AAP new study on school shootings

[PainRack]

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2023-064311/196816/School-Shootings-in-the-United-States-1997-2022?autologincheck=redirected





AAP posted a new study that rebuts some choice gun nuts arguments.





Is it a mental health crisis ? Probably, but school mass shootings hasn't increased in numbers. They increased in deadliness. Aka. it's NOT that there more crazy people shooting up schools, it's more the guns they have to kill people are more effective.



This DESPITE changes in laws, be it school armed resource officers or hardening facilities.





The flip side is that school shootings have risen. AAP notes that school shootings quadrupled post 2020 n etc.

In addition to these dire statistics, gun purchases have recently reached an all-time high in the United States, with more than 22 million guns procured in 2022.7 Stronger gun laws are linked with fewer deaths per capita, and recent empirical evidence suggests that states that instantiate more restrictive gun regulations have reduced gun deaths.8,–10 For example, child access protection legislation in 29 states and Washington, D.C., has resulted in a 22% decrease in firearm injuries per capita in those jurisdictions; notwithstanding, strong child access protection legislation has seen a 41% decrease in recent years.11

And links this to more guns being available and more liberal gun laws.





N fun fact. In this 25 year period, school shootings declined during one presidency. Who pushed gun control and study. Obama. So.... Literally gun control works to reduce school shootings. The flip side where GOP states liberalised more guns..... Have more shootings

[PainRack]

The key crux is that SROs appears to have very little effect on reducing school shootings, a comprehensive approach may help, there's mental health trauma due to school shootings AND the drills involved, and the data figures all show that despite rightwing arguments that more guns are needed to prevent school shootings, less school shootings during Obama n gun control, add in other studies showing more mass shootings for states which liberalised gun laws, more road rage shootings, more shootings/deaths.....

Theres very little evidence that a good guy with a gun helps. And evidence that gun control, including critical steps as identified by the framework MTPS such as Red Flag Laws DO.

[Ralin]

Is it a mental health crisis ? Probably, but school mass shootings hasn't increased in numbers. They increased in deadliness. Aka. it's NOT that there more crazy people shooting up schools, it's more the guns they have to kill people are more effective.

If shootings haven't increased in number then I'm not sure how increased gun availability could be making them deadlier since you can't have a shooting in the first place without a gun and it isn't really practical for a shooter to use more than one, maybe two, guns at once.

Obviously it stands to reason that better guns would be better at killing more people. But that seems self explanatory if not tautological.

Skimming the paper, they seem to use a questionable definition of school shooting that does not necessarily involve shooting anyone.

Per the definition provided in the Compendium, a school shooting is defined as brandishing a gun, firing a gun, or a bullet hitting school property for any reason.

[PainRack]

Is it a mental health crisis ? Probably, but school mass shootings hasn't increased in numbers. They increased in deadliness. Aka. it's NOT that there more crazy people shooting up schools, it's more the guns they have to kill people are more effective.

If shootings haven't increased in number then I'm not sure how increased gun availability could be making them deadlier since you can't have a shooting in the first place without a gun and it isn't really practical for a shooter to use more than one, maybe two, guns at once.

Obviously it stands to reason that better guns would be better at killing more people. But that seems self explanatory if not tautological.

Skimming the paper, they seem to use a questionable definition of school shooting that does not necessarily involve shooting anyone.

Per the definition provided in the Compendium, a school shooting is defined as brandishing a gun, firing a gun, or a bullet hitting school property for any reason.

Errr. Two databases.


1. There are MORE school shootings, as defined by gun was brandished, shots were fired or bullets hit school. That's the database you cited.


2. There is no rise in MASS school shootings, which is defined as 3 or more victims .


So yes, more guns availability is causing more school shootings, including brandishing.


However, since mass shootings remained the same, but VICTIMS from mass shootings rose, the argument is that said mass shootings are more lethal. And we have any number of studies showing which factors do that. Large capacity magazines (more than 10 rounds ), rifles Vs pistols, etcetcetc .


Not sure what's the issue is, since brandishing is for incidents as seen in fig 1. That database isn't used for the victims column. Victims killed is entirely from the 2nd database with 3 or more during school shootings

[Tribble]

Not to worry!

If you can’t afford to give your children access to guns to stop the intruders, just give them Billy clubs or butterfly knives instead:

Billy clubs? Butterfly knives? Legal shift on 2nd Amendment affects more than just guns

In 2021, U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled that a 100-year-old California ban on stick-like weapons known as “billy clubs” was constitutional precisely because it was so “longstanding.”

