Armed School Resource Officers = More School Shootings

MaverickNH

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While I review manuscripts for some medical journals, I never get the juicy ones. I would have tried to rejected this one, for sure.


This one finds schools with armed SROs have 3-times the odds of persons killed and concludes:

"An armed officer on the scene was the number one factor associated with increased casualties after the perpetrators’ use of assault rifles or submachine guns. The well-documented weapons effect explains that the presence of a weapon increases aggression. Whenever firearms are present, there is room for error, and even highly trained officers get split-second decisions wrong. Prior research suggests that many school shooters are actively suicidal, intending to die in the act, so an armed officer may be an incentive rather than a deterrent."

The authors suspiciously don’t sort shooters killed from their statistics. FBI’s 20yr summary over the same 1980-2019 period https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-20-year-review-2000-2019-060121.pdf finds, of 345 shooters, 191 (55%) were killed (suicide, police, non-LEO). The authors would have us believe these school shooters might have just committed suicide elsewhere had schools not had armed SROs.

ARs and SMGs take top billing, with ~13-times the odds of persons killed, compared to handguns at ~5-times the odds. I don’t recall and SMGs used in US school shootings 1980-2019 - maybe a semiauto Uzi somewhere?

The defund-the-police actions resulted in a lot of SROs cancelled from schools as well as a decline in policing in general. The progressives are just dying, literally, to prove that were don’t needed arms to quell violent crime. If they weren’t killing us too to prove their point, I’d be OK with that…
 
They're claiming that an armed SRO arriving on scene will increase a school shooter's aggression?

I'd say a school shooter has already demonstrated plenty of aggression by the time the SRO shows up... In fact, I'd say they're as aggressive then as they're ever likely to be.
 
They're claiming that an armed SRO arriving on scene will increase a school shooter's aggression?

I'd say a school shooter has already demonstrated plenty of aggression by the time the SRO shows up... In fact, I'd say they're as aggressive then as they're ever likely to be.
Yep - agreed.

I submitted a comment. My comments often do get published, but nobody responds or cares. The university media department will have already done their press release and the story come and gone in the news cycle.
 
They're claiming that an armed SRO arriving on scene will increase a school shooter's aggression?

I'd say a school shooter has already demonstrated plenty of aggression by the time the SRO shows up... In fact, I'd say they're as aggressive then as they're ever likely to be.
Yeah but that's macro agression your forgetting micro agression. While the shooter may in fact be shooting up the school he's not belittling kids feelings as he does
 
So then if you take all armed police off the streets, shootings will go down there too, right? Jack.
And if you take military off the battle field, casualties go down. Of course, you are then living under Taliban rule. Wait a minute…
 
Maybe I'm not that bright but....
I don't see armed SRO's as causation but more like correlation.
When shootings happen, armed SRO's respond--correlation.
The fact that they are available didn't cause it to happen in the first place.
The whole conclusion defies reality completely and is utter rubbish. But anything to serve an agenda.
 
"The well-documented weapons effect explains that the presence of a weapon increases aggression."

I'd never heard of this, so I looked it up: it's a theory based on a heavily criticized 1967 study. Nobody's been able to fully replicate the findings, and in fact a 2001 study sets the whole Weapons Effect completely on its head by finding, as a lot of us MA CCW people know, that knowing a gun is around actually makes you MORE careful about conflict.
 
So then if you take all armed police off the streets, shootings will go down there too, right? Jack.
The current political agenda is exactly that- a presumption that a presence of any police force is a cause of surge in crimes against citizens.
I guess it just got to take its course for a pendulum to swing all the way until common sense will be allowed to return.
 
"The well-documented weapons effect explains that the presence of a weapon increases aggression."

I'd never heard of this, so I looked it up: it's a theory based on a heavily criticized 1967 study. Nobody's been able to fully replicate the findings, and in fact a 2001 study sets the whole Weapons Effect completely on its head by finding, as a lot of us MA CCW people know, that knowing a gun is around actually makes you MORE careful about conflict.
C’mon, it gets all the way from count Tolstoy- an aggression only breeds aggression. It is not new.
 
