from Hacker News

Schools are safer than they were in the 90s

by SoMuchToGrok on 3/2/18, 2:11 PM with 90 comments

• by Bernard_sha_256 on 3/2/18, 4:28 PM

  Can someone say "Security Theater"?

  In cases like these I like to take the Freakonomics formula for risk, that outrage factors more into observed risk than actual danger.

  We're more worried about Terrorism than Heart Disease, even as we have far more control over the latter.

• by SonicSoul on 3/2/18, 4:36 PM

  it’s unlikely that any of them will prevent mass school shootings

  “The thing to remember is that these are extremely rare events, and no matter what you can come up with to prevent it, the shooter will have a workaround,” Fox said, adding that over the past 35 years, there have been only five cases in which someone ages 18 to 20 used an assault rifle in a mass shooting.

  this seems weak. if shootings are rare events stopping one would make a considerable difference. just because assault rifles were rarely used in past 35 years in what way does that influence a future projection? What if we had a Vegas type event around a school? I don't really understand the thesis here

• by 0003 on 3/2/18, 4:38 PM

  >Since 1996, there have been 16 multiple victim shootings in schools, or incidents involving 4 or more victims and at least 2 deaths by firearms, excluding the assailant.

  17.

  Literally happening just as this was posted: https://www.wxyz.com/news/police-responding-to-reports-of-sh...

  Edit: Actually this may or may not meet the definition since their definition requires 4 or more casualties. Still.

• by welcome_dragon on 3/2/18, 4:22 PM

  I can only imagine the level-headed discussions this is going to spark.

• by ghufran_syed on 3/2/18, 4:54 PM

  Perhaps they should do a case control study - places that had mass shootings vs places that didn’t? I’m pretty sure there have been no mass shootings at gun shows or gun clubs, I wonder if there might be some relationship there worth exploring?

• by mlechha on 3/2/18, 4:27 PM

  Shouldn't the comparison be made against school shootings world wide? Or at least be normalized for overall crime rate or something?

• by xg15 on 3/2/18, 4:50 PM

  I have seen those studies pop up from time to time on HN with conclusions altering between "it's reachin worrying proportions", "there is an increase", "there is no increase", "they are so rare as to not worth considering".

  From what I understand, the decision of what kinds of shootings are included has a large influence on the conclusion - e.g., the "there have been 18 shootings in 2018 so far" articles from a while ago used a comparatively low threshold for inclusion.

  The threshold for this study seems to be "4 or more victims", which I think is similar to the threshold official publications used at the beginning of the Obama administration. I believe there were complaints that the threshold is unreasonably high which caused it to be adjusted - however, I don't have any sources for that ready, so if anyone knows more, please correct me.

  In any case, it's important to look at the criteria if one wants to compare those studies.

• by crescentfresh on 3/2/18, 4:45 PM

  Help, I cannot find the actual study (paper). It's referenced (in this article) as:

  James Alan Fox and Emma E. Fridel, "The Three R's of School Shootings: Risk, Readiness, and Response," in H. Shapiro, ed., The Wiley Handbook on Violence in Education: Forms, Factors, and Preventions

  But from Wiley's listing of papers in this volume (https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Wiley+Handbook+on+Violence+i...) the only article written by Fox and Fridel is called "The Menace of School Shootings in America: Panic and Overresponse".

  Maybe it was renamed since?

• by codemac on 3/2/18, 4:47 PM

  Why don't they have the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007?

  This data seems to be missing what a lot of people would call "school shootings".

• by patch_collector on 3/2/18, 5:51 PM

  Based on a variety of comments here, I was curious about how many mass shootings there have been over the years. Mother Jones had a list that looked pretty good (well cited). I put it into a graph, which I think makes it a lot easier to understand.

  Reasonable additions to this might be adding a line for type of weapon used.

  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mwNeZ_KHL_nLd85eOeI-...

• by dv_dt on 3/2/18, 5:21 PM

  Compared to the US in the past schools are safer, but in terms of school killings compared to those in other nations, the US is still ridiculously high.

  https://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-...

• by bhldr on 3/2/18, 5:28 PM

  Can we get the word 'american' inserted in the title. It's a very local problem.

• by dmritard96 on 3/2/18, 5:13 PM

  Personally not sure I care about a 90s baseline at all.

  And most relevantly, the difference now is access to information anywhere/everywhere and in more detail/angle/opinion without a lot of latency.

• by epanchin on 3/2/18, 5:01 PM

  This is garbage.

  A drop in the number of deaths might just demonstrate an improvement in emergency medical procedures.

• by Tech-Noir on 3/2/18, 5:04 PM

  Analysis of two decades in the UK, where in 1997 they banned video games and mental illness:

      1996: 16 children and their teacher shot dead
      1997-2018: 0 shot dead

• by adammichaelc on 3/2/18, 4:32 PM

  The data they use in the study, don’t match the data gathered by the community.

  There is a clear upward-trend since the 60’s.

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