Last week, Benitez, reviewing the case for a second time, ruled the opposite: The ban is unconstitutional because it isn’t old enough.

“What is different today,” the judge wrote, “is that a statute enacted in 1923 is no longer given a pass for being ‘longstanding.’ ”

Benitez’s reversal was the latest example of the rapidly shifting landscape for 2nd Amendment law in the country — not just for firearms, but all sorts of other weapons. Beyond billy clubs, laws banning butterfly knives, switchblades and other edged weapons are also being challenged.

In the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court said that state restrictions on the 2nd Amendment are legitimate only if they are deeply rooted in American “history and tradition” or closely analogous to some other historic law.

To be relevant under such an analysis, the high court said, a law or similar prohibition would have to date back to either 1791, when the 2nd Amendment was adopted, or 1868, when the 14th Amendment and its related due process protections were adopted.

The ruling shook American jurisprudence around firearms to the core. It prompted challenges to state gun laws to be filed all over the country, and revived many other weapons cases that had been failing to gain traction in the courts.

Benitez — a George W. Bush appointee lovingly referred to as “Saint Benitez” by gun rights supporters — has previously struck down various California gun laws in light of the Bruen decision, including the state’s bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The state is appealing those decisions, and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office promptly notified the court that it would be appealing the billy club ruling, too, which it said in a statement “defies logic” and “contradicts” the Bruen decision in a way that “puts public safety at risk.”

As the case makes clear, the standard set by Bruen is reaching far beyond rifles and handguns.

“The 2nd Amendment protects a right to bear arms,” said Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor focused on 2nd Amendment law, “and the Supreme Court has made it clear that that is not limited to firearms.”

Across the U.S., state laws bar a plethora of weapons, from blades to blunt instruments.

All are now fair game for toppling in the eyes of gun rights and other weapons enthusiasts, who view any restriction as an infringement on their right to bear arms.

Legal cases concerning weapons other than firearms present some distinct issues, but largely now hinge on the same Bruen-inspired historical analyses that gun cases rely on, experts said. Lower district and appellate court judges are still grappling with the Bruen test and how to apply it, the experts said, leaving the legal landscape unsettled.

“Bruen is so inherently ambiguous, and the [history and tradition] test so unfamiliar to judges, that there are just fundamental disagreements,” Winkler said. “It’s wholly foreign to the courts to look solely to history and tradition to determine the scope of government’s regulatory power, and they don’t really know how to do it.”

In August, a conservative three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 30-year ban on butterfly knives in Hawaii was unconstitutional in light of Bruen, threatening such laws not just in Hawaii but in California and across the country.

“Hawaii has not demonstrated that its ban on butterfly knives is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of regulating arms,” Judge Carlos Bea, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote for the court.

Butterfly knives have split handles that swing back to form a single handle when the blade inside is revealed. Hawaii and other states that ban them, including California, have argued they present a particular public danger, and that there are historic laws outlawing particularly dangerous blades to justify restrictions under Bruen.

Late last week, the 9th Circuit said that it was taking the case back up to be reconsidered by a larger, 11-judge en banc panel. Such a decision suggests that at least some of the courts judges also question whether the law under Bruen was appropriately applied in the case.

Benitez’s latest ruling on billy clubs also faces further review.

Such weapons have been poorly defined in state law but broadly construed in the past to include the sort of swinging batons once popular among police, as well as other wooden clubs, bats and batons.

Benitez found that such weapons have long been used for self-defense, and that in the relevant historical eras under Bruen, there were no sufficiently similar bans on them. Therefore, California’s ban is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced, he ruled.

“One can easily imagine countless citizens carrying these weapons on daily walks and hikes to defend themselves against attacks by humans or animals,” Benitez wrote. “To give full life to the core right of self-defense, every law-abiding responsible individual citizen has a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms like the billy for lawful purposes.”

Bonta’s office said the ruling, if allowed to stand, would legalize in California modern, steel batons that telescope into themselves and can be easily concealed and “used in public disturbances or riots,” as they were during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“The Supreme Court was clear that Bruen did not create a regulatory straitjacket for states — and we believe that the district court got this wrong,” Bonta’s office said. “We will not stop in our efforts to protect the safety of communities.”

