>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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
>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
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.
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.
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.
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".
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
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.
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.
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
Personal Protection Weapons are technically still a thing, as a result of the ECHR Article 2 which says that the state has a positive duty to protect life.
I don't think numbers are published for mainland GB, but it's likely less than a thousand - perhaps even just a few dozen. The Home Secretary has to authorise the licence, and they're limited to people with a verifiable active threat against their life.
(There are more in Northern Ireland as a legacy of the troubles - 2,924 in 2012, probably closer to 2,000 now. The rules are a little more lax, with the PSNI Chief Constable being sufficient for sign-off.)
A PPW firearms certificate allows a handgun of up to 9mm/.38 calibre, and up to 50 rounds of ammunition.
But none have been used in a school shooting, of course.
Interesting, I didn't know that, I always thought it was literally police/security services only.
Also worth pointing out for non UK people: you can still legally licence shotguns (relatively easily) and some kinds of rifle (not so easily). Shotguns are somewhat common in the countryside but other guns (even rifles) are quite rare
Sure, if there's a verifiable active threat against your life.
I'd honestly expect most PPW holders in GB to be prison officers. There'll be a few wealthier folk in NI as a hangover from the troubles - business owners who refused to pay protection money, high court judges who sat on prominent terrorist trials, that sort of thing.
But the criteria are much the same as those for being afforded police protection, so your actual billionaires and dukes would almost certainly opt for that instead if they were under that sort of threat.
> So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far
I do not see evidence that the approach works. There were very few school shootings (or any shootings, really) before the handgun ban too. There are only two on this list that predate the handgun ban: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
The UK has a lower per capita level of knife murders than the US too so its not just access to guns that is an issue.
The point is that guns are not the only weapon that are used to harm people. Fewer guns does not necessarily prevent people from harming others. If making comparisons between countries, account for the population of the country and that guns are not necessarily used in the same frequency in all countries so we should be looking at school incidents as a whole including stabbing, shootings, automobiles, or other lethal methods.
What you said stays equally true even if every US school had a shooting morning, noon, and evening, while Europe had exactly 2 shootings ever, both in the past 10 years. A statement of fact can be worthless or misleading too if presented a certain way.
That's why I didn't say you were factually wrong but that you're trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort. Whataboutism is all misdirection and deflection rather than factually wrong statements.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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