school shooting

[marshwiggle]

I have been in some  active shooter situations, but all ended up being local armed robbers who had last been spotted in the area. I am not even sure if any even had fired a weapon.

So, no big deal I guess.

Seriously, the idea that this is something that one would experience more than once is pretty disturbing in a supposedly "civilized" society.

(From another thread, you may have noticed that yesterday marked the anniversary of 14 women being killed at a university. It happened in 1989, so 32 years later that's still the event that gets the most attention. Fortunately, it's not a record that is being challenged on any regular basis. Of course, we don't have parts of the country where it's OK to walk around carrying an AR-15. )

[mahagonny]

Yes, I do need help. Help me understand what is the utility or significance of dwelling on the fact that boys are statistically more likely to commit murder than girls to people who believe human beings cannot be sorted into two categories of gender? Wouldn't the data consist of only 'boys' and 'girls' who might (an off chance) truly be as identified, or actually something in between? Or are data compiled before the great advancement in knowledge called wokeism interpreted today as they were then when we hapless observers thought there were only two genders? How would that work? Frankly it sounds like some of you are selling yourself a religion that part of you won't buy. And I wouldn't blame it.

As for some of you upthread, consider a dosage increase.  You're talking out of your ass and frightening the horses.

Well put.

[apl68]

Makes me kinda look forward to my college's annual active shooter drill training.

As for some of you upthread, consider a dosage increase.  You're talking out of your ass and frightening the horses.

I honestly can't be sure whether this is serious or not. Do places actually have active shooter training? And is it an annual thing????? (If it's sarcasm and I'm missing it, it comes from being Canadian and hearing of elementary or high schools in the US with armed guards and/or metal detectors at the doors, which are locked during the school day. It's dystopian enough that it's hard to imagine what might be exaggeration.)

Note that, as with everything in American schools, it varies greatly from district to district.  Our local schools don't have armed guards or metal detectors.  They do have a designated police officer who does rounds of them and gets to know the students, and talks to them about drugs and avoiding crime and so forth.  I assume that they have shooter drills.  In recent years there have been a couple of occasions when one or another local school has been on lock-down over what proved a false alarm.  I don't know whether these occasions involved a full everybody-dive-under-your-desks alarm, or whether it was a state of alert in which students' movements were eliminated and nobody was allowed in or out of the schools until the police had had a chance to check things out.  At any rate, it made the local papers and was the talk of the town for a few days.

The schools with the metal detectors and armed guards tend to be inner-city schools in neighborhoods with chronic gang activity that has infiltrated the schools.  Suburban schools that have had actual shootings may have been frightened into going the armed guards and metal detectors route as well, and there may be some communities where pure fear of the worst has led to the same thing.  But it's not the nationwide norm.

[apl68]

I have been in some  active shooter situations, but all ended up being local armed robbers who had last been spotted in the area. I am not even sure if any even had fired a weapon.

So, no big deal I guess.

Seriously, the idea that this is something that one would experience more than once is pretty disturbing in a supposedly "civilized" society.

Definitely so.  The situation is unquestionably worse in the U.S. than it was a few decades ago.  I can recall schools being disrupted by hoax bomb threats when I was a kid, but school shootings were just altogether unheard of.  Other violent crime was far less common as well.  But it increased decade on decade until by the 1980s most Americans were very much afraid of violent crime.  After a peak in the late 1980s-early 1990s it fell dramatically in most places in the 1990s-early 2000s.  Now it's spiking again, though still (for now) well below the peaks of earlier decades. 

For a great many people the fear has never gone away.  Many rural Americans old enough to remember the lurid headlines about urban crime in the 1980s are still afraid to visit a city of any size.  Millions of Americans refuse to use public transportation or even to support having public transit stops in their neighborhoods because public transit has become inextricably linked with crime in their minds.  And mass shootings by random lunatics, though statistically still far less of a threat than the widespread lawlessness of the 1980s was, are like airline crashes--each and every instance is reported extensively all over the country, to the point where each one of them feels to some people like it happened virtually next door.

[Anselm]

I have been in some  active shooter situations, but all ended up being local armed robbers who had last been spotted in the area. I am not even sure if any even had fired a weapon.

So, no big deal I guess.

Seriously, the idea that this is something that one would experience more than once is pretty disturbing in a supposedly "civilized" society.

(From another thread, you may have noticed that yesterday marked the anniversary of 14 women being killed at a university. It happened in 1989, so 32 years later that's still the event that gets the most attention. Fortunately, it's not a record that is being challenged on any regular basis. Of course, we don't have parts of the country where it's OK to walk around carrying an AR-15. )

I have a brother who was at U of Alabama in the same building where Amy Bishop was shooting people.  He also was at Ohio State Univ. when they had a guy attacking people with a knife or machete and then was killed by campus police.

