to increase the pace at which they adapt to meet new threats.
They don't have school shootings on an almost daily basis.
The problem is definitely not the guns. It doesn't help, but it's not the root cause.
Mexico has some of the most stringent gun laws in the world. They also have more than four times the murder rate of the US. So while it's technically true that Mexicans have guns, this is more along the lines of "people inclined to violate the law against murder have no qualms about violating the law against unlawful possession of a firearm" rather than that it's easy to lawfully acquire a firearm in Mexico.
What I'm saying is that gun control won't solve the problem, but it will help.
I still don't get how this is supposed to work.
It seems like there are two main categories of shootings. The first is the ones that most often make the news, i.e. school shootings. But the people who do this are typically people who snap rather than career criminals, and then they would pass the background check etc. Also, these are in practice a small minority of shooting deaths.
The second is gang violence. This is where you really get the high body counts. But it's also where gun laws aren't going to be followed, and then you get the same result as you do in Mexico, i.e. stringent laws that do nothing because drug cartels are already operating a criminal smuggling operation and don't give a crap about following gun laws.
The best argument I've heard in favor of "gun control" reducing fatalities is something like, if you make it inconvenient for normal people to have guns then fewer of them will do it and you get fewer accidents. But then there are any number of alternative ways to get a similar result, like subsidizing gun safes or training etc., which don't require you to fight the people you're otherwise intending to purposely inconvenience.
> GVA has reported 971 cases of school shootings across the United States in 2024, with many of them having no victims or injuries. The database has tracked 112 school shootings in which a victim was injured or killed.
Somewhere between ~3/day and ~0.3/day, depending what you count. Close enough.
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3096236
Additionally, some of the 112 that did have a victim didn't even happen on campus. See this linked incident.
Did you look at your link?
> Student shot in leg during dispute in parking lot as school was dismissing
That's a school shooting. The parking lot is absolutely part of the campus.
Have you looked at the other items listed where there are victims? Multiple times I see that it was an altercation in a dorm room of a college. Sorry, I would consider that an altercation in a residence, not a school shooting. Here's another one that a kid shot himself in the leg and it's counted as a school shooting.
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3092594
These stats from GVA are inflated with respect to school shootings.
Ah. I now understand why school shooting numbers that people are quoting are so very high as of late.
Shit like Columbine is a school shooting. Shit like that is a shooting that happened to happen at school. If the assailant had used a knife, would you be calling it a "school stabbing"? If you would, then I disagree with that characterization, too.
For lots of folks, the term "school shooting" is strongly associated with the notion that a massacre happened... and not at all with the notion that some folks got into a heated argument, and one of them decided to attack the other with a weapon.
A kid shooting HIMSELF in the leg? Yes, it meets an extremely literal definition, but it would be incredibly stupid to -say- lock down a campus because of that.
I'm just going in order here, no picking and choosing. Here's the link if anyone wants to follow along: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/school-shootings
1. A teacher had a gun in their possession, there was no shooting: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3099438
2. An adult robbery suspect was found by police on a high school campus, fled the police, and was then shot somewhere else: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3098506
3. Parent showed a gun during an argument with the school (this one is closer to bad, but still, no shooting): https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3098581
4. Teenager brought gun to a baseball game: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3098572
5. Adult found trespassing on campus with cocaine and a modified flare gun: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3098062
6. Students fought and showed a gun: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3098023
7. Student in possession of a gun: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3097870
8. Student in possession of a gun: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3097949
9. Adult bicyclist dropped a handgun in parking lot of campus while student basketball game was underway inside: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/3095500
10. Abundant Life Christian School
1 out of the first 10 being what most people would call a "school shooting" brings that 971 cases number into question.
They appear to have correctly filtered out the "Non-Shooting Incident" sort of results from it (which your picks appear to mostly be) to arrive at the ~900 numbers.
Were you able to find a way to validate the 900 number?
If this is accurate, the odds of being fatally shot as a student during school hours is extremely low, about 1 in 10,000,000 over the span of this data collection. Higher odds than winning a powerball jackpot, but, in context, an extremely rare event.
It wouldn't be a stretch to hypothesize that the administrators forcing students through metal detectors, doing active shooter drills, etc, are doing more net harm than the thing that they are attempting to defend against (as a purely utilitarian calculation).
In 2023 it was three events: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2023-active-shooter-repo...
If by "school shooting" you include all the people shot in or right next to schools, then yea it's almost daily (or at least every couple days or so). That includes fights escalating to guns, targeted shootings of single people due to whatever revenge.
No, it won't. Unless it's a very large or very notable one (school w/multiple deaths, lots of deaths, politician, etc.), it'll be a line item on the day's evening news for the local TV station. We have 10k+ a year, not "a couple per week". I don't even hear of most of the ~50/year that happen in my fairly small city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
> In 2017, compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related homicide rate was 25 times higher. Although the US has half the population of the other 22 nations combined, among those 22 nations studied, the U.S. had 82 percent of gun deaths, 90 percent of all women killed with guns, 91 percent of children under 14 and 92 percent of young people between ages 15 and 24 killed with guns, with guns being the leading cause of death for children.
Nobody really cares when it's criminals shooting other criminals.
