Category Archives: Children and Guns

Young Thugs in California

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California is the home of the original “gangsta paradise” which was exported nationally. As such, a large study of the gang membership in California secondary schools helps to understand the scope of the overall gang problem, and by proxy how to reduce gun violence. Take-aways 4% of surveyed students claimed to be gang members. The rates are skewed by race and align with National Gang Center demographics. Big Sample, Biggish Problem Surveying 667,610 secondary students constitutes a large study, and thus the resulting numbers should be solid approximations… despite a possible self-reporting bias. The study covered 57 of 58 California counties over two years. They polled 667,610 secondary students in grades 7, 9 and 11, and after the few who dropped out of the survey or were for other reasons disqualified, about 31% of the enrolled population were sampled. Quite impressive. The weakness of the study, though, was that students … Continue reading →

School Guns and Non-Disaster

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“Teachers carrying guns … “ Want to start an argument? Utter that line at a cocktail party. But is it a problem, a solution, or both? As for as being problematic, it largely isn’t. Takeaway The number of gun discharges on campuses in almost immeasurably small. Most of the problems are police/security having accidental discharges. These account for 0.04 incidents per year per state. The Iffy Data One of the gun control advocacy groups created a “scare the public” web page listing instances of adults with a gun on “school” grounds. We put quotes there because more than a few of the schools on the activist organization’s roster were vocational schools and colleges. When discussing “arming teachers,” the public tends to visualize this as pertaining to K–12 schools only. But that isn’t the only defect in their raw data. They extracted the tally of incidents from the Gun Violence Archive … Continue reading →

TASSS and Accuracy

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There is a lot of public confusion about school shootings. Some of this is intentional, due to data manipulation by activist groups. Some of it is because researchers are highly inconsistent about definitions and approaches. The good news is that there is a high-quality database that shows us a lot of interesting information about shootings in K–12 schools. The bad news is that the raw data is not publicly available, but we’ll get to that gripe later. Takeaways Media-cited K–12 shooting databases overstate such events by 40%. Most K–12 shooting events are in major metro areas and exceed their population-based share. Many K–12 shooting events share M.O. profiles of street gang retaliatory action. 26% of K–12 shooting perpetrators are “unknown” and not charged. Reliable Sourcing A small number of databases have been generated by sundry people and organizations in an attempt to document school shootings. Some of these data sets … Continue reading →

K–12 Shooting Stats

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School shootings are reasonably rare, though you would never know if from reading stories in the mainstream media or listening to people who maintain databases of questionable quality. Fortunately, the federal government did a deep dive into the subject, and from that we come to some interesting conclusions about who is actually in danger at K–12 schools and why it only reinforces what we know about gun violence in general. TAKEAWAYS The most commonly media-cited K–12 school shooting database is overstated by 40%. Most K–12 shootings are over disputes that align with inner-city and street gang subcultures. School-targeted shootings (which include mass shootings) occur at about half the rate of “nominal” dispute/gang shootings. Targeted shootings, because they are planned, come from generalized grievances, and use “cattle pen scenarios,” have a higher body count than the more common one-victim dispute shootings, though the latter occurs twice as often. What is a … Continue reading →

School Shootings Stats

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“We don’t live in more violent times. We live in more televised times.” – Marilyn Manson He is right and wrong, and one influences another. And such influences affect what happens in schools. A really long-term study has some clues. Take-aways Television bent the curve on the frequency of mass school shootings around 1966. Average death rates in school shootings has doubled since 1966. High school males are the top problem spot. 175 years of “data” A recent (2017) academic paper sought to dig into school shootings going all the way back to 1840. Audacious, but we have to accept that mining data before the advent of modern national media is a bit risky. A school shooting might have only made county news in 1899, but it’s national news today. Before wee dive in, we’ll note that the definition used in this paper was broad. Specifically, “An event is included … Continue reading →

Guns Not Leading Cause of Child Deaths

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“Do it for the children,” my California friend used to say in a bad Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation. Her point was that any time a politician mentioned children, they were trying to sneak something past you. She was right. The meme “guns are the leading cause of death for children” is popular but wrong, and it should be uttered in a thick Austrian accent. Define “child” A key problem with the English language is that one word can have many definitions. Add political opportunism, and there can be hundreds. Common dictionaries define “child” as “a person between birth and puberty.” This is why we tend to speak of “children” and “teenagers” and “adults” as distinctly different groups. And anyone who has raised a child from birth to beyond age 14 will attest that their darling little angels turn into disgusting little devils once hormones take command of their brains and bodies.

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Misleading Cause of Child Deaths

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When it comes to children and guns, both the New York Times and California Governor Gavin Newsom seem to lack both honesty and basic math skills. The former created a misleading meme using bad definitions and incorrect analysis. The latter, being a politician of the craven variety, aped bad data without even a cursory fact check. The Equine Effluvium Conflates different age groups Omits many rows of data about child and teen deaths that are higher than gun deaths Portrays teen age street gang members as “children” Ignores age-related issues or the underlying causes of deaths The Data is Raw The Times perpetrated intellectual fraud by using a subset of the causes of death common to children and to teens (two different groups) and amalgamating them into one entirely inaccurate meme. The fallacious point they want you to believe is that guns are now the leading cause of death among … Continue reading →

Callous Kids

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One aspect of inner-city violence with guns From crime statistics and criminology studies we know that: Gun violence is a huge problem in poor, inner-city neighborhoods. The prime gang recruitment ages are between 14 and 19. Gun carrying, almost always done illegally, is common. An open question is “what drives these bad decisions, to associate with street gangs, acquire guns illegally, and to use them?” Here is one element worth noting: that emotionally callous kids are more prone to gun play than others. What is “callousness”? Both the dictionary and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders defines this. The dictionary definition is more straightforward and says to be callous is to be “insensitive, indifferent, unsympathetic”. The DSM has a special specifier identifying people with “limited prosocial emotions”. Same thing, different wording. A new study studied if callous kids were (a) more likely to carry a gun and … Continue reading →

Inner-city Guns

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For decades, the raw data has shown that the bulk of gun crimes, woundings and deaths occur in the inner cities and are closely associated with gangs. What we don’t have a great deal of clarity about is why and how this situation has come to dominate gun violence. Forget the statistically rare mass public shootings, the even more rare terrorist events, and even the plummeting rates of gun accidents. If you are actually serious about “gun safety,” then you focus on what is occurring inside of major metro areas. Seventeen people died in the Parkland High School shooting. That many high school aged blacks die every week from gun violence, and these deaths are not tied to mass murders. Thanks to the Center for Court Innovation, we have some added clarity. “Gotta Make Your Own Heaven” That is the title of a solid bit of research published in August … Continue reading →

Schools, Guns and the Secret Service

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The U.S. Secret Service released a report that exposed no real secrets but did amplify what we know or thought we knew about school shooters. Okay, that is not quite accurate. Their report titled “Analysis of Targeted School Violence” reviews all the documented cases of when someone specifically directed violence at people in K12 schools from 2008 through 2017, almost a full decade of data. This compilation, of course, included school shooters of every variety. What the report reveals is kinda what we thought about school shooters in general, but it is good to have some solid numbers to substantiate our understanding. Instead of boring you with all 58 pages provided by the Secret Service, I’ll run down and comment on some of the important highlights. A little fragile Before diving into the numbers, the entirety of the report covers 41 incidents. This is a smallish number, and thus some … Continue reading →