[majirdulb]

Otherwise agree, but

>And in most western countries a "school shooting" is nothing a person should even have to think or plan about, and schools don't ever need metal detectors, or to have to plan around such things.

School shootings are still very much a thing where I live (finland), last one being just last year. A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them

[Adrox]

"A country with no gun". Finland is in top 10 guns per capita in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

[wasabi991011]

Not to mention, number 2 in firearms per household (different stat because it is independent of the size of a household's arsenal).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_gun...

[showsover]

The one before that was in 2008, so a good 16 years between the two. I.e. not something people ever have to think about.

[jojobas]

All "active shootings" (mostly not school shootings) in the US kill only about twice as many people per year as lightning strikes. Pretty sure not many people think about those.

[pjc50]

It's wild that mass murder is just treated like weather over there. Occasional rain of lead.

[physicsguy]

There's not really anything that can be done about lightning strikes.

[ben_w]

There is, it's just that we've been doing it for so long that it's gone from being a decorative motif to a boring and ugly background feature of the architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod

The metal shell of most vehicles also protect the occupants from lightning strikes.

[coldtea]

Nothing to be done about the lighting strikes that kill people - exposed, in nature, doing stupid shit during storms.

Not about those in cities averted by lighting rods.

[quickthrowman]

A lightning protection system only protects the building and the equipment attached to it. I suppose you could make an argument that it protects occupants from fires caused by lightning strikes, but it’s there to protect the building and equipment first and foremost.

Fun fact: lightning rods are called air terminals.

[physicsguy]

Sure but most people end up getting killed when walking/hiking across golf courses and fields and things in storms.

[coldtea]

Fewer victims than earthquakes too.

No sane society would be comforted by the fact an active mass murdering act is "just twice as bad" as some natural phenomenon.

[jojobas]

Comforted? No. Not allowing to be duped into anxiety and kneejerks - hopefully yes.

There's always a rental truck or a ton of fertilizer for the Cains of today.

Compared to the rate of defensive gun use appears to be worthwhile.

[pjc50]

"Rate of defensive gun use" is also a social red flag, whether that includes actually firing the weapon or not.

[lz400]

You guys had a shooting last year, but school shootings in the US average to ~1 per day

[pkroll]

Mass shootings in the US, are a little over 1 a day. School shootings are a subset, and as cudgy says, so far 13 this year.

[lz400]

I think there are actually more school shootings than mass shootings because mass requires ~4 victims and school doesn't. There were ~330 shootings in 2024. 70 people died. 200 wounded.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2...

[cudgy]

Finland be a wee bit smaller than the US and 1 per day in US is a huge exaggeration. 13 total in US in 2024 … you were only off by 1,300% though. Also, Finland has the population of 1/2 of Los Angeles. Wow

[lz400]

>School shootings in 2024 dipped slightly from the year before, but the 330 school shootings recorded last year still mark the second-highest number since 1966

https://www.k12dive.com/news/school-shootings-2024-near-reco...

[cudgy]

Believe this article is quoting the total number of students shot not the total number of incidents as the numbers are much higher than any other statistics that I’ve seen from more reputable sites.

[lz400]

That's not correct. It counts the total number of school shootings. Some of those shootings had no victims. The total of students shot is also provided with some more elaboration with charts here.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2...

As you can see your number of 13 makes no sense, there were 200-300 students shot (!)

[Mashimo]

When I visited my friend in Finland, we got to an outdoor range to shoot with AK-47 clones (in 5.56 and something bigger) and shotguns with slugs. No instructor need. Was enough that he had a license. Fun times.

Next day we drove with a tank through a forest.

Compared to other EU countries Finland is pretty easy going when it comes to guns.

[coldtea]

Hardly "no guns" though: "In Finland, approximately 12% of the population owns firearms, with around 650,000 people holding at least one permit for about 1.5 million registered firearms".

[Razengan]

> A country with no guns and supposed to be one of the happiest in the world still experiences them

Do you know the difference between 1% and 99%? Once every 10 years vs. once every year?

