Gun control won't stop school shootings? Killer stats

Let's focus on multiple-victim school shootings for a minute, since John Lott (see below) compares a "string" of 4 school attacks in Germany from 2002-2006 to America's school shooting carnage. By my count, 14 multiple-victim shootings occurred in U.S. schools (12 of them in K-12) during the same period. 

Anyway, in Germany handguns are legal to buy if you're over 18 years old; and rifles if you're over 21. Yet Germany's gun laws are supposedly "strict," meaning you can't get a gun license if you have a criminal record. Germans, especially rural hunters, love their guns, and German politicians are afraid to take them away. Sounds a lot like the U.S. to me.

By expanding Lott's chosen period to cover 4 more years, and all U.S. schools (not just K-12), I get 123 killed and 193 wounded in 39 multiple-victim shootings. (All my sources are hyperlinked). Lott makes no mention of U.S. students wounded by gun violence, some of whom were made disabled or brain dead. Nor does Lott mention several Columbine-style rampages that were thwarted when student-killers' plans were discovered. The casualty figures could have easily been much, much greater.

Notice how many school multiple-victim shootings there were after Columbine, which spurred schools to use metal detectors and get more serious about deterring gun violence. Also notice how many there were before Columbine (these attacks actually stretch back to 1966); and yet Columbine is cited as the event that triggered so many copycat attacks. Indeed, Harris and Klebold were the real copycats, continuing a 30-year tradition of multiple-victim U.S. school shootings.

Finally, look where the shootings happened: everywhere. But mostly in rural (supposedly more peaceful) areas. Was this because of more lax security, or easier access to hunting firearms, or both? If you look at single-victim shootings, you see many more occurring in urban schools to settle some vendetta. It's the white boys in the suburbs and backwoods who commit multiple gun murders at school.

If gun control isn't the answer, then what is? Everything else has been tried, from metal detectors to school security guards to preparedness drills in case of rampage murders. (And you thought those old "duck and cover" drills were nuts). Gun control -- or outright banning guns -- is the simplest, most direct way to attack this deadly problem. It is probably the only way.

I'm not arguing that Americans have more murder in their hearts than do people of other nations (although some would, like the late Charlton Heston); we Americans simply have easier access to more and deadlier firearms.

Multiple-Victim School Shootings in the U.S., Feb 1996 - Feb 2008:

1. Frontier Middle School, Moses Lake, WA, Feb 1996: 3 killed, 1 critically wounded.
2. Bethel Regional HS, AL, Feb 1997: 3 killed, 2 wounded.
3. Pearl HS, MS Mar 1997: 2 killed, 7 wounded.
4. Stamps, AK, Dec 1997: 2 wounded.
5. Westside MS, Jonesboro, AK, Mar 1998: 5 killed, 10 wounded.
6. Stranahan HS, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Feb 1998: 2 killed, including shooter.
7. Philadelphia Elementary, Pomona, CA, Apr 1998: 2 killed, 1 wounded.
8. Parker Middle School, Edinboro, PA, Apr 1998: 1 teacher killed, 3 students wounded.
9. Thurston HS, Springfield, OR, May 1998: 3 killed, 23 wounded. (Shooter expelled a day prior for bringing gun to school).
10. Armstrong HS, Richmond, VA, June, 1998: 2 wounded by 2 student shooters.
11. Columbine HS, Littleton, CO, Apr 1999: 15 people killed, including the killers, 23 wounded.
12. Heritage HS, Conyers, GA, May 1999: 6 students wounded.
13. Fort Gibson Middle School, OK, Dec 1999: 4 students wounded.
14. Heath HS, Paducah, KY, Dec 1997: 3 killed, 5 wounded.
15. *Buell Elementary, Mount Morris, MI, Feb 2000: 1st grader killed 6 y.o. classmate with uncle's gun after an argument.
16. Beach HS, Savannah, GA, Mar 2000: 2 killed.
17. Santana HS, Santee, CA, Mar 2001: 2 killed, 13 wounded.
18. Granite Hills HS, El Cajon, CA, Mar 2001: 5 wounded.
19. Ennis, TX, May 2001: 2 killed, including shooter, 17 hostages taken.
20. Appalachian School of Law, Grundy, VA, Jan 2002: 3 killed, 3 wounded.
21. Martin Luther King JHS, NY, NY, Jan 2002: 2 seriously wounded.
22. University of Arizona, Tucson, Oct 2002: 4 killed, including shooter.
23. John McDonough HS, New Orleans, LA, Apr 2003: 1 killed, 3 wounded.
24. Rocori HS, Cold Spring, MN, Sep 2003: 2 killed.
25. Ballou HS, Washington, DC, Feb 2004: 1 killed, 1 wounded.
26. Randallstown, MD, May 2004: 4 wounded.
27. Salt Lake City, UT, May 2004: 2 killed, including shooter (suicide).
28. Red Lake HS, MN, Mar 2005: 10 killed, including shooter.
29. Campbell County HS, Jacksboro, TN, Nov 2005: 1 killed, 2 seriously wounded.
30. Pine Middle School, Reno, NV, Mar 2006: 2 wounded.
31. Essex Elementary School, VT, Aug 2006: 2 killed, 3 wounded, including shooter.
32. Platte Canyon HS, Bailey, CO, Sep 2006: 2 killed, 6 hostages taken.
33. Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV, Sep 2006: 3 killed, including shooter.
34. West Nickel Mines Amish School, Paradise, PA, Oct 2006: 6 killed, including shooter, 5 wounded.
35. Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA, Apr 2007: 33 killed, including shooter, 15 wounded.
36. Delaware State University, Sep 2007: 1 killed, 1 wounded.
37. Success Tech Academy, Cleveland, OH, Sep 2007: 1 killed (shooter suicide), 4 wounded.
38. Louisiana Technical College, Baton Rouge, Feb 2008: 3 killed, including shooter.
39. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Feb 2008: 6 killed, including shooter, 18 wounded.

