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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.
@freemo There's a difference though.
For one, lightning 'just happens'. Best you can do is to educate people not to stand below trees during lightning storms and other good advice.
For two, shootings can and should be preventable. There are many ways possible towards that goal, and not much action's been taken so far if I have to believe the media. Just endless debates.
Just because it happens less than lightning strikes, you shouldn't do much effort against it? While it could possibly be prevented to begin with?
> For one, lightning 'just happens'. Best you can do is to educate people not to stand below trees during lightning storms and other good advice.
Not true, lightening is absolutely preventable. First, you will "feel" lightening about to strike minutes before hand, if people are taught this they can run to shelter or take other relevant steps, like lying down. They can also avoid tall objects.,
We can also take preventative measures in the form of lightening rods and even invest money in improving lightening rod technology.
If I had to guess it is probably cheaper and easier to prvent people getting struck by lightening than it would be to prevent school shootings.
> For two, shootings can and should be preventable. There are many ways possible towards that goal, and not much action's been taken so far if I have to believe the media. Just endless debates.
Well both are preventable (and i listed some ways above).. both being preventable we should invest in the infrastructure that is most common first.
> Just because it happens less than lightning strikes, you shouldn't do much effort against it? While it could possibly be prevented to begin with?
No one said you shouldnt do anything about it. The point is we should put much less **priority** on addressing it than we do other more common forms of injury.
Also there is a point where an event is so rare that its statistical noise. You can never eliminate something to 0, but you can reduce it. At a certain point it is redued enough that its not a concern. There is probably one person every hundred years that dies in a bird attack, do we bother trying to prevent bird attacks or do we just accept it is rare enough that it isnt really common enough to be a priority.
@freemo I'm about to go to bed but I really wanted to address this little one:
> Not true, lightening is absolutely preventable. First, you will “feel” lightening about to strike minutes before hand, if people are taught this they can run to shelter or take other relevant steps, like lying down. They can also avoid tall objects.,
I think you are mistaken. It is not minutes, it often is mere seconds. In many cases you won't have that much time to react. You will feel a sensation, possibly, yes. You'll know that you might get struck, yes. You just won't have much time to react to it.
And for the love of whatever gods, do NOT lie down. Keep your touching surface area to the floor as small as possible. If you have to low, go squat.
@trinsec I actually dont know how long the warning is that you "feel" it on average.. I was in a lightening strike once (not actually hit but a few feet away) and I felt it about a minute before hand, maybe a bit more.