{"id":837,"date":"2014-12-02T08:24:13","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T08:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?page_id=837"},"modified":"2015-08-17T02:08:33","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T02:08:33","slug":"shootings","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?page_id=837","title":{"rendered":"Shootings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schools account for less than 1 one-hundredth of 1% of America’s shootings<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Are schools and campuses \u201cfull of angry kids\u201d waiting to commit mass shootings?<\/b><\/p>\n

More than 10 percent of our nation’s teenagers may be inclined toward violence, and more than 2.5 percent of them could be considered dangerous, meaning they have both the propensity toward violence and the means to accomplish it. —Lethal Violence in Schools<\/em><\/a>: A National Report<\/em>,\u201d Alfred University, August 2001<\/p>\n

\u201cParents, how safe do you feel sending your kids to school?\u201d –MSNBC viewer poll, April 17, 2007<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re not recognizing this violent thinking in these kids who are out there.\u201d —Pat Brown<\/a>, \u201ccriminal profiler,\u201d CBS Early Show, April 17, 2007<\/p>\n

BALONEY. Our schools are safer than Denmark<\/b> (YouthFacts.org)<\/p>\n

April 16\u2019s tragic mass shooting at Virginia Polytechnic University, like the April 20, 1999, Columbine High School student massacre, has opened the floodgates to a cascade of senseless hysteria about the \u201csafety of schools.\u201d By safely pigeonholing these as \u201cschool shootings\u201d by \u201cdisturbed students,\u201d officials and media commentators have sunk into easy scapegoating of young people and their schools for a national violence epidemic<\/a> of which youth and campuses comprise only a tiny fraction.<\/p>\n

Does the United States have a gun violence problem? Yes\u2014among the world\u2019s worst.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the three-year, 2003-05 period, the FBI<\/a> reported 49,368 murders in the United States. Of these, 29,144 were by guns.<\/p>\n

Including murders, suicides, accidents, and undetermined shootings, 89,947 Americans died by guns<\/a> in the most recent three years.<\/p>\n

Now\u2026 Do our schools and campuses suffer epidemics of shootings?<\/b><\/p>\n

First, guess:\u00a0Of America\u2019s total of 49,000 murders and 90,000 gun deaths over the last 3 years\u2026<\/p>\n

How many murders do you think took place on a college campus?<\/p>\n

\u2026 At an elementary or secondary school?<\/p>\n

How many normal>total firearms deaths occurred at an elementary or secondary school?<\/p>\n

The answer is at the bottom of the page.*<\/p>\n

(By the way, \u201cwhen asked, high school students typically supposed the (school violent death) toll was in the tens of thousands annually.\u201d \u2013Neil Howe, Bill Strauss, normal’>Millennials Rising, 2000, p. 39).<\/p>\n

*Answer: In 2003-05, there were a total of:<\/p>\n