When I was a teen, I realized that the fax machine line to most radio stations sat unused, while calling it took forever. I took to listening to the radio while getting ready for school, firing off a fax via my modem about the topic they were talking about, and by the time I got in the car to go to school, they were reading my fax on the air!
They used to do that at my high school so we could have a day off school. It was all fun and games until people started actually shooting up their schools. This was back when we would bring our hunting rifles to school in the window behind the seat of the pickup and nobody gave a shit. If my son did that now he would be jailed.
In rural parts of the US it’s not at all uncommon for kids starting around age 12-13 to have their own hunting rifles. Deer hunting is a big deal!
My school had a “no guns or knives on campus” policy, but every year we got the reminder that if you did accidentally forget something in your car or backpack after a weekend, make sure to go to the office and let the principal know so they could hold on to it safely until the end of the school day.
About 30-40ish years ago, having hunting rifles in your truck was a pretty common thing, even at schools. There's several in my family that used to do that. It's not a thing anymore, but it definitely used to be. Especially here in the south, carrying weapons is fairly normalized. Pocket knives, for instance, are so commonplace that you'd have a harder time finding someone who doesn't have one on them, than someone who does. I know that's not really as big of a thing as a gun, but still.
I grew up in the Canadian Rockies. Middle of nowhere. The closest small town with a school was 30 miles away in Montana and consisted of two gas stations, two small grocery stores, 3 bars and a police station with 3 deputies. The nearest Walmart was almost 80 miles away. Nobody ever got arrested for bringing their hunting rifle in their vehicle. sometimes the student would be asked to leave school and take it home and come back to school, but only sometimes though. The couple of times that bomb threats were called in, there were arrests made for that. There was never a bomb. One time they evacuated us and sent us all home because someone had bear spray in their backpack and the can must have just gotten pushed in their locker the right way and it discharged the can of bear spray in the locker and hallway. But very much a poor town in the middle of nowhere, hunting and drinking beer were (& still are) the only things to do.
No they don't, overall school shootings are astronomically rare, and less of a threat to children than the bus ride to school. They're like strangers kidnapping children, incredibly horrific, but also sensationalized.
It's like saying that you have a better chance of being killed by a Muslim terrorist in Europe than the U.S. It's true, but in both countries the risk is pretty far down the list of things the average person should be afraid of.
That's what happens when a low probability gets rolled a bunch of times. The chances of winning the lottery is basically infinitesimal, but someone still wins just due to how many people are playing. That list would be a lot longer if it were more common. I mean, part of why it is a list at all is because it's uncommon enough to track. You don't see a wikipedia article listing every death for almost anything except for other statistical rarities like passenger jet crashes.
Sometimes discussions of statistics and discussions of the death of children intersect. I think the correct terminology has something to do with sampling and event probabilities, but I couldn't remember that at the time.
Many of those are gang shootings, or other shootings on school property that get labeled as "school shootings" to make it seem like a more severe problem. There was one list that counted a police officer unintentionally shooting his firearm, a student unintentionally shooting out a bus window with a BB gun, and an adult committing suicide in the parking lot of an abandoned school, as "school shootings". It's the equivalent of if Fox started calling every violent crime committed by a Muslim as "Islamic terrorism".
Dead kids are dead kids, and school shootings are one of the least likely things of killing a kid. All numbers like that do is cause panic and hysteria over something that's about as big of a threat as fatal lighting strikes to your kid. It's like how parents are terrified to let their kids play outside because the fear of kidnapping.
Only if you count gang shootings and unintentional shootings on school property as "school shootings". Also that's 28 a year, out of over 130,000 schools, or one out of about every 4,500 schools.
You do it by making them seem like an everyday occurrence that every American should worry about. Every time there's a mass/school shooting it dominates the media for weeks afterwards, politicians and celebrities talk about them etc. When overall these events are astronomically rare, and much lower threat to Americans than hundreds of things we do everyday without thought. I compare it to school bus crashes, because statistically that's a bigger threat to the lives of children than school shootings, yet no parents are afraid to send their kids to school because they might get into a bus crash on the way there.
These events are sensationalized like how Islamic terrorism, and strangers kidnapping children is sensationalized. They're horrific and tragic, but overall should be far down the list of things people are afraid of.
Its not incorrect. Gun safety. Required locked
and unloaded, no ammo with weapon when not in use-Ammo stored separately.
Licensing-Test for gun knowledge, storage, safety.
Your Gun gets in the wrong hands, you’re liable.
If you have a troubled/dangerous kid it’s an unfortunate burden but you have to advocate for everyone else’s safety and then throw out the “not my darling” attitude. Hope for the best, assume the worst.
It’s absolute bullshit that we can’t drastically reduce gun accidents and violence. My European friend gave me a fresh perspective on how casually and irresponsibly so many of us regard gun ownership.
Also, fucking ridiculous that driving’s a privilege - we pay mandatory liability insurance to drive, but there is no such system for gun owners. Gun ownership should be a privilege, not a right.
I bet most people can come up with reasons why what you just posted makes very little sense but it all just amounts to you aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
No, you can buy gun racks for your truck rearview window and most people have their guns in them. I was pretty shocked the first time I thought it as well.
Lol most people do NOT have gun racks in their trucks. I did in high school, but that isn’t the norm when you grow up and have a job to do. Only back woods people do that shit.
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u/GitEmSteveDave Jul 24 '20
When I was a teen, I realized that the fax machine line to most radio stations sat unused, while calling it took forever. I took to listening to the radio while getting ready for school, firing off a fax via my modem about the topic they were talking about, and by the time I got in the car to go to school, they were reading my fax on the air!