By what they DON'T say, shall ye know them....

[unixronin]

The Second Amendment column in this month's issue of Guns & Ammo magazine mentions an interesting statistic, in the course of arguing that the Gun-Free School Zones Act may well have cost more children's lives than it has saved.

The statistic:   Between 1997 and 2002, 32 students were shot and killed in elementary and secondary schools across the US.

Sounds bad, doesn't it?  Makes it understandable why there's a lot of fuss on the subject, huh?

Here's what so interesting about that number:  During the same period, in the same schools, 53 students died playing football.  That's more than half again as many.

So why don't we have a football-free schools act, "for the sake of the children"?  Surely if it's killing 65% more students every year than those horrible, evil guns, football must be a really serious problem, right?

Simple.  We don't have a football-free schools act because it's not about preventing child deaths.  It's about exploiting child deaths to ban guns, regardless of how many children's lives that saves or costs.

So next time someone tells you that guns need to be banned "for the sake of the children", ask them how they feel about banning football.  Or any of the other causes that kill more kids every year than guns do -- bicycles, swimming pools, .........

Comments

[urox.livejournal.com]

I'm all for supporting the second amendment, however, I'd like to know which schools these are, whether they cherry picked the schools, and if there is a way to verify their data.

The choir doesn't usually check the preacher's facts. I'd like to fight the good fight, but I don't want to be caught with facts I don't know for sure can be backed up. Unfortunately, both sides of this fight seem to play with numbers.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I suspect you've misinterpreted. Those numbers do not come from a picked subset of US elementary and secondary schools; those are the total numbers for all US elementary and secondary schools, from 1997 to 2002.

[urox.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time believing that.. unless it was shootings that ended in death as opposed to just shootings. And then actual shootings at school should probably be included as well since they are an aggravated form of assault (though I know they are trying to only count deaths, I still think injury is also important when crime related).

Again, I'd want to know where the data came from.. and the specifics of what is counted... and curiousity to see how many come from Oakland... which is why I felt like the number is higher, where they have a gun related murder every other day. Literally.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

A gun-related murder every other day in Oakland, or in Oakland schools? I know Oakland's a free-fire zone, but if it was "in Oakland schools", that would mean there were several times more school shootings in Oakland than in the rest of the US put together. Which, on the face of it, seems unlikely without the media noticing.

[urox.livejournal.com]

Oakland itself. But some of them do happen in schools.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

OK, that I'd easily believe. Like I said, free-fire zone .....