Facts and emotional friends.

An old friend from overseas posted his outrage and anger about the Uvalde massacre.  His criticism focused on US gun policy as if gun control were an obvious and simple solution.

In thinking about how one might make an argument to friends from overseas who have little or no knowledge of America, American history, American culture, and American heterogeneity, I contemplated various elements of his implied likely argument.  One argument would be that K-12 school killings are a uniquely American phenomenon.  

This is of course not true, but I wanted to check the facts.  You have to of course pin down some precise definitions.  

For example, I think there is an implied "these shootings don't happen in other developed countries."  So I restrict it to OECD countries even though the most number of largest school shootings are in the developing world.

Next, what is the time frame?  Multi-victim K-12 school shootings were rare in the US before the late 1980s.  The Heller decision affirming the civil right of gun ownership (and making gun ownership less onerous) occurred in 2008.  I have used 1990-2022 as the time frame.

 

Do we include terrorist or para-military events?  This primarily relates to Russia.  I have included them.  

With these definitions, what are the top ten K-12 massacres since 1990?

Belsian School Siege, 2004, Russia, 333 killed.  Islamic Chechen terrorists.  Surprise attack.

Sandy Hook 2012, USA, 27 killed.  History of mental illness.  Known individual.

Robb Elementary 2022, USA, 21 killed.  History of mental Illness.  Known individual.

Stoneman Douglas High 2018, USA, 17 killed.  History of mental Illness.  Known individual.

Dunblane Massacre 1996, UK, 17 killed.  Criminal record.  Known Individual.

Erfurt School Massacre 2002, Germany, 16 killed.  School expulsion.  Surprise attack.

Winnenden School Shooting 2009, Germany, 15 killed.  History of mental illness.  Surprise attack.

Columbine High School Massacre 1999, USA, 13 killed.  Criminal records.  Known individuals.  

Santa Fe High School Shooting 2018, USA, 10 killed.  History of mental illness.  Surprise attack.

Kazan School Shooting 2021, Russia, 9 killed.  History of mental illness. Surprise attack.  

The US is certainly overrepresented with five of the ten K-12 mass killing events from 1990 - 2022.  However, to normalize this a bit based on population (larger countries will necessarily have more events even if they have the same incident rate), The US across this period had a population of about 300 million.  Germany, Russia, and Britain together had about 280 million.  

It appears, very roughly, that the US has the same incident rate of K-12 mass shootings as other OECD countries 1990-2022.

All three countries (Germany, Britain, Russia) have much stricter gun control than in the US where gun ownership is a Constitutional right only limited under very strict conditions.  Russia is perhaps the most permissive of the three.  Germany and Britain have among the most strict gun control laws in the world.

The US has perhaps 400 million privately owned guns in circulation.  Germany has about 6 million privately owned guns.  Britain has about 2 million privately owned guns.  Russia has about 18 million privately owned guns. 

If we divide the OECD where school massacres have occurred into two blocs, the US and Germany/Britain/Russia, then we have the US bloc with 400 million privately owned guns and the Germany/Britain/Russia bloc with 26 million privately owned guns.  

Top ten is an arbitrary cut-off.  It would be better at 100 or 1,000.  

The point is, though, that even at a crude level (top ten) if there is a strong correlation between school massacres and gun control or gun prevalence, we ought to see that signal.  We don't.

Maybe it is there.  But it isn't obvious.  And if it isn't obvious, then we need to know more.  Simplistic thinking is always dangerous, especially when fueled by anger.

Just as a marker, when reading the details of each account, it is clear that there are a couple of things going on unrelated to gun control or gun prevalence.  

In six of the events, the perpetrator had pre-existing mental illnesses recognized and documented before the killings.  

Five of the events were perpetrated by individuals already known to authorities either because of severe mental illness issues and/or criminal activities.  

If you combine both pre-existing mental health conditions with pre-existing criminal records (eight of the ten), it implies that had there been a more sensitive and robust health and legal tracking system, more of the perpetrators might have been diagnosed and/or treated in a fashion that might have prevented the killings.  

Seeking to understand what is happening does no disrespect for the tragedies that are involved.  In fact, if we truly wish to prevent these events from happening in the future, we do need to understand why they occur when they do.

Reflexive policies which are not well grounded in evidence in fact make a mockery of the tragedies because they are profound signals of un-seriousness.  

Is the US an outlier in these terrible tragedies?  It is not clear that it is.