Never-ceasing, school shootings

Let’s discuss some probabilities and choices that parents of young children should consider, when it comes to gun-murders that are now occurring at an astounding frequency at schools and other places.  There is no practical way for our imaginary and narrow problem posed here to be implemented, though it is obviously only a matter of time before a nimble, technology start-up creates an app to facilitate just this type of citizenry decision-making.  Again while this is a hypothetical, the probabilistic-sizing of the problem and solution is built around real-life (empirical) mortality events in the United States.  As you read this, philosophize to yourself about how this type of critical problem occurs and what choices you would make for your precious child student to attend either School A, versus School B.  In the end, these are inherently personal preferences.

In this story, your family lives in Random Town, U.S.A.  All your neighbors send their children to the nearest public school, School A.  Like the typical school in the United States (U.S.), School A is an acceptable school.  It happens to have 250 students in it, and you are pleased that they are generally representative of the rest of the country.  The parents of those students however are very much not representative of a cross-section of American parents.  Your neighboring parents have far greater gun-ownership, and it’s unclear why (and without passing any judgement, there could be many reasons why).  Otherwise they are good parents, though of course not all of them think alike!  

Also, just as was the case when you were young, the 250 students in School A have their share of “troubled students”.  Misfits beyond the control of their own parents.  None have committed crimes that you know of, but gut instincts lead many to believe that there is something wrong with them.  The iconic John Benders of the world (from the movie Breakfast Club), who you would prefer your children stay away from.  Now you come to know that one of those troubled children lives in a home where there are multiple legally-owned assault rifles.  1 in 250; so less than half of 1%.

Further out from Random Town, there is School B.  Your child could opportunistically attend School B, but it would involve a lot more daily sacrifice to make that happen.  It would definitely cut into your family time, and sleep time.  School B is in many facets similar to School A.  Both have the same number of students (i.e., 250).  And their socioeconomic and demographic metrics are similar.  There’s also an equal number of “troubled kids” in School B as there are in School A.  One key difference is that the School B’s parents are extreme in that zero own guns.  You don’t perfectly know what that fact means.  But you do know that as a consequence, none of those troubled children have access to an assault rifle.

Running off the overall mortality odds, we know that 1 in 4 troubled children (who at the right time can have access and know-how to use legally-owned guns) “successfully” morph into school shooters.  Now that then becomes the probability that all the schoolmates (including your child) are going to be at risk of being a school, gun violence victim.  Everything centers, as this account shows, on the risk associated with just one other child at the school.  And it doesn’t have to be that day, but rather lifetime odds.  And it doesn’t mean mortality odds necessarily, but also including things such as serious injury, or a traumatic ordeal.  Again an entire community, at the mercy of one other child (or the "less than half of 1%" that we don't spend enough time worrying about).

Also, a ¾ chance that School A’s troubled child (with gun access) is simply not at that time triggered or mutated to the point of murder, or that your son or daughter happens to skip school that day, or the police heroically scuttle such an attempt, etc.  The bottom line is that these events are occurring weekly all over the country.  It’s no longer a one-off horror.  Our cherished children are slain, and somehow parents befuddled and at odds.  We obviously would never knowingly want to put our babies in harm’s way, and yet we collectively do.  Mourning parents certainly didn’t conjure that was what might happen on any particular day, yet how could they not as the deaths keep piling up in funeral homes across the nation?  Each day parents of young children run a great risk.  The risk that is an outcome of many invisible and indirect factors (but always at the core originating with how we vote, and the decisions of other parents).

How would you balance the statistical risk posed here, and where should one draw the line on a dramatically different path for their family and community?  Why would you ever assume your child is safe in a gun culture with so many senseless tragedies?  And would you determine, based on what you know, that the probability and risk is too startling to continue sending your child to School A?  All worthy questions to consider.

Before concluding, we also wanted to highlight some related information from our monthly, YouTube short-videos, which you can subscribe to as well.