Giving Compass' Take:

• Mike Males argues that schools are relatively safe from gun violence compared to the United States overall, and the rest of the country should be figuring out how to replicate schools' safety success. 

• Why do school shootings often dominate the conversation around gun violence? In light of these statistics, what would effective safety measures look like? 

• Learn how communities can reduce gun violence.

Over the 12 months leading up to May 18, 2018, a gun was fired in 63 American schools, including 24 where homicides occurred. We can all agree that should be zero.

However, it is crucial to point out that the United States has 130,000 public and private elementary and secondary schools attended by 52 million students and 5 million teachers and staff.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projections indicate during the past 12 months Americans suffered approximately 15,500 gun homicides (along with 31,000 gun injuries).  Of these, Everytown for Gun Safety reports, 38 gun deaths and 71 injuries occurred in or around a school.

Per person-hour spent at school, students and adults in America’s schools are only slightly more likely to be gun homicide victims than the general population in Denmark.

For all gun killings (including homicides, suicides, and accidents), American schools are safer than most of western Europe.

School time occupies around one-sixth of school-age children’s total hours, but schools are the sites of fewer than 3 percent of students’ gun homicides; the other 97 percent occur somewhere other than school. In fact, the most likely place for a child to be shot and killed is at home, with the shooter most likely to be an adult in the household.

Features that make American schools and modern teenagers uniquely safe from shootings could inform social and gun policies in a country whose overall gun homicide rate is 15 times higher than in other Western countries.

Read the full article about gun safety in America by Mike Males at YES! Magazine.