Student Hype for School Shootings is Statistical Senseless

Question: How many people have been killed in school shootings in the United States since 1900?

Answer: 552 … according to a comprehensive list compiled by Wikipedia.  Assuming this isn’t wildly inaccurate, 4.7-people have been killed in school shootings per year in modern American history.

Question: Do you know how unlikely it is that you’ll be killed in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil? 

Answer: If you don’t count 9/11 (which killed 2,996 people), the odds that you are going to die in an Islamic terrorist attack are extremely low at 6-people killed per year.

Since March of 1998, there have been 298-people killed in school shootings in the U.S., or 14.9-deaths a year.  Put another way, in a typical year in the U.S. in the past 2-decades, 35-states would not even have a single school shooting death, while the other 15-states would have only one.

Of course, one is too many; but this is hardly the national epidemic of school-related violence that the 2nd Amendment-hating Left and partisan Hollywood celebrity supporters would make it out to be.

The young people of the “March for Our Lives” claimed that “they are going to be the kids you read about in the history books” because they are going to end gun violence in schools.  But how, exactly, are they going to do that?  To physically keep guns out of schools would require that schools lock all first-floor windows (at all times) and have metal detectors at all entrances (during school hours).  We could do that, but it would be an incredible inconvenience in order to prevent against the extremely unlikely.  

A cost-benefit analysis would reveal its impracticality.  Given that over the past 118-years, 4.7-people per year have died at the hands of school shootings, and 14.9-deaths per year over the past 20-years, perhaps there are more serious issues that they should worry about.

What are the biggest killers in the U.S., and to what degree are these deaths preventable?  

Heart disease kills an estimated 614,348-people per year.  

Cancer comes in second at 591,699-deaths per year.  

Chronic lower respiratory diseases (including emphysema, bronchitis, and asthma) are third, at 147,101-people a year.  

Accidents kill about 136,000-people per year.  

Strokes kill 133,033-people. 

Needless to say, these figures vastly exceed the death toll from school shootings, mass shootings, and gun violence in general.  

A typical year in the U.S. usually records 33,000 gun-related deaths – two-thirds of which are suicides.  The 12,000 gun-related homicides a year are, unsurprisingly, heavily concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods afflicted by drugs, gangs, and crime.

What is tragic is that these health-related scourges on society can often be prevented and avoided through personal responsibility and changes in behavior.  Their prevalence is statistically correlated with a whole host of lifestyle factors: a poor diet, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, fast food, processed foods, lack of exercise, excessive television watching.

So, yes, angry young men who shoot up schools are a serious problem; yet, the idea that they pose the gravest clear and present danger to the safety of America is preposterous. The American public should really be directing its attention to ensuring that we live healthier lives; not worrying about the astronomical odds of being involved in a school shooting.  When it comes to tragically preventable deaths, one can make a compelling case that smoking, soft drinks, refined sugars, fast food, processed food, office work, and Netflix are far more dangerous to our well-being than guns or school shooters.  

Our public policy should be driven by data and facts, not opinions and hysteria.

The next argument that liberals love to make: School shootings only happen in the U.S. That’s nonsense.  Even the most cursory examination of the data shows that it is a global problem, including in countries with stricter gun control laws.  This is a classic example of an attempt to base public policy on hysteria-driven sensationalized media coverage.

Listen liberals: If it is wrong for Trump supporters to call for sweeping anti-Muslim public policy every time a Muslim commits a terrorist attack, it is equally wrong to blame the right to keep and bear arms, and those who peacefully exercise it, for school shootings.

Another important point, if we’re going to talk about history’s greatest killers, they have been tyrannical governments (mostly Communist ones).  

The students involved in the “March for Our Lives” may have spoken from the heart; but they also appear to have no understanding of how private gun ownership has played a pivotal role in securing personal liberty in the face of government tyranny.  Don't expect, however, the mainstream media to challenge the narrative of these kids standing up to the NRA.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel