Bringing this topic up in the context of the latest school shooting in Wisconsin
Article with some data for 2024: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/us-school-shootings-2024-in-numbers/104734714
My child is 3. I’m terrified to send him. I’m scared of shootings, and I’m afraid of bullying like I faced (we’re autistic). But I also don’t want to cower in fear and homeschool him because he needs socialization, and it’s not feasible for us because I’m a single parent
I worry about it every time I hear about another shooting. So basically constantly.
I try to tell myself that it’s unlikely, or we live in a place it couldn’t possibly happen…which is all BS and I know it.
I just have to hope it’s something I’ll never have to deal with. If I was truly that concerned, I’d have to home school, and that’s just not going to happen. So it’s basically a low level of constant dread, and it’s disgusting that this is where we’re at here, because no one wants to face the facts and actually do anything about problem.
Just being in the regions of multiple mass shootings over my life does change what I do with my family. If we go to an event we usually go at opening and leave early. Went to a Xmas tree lighting with 60k others and kept to the outside as the middle had nowhere to go.
It’s about the least concern.
There’s a shit ton of things that are certain dangers to my kid. Plastics, toxins, climate change, political instability, and that’s just the obvious ones that increase the risks of death and illness way more than the chances of some idiot kid sourcing a gun and popping off randomly with no real skill.
And, it’s the risk factor a parent can do something about, directly and immediately. Home schooling is a realistic option for now. There’s other ways to bypass in person education in a pinch.
It sucks. It’s a problem. It just isn’t even on the radar of real, demonstrable risks.
I live in Wyoming where even Democrats own a dozen guns and it’s a matter of law that most non-felons over the age of 21 can legally carry a concealed firearm without a permit. In short firearms are prevalent and common in this part of the United States.
With that said I have almost no worry about school shootings here. The schools do a good job of securing themselves, law enforcement takes any threat seriously, and our culture understands and mostly respects firearms.
