Hacker News Reader

Comment by DeathRay2K | Hacker News Reader

As a measure of the safety of schools, it seems perfectly reasonable to consider that a school shooting.

Calling a crime-related shooting in the parking lot of a school at 1am on a Saturday a school shooting is not what most people are discussing when talking about school shootings.

If you're going to count shootings at universities as school shootings, then it's reasonable to include shootings that happen over the weekend, because they still have students around on the weekends and at night.

> Calling a crime-related shooting in the parking lot of a school at 1am on a Saturday a school shooting is not what most people are discussing when talking about school shootings.

Aren't you getting it entirely backwards, though? You're faced with a crisp definition of what a school shooting is, and you're somehow invested in arguing that a shooting taking place at a school isn't a school shooting because of your own arbitrary criteria.

Arguing whether a shooting should be considered a school shooting or not feels like you're completely missing the whole point that there are shootings taking place at schools, which I would imagine would be very concerning.

I wasn't reading anything into it at all. I'm just saying that the vast majority of people wouldn't consider it a school shooting. They're almost always talking about an active shooter targeting students.

If you want my two cents: no shit gun violence is bad. It's just that that type of gun violence doesn't impact suburban whites, and it's incredibly disingenuous to have so much gnashing of teeth over the overall number when most people passionately talking about this only care about a certain subset of that number.

Those after-hours shootings-at-schools are part of a larger pattern of gun violence that advocates of gun control have basically never made a focus of.

I used to get back from band trips (competitions, away games) in the middle of the night. The buses would drop us off at school where our parents would be waiting to pick us up (the upperclassmen could drive themselves.)

It would have been rather disappointing to get hit by a stray bullet then, and know that it wasn’t considered as important as a daylight incident.

I find it shocking that there can be different types of school shootings - and that there is time to discuss their classification.

You're being obtuse. Assuming GP is stating the truth and it happened in a school's parking lot in the middle of the night, then the entire location is incidental and not meaningful in the least.

It's simply not helpful to group them with the shootings that happen during school hours and target students/staff.

> You're being obtuse.

No, not really. Think about it: who is somehow trying to argue away school shootings based on arbitrary assertions? Do you think you can argue away the gun violence out of school grounds?

I would dare say that gun violence is bad all around, but here we are, trying to argue that some episodes should not count because of reasons. That would certainly reassure those attending those schools, as well as their family and communities.

Arguing that gun violence is bad all round is fine. But this isn't that? It's exploiting the special emotive value of the term "school shooting" - something that will obviously be read to refer to a specific kind of circumstance that everyone understands - in an attempt to colour as many possible instances of gun violence with the seriousness with which the authors think they should be regarded. Or so it seems to me.

Asserting that gun violence can be regarded as less serious because it was not a “school shooting” feels seriously sick to me.

It's not that it's less serious, it's that it comes from a different circumstance and affects demographics that many gun control advocates don't actually have any interest in helping.

That could be motivation if one doesn't mind absurdity, like “gun control yes, but you're exempt if you pinky-promise you only shoot <people-I-don't-like>”.

I really don't know what you're trying to say. Is the implication that I don't care about the impoverished black kid that has to grow up in a world with highly prevalent incidental crime-related gun violence? If that's what you're getting at, please re-read my previous comment.

This data was compiled with the criteria it was to inflate the perceived number of "muh assault rifle" headliner-style school shootings. You're probably never going to turn on national news and see any reporting on any of these crime disputes that came to a head at/near a school. There is very little political willpower to do anything about these instances and not calling this shit out for what it is is a disservice to the people that are actually impacted by this strain of gun violence.

EDIT: after re-reading your comment a few more times, I think what you were trying to say is that it doesn't make sense that people would overlook some gun violence and worry more about other instances, but I've got bad news for you -- they do it all the fucking time. It's not that it's <people-they-don't-like>, it's <people-they-don't-think-about-at-all>, save when they make for a convenient data point.

My comment wasn't meant as an attack on you, on the contrary. I think we agree on your points. I find it absurd that one can be pro gun control but then be selective about what kind of gun violence it's meant to reduce.

> a specific kind of circumstances that everyone understands

Citation needed.

I assume your absolutist definition would only include incidents where a child made contact with and suffered harm from a fired bullet?

I'm more inclined to count students fighting off-campus about classroom grudges than to count non-students fighting on-campus.

And the idea of counting both doesn't seem right to me.

Though I'm not sure how my expectations align, in particular when I hear "school shooting" my first expectation is that there are multiple targets, not just one person. And it's hard for me to react to this data unless I know what percentage are single-target and what percentage are multi-target.

When data challenges people’s’ world view they find crafty ways to split hairs.

The only reason to "consider" it is because you want people to imagine a Columbine-like event.

What’s the threshold for number of dead children to be considered a Columbine?

In the case describing in this sub thread there are zero children involved.

Good idea. Let’s start by requiring at least one child to be shooting or shot at.

What do you think it does to child, to know that there was violence at their school, but they lucked out by not being around when it happens?

Do you think that’s conducive to their education? To their mental well-being?

Good idea. Incarcerate violent homeless fighting in the parking lot. We can’t have school around that.

Note that the presence of vagrants and other violent criminals is orthogonal to schools or children having access to firearms.

Any reasonable person will agree that violence on school property after school hours without student involvement is different than violence between students.

The only reason you want to say they are the same is you want to borrow that public sentiment against the horror of school shootings like Columbine.

You and I both know that if the public was explained the details of each event classified as a “school shooting” they would not have the same reaction.

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or how many levels of irony you’re on here.

I don’t think you’re using “orthogonal” correctly. And the continual use of the ad populum fallacy doesn’t help your argument.

It doesn't look sarcastic to me. They are arguing that two random people fighting in the parking lot should be arrested but not treated like a columbine. That makes a lot of sense to me. It doesn't make sense to you?

The phrasing only sounds weird because you were (baselessly) implying they didn't care about that violence, so they had to directly state that they care in a super obvious way.

Their actual comment used the phrase

  "is orthogonal to schools or children having access to firearms."

which drained the sense and reason from their position.

Homeless vargrants gunfighting in the school carpark after dark will factually increase the odds of the first children the next day finding a scattered firearm with live ammunition from ZERO chance to SOME chance.

This negates the assertion of orthogonality.

Regardless, my only other comment to this submission still stands; it doesn't matter whether non student shootings on school grounds are included or not in country by country comparisons .. the USofA still "wins" a very hollow victory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43155165

I think their argument is that a child is far more likely to get a gun by other means. Let's say 90% orthogonal instead of 100%.

Does it make sense in that light?

> it doesn't matter whether non student shootings on school grounds are included or not in country by country comparisons

Sure. But I think we should strive toward accurate categorization in reporting.

Sure.

The US has a lot of gun play within school boundaries. Most of that (see pie chart) involves students. Some of it doesn't.

Other countries have near zero gun play on school grounds.

That appears accurate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com