[Ruralguy]

There really weren't [a significant number of] school shootings until the mid to late 90's, or if there were, they were very isolated in time and generally not mass shootings and not in suburbs. However, there was workplace violence, and I recall a mass shooting/hostage even in the NYC suburbs in the mid to late 1970's.  A few, all over, in the 1980's. but, yes, we're at the point where I honestly can't remember some of the events people refer to because there are so many.

[marshwiggle]

There really weren't [a significant number of] school shootings until the mid to late 90's, or if there were, they were very isolated in time and generally not mass shootings and not in suburbs. However, there was workplace violence, and I recall a mass shooting/hostage even in the NYC suburbs in the mid to late 1970's.  A few, all over, in the 1980's. but, yes, we're at the point where I honestly can't remember some of the events people refer to because there are so many.

Does it sound very liberal of me to wonder what makes parents think that a kid who feels socially isolated will be helped by having a gun? That seems a common theme in many of these cases; the idea that shooting will somehow calm the kid down. It's as if the proposed "cure" to a kid having impulse control issues would be getting them a sports car or a big motorcycle.

[mythbuster]

My university has active shooter online training AND drills. A member of the U-PD is designated the "shooter" and has a "toy" AK-47 that shoots off pop rounds. You must all work together to barricade the doors, turn of the lights, and escape or hide. It's honestly terrifying.

I'm surprised that the rest of you are surprised- we are usually the LAST place to get any sort of safety training. But we are also in Florida, and Parkland really rattled many of our U-PD, based on the talk they give us before the drill occurs.

[mahagonny]

And your last sentence just resonated in particular--because it is boys, isn't it?

That's not rhetorical, but a question about the factual situation...are there actually any, let alone many, instances of female shooters?

M.

I think the "weapon of choice" for girls is social media; there have been many stories of girls attacking others on social media, including some where victims have committed suicide.

Jordan Peterson has interesting things to say about this. Girls/women are socially aggressive verbally, mostly, and boys/men are socially aggressive physically. Of course, liberals hate him more and more as he gets more and more attention and respect.

120 male; 3 female; 1 male & female

So we should be able to just about eliminate school shootings if we can only require boys to transform themselves into girls. And they'll add a few years to their life expectancy in the process.

[Wahoo Redux]

There really weren't [a significant number of] school shootings until the mid to late 90's, or if there were, they were very isolated in time and generally not mass shootings and not in suburbs. However, there was workplace violence, and I recall a mass shooting/hostage even in the NYC suburbs in the mid to late 1970's.  A few, all over, in the 1980's. but, yes, we're at the point where I honestly can't remember some of the events people refer to because there are so many.

Does it sound very liberal of me to wonder what makes parents think that a kid who feels socially isolated will be helped by having a gun? That seems a common theme in many of these cases; the idea that shooting will somehow calm the kid down. It's as if the proposed "cure" to a kid having impulse control issues would be getting them a sports car or a big motorcycle.

My father taught me to shoot a rifle when I was 10 or 11 years old, and then a pistol a year or so later.  (He did not teach my sister.)  Some of my fondest memories of the man come from the old gravel quarry where we used to shoot bottles and cans. I got to be pretty good too.  I have never even shot near a living thing and have no plans to.

I think a great many American parents have very positive ideas about guns. 

Guns also make people feel powerful, and I think the appeal of the firearm is that when you carry one you are an important person, or at least a person that other people need to pay heed to.

[jimbogumbo]

Yes, I do need help. Help me understand what is the utility or significance of dwelling on the fact that boys are statistically more likely to commit murder than girls to people who believe human beings cannot be sorted into two categories of gender? Wouldn't the data consist of only 'boys' and 'girls' who might (an off chance) truly be as identified, or actually something in between? Or are data compiled before the great advancement in knowledge called wokeism interpreted today as they were then when we hapless observers thought there were only two genders? How would that work? Frankly it sounds like some of you are selling yourself a religion that part of you won't buy. And I wouldn't blame it.

As for some of you upthread, consider a dosage increase.  You're talking out of your ass and frightening the horses.

Well put.

I bolded what I consider the relevant part of your statement for how I operate. I have said the same in every statistics class I have ever taught. In fact I did this very afternoon. Much of the data regarding male vs female exists because we considered them easily sortable categories and the data is there, not because that is an underlying causal factor. This has always been the case. It's been pointed out almost to the point of a duh that in a similar way much of the research sorted on the basis of race is confounded by almost certainly more relevant underlying SES factors. Nothing about any of that is news to people who work in or teach in this area.

