19 children and 2 teachers killed in Texas school shooting (24 May 2022)

Revan said:
Because of the overblown media proportion these events get. If Lisa dies from flu, it is not sexy to talk about that on TV. Just something of nature, probably preventable, but something you get used to it. If Lisa dies in a mass shooting, then she has a name and a face, and it is tragic. It is also completely preventable by applying gun measures, which the US for pretty much no rational reasons has decided to not apply.

But in the grand scheme of things, there are very few kids who die from mass shootings (and very few people in general). There were around 1300 people who dies in mass shootings from 2009 to 2021. That is less than how many died from covid in 8 hours during the peak of the pandemic. Yesterday there were more deaths by covid in the US, then the combined number of deaths from mass shootings during the last year.

It is tragic for people (and their families/friends) who die in mass shootings, and obviously, it should be prevented. But statistically, it is also completely insignificant.
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This could be the dumbest thing I've read on the internet.
 
Carolina Red said:
I had a colleague make that exact same argument yesterday. Almost word for word.

I told them to put that in a condolence card and send it to Uvalde so their families can take solace in the fact that it was statistically unlikely that this would happen.
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I know you're a teacher so I think you're a good person to ask about this, do these events loom over your working environment? With school shootings happening every 4 days I can imagine it’s something that will come up in discourse a lot with colleagues and students. I’ve heard
about school shooter drills, is that something widespread?


Revan said:
My understanding from the anti-US threads (essentially every thread in current events:

1) Most Americans who think that the Europe is better have never lived in Europe.
2) Most Europeans who think that the Europe is better have never lived in the US.
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I think the argument about which is better is a pretty facile one. I don’t think there is any objective answer, even if one wanted to persevere with it you’d have to take a holistic approach whereas you’re looking at it through a very narrow prism.
 
He's been warned and threadbanned.
 
The Firestarter said:
Overblown :wenger: Reads like something Musk would say.
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And even from a statistical pov this is complete and utter bs. School schooling’s are among the most common causes of death for children in the US. I think some stats even show them as the number one cause.
 
Revan said:
Statistically, it is extremely unlikely that your kid is gonna get murdered by a mass shooting. In 12 years, between 2009 and 2021, there were 1363 people killed in mass shootings in the US, for an average of 113 people per year. The chances of dying from mass shootings each year are 0.00003%, or 500 times lower than from flu.

Mass shootings (like terrorism) attacks are tragic events that hit people hard, and people rightly get very sad when they see kids dying for no reason at all. But they do not affect the everyday life, and statistically are insignificant when you are talking at the state level.

Sent from my iPhone.
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Guess how much higher your kids chances are of being murdered at school in the US than they are in Ireland?

Statistically.
 
HTG said:
And even from a statistical pov this is complete and utter bs. School schooling’s are among the most common causes of death for children in the US. I think some stats even show them as the number one cause.
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Gun violence itself is the most common cause of child death in this country. More of it is unattended guns v. mass shootings, but it’s virtually all preventable (or at least able to be reduced).
 
Cascarino said:
I know you're a teacher so I think you're a good person to ask about this, do these events loom over your working environment? With school shootings happening every 4 days I can imagine it’s something that will come up in discourse a lot with colleagues and students. I’ve heard
about school shooter drills, is that something widespread?




I think the argument about which is better is a pretty facile one. I don’t think there is any objective answer, even if one wanted to persevere with it you’d have to take a holistic approach whereas you’re looking at it through a very narrow prism.
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It's only difficult to find an objective answer if you are white and wealthy.

For pretty much everyone else it is a very simple answer.
 
Revan said:
Statistically, it is extremely unlikely that your kid is gonna get murdered by a mass shooting. In 12 years, between 2009 and 2021, there were 1363 people killed in mass shootings in the US, for an average of 113 people per year. The chances of dying from mass shootings each year are 0.00003%, or 500 times lower than from flu.

Mass shootings (like terrorism) attacks are tragic events that hit people hard, and people rightly get very sad when they see kids dying for no reason at all. But they do not affect the everyday life, and statistically are insignificant when you are talking at the state level.

Sent from my iPhone.
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What the feck did i just read.
 
I also wanted to ask him why did he move back to Europe if US was the bestest for high level research.
 
Revan said:
Not really. What should happen is gun laws that prevent people (especially kids) from dying.

