13 years since Columbine x 130,000 k-12 schools (public and private – have to arm them all) = 1.69 Million school years from Columbine to Sandy Hook.

That 10% having armed security is not teachers being armed, as many have proposed, but they are also going to be most of the dangerous schools, where the threat of violence comes not from a lone gunman but from gang violence, etc. So if 10% had guns on premises as you suggest, then at one incident per million years that would produce an expected 0.17 unintended deaths. You’d need several centuries of data to reliably ascertain the death rate.

If the risk of having guns in school is acceptable, then the risk of having none in school to face a Sandy-Hook-type killer should be even more acceptable because the risk to students and faculty is smaller. Having a teacher draw down on a mass murderer feels good, but aren’t liberals the ones concerned with feelings, and conservatives with numbers and results?

shuzilla on December 22, 2012 at 5:36 PM

I’m sorry, that’s not making sense to me. In my last, I suggested that “1 death in several million school years is more likely”, not 1 in a million. Sandy Hill alone produced 1.3 deaths per year as I recall, much less than the 0.17 (based on 1 in a million) that you suggest is a reason not to allow administrators to be armed. I don’t see how that’s supports your suggestion that conservatives are abandoning results for feelings. The results are there almost 10 fold.

By that date range, there have been a little over 50,000 school years per mass slaughter death.

Assuming 10% of schools already have armed security, your risk assumptions would have us already seeing 1-2 students being killed by security. Has that ever happened? Therefore, I think that 1 death in several million school years is more likely.

elfman on December 22, 2012 at 12:42 PM

13 years since Columbine x 130,000 k-12 schools (public and private – have to arm them all) = 1.69 Million school years from Columbine to Sandy Hook.

That 10% having armed security is not teachers being armed, as many have proposed, but they are also going to be most of the dangerous schools, where the threat of violence comes not from a lone gunman but from gang violence, etc. So if 10% had guns on premises as you suggest, then at one incident per million years that would produce an expected 0.17 unintended deaths. You’d need several centuries of data to reliably ascertain the death rate.

If the risk of having guns in school is acceptable, then the risk of having none in school to face a Sandy-Hook-type killer should be even more acceptable because the risk to students and faculty is smaller. Having a teacher draw down on a mass murderer feels good, but aren’t liberals the ones concerned with feelings, and conservatives with numbers and results?

The math: 130,000 k-12 schools, public and private, in the US. There were 1.7 Million school years between Columbine and Sandy Hook. At one incident for every one million school years, that’s 1-2 deaths deaths by the time of SandyHook, if all schools had armed gurds/teachers/police since Columbine.

I think to expect only one such incident in 1 million years is ludicrous. Try one in ten thousand: that’s one unintended shooting in one hunderd years in a district with 100 schools. Still avery small probability. But that puts the death toll at 170 due to guns brought into the schools for safety between Columbine and Sandy Hook.

shuzilla on December 22, 2012 at 11:32 AM

By that date range, there have been a little over 50,000 school years per mass slaughter death.

Assuming 10% of schools already have armed security, your risk assumptions would have us already seeing 1-2 students being killed by security. Has that ever happened? Therefore, I think that 1 death in several million school years is more likely.

Well, I certainly understand your argument and it’s worthwhile to consider that aspect. I do understand that Utah has had armed guards for a while. I’ve read Florida has, too. It would be interesting to see the results compared to your givens.

Prior to that, I’d want to confirm that your method is sound and the data in is appropriate. For example, and I’m saying this is an accurate parallel, the CDC lists 2010 unintentional firearms deaths at 606 per 308 million people years. In economic circles, I’ve seen 90,000,000 households used and in gun discussions I’ve seen 38% of households have guns, so that would be 34.2 million household years.

I don’t know if that data is more sound or less sound but by your method in 10,000 years an armed household would produce 0.117 deaths. The same number of homes as schools (that you use, Yglesias uses 98k from which the $5B min cost derives) — 130,000 would put the number of deaths at 23,035 every 10,000 years or 2.3 per year and 29 for your period of Columbine to Sandy Hill. That’s compared to your 170. How many were killed between Columbine and Sandy Hill?

I think we need to evaluate your method and input much more closely and I think we also need to consider whether the level of care in which accidental handling leads to an unintended access and use of one especially in your development of how often it happens based on using huge numbers. It seems to me there is a problem choosing a reasonable number of incidents while dealing with millions and tens of thousands, just because it seems reasonable to choose at least the number 1 instead of using a fraction.

When you are talking about cost, why add precautions that have a negligible to irrelevant value to them, especially if the cost to do so is high. Locks on doors? Cheap. Bars on windows? High.

Cost of a gun invited into a school accidentally kiling or injuring a student or employee? Millions.

What nobody has considerd is the fact that with every gun carried inside a school there is a small chance, no matter how infinitesimal, that the person or the gun on his person can be used for the wrong purpose.

For the number of unintended killings to be an order of magnitude leass than the number of students that could possibly be saved from a Sandy Hook-type shooting, each school would have to be sure that a gun could be carried for one million years without an associated unintentional death.

The math: 130,000 k-12 schools, public and private, in the US. There were 1.7 Million school years between Columbine and Sandy Hook. At one incident for every one million school years, that’s 1-2 deaths deaths by the time of SandyHook, if all schools had armed gurds/teachers/police since Columbine.

I think to expect only one such incident in 1 million years is ludicrous. Try one in ten thousand: that’s one unintended shooting in one hunderd years in a district with 100 schools. Still avery small probability. But that puts the death toll at 170 due to guns brought into the schools for safety between Columbine and Sandy Hook.

Wish the networks would interview this guy.

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control/

[warren on December 22, 2012 at 11:15 AM]

I wish Congress would pass the Larry Correia Will Establish School Safety Programs Act.

I see my formatting and typo may make it look like I was using minus signs but I wasn’t. Think of them as semicolons and that I missed putting one in on additional guards.

If, as you say, all the precautions you suggest won’t guarantee to prevent an attack but just end it a little quicker, all the precautions are still inadequate. So, the issue is not guaranteeing to prevent an attack, but to end it a little quicker.

Now we can take all your precautions and reasonable assess it’s “end it a little quicker” probability. Let me just ballbark:

Barred windows – 0.5%
Locked doors – 1%
Locked doors with bullet-resistant glass – 4%
No outside gym – least % of other precautions
Strict security procedures – +5%
Armed guard – 35%
Additional guards +10%/EA lowering by X%/each addn’l guard.

See the point? Bottom line is, the attacker, as you note, will seek the weakest point and the only precaution on the list that can move to the weakest point is the precaution with the gun.

When you are talking about cost, why add precautions that have a negligible to irrelevant value to them, especially if the cost to do so is high. Locks on doors? Cheap. Bars on windows? High.

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/an-opinion-on-gun-control/