Alan Beck is counsel for the plaintiffs in both the California billy club case and the Hawaii butterfly knife case. He called California’s billy club ban “a very vague and nebulous law that has been abused for decades in California.”

Beck said the law has been cited by police and prosecutors to charge people for carrying a table leg and a skateboard, and clearly ran afoul of the history test under Bruen.

“It’s common sense that the colonial era didn’t ban people from carrying sticks around or owning sticks in their house,” he said.

He said such laws are clearly unconstitutional because there “are a lot of people who aren’t comfortable carrying a firearm, who would like some mechanism for self-defense.”

Benitez made a similar point in his ruling last week, where he described a theoretical “young girl” being arrested for carrying a billy club while walking home from school in “a part of town where robberies, assaults, and rapes have occurred; where youth gangs are known to frequent; and where unrestrained dogs are known to roam.”

“And why does California elect to make this girl a criminal? Because there is a risk, no matter how small, that the girl might use [the club] for an unlawful purpose, or that others may use similar weapons for unlawful purposes,” Benitez wrote. “The United States Constitution prohibits such intrusions into an otherwise law-abiding citizen’s choice for self-defense.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... -just-guns

I wouldn’t be surprised if a constitutional right to carry knives / bats etc also results in more school deaths in the long run, though perhaps no where near as many as mass shootings since stabbing and beating children to death still takes more effort than pulling a trigger.

[Raw Shark]

I wouldn’t be surprised if a constitutional right to carry knives / bats etc also results in more school deaths in the long run, though perhaps no where near as many as mass shootings since stabbing and beating children to death still takes more effort than pulling a trigger.

The deaths aren't the problem they're trying to address, they just think kids these days are lazy and need to go back to the good, honest, character-building hard work involved in ol-timey murderin' the way we used to do it.

[PainRack]

It's amazingly frustrating though, to see that despite evidence showing that yes, Democrats Gun control and etc can work to protect schools ..... The opposite is happening In USA instead

[Zwinmar]

My problem with that study is they do not show the who did it nor the why they did it. Both of these questions need answering as gang violence is far different from bullying taken too far. You can't really address the situation without studying the particulars. Basic journalism: who, what, when, where, why, and how, when you are missing this then it is too easy to bend and warp the facts to your preferred narrative.

[Tribble]

My problem with that study is they do not show the who did it nor the why they did it. Both of these questions need answering as gang violence is far different from bullying taken too far. You can't really address the situation without studying the particulars. Basic journalism: who, what, when, where, why, and how, when you are missing this then it is too easy to bend and warp the facts to your preferred narrative.

My problem with this study is that it’s a complete waste of time. Even assuming it’s totally accurate, it doesn’t matter since the courts have essentially ruled Americans have an unlimited right to buy, keep and carry their penis extenders firearms with them at all times. With it looking like they’ll soon be able to carry knives and clubs too.

Plus, there’s more than enough gun fanatics in the US whom prefer school children being shot to their guns being regulated that it’ll prevent anything meaningful from happening. If anything the more schools that get attacked the better since it fits into the “if only everyone had a gun this could’ve been prevented” narrative (never mind that it’s likely untrue).

Americans love their guns, and these days gun violence is as much a defining feature of American culture as baseball and apple pie. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

[PainRack]

My problem with that study is they do not show the who did it nor the why they did it. Both of these questions need answering as gang violence is far different from bullying taken too far. You can't really address the situation without studying the particulars. Basic journalism: who, what, when, where, why, and how, when you are missing this then it is too easy to bend and warp the facts to your preferred narrative.

Did you see the source? AAP isn't interested in the criminal prospects of this. Their intent is to treat children and mitigate the harm from school shootings, both mentally and physically.

So. Fuck off .

[Ralin]

Did you see the source? AAP isn't interested in the criminal prospects of this. Their intent is to treat children and mitigate the harm from school shootings, both mentally and physically.

Well he is interested as are a bunch of other people and last I checked the AAP doesn't run the country so if you don't like that you can sit down and drink your goddamn tea.

[Zwinmar]

If you don't know the why something happens then how the fuck you think you are going to actually fix it? The intellectual dishonesty on most when they discuss this topic is astounding, people who are extremely smart and professional otherwise turn into drooling morons. While taking away/regulating firearms my address a symptom it does not address the cause so, lets go down the rabbit hole a bit.