But again, my point is that dying in mass shootings is extremely unlikely. It is like dying from terrorism in the West 2 decades ago, where people got scared, but chances of that happening were low. Or from bus bombing in Israel during the eighties.

'Thinking Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kakneman discusses in details this topic.
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Again - write it in a card and mail it to them. I’m sure they’ll be comforted. Maybe also add something about god’s mysterious ways or plan.
 
Disappointed that @Revan is blocked. Would have loved to hear more of his rants, wasn't able to respond as well. Never met a delusional USA exceptionalist before.
 
I feel like being threadbanned is a cop out. He should be left here to answer for his opinions.
 
Revan said:
My understanding from the anti-US threads (essentially every thread in current events:

1) Most Americans who think that the Europe is better have never lived in Europe.
2) Most Europeans who think that the Europe is better have never lived in the US.
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What does "living in europe" even mean. The difference between living in The Netherlands and living in Hungary or Albania or even Spain or wildly different.

And I imagine so is living in California or Alabama or Georgia or w/e.

I can confidentally say that living in The Netherlands is much better than living in the US in most circumstances (not being extremely rich being the exception).
 
diarm said:
I feel like being threadbanned is a cop out. He should be left here to answer for his opinions.
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I've set it for 24 hours. If he wants to come back and get himself banned then he's welcome to.
 
@Revan out of interest what media are you consuming these days? Your opinions are becoming more and more bat shit crazy by the week. Follow that glimmer of light out of the rabbit hole for Christ sake man.
 
Just saw an article saying that some Texas-based news outlet are considering releasing NSFW images of the dead children, presumably to elicit some sort of empathy from gun rights activists. Not sure how effective that would be. You can put one of the dead bodies on their front doorstep and they won’t bat an eyelid.
 
HTG said:
And even from a statistical pov this is complete and utter bs. School schooling’s are among the most common causes of death for children in the US. I think some stats even show them as the number one cause.
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Yes someone posted the graph earlier but can't seem to find it.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761

Since 2016, that gap has narrowed, and in 2020, firearm-related injuries became the leading cause of death in that age group (children and adolescents, defined as persons 1 to 19 years of age).
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These are statistics for 2020 and firearm related deaths of all types (suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined), not just school shootings.

It's all ultimately and utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to something as tragic and avoidable as this.

Was just stunned reading that post and someone actually being that oblivious and insensitive as to try and downplay it, statistically or in whatever manner. All just for the sake of point scoring in a silly debate on the quality of life in USA being better than in Europe. Just speechless...
 
Cascarino said:
I know you're a teacher so I think you're a good person to ask about this, do these events loom over your working environment? With school shootings happening every 4 days I can imagine it’s something that will come up in discourse a lot with colleagues and students. I’ve heard
about school shooter drills, is that something widespread?
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It absolutely looms over us… all of us, from admin to teacher to janitor to student.

We have regular lockdown drills in which they try and trick us / scare us into opening the door or making sound from the rooms… because that is necessary and people always screw up. We have to have matter of fact conversations with kids about what to do if they’re trapped outside the room, about if a shooter starts coming through the door, and I include about how if on a random day a fire alarm goes off unexpectedly, they will not exit the room until I do and we will exit last on our hallway. When I walk down a hallway, I habitually look at every door I pass to the outside to see if it is truly closed and locked. There are over 60 external doors at my school of over 2000 students. These high schoolers will rig the door to not truly shut so they can sneak out and back in. We have to tell them almost weekly to “ignore the door” because at random times a plain clothed sheriffs deputy will come to the school to do security checks and knock on an external door to see if they can get in. Sometimes a student opens it, sometimes they find a rigged door. I have honestly never heard of a time where one came and wasn’t able to get in. Once in, they’ll walk around the school until someone stops them and asks where their ID is. They typically make it between 30-60 minutes.

Sorry for the rant. But yes, it’s ever looming, and yes, we all have it in the backs of our minds. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve stopped dead in my tracks in a crowded hallway at class change because a student suddenly stops walking, puts their book back on the ground and reaches inside it. It’s there like your shadow and it sucks and there’s no amount of “well the statistics say…” that is gonna paper over that.
 
Pexbo said:
@Revan out of interest what media are you consuming these days? Your opinions are becoming more and more bat shit crazy by the week. Follow that glimmer of light out of the rabbit hole for Christ sake man.
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He mirrors the opinions of the smartest man alive.
 
