The number proves to be 1,150, almost all of them found by security without being fired. That's actually a tremendous success story about the way our schools have become safer by instituting security practices that effectively address a threat. A very good tale! If all beggars could tell such a good one, they might find me kinder.
There are over 128,000 schools in America, so this number also means that in 99.17% of American schools, no guns appeared -- and in the 0.83% where they did, they were mostly recovered without incident.
According to ATF data, there are 474 million guns in private hands in America, so that means that 99.9998% of American guns were not so involved, whereas only 0.0002% of those guns ended up in such (mostly successful) incidents.
Really, those numbers ought to be astonishing in exactly the opposite of the way the Post would like.
UPDATE: The ability to conceptualize numbers and scale is something gun control advocates often seem to actively work against.
“The Massachusetts League of Women Voters supports HD.4607,” Art Desloges, speaking on behalf of the group, told the committee. “Statistically we have the lowest gun death rates nationwide, but gun violence archive reports 83 people killed by firearms in the Commonwealth through July of this year. We must get to zero. Even one person lost to gun violence is too many.”
The economic Law of Diminishing Returns suggests that getting from "the lowest in the nation" to "zero" will require approximately infinite effort.
Here's a good round number, though: how about 100% opposition to this gun control law from the police?
The state’s police chiefs do not support the Legislature’s efforts to strengthen Massachusetts gun laws — and it’s unanimous.Mark Leahy, former chief of the Northboro Police Department and the executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said his organization recently met and voted to come out against Bill HD.4607, or An Act modernizing firearm laws.The bill simply won’t reduce crime, Leahy said.“Earlier today our membership met. We ultimately polled our members concerning HD.4607 and the result was an unprecedented unanimous vote to not support this bill,” Leahy told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday.Representing all 351 Bay State cities and towns and more than 100 university police departments, the law enforcement organization was joined by dozens of gun rights advocates and constitutionalists in opposing the gun control bill during a hearing held Tuesday.
12 comments:
When I saw your title, I thought "He really just means 'arithmetic' and is being mild because of graciousness." But as I think about it, thinking in broader abstract terms, such as perspective, is closer to the truth here. It's not the numbers, it's the overview of what they mean. A thousand guns in high schools! There are 3000 counties in America.
I am thinking what that would have meant to me in the 1970s. "They found a gun in the locker of a kid in Nashua two years ago!" It would have affected my life not at all.
Knives were ubiquitous in school from early grade school through high school--and at summer camps--when I was a boy, 'way in the last century. Mostly pocket knives in grade school, where mumbletypeg was ubiquitous. Fixed blade knives in jr high and high school, along with the occasional switchblade. Gravity blades were pretty rare.
The fixed blades weren't flashed so much, and there was too much concrete around the jr and high schools for mumbletypeg to be very common, but there was still some of that, and better. The fixed blades had better balance than the pocket knives. The tools of preference for the misbehavers were straight razors and the occasional scalpel, anyway.
Now it's tough, and illegal, to get a knife of any blade length into school, just as much as firearms always were.
Eric Hines
"The bill simply won't reduce crime."
The sermon I have been preaching for years. Whether their motives are good (They do believe, however falsely, that it will save lives), or evil (they want political opponents to have less power) does not change the "won't reduce" part of the equation.
Sadly, I have no idea how to tech this concept to a large number of people. If I did, more people around me would know it.
I have sympathy with those - fairly numerous here - who look first at the right to bear arms. But to me this is like a football coach proposing that a particular play is within the rules to Bill Belichick (famous for exploiting the edges of rules) who shrugs and says "It doesn't matter. It won't work."
BTW the Massachusetts League of Women Voters is an excellent example of Conquest's Second Law https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2022/11/cowen-on-conquests-second-law.html or O'Sullivan's Law https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2006/02/osullivans-law-hits-habitat-for.html about organisations not specifically conservative inevitably becoming liberal. Fascinating reading to follow those links.
They used to be studiously, almost obsessively determined to be evenhanded and nonpartisan. Now they are a 60s (or 90s) liberal organisation.
Ooh, ooh, also, for those who like such things, the first on is one of the few times I engaged Zachriel rather than ignoring him. My bad.
Yes, for me the right to arms is derived from first principles, and is therefore non-negotiable like freedom of thought or speech. I can understand why a pragmatic approach seems sensible to others.
You got off all right with Z. I just threw him out of here, after dealing with him at your place.
There were still a few rifles on gunracks when I was in high school, because we had ranch kids who did chores, then drove into town for class. They had to lock their trucks, but otherwise it wasn't a big deal. This was the late 1980s. The rest of us just shrugged.
LittleRed1
That link isn't working.
Java didn’t like it for some reason, Thos., and I can’t edit comments on Blogger. It is, however, also available as a permanent link on the sidebar: “Arms & Human Dignity.”
https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2023/01/arms-and-human-dignity.html
“The Massachusetts League of Women Voters supports HD.4607,” Art Desloges, speaking on behalf of the group, told the committee. “Statistically we have the lowest gun death rates nationwide, but gun violence archive reports 83 people killed by firearms in the Commonwealth through July of this year. We must get to zero. Even one person lost to gun violence is too many."
There were "at least 430" traffic fatalities in Massachusetts in 2022. As "even one person lost to traffic deaths is too many," would the Massachusetts League of Women Voters also suggest banning vehicular traffic in the state (commonwealth) of Massachusetts?
2022 Was Another Record-Breaking Year For Bloodshed on Massachusetts Roadways.
Ok, I read it - and the follow-on post/discussion it sparked.
I enjoy your blog, but I seldom have enough time to pay your weightier writings the attention they deserve. I like the care you treat these topics with.
Post a Comment