Responding to a recent report that Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (MDA) and Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) conducted about the dangers of guns in public schools, Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox said the annual risk of gun-related death in school is “well below one in two million,” and “many times more youngsters are killed annually in bicycle accidents.”
Because of this, Fox said he “trusts [MDA and MAIG] would support a national helmet law as quickly as a gun restriction.”
According to USA Today, the report by MDA and MAIG claims “44 shootings” took place in schools since the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012. Rather than argue with that figure, Fox shows that it is “lower than two decades ago when gang violence was especially problematic at school settings.”
In other words, there is a downward trend.
And because of this trend, Fox warned that coating schools with cameras and metal detectors and practicing lockdown drills “not only fail to prevent some teenager or adult determined to wreak havoc on innocent children and their dedicated teachers, but they send the wrong and excessively scary message concerning the risk.”
As Breitbart News reported on December 17, 2012, Fox has been studying “mass shootings” since the 1980s. Following Sandy Hook, he said, “There is no pattern, there is no increase.” He said such attacks seem prevalent because of the amount of media attention given them.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins