Posted on 05/24/2018 7:07:19 AM PDT by rktman
Snopes.com explored the popular liberal talking point that (to quote the front of the New York Daily News) “more students or teachers killed by guns in U.S. schools than active-duty military deaths in 2018.” That statistic is true if you only count deaths in combat, and false if you include accidental deaths.
Whoopi Goldberg threw out the point on The View on Monday: "After Friday's high school shooting in Texas, more American students have died from gun violence in 2018 than U.S. soldiers in combat."
Snopes relied in part on a Philip Bump piece at The Washington Post (independent of the "Fact Checker" team) with the headline "2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than deployed service members." It had to be corrected. Bump originally reported there were 27 student deaths in school shootings and only 13 casualties reported by the Department of Defense. But then Bump relayed:
Comparing all fatalities in school shootings with all military deaths, the latter is higher, contrary to the original headline of this article. In both cases, those totals have been boosted by mass casualty events. In the case of the military, 20 of the fatalities occurred in just three aircraft crashes. In the case of schoolchildren, most of the deaths were in Santa Fe, Tex., last week and the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla. in February.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Most deaths of military personnel are accidental, with car (jeep, truck) crashes high on the list, because young men tend to drive incautiously, followed by helicopter and airplane crashes.
Well, US Troops in Combat are armed, which means that they can shoot the guys that are shooting at them.
Yup. When my dad swore me in all those years ago, I was basically telling Uncle Sam to do what you will with me up to and including causing my demise by whatever means. Whew, I made it. With some close calls along the way. ;-)
Soldiers are able to defend themselves. Students should be granted the same advantage.
When my daughter joined the military, I told her she would be fine as long as she didn’t drive like a fool.
I saw the meme, and doing my own research found 31 students dead, 29 military members in 2018.
Of course, that didn’t include the 890 shot Chicagoans, and 178 of those that died.
It’s worse to be in Chicago at all than to be in school anywhere else, or the military.
Not sure where many of these morns are trying to say.
How many schools are in the U.S.? Including colleges and universities?
How many total students?
The numbers must not be that difficult to find, but I'm not going to waste my time playing their stupid games.
“Snopes.com explored...”
If Snopes “explores” something, believe the opposite.
And there are what, maybe 36 million students (in school only 6-8 hours per day), and what, maybe 2 million soldiers (only a small percentage of which see combat duty)?
Back in the 1970’s, there were similar comparisons with the Vietnam War and the number of fatalities on US highways - they ignored the denominator when computing the rates.
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