A desert with a single tree vs. a forest with a dead tree, a lake on a continent vs. an island in the ocean.. are those the same things to you?

[ifwinterco]

I see this narrative a lot from Americans who often hold the EU/Europe (also often conflated when they're not the same thing) as some kind of utopia when it comes to stuff like that.

In reality, while it is nowhere near as bad as in the US, but there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe. Guns are still guns and humans are still humans unfortunately

[sofixa]

> there are school shootings and similar issues on a semi regular basis across Europe

Once a decade at most in most countries. Usually less than that.

Compared to what in the US, once a month?

Yes, guns are still guns and humans are still humans, but it's not nearly comparable.

[ta1243]

You need to compare the whole of Europe (EU, EEA, whatever) to be roughly comparrable to "the US"

Finland is about the same size of say Minnesota, and Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

[cesaref]

The UK has 1/5th of the population of the US, and 12x the population of Minnesota.

The last school shooting was the Dunblane Massacre in 1996, which led to gun law changes, removing rights to have handguns and various semi-automatic weapons.

I'm not sure how many occurred before then, but the total number of mass shootings in the UK is low. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... to get a feel for how rare this sort of attack is in any setting here in the UK.

So for the last 25 years we've had no school shootings. I believe the US as a whole has had >300 shootings so far this year, with >300 victims.

[ta1243]

You clearly missed the sarcasm

> Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

[cesaref]

Ok, i'll turn the sarcasm detector up a notch :)

[ifwinterco]

Exactly, across the whole of Europe it's more than once a decade.

Definitely not as bad as the US though, I acknowledge that, but people tend to paint it in black and white terms when the reality is messier

[close04]

If this map [0] is accurate, in the past ~60 years Europe had 166 school shootings while the US had 2980. That's 18x more shootings in the US compared to Europe.

Shootings per million people 0.22 in Europe vs. 8.68 for the US, 40x difference. Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as an organized terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]).

Your comment is definitely trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort.

[0] https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege

[ifwinterco]

I literally said that: 1. It's way worse in the US 2. It still happens in Europe

That seems also like what you're saying?

Edit: It is true that in the UK this is pretty much unheard of since handguns were banned after Dunblane (it is literally impossible to get a handgun legally, Team GB pistol shooters have to train abroad).

So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far

[sofixa]

> Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as a terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]).

A terrorist attack where the anti-terrorist special forces used tanks and thermobaric missiles against the school premises, killing many hostages in the process and giving plenty of warning to the terrorists to kill even more. A horrific event all around.

[croon]

Finland had one last year, and the previous one in 2008, "since August" doesn't say much.

[refurb]

What do you consider a shooting? If it’s simply a gun within the vicinity of a school being fired (injury/death not required), then Canada has them all the time.

[coldtea]

So rarely than don't even register in most EU countries. And when they happen, they're more likely than not, by people inspired by the media exposure of the 10x-30x more frequent US cases.

There is an emerging and more frequent problem with religious terrorism though (people driving cars into crowds, shooting up concerts, etc). A problem created for absolutely no reason by stupid encouragement of mass immigration.

[gxnxcxcx]

A problem created for absolutely no reason by a bunch of idiots[1] playing world police under obviously false pretenses for the benefit of absolutely no one of their constituents. They played with the thermostat, left things hot and some unrepentantly notorious twat[2] is still hungry and ready for seconds.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azores_Summit

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_International_Transitiona...

[cudgy]

Was watching a documentary a few weeks ago regarding the many bomb shelters in Switzerland, and it mentioned that during World War II all adult citizens were required to have a gun in Switzerland and citizens were trained on their use. Switzerland‘s goal was to make itself very difficult to be attacked by Germany and to ensure that all citizens were capable of fighting back. This in combination with the mountainous terrain, and the many fortifications were claimed to be a reason behind Switzerland, not being attacked by Germany. Not sure about the veracity of that though.

[morsch]

Here's a seemingly decent article on the topic: https://www.dw.com/en/graz-austria-europe-school-shootings-u...