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Comment by clarkmoody | Hacker News Reader

Two obvious things:

- Schools weren't opened for most of the month

- Article is pushing an anti-gun agenda (not surprising for CBS)

What is glaringly omitted: how is a "school shooting" defined? The article mentioned some event that happened on campus (in the football field), which probably counts as a "school shooting" knowing the source of the data is an anti gun rights group. I wouldn't be surprised if the definition is quite broad so as to boost the stats.

So this is obvious narrative-pushing. But I might counter with, "See, this is a great reason to keep the schools closed. Look at the reduction in school shootings!" Which would fit right in with the level of discourse in American politics.

On a meta level, I'm genuinely curious how people's attitudes have changed throughout the COVID pandemic, not only about guns, but about homeschooling, privacy, surveillance, time with family, etc, etc.

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Yes. It's deliberate facetious. It's making the point that school gun violence is so widespread, so rampant, so unchallenged, that the only way to avoid it has been to shut schools completely.

You shouldn't quibble over definitions, worry about narratives or attitudes. You should consider what can be done to make schools safer environments for our children.

We should ban encryption so shooters can't plan their attacks without being watched - for the children of course.

If that's the limit of our ability to consider something better, the kids don't stand a chance.

Exactly the problem with modern gun control proposals.

I mean, it's all about the children right? Anything for the children! Might as well wrap up each of them in a biosuit with restrained arm movement so there's absolutely 0% chance of anyone committing any sort of harm whatsoever.

Seriously, get real. Justifying the elimination of natural rights with "thinking of the children" is a common trope by authoritarians to seize control.

What's with this silly nth degree stuff? Why can't you handle the idea of incremental change? Is the situation really beyond any worthwhile improvement in your eyes?

I'm not reassured when you describe recurrent mass murder of children as a trope. Get some perspective.

It's such an infrequent event it's literally a rounding error. The only reason it's even brought up is because it gets attention on the news - which is in and of itself a feedback loop, as more attention brings more copycats.

I grew up in an area where every other house had dozens of guns. Surprisingly, we didn't have a school shooting every day. In fact, we had none. I'm not using anecdotal data to support any argument, but if it were indeed the case that more guns = more baby and child killings, then I wouldn't be here to write this comment.

My main concern here is the erosion of natural rights based on the premise that it is "for the children", which is a trope. It's been used for all manners of privacy violations, from indefinite detentions, proposals to ban encryption, PRISM, etc.

If you genuinely care and have an open mind, you'll see it's extremely dubious as to whether enforcing more restrictions would have any effect, barring throwing the Constitution in the trash and seizing everything. Conversely, we can think of the children and ban cars so they stop dying in car accidents, because no more car accidents will happen.

I'm okay with incremental positive change, but they have to be data-driven and made respecting the Constitution. The US got this far due to its framework, its shared values on freedom and liberty, and lack of an oppressive, overreaching government. It derives its success from the freedom of its citizens to chart the course of their life, not from the nanny state telling them what they can and can't smoke, shoot, eat, code, read, write, or drive.

Rounding error?! The US had 434 mass shootings in 2019, between ~50,000 middle-to-higher institutions. Assuming each of the 434 events happened at different institutions, you had a 99.132% chance of not being present at a school shooting in 2019.

But you're at one of these institutions (middle through undergrad) for 11 years? Your probability of being at one of these during a shooting compounds to 90.86%.

9-in-10 people and their friends had a nice time, but that remaining 1 was there when four or more of their school were gunned down.

I don't disagree that the Constitution gives Americans a fair whack at freedom, but it also frustrates democracy. If a clear majority wanted to change things, even incrementally (background and mental health checks, storage laws esp child-access, restricting higher form assault weapons), overcoming the 66% bar really makes progress on [inexplicably] partisan issues like this impossible.

You've got to weigh up what this law was designed to do, against what it's permitting today. I think it's obvious we come to a different result when we balance that equation but I'm not deaf to your views either.

(Edit: Important to note that 434 is the mass shooting number. It's just 1% of all gun violence in schools.)

Meant to say: Your probability of not being at one of these during a shooting compounds to 90.86%.

Most of those events are unrelated violence that just happens to be near institutions, not actual shootings. This includes gang-on-gang violence nearby, people shooting themselves in their car, accidental discharges, etc. Look at the actual numbers involved and the descriptions of the events themselves. There's a lot of interest in making it seem worse than it is, as you've clearly demonstrated.

You betray your own politics with the word "agenda," but taking you at face value, what's wrong with being anti-gun?

The biggest problem I see with being anti-gun, isn’t the desire to have a less fearful or violent society.

It’s that anti-gun positions generally are not at all anti-gun they are anti-private individual, but happy for the state to use guns, and thus to be the sole arbiter of who is defended and who is defenseless.

>positions generally are not at all anti-gun they are anti-private individual

Well that's definitely a stream of apophasis that doesn't address my question, but maybe we can save it if you describe where you draw the line between anti-gun and "anti-private individual." IME they are always conflated within the discourse.

If you're implying a hypocrisy in supporting police having guns but people not, I don't agree, but even without that I'm fine if all guns go away. Does that now make my question answerable for you?

I’m indeed implying the hypocrisy. I’m also fine with all guns going away. However nobody who is anti-gun is suggesting that in reality.

I guess it all depends on how much you trust your government and police. Anti-gun sentiment seem to be about forcing the views of those who have reason to trust them, onto those who don’t, at gunpoint no less.

That seems wrong to me.

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