However, regarding shootings (particularly mass school shootings) there is an overwhelming sex difference reflected in the data. Not to consider it when you are thinking about  the safety of kids would be criminal negligence. But, we don't have good answers to WHY there is a difference.

As far as this thread, there was a question posed. I provided data in response (so did Wahoo). There was a follow up question, and I replied. That's it. There has been no dwelling on this. The above is the sum of the posts other than yours.

[smallcleanrat]

I don't know if the "off chance" part of the comment was serious or just for effect, but the implication seems to be that the "woke" crowd is claiming that cis gender people are so rare that you are highly unlikely to be correct if you identify someone as such. Is that really a common claim?

I don't see how it follows that anyone who argues that gender is not strictly binary must disregard every research study ever that made any comparisons between boys and girls or else they are a hypocrite.



Anyway, I've been on campus during an active shooter situation, but I don't recall any type of drills for such situations before or afterwards. There were mass e-mails during and immediately after the situation, mostly to the effect of locking doors, turning off lights, shutting blinds, and staying quiet until some e-mail announcement/text alert indicated the situation was resolved.

My PI at the time advised everyone to carry on work as usual (against the advice to lock doors and avoid activity that might draw attention) after seeing the email that two people had been found dead of gunshot wounds and police were currently searching the campus for the shooter(s). Their reasoning: this happened two buildings away from us, therefore the precautions were unnecessary because the (known) shootings did not happen in our building. The fact that police were in the process of searching for the shooter is probably a big part of the reason they didn't want people milling around.

PI changed their mind after several more, increasingly vehement emails stressing the importance of following the guidelines.

[pgher]

There really weren't [a significant number of] school shootings until the mid to late 90's, or if there were, they were very isolated in time and generally not mass shootings and not in suburbs. However, there was workplace violence, and I recall a mass shooting/hostage even in the NYC suburbs in the mid to late 1970's.  A few, all over, in the 1980's. but, yes, we're at the point where I honestly can't remember some of the events people refer to because there are so many.

Does it sound very liberal of me to wonder what makes parents think that a kid who feels socially isolated will be helped by having a gun? That seems a common theme in many of these cases; the idea that shooting will somehow calm the kid down. It's as if the proposed "cure" to a kid having impulse control issues would be getting them a sports car or a big motorcycle.

My father taught me to shoot a rifle when I was 10 or 11 years old, and then a pistol a year or so later.  (He did not teach my sister.)  Some of my fondest memories of the man come from the old gravel quarry where we used to shoot bottles and cans. I got to be pretty good too.  I have never even shot near a living thing and have no plans to.

I think a great many American parents have very positive ideas about guns. 

Guns also make people feel powerful, and I think the appeal of the firearm is that when you carry one you are an important person, or at least a person that other people need to pay heed to.

I can see some of the logic. Learning that guns are not toys, for example, in a visceral way. Shooting at a target as a way of stress relief. Shooting well is also a form of meditation. I particularly enjoy shooting my muzzleloader: powder, bullet, tamp, primer, aim, shoot, wet swab, dry swab, powder, ....

I would be curious how many of the worst perpetrators were hunters, rather than just shooters. Again, hunting teaches that guns are dangerous in a visceral way. I can't imagine doing to a human what a rifle does to a deer.

[Hegemony]

I don't think the people who set out to shoot humans care whether the result is messy or neat. They can easily imagine doing to a human what a gun does to a deer — in fact that's precisely their goal. Seeing the carnage up close does not deter them.

[mahagonny]

However, regarding shootings (particularly mass school shootings) there is an overwhelming sex difference reflected in the data. Not to consider it when you are thinking about  the safety of kids would be criminal negligence. But, we don't have good answers to WHY there is a difference.

We agree that that data are important. How could you not? But, I'll warn you: I am strange. I also believe if the governor of Maine sees a sudden spike in the numbers of young black men living in certain towns, and he simultaneously sees a spike in the amount of street drug arrests and overdoses in hospitals, then he can also expect to be making some arrests of young black men from out of state for drug dealing. And not only can he expect it to happen, he can even talk about it, and if people hearing about it have a problem, it should be their problem, and not the community's. And if he's pissed off about what's happening, that's a sign that he's doing his job.
But - back to the data we were discussing: I don't understand how that data would not make one conclude that boys and girls are inherently different. So if you were one of those who believes a boy can change himself into a girl or vice versa, my reaction is, why am I listening to you at all?