another school shooting

[Sunset]

When I was young, guns were less regulated and much more common. People brought their hunting rifles to school.
If guys had a disagreement, they went out to the school yard and duked it out.

What has changed that shootings at schools and other venues have become the way to settle grievances?

These days, we have realistic first person shooter video games, basically training sessions for shooting lots of people, with a variety of weapons.

I'm not surprised when hit with some emotional issue or event, that some kids grab a gun, as they see it in the movies a lot, especially action movies, and they have trained for 100's of hours on killing with a gun via video games.

We use flight simulators to train pilots to fly, and yet we think killing simulators won't train children to kill

 

[OldShooter]

... DS is trying to get a job as a teacher. I fear for his safety.

You shouldn't. His danger of getting struck by lightning or of dying in a bathtub fall is probably much greater. And, of course, there are probably schoolteachers killed in auto accidents every week.

In fact there have probably been more Powerball winners than teachers killed in school shootings. And your odds of winning the Powerball are about the same whether you buy a ticket or not.

The American public and the press in particular doesn't understand statistics and probabilities. High emotional impact is conflated with risk.

 

[hesperus]

I teach.

Do you think having a sign that says "No guns allowed" will prevent someone from bringing a gun into my classroom and shooting me or the other students?

What it does prevent is myself or other students, some of which are very well trained ex-military and who can legally carry outside of the campus from carrying on campus and perhaps saving my life or the other students lives. It prevents law abiding people from protecting themselves because they know if they are caught with a weapon on campus they will be arrested and will never be allowed to own a weapon ever again in their life.

Wishing your son won't be in harms way because of a law doesn't make it so. This is true whether in school or at just about any other place that is protected with a sign.

you're starting to drift into dangerous territory here...

 

[6miths]

You shouldn't. His danger of getting struck by lightning or of dying in a bathtub fall is probably much greater. And, of course, there are probably schoolteachers killed in auto accidents every week.

In fact there have probably been more Powerball winners than teachers killed in school shootings. And your odds of winning the Powerball are about the same whether you buy a ticket or not.

The American public and the press in particular doesn't understand statistics and probabilities. High emotional impact is conflated with risk.

Yes. As tragic as these events are they are still against a background of a much safer society than I grew up in during the 60s and 70s.

 

[bUU]

Not necessarily.

So you believe that the significant weaker boys got a great bonus from the experience.

Uh-huh.

 

[harley]

These days, we have realistic first person shooter video games, basically training sessions for shooting lots of people, with a variety of weapons.

I'm not surprised when hit with some emotional issue or event, that some kids grab a gun, as they see it in the movies a lot, especially action movies, and they have trained for 100's of hours on killing with a gun via video games.

We use flight simulators to train pilots to fly, and yet we think killing simulators won't train children to kill

Since nearly every young male in the US plays violent video games, and the rate of violent crime has decreased significantly since the invention of the PC, correlation would indicate that playing violent video games decreases the chance that a young person would commit a violent crime. Most studies that have been conducted show no relationship between playing video games and school (or workplace) shootings.

As to your example, I've played a few hundred hours of flight simulators, but I've never flown a plane. And I've scored excellent rounds playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour, but never shot below 120 on a real course the few times I've played. They're just games, and everyone knows it. The sick people who kill people would do it no matter what. They always have. It's just that these days everyone immediately knows everything that happens.

I remember the freak out over D&D back in the 80s. There was nothing behind that one either. I played that for years, and so far haven't sworded anybody to death. Not even a goblin.

 

[pj.mask]

Every other county has same access to video games. They typically don’t have access to weapons (firearms to be specific). We can hem and haw about the old days but thermodynamics taught me that some things are path dependent - that those good old days contributed to where we are now. Unless someone can magically change the whole culture - I don’t see a better option than limiting access to weapons like every other civilized country.

 

[6miths]

Stop confusing me with evidence you guys!

 

[Alan]

Gun control is a specific topic banned under the Community Rules so we have decided to close this thread.

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/misc.php?do=sknetwork&page=rules