2019-09-18 16.15.14

Sandy Hook Promise Ad Hypes the Danger of School Shootings, Fostering Irrational Fears and Bad Policies (Reason.com)

School shooting fatalities represent an infinitesimal share of all firearm-related deaths among minors (3,143 in 2017), which mostly involve homicides committed away from school and suicides. Car crashes killed more than 4,000 minors in 2017, while 1,430 died from suffocation, nearly 1,000 drowned, a similar number succumbed to drug poisoning, and 340 died from fire or burns. In other words, children and teenagers are about 370 times as likely to die in traffic accidents and about 90 times as likely to die from drowning as they are to be killed in a school shooting. Lightning strikes kill more than twice as many people each year.