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Comment by ifwinterco | Hacker News Reader

I see this narrative a lot from Americans who often hold the EU/Europe (also often conflated when they're not the same thing) as some kind of utopia when it comes to stuff like that.

In reality, while it is nowhere near as bad as in the US, but there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe. Guns are still guns and humans are still humans unfortunately

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> there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe

Once a decade at most in most countries. Usually less than that.

Compared to what in the US, once a month?

Yes, guns are still guns and humans are still humans, but it's not nearly comparable.

You need to compare the whole of Europe (EU, EEA, whatever) to be roughly comparrable to "the US"

Finland is about the same size of say Minnesota, and Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

Exactly, across the whole of Europe it's more than once a decade.

Definitely not as bad as the US though, I acknowledge that, but people tend to paint it in black and white terms when the reality is messier

If this map [0] is accurate, in the past ~60 years Europe had 166 school shootings while the US had 2980. That's 18x more shootings in the US compared to Europe.

Shootings per million people 0.22 in Europe vs. 8.68 for the US, 40x difference. Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as an organized terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]).

Your comment is definitely trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort.

[0] https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/

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

> Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as a terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]).

A terrorist attack where the anti-terrorist special forces used tanks and thermobaric missiles against the school premises, killing many hostages in the process and giving plenty of warning to the terrorists to kill even more. A horrific event all around.

I literally said that: 1. It's way worse in the US 2. It still happens in Europe

That seems also like what you're saying?

Edit: It is true that in the UK this is pretty much unheard of since handguns were banned after Dunblane (it is literally impossible to get a handgun legally, Team GB pistol shooters have to train abroad).

So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far

Personal Protection Weapons are technically still a thing, as a result of the ECHR Article 2 which says that the state has a positive duty to protect life.

I don't think numbers are published for mainland GB, but it's likely less than a thousand - perhaps even just a few dozen. The Home Secretary has to authorise the licence, and they're limited to people with a verifiable active threat against their life.

(There are more in Northern Ireland as a legacy of the troubles - 2,924 in 2012, probably closer to 2,000 now. The rules are a little more lax, with the PSNI Chief Constable being sufficient for sign-off.)

A PPW firearms certificate allows a handgun of up to 9mm/.38 calibre, and up to 50 rounds of ammunition.

But none have been used in a school shooting, of course.

Interesting, I didn't know that, I always thought it was literally police/security services only.

Also worth pointing out for non UK people: you can still legally licence shotguns (relatively easily) and some kinds of rifle (not so easily). Shotguns are somewhat common in the countryside but other guns (even rifles) are quite rare

So if you’re wealthy and have connections, you can get a gun in the UK?

Sure, if there's a verifiable active threat against your life.

I'd honestly expect most PPW holders in GB to be prison officers. There'll be a few wealthier folk in NI as a hangover from the troubles - business owners who refused to pay protection money, high court judges who sat on prominent terrorist trials, that sort of thing.

But the criteria are much the same as those for being afforded police protection, so your actual billionaires and dukes would almost certainly opt for that instead if they were under that sort of threat.

What you said stays equally true even if every US school had a shooting morning, noon, and evening, while Europe had exactly 2 shootings ever, both in the past 10 years. A statement of fact can be worthless or misleading too if presented a certain way.

That's why I didn't say you were factually wrong but that you're trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort. Whataboutism is all misdirection and deflection rather than factually wrong statements.

> So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far

I do not see evidence that the approach works. There were very few school shootings (or any shootings, really) before the handgun ban too. There are only two on this list that predate the handgun ban: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

The UK has a lower per capita level of knife murders than the US too so its not just access to guns that is an issue.

What about school stabbings? Or use of other weaponry or substances?

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

3 in the last year, none in a school. I'm not sure what your point is.

The point is that guns are not the only weapon that are used to harm people. Fewer guns does not necessarily prevent people from harming others. If making comparisons between countries, account for the population of the country and that guns are not necessarily used in the same frequency in all countries so we should be looking at school incidents as a whole including stabbing, shootings, automobiles, or other lethal methods.

The UK has 1/5th of the population of the US, and 12x the population of Minnesota.

The last school shooting was the Dunblane Massacre in 1996, which led to gun law changes, removing rights to have handguns and various semi-automatic weapons.

I'm not sure how many occurred before then, but the total number of mass shootings in the UK is low. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... to get a feel for how rare this sort of attack is in any setting here in the UK.

So for the last 25 years we've had no school shootings. I believe the US as a whole has had >300 shootings so far this year, with >300 victims.

You clearly missed the sarcasm

> Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

Ok, i'll turn the sarcasm detector up a notch :)

Finland had one last year, and the previous one in 2008, "since August" doesn't say much.

What do you consider a shooting? If it’s simply a gun within the vicinity of a school being fired (injury/death not required), then Canada has them all the time.

So rarely than don't even register in most EU countries. And when they happen, they're more likely than not, by people inspired by the media exposure of the 10x-30x more frequent US cases.

There is an emerging and more frequent problem with religious terrorism though (people driving cars into crowds, shooting up concerts, etc). A problem created for absolutely no reason by stupid encouragement of mass immigration.

A problem created for absolutely no reason by a bunch of idiots[1] playing world police under obviously false pretenses for the benefit of absolutely no one of their constituents. They played with the thermostat, left things hot and some unrepentantly notorious twat[2] is still hungry and ready for seconds.

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_International_Transitiona...

Was watching a documentary a few weeks ago regarding the many bomb shelters in Switzerland, and it mentioned that during World War II all adult citizens were required to have a gun in Switzerland and citizens were trained on their use. Switzerland‘s goal was to make itself very difficult to be attacked by Germany and to ensure that all citizens were capable of fighting back. This in combination with the mountainous terrain, and the many fortifications were claimed to be a reason behind Switzerland, not being attacked by Germany. Not sure about the veracity of that though.

Here's a seemingly decent article on the topic: https://www.dw.com/en/graz-austria-europe-school-shootings-u...

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