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I just want to say two important things..
First the recent school shooting is a tragedy and we should all be sad about the death of any children, especially as a victim of muder.
Second, we have to realize, for the sake ofperspective, how unfathomably rare it is for a child to die in a school shooting in america. It seems common because america is huge and the news makes this stuff public. But the numbers are more telling.
To put some numbers to it the chance of a child dyingin a school shooting in a public shool on any given day is 1 in 614 million. For comparison the chance of a person getting struck by lightening on any given day is **less** than 1 in 370 million.
In other words a child is more than **twice** as likely in the USA to get struck by lightening as they are to die in a school shooting.
Should we still mourne and be outraged by it... sure.. does that mean it is a problem that is common enough to be a huge concern... not really. We should probably put more effort into addressing the "lightening problem" than we should be about addressing school shootings.
No. A child in a school is not likely to be killed by lightning because they are indoors.
Most fatal lightning strikes occur outdoors near trees.
@SpaceLifeForm That was **not** what I said... I said the chance of a child being struck by lightening in a day... I did not say the lightening strike would happen while they were indoors... could happen on the way to school, on the way home, during recess, or any other time of the day.
Noted.
It is still an apple and oranges comparison.
These MCIs are preventable, but we really have no control over thunderstorms at all.
We can make the odds better.
>It is still an apple and oranges comparison.
It is absolutely an apples and orange comparison. As I pointed out this is about showing how astronomically rare this events are.. it is also about showing that with lightening striking kids being twice as likely that we should prioritize preventing that over preventing school shootings.. yet thats not what we do, you hear about school shootings every day and the outrage yet no one is outraged we arent doing anything about all the kids gettign struck by lightening.
> These MCIs are preventable, but we really have no control over thunderstorms at all.
>
> We can make the odds better.
Thunderstorms arent preventable but lightening strikes absolutely are. In fact its much cheaper, easier, and straightforward to prevent lightening strikes than it is to prevent school shootings.
1) you can feel a lightening strike coming minutes before hand. You can respond to this by taking certain actions (running away, lying down, seeking shelter). Better education on this would help prevent
2) More, taller, or better grounding lightening rods are well proven to prevent lightening strikes. Investing in lightening rod infrastructure would go a long way to reduce these numbers significantly and is far easier and straight forward than any solutions we could come up with to prevent school shootings. Not to mention cheaper.
