Cars are designed to transport people from place to place, and cause death as an unfortunate side effect. Guns are designed to propel bullets at high speed, and cause death as the intended primary effect.
There can be other conversations about the effectiveness of public transportation, and how the US infrastructure was designed around cars instead of buses/trains, but there is a pretty big difference beyond the number of deaths caused.
What is your point? Everyone knows cars and guns are designed differently. Seems like you are trying to rationalize irrational terror. Statistics show a student should logically be more wary of dying in a car wreck on the drive to/from school than getting shot at school. Are you suggesting our students should ignore math?
It is an interesting aspect of human psychology that more people are afraid of a mass shooting in a school, though far more students will graduate knowing someone who died in a car crash than someone who died in a mass shooting.
... but it is how human psychology works, so the school must account for it.
Well 9/11 is etched in the collective psyche, still talked about, and the toll there wasn't great either. Acts of terror terrify. I don't think it's so much that people worry about the odds, they just categorically do not want to accept regular school shootings as a normal thing. Why should they?
It's essentially the same thing as air travel safety vs cars. What seemed to work for air travel is to make it into trivia so that any time this point comes up somebody repeats back the trivia.
Far more school shooting deaths than any other developed country by my count. You're choosing to brush it off because it represents a small percentage of the population. That's a ridiculous position, you could hold the same if school shooting fatalities were in the 10,000s instead of 200s; too insignificant. The weight is in whether it's acceptable or it isn't, not how likely your kid is to get shot. It's been worse in the past 20 years than the 20 years prior. You're either a) tacitly saying that the certainty of future school shootings is absolutely fine with you, or b) that it can't be helped, which isn't true. Pick one.
We don't have to accept high rates of vehicular deaths either. Automation will make this moot in the end, but far stronger punishment for inebriated driving is due, among other things.
> You're choosing to brush it off because it represents a small percentage of the population.
That is what you concluded from what I am saying. Why did you conclude that?
> you could hold the same if school shooting fatalities were in the 10,000s instead of 200s; too insignificant
Oh but look at those magnitudes!
> You're either a) tacitly saying that the certainty of future school shootings is absolutely fine with you, or b) that it can't be helped, which isn't true. Pick one.
I did not intend to say either of those things. That's your interpretation. But again, why did you think that? My take: A good chunk of the population in the US is sold on alarmism and "something needs to be done".
> far stronger punishment for inebriated driving is due
Great. Another non-solution giving the appearance that something is being done.
Then when that doesn't work you cry for still more to be done. More punishment. More prying. It's a cycle I won't participate in. I'm disgusted by it!
Why aren't we discussing the resources these kids had, or didn't have, facing their adulthood? How come they decided the way to feel in control was shooting their peers? They're not the only ones! A lot of kids feel that. Few act it out. Thankfully. Why do they feel that? No matter, let's watch their backpacks for guns.
> That is what you concluded from what I am saying. Why did you conclude that?
> Oh but look at those magnitudes!
You're saying again exactly what you're being cute about in the first sentence. Not much to deduce here.
> I did not intend to say either of those things. That's your interpretation. But again, why did you think that? My take: A good chunk of the population in the US is sold on alarmism and "something needs to be done".
That's interesting because your "take" completely ignores those suppositions you insist do not apply to you. It it CAN be helped, those who believe so would explore solutions: which one do you favor, and why?
> Great. Another non-solution giving the appearance that something is being done.
"Our calculations reveal that increasing rates of prosecution and conviction for DWI would reduce re-arrests for DWI and by implication drinking and driving more generally." -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5472385/
It works.
> I'm disgusted by it!
You're disgusted by putting drunk drivers in jail?
> No matter, let's watch their backpacks for guns.
I never said I was in favor of the clear backpacks, not once. That won't deter anything. I do however think the ease of accessibility to guns is great among disturbed young people.
> Why aren't we discussing the resources these kids had, or didn't have, facing their adulthood?
We should. No one says we shouldn't. And yet, are you going to vote or write legislators to allocate resources this way? I doubt it. It's just another way to brush off the whole thing from cons who don't give a fuck and wish people would just not talk about it.
Your argument is very, very weak whataboutism. Just because people die of other things more frequently does not mean that you are not supposed to prevent deaths. Your argument suggests that we should not be bothering with a justice system at all, because far more people die of cancer and heart disease than are murdered or crippled, therefore it would be dumb to put any money down for preventing and prosecuting murders.
No. If we look at the draconic measures being taken the reaction is way out of line with the problem. If we reacted to the other dangers the same way, society wouldn't function.
Schools are turned into high-security institutions, or the appearances of it. Watching kids for fear of them freaking out is not a good signal to send. It means you only care when it's too late.
A proper measure isn't about "scale of reaction" it's whether it's effective. These draconian measures are red herrings; I'm not sure they're even meant to prevent anything, because they won't work. They will not prevent school shootings, full stop. It's opportunistic bullshit from legislators.
Do you have any evidence that clear backpacks have a meaningful impact of deaths in schools from guns? Is that impact sufficient to warrant the culture of fear that is being incolcated into these poor kids?
It's not whataboutism, it's cost benefit analysis.
> It's not whataboutism, it's cost benefit analysis.
GP didn't make that analysis; they merely implied that nothing should be done about school shootings because more kids get run over. That's whataboutism in its purest form: "We should doo something about school shootings!" - "But what about all the kids getting run over???"
