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In 2022, a 5-year peak year, 313 people in the entire US died from active shooters: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/active-shooters-fbi-report-2022...

That's out of 330 million total population.




I mean, they're still not wrong. Over 95% of US schools do have active shooter training [1] which is what the commenter was referring to.

1. https://everytownresearch.org/report/the-impact-of-active-sh...


Active shooter events are but one way to get shot in the US.

If we go look at other categories of shootings for 2022 we see that more than 20k people died from non-suicide gunshots.

And there were 647 mass shootings.

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls


The vast majority of those gun homicides are inner-city gang-on-gang shootings, which is easy to avoid as a white-collar software engineer.


Citation? Numbers? What do you mean by "vast majority" and "gang-on-gang"?


There is no great source on the details across the nation, but there are a hodgepodge of municipal-level studies that shed a light.

There were roughly 20k gun homicides in the US in 2021[0]. It's been fluctuating between 10k and 20k over the past five decades or so, with the last few years seeing a quick increase and seeing a (hopefully) local peak in rates.

In one study in San Francisco, ~70% of gun homicide victims had a criminal record, and three quarters of that figure knew the suspect[1]. A similar study in Milwaukee found that ~90% of both victims and suspects of gun homicides had a criminal record[2], and the top two reasons identified of the circumstances behind the homicide were arguments/fights and robberies. There are other studies done at local levels in many other places with similar results.

A DOJ study notes that three quarters of all gun homicides were during the commission of a (different) felony[3]. And you can query the CDC WONDER mortality database[4] yourself to see that gun homicide rates in "large central metro" areas are twice as high as those in medium, small, or non-metro areas, and that men 15-34 years of age comprise the majority of gun homicide victims.

So, perhaps my "gang-on-gang" statement wasn't really accurate (since a "gang-related" incident is loosely defined), and I'll leave the "vast majority" determination to you; but the point is that most gun homicides occur among the "criminal element" in "bad parts of town", and is not really relevant to life as a software engineer.

[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-...

[1]: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/reports/StudiesData/Firearms...

[2]: https://www.mcw.edu/-/media/MCW/Departments/Epidemiology/MHR...

[3]: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

[4]: https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html


Exactly, the reason "active shooter" situations frighten ordinary folks is because they're the rare type of shooting that can victimize you even if you're law-abiding and don't live in a very high crime area.


In 2020, 687 people were killed in railway accidents in the EU, being Poland the country with the highest number with 148 fatalities, followed closely by Germany with 137.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1192970/europe-railway-a...


Trains are really unpredictable. Even in the middle of a forest two rails can appear out of nowhere, and a 1.5-mile fully loaded coal drag, heading east out of the low-sulfur mines of the PRB, will be right on your ass the next moment.


there's a lot more than I would have thought in the US.

Railroad deaths totaled 893 in 2021, a 20% increase from the 2020 revised total of 744 and the highest since 2007. Nonfatal injuries totaled 5,781, a 4% increase from the 2020 revised total of 5,544.


It's not just the actual death toll but the trauma we cause children with active shooter drills, etc.


wow, I guess mass shootings are no problem at all and when they happen we should be like, "so what? 3000 people died of cancer today, who cares if some kids got their faces blown to pieces". thanks for clearing that up! problem solved


and you think that's ok? or a common problem every country deals with?


It's possible to think it's not ok but also so vanishingly unlikely to happen that it's not a useful comparison point for quality of life in Europe vs America.

For me, "never get sick or have any kids or anything" is a much stronger point against life the US - these are issues almost everyone has to confront.


https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-a...

The U.S. Is the Only Country Among Its Peers in Which Guns Are the Leading Cause of Death Among Children and Teens


I’n more worried about America’s obesity levels and opioid epidemic.


Are you worried an obese person or addict will attack you?


They're bankrupting our healthcare system with their gluttony


Definitely addicts. If they're obese that's even worse.




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