TOTAL KILLED: 123
TOTAL WOUNDED: 193

*Not a multiple-victim shooting; but particularly awful.

Additional Sources:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2008/02/15/timeline-of-school-shootings.html?PageNr=2

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1662373.ece

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300976,00.html

http://www.columbine-angels.com/School_Violence_1997-1998.htm

Yes, the Massacres in Alabama and Germany ARE Horrible But More Gun Control Is Not the Answer

By John R. Lott, Jr.

March 12, 2009 | Fox News

Inevitably, the massacres in Germany and Alabama over the last two days have produced more calls for gun control. Already the attack in Alabama is being used to call for a new assault weapons ban, even though there are no published academic studies by economists or criminologists showing that the previous ban reduced violent crime.

The Alabama shooting spree left 11 people murdered, as the killer went from one house to another shooting members of his family and others inside. Three victims were shot from the window of the killer's moving car.

At least 9 students and 3 teachers were killed at the public school near Stuttgart, Germany. Three other people were killed at other locations.

Unfortunately, the latest German attack is just another in a string of horrible K - 12 public school shootings in that country. In 2002, 16 people were killed at an attack in Erfurt. There were two other smaller multiple victim public school shootings in 2002 alone. In 2006, 11 students were wounded in Emsdetten. Germany has had the two worst multiple victim K - 12 school shootings in the world. The last seven years of German school shootings make the United States seem peaceful by comparison: though the US has almost five times as many students as Germany, a total of thirty-seven people were killed during all multiple victim K-12 shootings in the US during the eight years from the Fall of 1997 to the summer of 2005.

Yet, Germany already has some of the strictest gun control laws in Europe and much stricter gun control laws than are being publicly discussed in the United States. It might not get much attention because it doesn't fit the template of gun violence in the U.S., but during the last seven years, other European countries — including France, Finland, and Switzerland — have experienced multiple-victim shootings. The worst outside of Germany have involved 14 murders, and all these killings have occurred in places where guns were banned.

We all want to take guns away from criminals, but gun control is more likely to disarm potential victims relative to criminals and make crime easier to commit.

Multiple-victim public shootings are terrifying and they drive much of the gun control debate, but they make up just a tiny fraction of one percent of the murders in the United States, Europe, or the rest of the world. The problem is that the gun control laws that come out of these crimes not only make crime go up, they also make multiple victim public shootings more likely. Research shows that police are the single most important factor for reducing crime, but even the police themselves understand that they virtually always arrive on the crime scene after the crime has occurred. Letting law-abiding citizens defend themselves not only deters some crimes from occurring, but it is the surest way of reducing the carnage when attacks do occur.

Unlike most public shooting scenarios, where citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns, the Alabama killer presumably knew whether or where his family member victims had guns in their homes.

The few shots that he fired in public were from the open window of his speeding car, but even here privately owned guns potentially could have made a difference.

ABC News reports:

"McLendon fired several shots at the Bradley TrueValue Hardware store before heading out of town for Geneva, 12 miles away.

"We were just business as normal, and all of a sudden there were bullets flying and glass was everywhere," owner David Bradley told the Dothan Eagle newspaper. "We realized what it was and grabbed our guns, but then he was gone."

The crimes that are stopped rarely get much news coverage and surely not the coverage given to the horrific killings.

Europe is rushing to adopt even more gun control laws. Let's hope the calls for more gun control in the US are given more thought. If not, the "cures" will disarm law-abiding citizens and make the disease of violence even worse.