Those who would have peace, prepare for ... never mind, just give up and leave.
 
C’mon, it gets all the way from count Tolstoy- an aggression only breeds aggression. It is not new.

There is SCADS of social-psych research about aggression, and generally it all adds up to this: So many different studies have found so many different things, that it's impossible to conclude anything everyone will agree with.

Personally, I think once someone makes the mental and psychological leap that leads them into a school, shooting students, all that research goes out the window because there's only one safe response: the rapid engagement and neutralization of the shooter. The more rapid, the better. And current laws being what they are, a motivated SRO is the best a lot of schools can do as far as rapid response.

Understandably, I've spent a lot of time thinking about that particular scenario.
 
There is SCADS of social-psych research about aggression, and generally it all adds up to this: So many different studies have found so many different things, that it's impossible to conclude anything everyone will agree with.

Personally, I think once someone makes the mental and psychological leap that leads them into a school, shooting students, all that research goes out the window because there's only one safe response: the rapid engagement and neutralization of the shooter. The more rapid, the better. And current laws being what they are, a motivated SRO is the best a lot of schools can do as far as rapid response.

Understandably, I've spent a lot of time thinking about that particular scenario.
You do not need a psych research to see what happens if boys not allowed to have fights to establish pecking order and get their normal instincts suppressed until it erupts into a mass violence act or suicide.

And good luck proving to suburban Karens that a black eye is a normal part of growing up.
 
While I review manuscripts for some medical journals, I never get the juicy ones. I would have tried to rejected this one, for sure.


This one finds schools with armed SROs have 3-times the odds of persons killed and concludes:

"An armed officer on the scene was the number one factor associated with increased casualties after the perpetrators’ use of assault rifles or submachine guns. The well-documented weapons effect explains that the presence of a weapon increases aggression. Whenever firearms are present, there is room for error, and even highly trained officers get split-second decisions wrong. Prior research suggests that many school shooters are actively suicidal, intending to die in the act, so an armed officer may be an incentive rather than a deterrent."

The authors suspiciously don’t sort shooters killed from their statistics. FBI’s 20yr summary over the same 1980-2019 period https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-20-year-review-2000-2019-060121.pdf finds, of 345 shooters, 191 (55%) were killed (suicide, police, non-LEO). The authors would have us believe these school shooters might have just committed suicide elsewhere had schools not had armed SROs.

ARs and SMGs take top billing, with ~13-times the odds of persons killed, compared to handguns at ~5-times the odds. I don’t recall and SMGs used in US school shootings 1980-2019 - maybe a semiauto Uzi somewhere?

The defund-the-police actions resulted in a lot of SROs cancelled from schools as well as a decline in policing in general. The progressives are just dying, literally, to prove that were don’t needed arms to quell violent crime. If they weren’t killing us too to prove their point, I’d be OK with that…

did they reference at all how many times the cowards lay down their arms and surrender when opposition shows up?
 

While Rand has a definite anti-gun bias, they well summarize the 2019 data on US Mass Shootings - all 6 or 503 of them, with 60 or 628 fatalities, depending on who’s data is used. When the problem definition varies from 10-fold to almost 100-fold among those proposing solutions, there is certainly no one way to address the problem(s).

These authors elsewhere study "Group Aggression" - street gangs, hate groups, rebel and insurgent groups, and terrorist organizations. The commonality between school shootings and all other mass shootings in the US is the absence of any "group". There is no organized violence perpetrated by a political, ideological, religious, national or ethnic group. This is crime - not terrorism. Attempts to elevate US mass violence to the brands of terrorism seen elsewhere in the world are driven by the progressive/liberal agenda.

The authors conclude: "The majority of shooters who target schools are students of the school, calling into question the effectiveness of hardened security and active shooter drills. Instead, schools must invest in resources to prevent shootings before they occur."