Back in the early 1900's people got their panties in a twist because they perceived the wrong people as drinking too much alcohol so, they campaigned for and eventually led to prohibition.
Prohibition opened a real can of worms as it is directly responsible for the rise of bootleggers and the mob. To combat the mob and gangland killings they passed the first national gun control and Philadelphia called on Smedley Butler to reform their police department.
Butler used the tactics he had learned during the Banana wars chasing what they called 'bandits' and thus by labeling citizen bandits rather than citizens the police perceive them as being subhuman resulting in the modern police state as other departments started copying what he started.

Incidentally, those banana wars where the governments where forcible changed for US corporate interests is reason we have so many migrants today, and why the US has a long history of treating them so bad that even Hitler copied them for his 'Jewish problem'

Tribble is right here, firearms are ubiquitous in the US, even if they outlaw them all tomorrow there are way to many to change anything. Additionally, until 1934 people owned whatever they wanted from the smallest of parlor guns to warships, though some towns did limit who could carry what where ( I say some become I do not have data on that ).

[PainRack]

If you don't know the why something happens then how the fuck you think you are going to actually fix it? The intellectual dishonesty on most when they discuss this topic is astounding, people who are extremely smart and professional otherwise turn into drooling morons. While taking away/regulating firearms my address a symptom it does not address the cause so, lets go down the rabbit hole a bit.

Back in the early 1900's people got their panties in a twist because they perceived the wrong people as drinking too much alcohol so, they campaigned for and eventually led to prohibition.
Prohibition opened a real can of worms as it is directly responsible for the rise of bootleggers and the mob. To combat the mob and gangland killings they passed the first national gun control and Philadelphia called on Smedley Butler to reform their police department.
Butler used the tactics he had learned during the Banana wars chasing what they called 'bandits' and thus by labeling citizen bandits rather than citizens the police perceive them as being subhuman resulting in the modern police state as other departments started copying what he started.

Incidentally, those banana wars where the governments where forcible changed for US corporate interests is reason we have so many migrants today, and why the US has a long history of treating them so bad that even Hitler copied them for his 'Jewish problem'

Tribble is right here, firearms are ubiquitous in the US, even if they outlaw them all tomorrow there are way to many to change anything. Additionally, until 1934 people owned whatever they wanted from the smallest of parlor guns to warships, though some towns did limit who could carry what where ( I say some become I do not have data on that ).

1. Critiquing the AAP for focusing on healthcare is dumb

2. The databases they draw from? Is freely open for you to peruse. You can literally GO in and see the article on each individual shooting. You may not be able to see who did what, primarily because the police didn't find the suspects or established cause for each shooting.

3. The study focus is on school shootings and the potential impact on children. Not a overall analysis of the gun problem in America, hence you complaining about this is literally a red herring.


But let's DO go down this route.


https://www.chds.us/sssc/methods/

For example, government reports on school shootings by the US Secret Service, FBI, and Department of Education provide an explanation of factors contributing to shootings, but do not catalogue a comprehensive list of the incidents. Lists of shootings reported by the media identify a large number of incidents, but provide few details beyond the date and location. Databases of school shootings on blogs and crowd-sourced websites have extensive lists of school shootings, but lack citations to any primary source. Without a common methodology for data collection, individual data sources are limited in both validity and utility. There still is not a consensus for what actually defines a school shooting to serve as the inclusion/exclusion criteria across the different datasets.

To answer the question “How many school shootings have occurred” and address the void of centralized and available data, the K-12 School Shooting Database (K-12 SSDB) has been created as a research product of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. The product is a filtered, deconflicted, and cross-referenced database of more than 1,550 K-12 school shootings from 1970 to present. This database was collated from the previously referenced sources as well as new and continued research by the authors.

The K-12 SSDB includes detailed information about each incident, a reliability score that quantifies the dependability of the information, and the verified primary source citation(s) (e.g., newspaper article, court records, interviews, police reports) to allow for further academic research. The scope is widely inclusive by documenting each and every instance in which a gun is brandished, fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims (including zero), time, day of the week, or reason (e.g., planned attack, accidental, domestic violence, gang-related). The breadth of this dataset allows for a comprehensive view of the issue while providing users with the ability to filter between specific subsets within the data (e.g., number of victims, pre-planning, and type of weapon used). Through the inclusion, rather than exclusion, of criteria that are cross-referenced, unfiltered, and agnostic, users could conduct more detailed analyses of specific incidents within their area(s) of interest from which to make better informed decisions and generate more accurate reports.



