This is an interesting survey of US teachers by Pew. Clearly, teachers don’t think arming them is the solution to shootings in schools. Interestingly parents are less sure in another survey but still parents who want armed teachers are in a minority. From a risk analysis perspective, I think that the surveys are missing the point – they need to focus on risk mitigation to stop the shootings. Surely, potential remedies can be costed and risk assessed by experts? Thoughts?
Tag Archives: School shooting
What Explains US Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer – NYT – John Gelmini
Sadly, Dr Alf is correct, although added to the number of guns, is the fact that many of the people who go on shooting rampages are lonely single men with some form of opiate addiction.
A few look like staged events because as several people I know who have had military and special forces training the number of people dispatched in a short time frame would be impossible for someone without such training. If we exclude those instances we are left with disaffected and lonely young men nursing grudges or consumed with rage.
Cutting the number of guns is not going to stop the rage and loneliness, so perhaps this latter aspect of the equation needs to be addressed as the “winner take all ” society which America has become tends to breed a small group of angry losers and disaffected young men (no mass shooters are female and very few mass shooters have wives or girlfriends or partners of any kind).
Short of gun control, perhaps the type of gun could be looked at, so that assault rifles capable of wiping out a whole town could be restricted.
Dr Alf's Blog 