HTG said:
The story with the mother dying from a heart attack shortly after her husband, a teacher, died, might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. That poor family. Those poor children. The poor relatives, friends, the whole city. How do you even begin to deal with that kind of grief and trauma?
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Other way round
 
Pexbo said:
@Revan out of interest what media are you consuming these days? Your opinions are becoming more and more bat shit crazy by the week. Follow that glimmer of light out of the rabbit hole for Christ sake man.
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He never used to be like this. Or maybe he always was and I just never noticed.

But yeah I have a friend in real life exactly like this, by the week it just got worse and worse and he's a smart fecker too. It's real proof of what mass misinformation and being in a circle jerk does to the brain.
 
diarm said:
It's only difficult to find an objective answer if you are white and wealthy.

For pretty much everyone else it is a very simple answer.
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I do very much think this was the prism in which Revan looked at the question.
Carolina Red said:
It absolutely looms over us… all of us, from admin to teacher to janitor to student.

We have regular lockdown drills in which they try and trick us / scare us into opening the door or making sound from the rooms… because that is necessary and people always screw up. We have to have matter of fact conversations with kids about what to do if they’re trapped outside the room, about if a shooter starts coming through the door, and I include about how if on a random day a fire alarm goes off unexpectedly, they will not exit the room until I do and we will exit last on our hallway. When I walk down a hallway, I habitually look at every door I pass to the outside to see if it is truly closed and locked. There are over 60 external doors at my school of over 2000 students. These high schoolers will rig the door to not truly shut so they can sneak out and back in. We have to tell them almost weekly to “ignore the door” because at random times a plain clothed sheriffs deputy will come to the school to do security checks and knock on an external door to see if they can get in. Sometimes a student opens it, sometimes they find a rigged door. I have honestly never heard of a time where one came and wasn’t able to get in. Once in, they’ll walk around the school until someone stops them and asks where their ID is. They typically make it between 30-60 minutes.

Sorry for the rant. But yes, it’s ever looming, and yes, we all have it in the backs of our minds. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve stopped dead in my tracks in a crowded hallway at class change because a student suddenly stops walking, puts their book back on the ground and reaches inside it. It’s there like your shadow and it sucks and there’s no amount of “well the statistics say…” that is gonna paper over that.
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Damn thank you for this answer, it's a really good insight. I figured it would be like this but getting to hear all the different steps is quite chilling.
 
Pexbo said:
@Revan out of interest what media are you consuming these days? Your opinions are becoming more and more bat shit crazy by the week. Follow that glimmer of light out of the rabbit hole for Christ sake man.
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This is me not failing to read the room, but accurately reading it and going ahead anyway, which is pretty stupid. I think the comparison to the perceived threat of terrorism 10+ years ago isn't that bad, there are a lot of similarities.

Obviously the wording used was pretty insensitive.
 
Btw @Revan, what do you think of all the coverage that 9/11 has gotten seeing as the likelihood of having your plane hijacked is also extremely low, even before security measures were put in place.

I know you’re threadbanned so I await your response once the 24 hour ban has been lifted.
 
Revan said:
Because of the overblown media proportion these events get. If Lisa dies from flu, it is not sexy to talk about that on TV. Just something of nature, probably preventable, but something you get used to it. If Lisa dies in a mass shooting, then she has a name and a face, and it is tragic. It is also completely preventable by applying gun measures, which the US for pretty much no rational reasons has decided to not apply.

But in the grand scheme of things, there are very few kids who die from mass shootings (and very few people in general). There were around 1300 people who dies in mass shootings from 2009 to 2021. That is less than how many died from covid in 8 hours during the peak of the pandemic. Yesterday there were more deaths by covid in the US, then the combined number of deaths from mass shootings during the last year.

It is tragic for people (and their families/friends) who die in mass shootings, and obviously, it should be prevented. But statistically, it is also completely insignificant.
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One positive of Lisa dying from flu is that her parents don't have to give DNA samples to help identify her as her face is still intact.

Just think about what you're saying. We shouldn't be upset by children getting gunned down in school because other children die of other things too. It's a baffling take on this.
 
RexHamilton said:
One positive of Lisa dying from flu is that her parents don't have to give DNA samples to help identify her as her face is still intact.