.....


Guard shoots a student who is threatening other students?
Are domestic violence incidents that end with one parent shooting the other while on school property considered a school shooting? What if their student child is injured in the event?
Do shootings that occur late at night in the school parking lot by either students or non-students meet the school shooting definition?
What if a student is accidentally shot on the football field by a hunter who was target practicing a mile away? What if the same student was shot, but the shooter and reason for the shooting remained unknown?
Do there need to be victims in order for it to be classified as a school shooting? What if a fellow student holds a classroom of thirty students hostage with a shotgun, then fires a round into the ceiling before surrendering to the police?
Although the vignettes above may appear hypothetical, they each represent an actual incident. They also demonstrate that no two school shootings are alike and therefore the circumstances surrounding each must be assessed and considered. Choosing to include or exclude any of these criteria comes with a level of risk by directly affecting the statistical narrative on school shootings. For example, through exclusion, fewer incidents will be reported resulting in a potential failure to elicit both attention and resources toward a systemic problem. Partial or complete inclusion, on the other hand, will increase the number of reported incidents, but likely cause an overreaction among political, security, and societal stakeholders.

Regardless of how the incident is defined, the initial impact to a reported shooting that occurs at a school is generally the same. There is widespread fear and panic at the school. The campus needs to be locked down. Police, fire, and EMS respond. Law enforcement personnel systematically search and clear building(s). Children are escorted to safety. The media begins continuous coverage. Frantic parents scramble to find their children. Public officials need to make statements and assure everyone’s safety. After action reports are written. Policies are put in place to prevent a similar future incident. This type of response occurred following both the February 2018 indiscriminate shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in which thirty-four people were either killed or wounded and the August 2018 non-student gunfire during a fight at Palm Beach Central High School, in which there were no deaths and only two injuries.

To allow anything other than location to qualify an incident as a school shooting is both arbitrary and subjective. All school shootings represent social, cultural, and interpersonal issues. As such, they should not be categorized based on who fired the gun or why it happened, but rather where it occurred. Because of the nebulous criteria and generally qualitative nature of the term “school shooting,” a broadly inclusive definition is needed to cast the widest net possible, which gives the end user the power to filter for specific criteria. The definition used for the K-12 SSDB is: a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims (including zero), time, day of the week, or reason.

Here we have the reason WHY the database defines school shootings as any brandishing, bullet fired n etc . It allows researchers to then zoom in to research .


What does all this and other data helps us with?


Well. We know that most shootings in schools itself come from children who bring weapons to schools.
What kind of students bring guns?
https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054 ... 2/abstract
So... Not children who are bullied or frightened, but rather delinquents that think packing heat is normal.


For mass shootings, we know that no reliable profile of a shooter is available. No reliable assessment or screening exists.


So.... Based on all available data, what can we do to reduce school shootings ?

Zero tolerance? Doesnt work. It turns out that trying to be tougher doesn't actually reduce school shootings, especially since the problem is delinquency rather than just packing heat . Hardening schools against attacks "may help", but no real impact on reducing school shootings or mass shootings.

Profiling? Less than useless.



So. ULTIMATELY, what all this tells us is that you cannot separate the "bad people who are likely to shoot others" from the good. Indeed, data from

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... e_Evidence

We know that lethal violence happens more often in US, although crime is actually similar to other countries. This IS the result of guns being more prevalent in the US. Period.

School homicides did not differ between rural Vs urban, public Vs private.
Now, this article is obsolete, since gun homicide has become the leading cause of death for children in 2020.

https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/hi ... trol-laws/

Finally. There higher rates of mass shootings for states with more relaxed gun control laws.


To put it simply, the HARM is due to how prevalent guns are in the US. Pointing to prohibition as a failed policy ignores the difference.

1. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... 180968013/
The Wild West. Lawless. Transient. Violence.


Towns with gun control had less violence and homicide than those without.

2. Fun fact about 1934. Do you know why mobsters were able to kill so many people? Guns. And what did gun control laws do?
https://www.npr.org/2016/06/30/48421589 ... st-gun-law

What happened then? The disappearance of the submachine gun from not just violent crime, but from mass shootings PERIOD in US history.


So. Let think again.

Pre gun control, Valentine Massacre.
Post gun control, disappeared as tool of violence.


Hmmm....