Chris
02-17-2014, 07:24 PM
A new report has come out highlighting the tragedies of school killings but needs to be put into perspective...
Moms, mayors offer misguided message on guns
A new report on school shootings was released Wednesday on Capitol Hill by two like-minded advocacy groups striving to move Congress toward action on gun control....
...What I find so disturbing about the moms and mayors report is not just the tallies of homicides, suicides and other shootings in schools, but the complete lack of any context for interpreting these figures.
As it happens, the numbers assembled by the moms and mayors are not out-of-line with historical patterns, and, in fact, are lower than two decades ago when gang violence was especially problematic at school settings. And, as added perspective, consider that there are more than 50 million school children in America, making the risk of fatality well below one in two million. By comparison, many times more youngsters are killed annually in bicycle accidents....
...Without a doubt, each gun-related student or teacher fatality is tragic in and of itself, but children are far more at risk outside of school than at school. For most kids, school is a place of great (if not the greatest) safety, offering a level of structure and supervision that many children do not enjoy elsewhere, possibly not even at home.
Let me be clear in embracing the often-stated position that even one death is too many. And I hardly wish to disregard or minimize the suffering and anguish of victims, their families as well as their entire communities that are devastated and traumatized when gunshots disrupt the school day.
However, the suggestion that school shootings are a problem on the rise and in need of immediate resolution tends to promote quick and easy responses that don't work and may make matters worse, instead of more difficult approaches that will indeed improve the climate at schools of all levels....
...I applaud the work of both the moms and the mayors. I admire their passion and generally concur with their positions. However, I find their latest strategy to be a misinformed and misguided scare tactic.
Moms, mayors offer misguided message on guns
A new report on school shootings was released Wednesday on Capitol Hill by two like-minded advocacy groups striving to move Congress toward action on gun control....
...What I find so disturbing about the moms and mayors report is not just the tallies of homicides, suicides and other shootings in schools, but the complete lack of any context for interpreting these figures.
As it happens, the numbers assembled by the moms and mayors are not out-of-line with historical patterns, and, in fact, are lower than two decades ago when gang violence was especially problematic at school settings. And, as added perspective, consider that there are more than 50 million school children in America, making the risk of fatality well below one in two million. By comparison, many times more youngsters are killed annually in bicycle accidents....
...Without a doubt, each gun-related student or teacher fatality is tragic in and of itself, but children are far more at risk outside of school than at school. For most kids, school is a place of great (if not the greatest) safety, offering a level of structure and supervision that many children do not enjoy elsewhere, possibly not even at home.
Let me be clear in embracing the often-stated position that even one death is too many. And I hardly wish to disregard or minimize the suffering and anguish of victims, their families as well as their entire communities that are devastated and traumatized when gunshots disrupt the school day.
However, the suggestion that school shootings are a problem on the rise and in need of immediate resolution tends to promote quick and easy responses that don't work and may make matters worse, instead of more difficult approaches that will indeed improve the climate at schools of all levels....
...I applaud the work of both the moms and the mayors. I admire their passion and generally concur with their positions. However, I find their latest strategy to be a misinformed and misguided scare tactic.