Why “instead" rather than "in addition"? Smoke detectors instead of fire departments? More auto-drive controls in cars instead of air bags? Sun block lotion instead of skin cancer treatments?

If anything, the LAST solution to go all-in for, is early detection and prevention of potential school shooters. The school shooter profile is so broad, complex and common, that millions of students are at risk. We only have to trust that parents, friends, teachers, school administrators, police and health care workers that fail to act definitively time and time again will suddenly become efficient and effective. Nope.

Their solution is, as always, regulate guns. The "group aggression" they target? Gun owners. Take away guns and that group become docile. To some extent, they are correct - disarm citizens and they become powerless slaves to the state.
 
Lost me at sub mqchine guns.

When was the last time a sub machine gun was used in a school shooting? Ir any shooting? The author is full of shit and exaggerating to make his bullshit point
 
The sheriffs department has an awesome shooting trailer. It’s live fire and has a huge screen that records your hits. One of the scenarios was a school shooter.

the target was a kid mixed in with a running crowd of kids and I wouldn’t take the shot. It was an extremely difficult shot. The dude afterwards told me that it’s rare that someone gets a clean shot on that one without hitting another kid.

Could that be a factor here?
 
Harvard Business Review published an interesting paper on mass shootings, finding GOP-lead states "loosen" gun restriction after such events, while Dem-lead states do little or nothing. Notable exceptions being NY, CT and MD laws passed following Sandy Hook.

https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication Files/16-126_f03b33c6-5698-41d2-8b8e-2f98120e3dbc.pdf

"We also find that media coverage related to guns increases following mass shootings and that Democrat-controlled and Republican-controlled legislatures differ significantly when it comes to enacting gun laws. Republicans are more likely to loosen gun laws in the year after a mass shooting than in other years. The effect for Democrats, which tends toward a reduction in the loosening of gun restrictions after a mass shooting, is statistically insignificant. This result aligns with the prediction from the political economy literature on issue selection, that political parties emphasize issues that they have a reputation for successfully handling in the eyes of their constituents."

True, that. Biden throwing $6 trillion at social change will have accomplish zip, nil, nada, none. Dem constituents just like tax and spend - it makes them feel like they are doing something. Meanwhile, more Conservative-lead states will go Constitutional Carry.
 
It’s definitely some reverse logic….The whole point of having armed security is for them to shoot people or deter shootings at a soft target…

It almost reminds me of when the police shoot some scumbag everyone’s all worried about the scum bag. Next well be holding protests (riots) over a mass shooters rights to not be shot…
 
Baseless theories like this just makes our kids and grandkids softer targets. I strongly believer that SROs should have access to long arm's in schools and shouldn't have to wait for back up with a patrol rifle. After all these are our kids they deserve the best protection.
 
If anything, the LAST solution to go all-in for, is early detection and prevention of potential school shooters. The school shooter profile is so broad, complex and common, that millions of students are at risk. We only have to trust that parents, friends, teachers, school administrators, police and health care workers that fail to act definitively time and time again will suddenly become efficient and effective. Nope.
What fraction of school shooters are "known" to mental health professionals
(whether same-school shooters being treated by school psychologists,
or non-student shooters being known by some shrink of their own)?
 
Baseless theories like this just makes our kids and grandkids softer targets. I strongly believer that SROs should have access to long arm's in schools and shouldn't have to wait for back up with a patrol rifle. After all these are our kids they deserve the best protection.
They generally don’t wait for backup regardless. SOP now is for any LEO who arrives at a soft target school to rush in immediately and sort out jurisdiction later.

Other than that coward down in FL, most LEOs do as well as they can during school shootings.
 
On the SMG topic, I'm going on a limb here that they're trying for the same linguistic shift as assault weapons, and trying to tie up PCCs, etc. At the very least, this would be Columbine, with a TEC-9 and a Hi-Point carbine.
 
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