The latest American one only made the news because a girl did it.
Source? This doesn't pass the sniff test. First, US's poverty rate isn't the lowest, but is below many lower income countries that also have lower homicide rates. The figures for poverty rates take into account PPP, so it's not a matter of "Americans are richer in absolute dollars but poorer in relative dollars". Second, looking at the data, the correlation between income inequality is all over the place. For instance Malaysia is only marginally lower than the US in terms of income inequality, but is almost an order of magnitude lower in homicide rate. Trinidad and Tobago has even lower income inequality, but has almost an order of magnitude more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentag...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_in...
Yeah, it's an abstract... the point is, there are studies you can go look up.
Ironically, millimeter wave imagers, that are legitimately capable of finding hidden weapons pretty much anywhere, isn’t deployed outside airports because of the cost and the huge backlash that anything that has the resolution to accurately distinguish a gun can also image your private parts quite well. Evolv wants you to think they can have comparable accuracy with higher throughput and lower cost, but I’ll bet every airport in the country would have them if those claims were true. So instead Evolv preys on nervous leaders who want some protection in large public gatherings but aren’t knowledgeable about security.
That's certainly consistent with their email list. I have no idea how I got on it, but I was on it for a while about church security, and it was constant "webinar" reminders (I assume, sales pitch without having to actually interact with people one-on-one) about how you might have people "bringing guns into" your church without knowing it, etc.
It would have been interesting tech to play with. I figure that a quarter of the church on any given Sunday was carrying in some definition of "concealed" or another (ranging from "Dude, I can read the serial number on your gun through your shirt..." to "I'm certain there are people carrying that I would never expect to be carrying and will never know unless there's a reason it needs to come out").
Has it? They certainly don't stop themselves (unless resulting from being surrounded by good guys with guns).
Guns aren't required:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/25/us/indiana-school-shooting-te...
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/15/1136617873/buffalo-clinic-gun...
https://time.com/6249944/monterey-park-mass-shooting-brandon...
https://nypost.com/2022/02/01/waffle-house-shooting-video-sh...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/abc-news-exclusive-teacher-hugged-...
Guns (even nearly 400 of them, carried by explicitly trained professionals) don't necessarily help:
The real question is, for example, does prohibiting school staff from having firearms make it better or worse? Which is pretty hard to measure when there is a federal law against it. But a point in favor of "better" is that senseless mass shootings tend to happen disproportionately in schools and other places where the shooter knows nobody else is allowed to be armed.
Federal law forbids unauthorized individuals from possessing firearms at schools. All it requires is the state authorize it.
Result: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-teachers-guns-at-school/
> According to the Texas Association of School Boards, "school districts can grant written permission for anyone, including designated employees, to carry firearms on campus" under Texas Penal Code 46.03, but the law does not lay out standards for training. The only thing a school employee needs in order to carry a firearm on campus is a license to carry, which requires a background check and a proficiency demonstration. Otherwise, individual districts determine the amount and type of additional requirements, which can include active-shooter training courses and psychological evaluations.
It's entirely legal to arm teachers under Federal law. (I don't think it's a good idea; I've met enough teachers.)
Apparently it still requires the state to explicitly authorize it, and states allowing teachers to do this is a relatively recent development. So now we get to find out if it works, e.g. if school shootings in Texas go up or down relative to the trend in states that don't do this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-Free_School_Zones_Act_of_1...
States can (and do) authorize teachers to carry guns.
Agreed that the usefulness against a crazed gunman is less clear, although crazies do not always have a rational plan. If the weapon was concealed in a backpack or something the security may be able to tackle them before they access it. If they’re carrying it in an easily accessible, concealed holster, that’s less effective and they might be able to draw and use it after being detected.
Which might be a reasonable thing to aim for? It was mentioned up thread there's >100 school shootings/yr. The vast, vast majority (>>90%) of those are not the "crazy person randomly shoots up school" type, but rather the "two people in a fight / two groups in a fight / targeted revenge on single person".
The former is tracked as an active shooting incident, by the FBI. In 2023 there were 3 such incidents: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2023-active-shooter-repo... (10 year average is a bit higher).
Of course the downside with the latter is that simply weapons checking at the school won't stop it from happening right before / after school, or otherwise outside of school.
Luckily some venues are nice about checking it with security, but still a pain to have to remember to go back and pick it up when leaving.
Wouldn't it be nice of people would just quit shooting and stabbing each other at things like sporting events :(
I would never ever choose to be involved in an active shooter situation but if I were I’d surely want to be armed rather than not.
11:30am: First 911 call.
11:31am: Officer arrives at school.
One minute police response time, by your metric. ~80 minutes later, the ~400 very well armed cops on scene managed to finally go in.
A cop outside is not obligated or expected to put his own life at risk. He's expected to show up for work tomorrow.
I do not agree with the second at all. Law Enforcement are both obligated and expected to put their own life at risk protecting the public. That said they are also expected to show up for work tomorrow! It’s a sad day when they don’t.
A cop can be at the scene of you getting actively murdered and do nothing about it, and legally the cop is ok.
Morally, you could definitely argue they're not okay.
1981 Warren v. District of Columbia
2005 Castle Rock v. Gonzales