Just think about what you're saying. We shouldn't be upset by children getting gunned down in school because other children die of other things too. It's a baffling take on this.
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Also, I love how he used the word ‘sexy’ as if parents and politicians want to have to go on TV literally begging for tighter gun controls just so they don’t have to worry about some psycho blasting their children’s brains out in an institution where they are meant to feel safe
 
RexHamilton said:
One positive of Lisa dying from flu is that her parents don't have to give DNA samples to help identify her as her face is still intact.

Just think about what you're saying. We shouldn't be upset by children getting gunned down in school because other children die of other things too. It's a baffling take on this.
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It’s sociopathic quite frankly. A complete lack of empathy in failing to understand the not very subtle nuances between those examples.
 
Revan said:
Because of the overblown media proportion these events get. If Lisa dies from flu, it is not sexy to talk about that on TV. Just something of nature, probably preventable, but something you get used to it. If Lisa dies in a mass shooting, then she has a name and a face, and it is tragic. It is also completely preventable by applying gun measures, which the US for pretty much no rational reasons has decided to not apply.

But in the grand scheme of things, there are very few kids who die from mass shootings (and very few people in general). There were around 1300 people who dies in mass shootings from 2009 to 2021. That is less than how many died from covid in 8 hours during the peak of the pandemic. Yesterday there were more deaths by covid in the US, then the combined number of deaths from mass shootings during the last year.

It is tragic for people (and their families/friends) who die in mass shootings, and obviously, it should be prevented. But statistically, it is also completely insignificant.
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Coincidentally COVID was/is another preventable cause of death that the US didn't address properly. Which kind of takes us back to "why is the US so great again?".

You might be able to rake in money but for me work-life balance is much more important which means I'm never moving to the US. Plus I get to live in a democracy which is pretty cool.
 
Maagge said:
Coincidentally COVID was/is another preventable cause of death that the US didn't address properly. Which kind of takes us back to "why is the US so great again?".

You might be able to rake in money but for me work-life balance is much more important which means I'm never moving to the US. Plus I get to live in a democracy which is pretty cool.
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Yeah, as an American, raised all over (including 3 years in the Netherlands), I have to say that prior to Trump, USA is pretty good (not great). Post Trump, with the packing of courts with religious zealots, and with the misinformation age in full swing with Americans buying into it hook line and sinker, I would rate us as okay. The trend for my country is disheartening.
 
The missing point in this Europe vs US dicussion is that it's getting worse everywhere. Also, the political and economic influence the US has in Europe will tend to narrow the gap I think. Random examples: 1) Boris being a Prime Minister. 2) NHS losing investment in favour of deals with privates. 3) Precarious jobs everywhere; 4) Portugal never had a far right politician in our parliament. Now there's 15 in there, from a Trumpist party, the third biggest political force. A bunch of idiots on MTG level. Only 5 years after Trump. Alt-right is ravaging our social networks too. It all gets copied.

Politics are global.
 
Statistically speaking, getting killed by a tornado is minuscule, yet my city invests millions in warning systems, shelters, and has building codes in place to ensure buildings can withstand a hit.

Statistically speaking, getting struck by lightning is minuscule, but I am still forced to leave a golf course, exit a stadium, etc. if a single lightning strike is visible in the area.

As a society we recognize that the danger of these events, no matter how minuscule they are, are worthy of governmental regulations and policy. This is not about the .00003 (or whatever)% being overblown, it is about the value of life (Young/old) having no real value when compared to the right to own guns.
 
Maagge said:
Coincidentally COVID was/is another preventable cause of death that the US didn't address properly. Which kind of takes us back to "why is the US so great again?".

You might be able to rake in money but for me work-life balance is much more important which means I'm never moving to the US. Plus I get to live in a democracy which is pretty cool.
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As Ted Cruz puts it, "why do so many people want to come to the US, because it's the greatest country in the world"...or something like that.
 
Arruda said:
The missing point in this Europe vs US dicussion is that it's getting worse everywhere. Also, the political and economic influence the US has in Europe will tend to narrow the gap I think. Random examples: 1) Boris being a Prime Minister. 2) NHS losing investment in favour of deals with privates. 3) Precarious jobs everywhere; 4) Portugal never had a far right politician in our parliament. Now there's 15 in there, from a Trumpist party, the third biggest political force. A bunch of idiots on MTG level. Only 5 years after Trump. Alt-right is ravaging our social networks too. It all gets copied.

Politics are global.
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Kids getting murdered in classrooms is not getting worse everywhere.
 
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