You need to compare the whole of Europe (EU, EEA, whatever) to be roughly comparrable to "the US"

Finland is about the same size of say Minnesota, and Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

The UK has 1/5th of the population of the US, and 12x the population of Minnesota.

The last school shooting was the Dunblane Massacre in 1996, which led to gun law changes, removing rights to have handguns and various semi-automatic weapons.

I'm not sure how many occurred before then, but the total number of mass shootings in the UK is low. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_... to get a feel for how rare this sort of attack is in any setting here in the UK.

So for the last 25 years we've had no school shootings. I believe the US as a whole has had >300 shootings so far this year, with >300 victims.

You clearly missed the sarcasm

> Minnesota hasn't had a major school shooting since August

Ok, i'll turn the sarcasm detector up a notch :)

Exactly, across the whole of Europe it's more than once a decade.

Definitely not as bad as the US though, I acknowledge that, but people tend to paint it in black and white terms when the reality is messier

If this map [0] is accurate, in the past ~60 years Europe had 166 school shootings while the US had 2980. That's 18x more shootings in the US compared to Europe.

Shootings per million people 0.22 in Europe vs. 8.68 for the US, 40x difference. Deaths, US has 1111 and Europe 662, more than half of which happened in what's more accurately described as an organized terrorist attack rather than a school shooting (the Beslan school siege [1]).

Your comment is definitely trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort.

[0] https://brilliantmaps.com/school-shooting-maps/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege

I literally said that: 1. It's way worse in the US 2. It still happens in Europe

That seems also like what you're saying?

Edit: It is true that in the UK this is pretty much unheard of since handguns were banned after Dunblane (it is literally impossible to get a handgun legally, Team GB pistol shooters have to train abroad).

So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far

Personal Protection Weapons are technically still a thing, as a result of the ECHR Article 2 which says that the state has a positive duty to protect life.

I don't think numbers are published for mainland GB, but it's likely less than a thousand - perhaps even just a few dozen. The Home Secretary has to authorise the licence, and they're limited to people with a verifiable active threat against their life.

(There are more in Northern Ireland as a legacy of the troubles - 2,924 in 2012, probably closer to 2,000 now. The rules are a little more lax, with the PSNI Chief Constable being sufficient for sign-off.)

A PPW firearms certificate allows a handgun of up to 9mm/.38 calibre, and up to 50 rounds of ammunition.

But none have been used in a school shooting, of course.

Interesting, I didn't know that, I always thought it was literally police/security services only.

Also worth pointing out for non UK people: you can still legally licence shotguns (relatively easily) and some kinds of rifle (not so easily). Shotguns are somewhat common in the countryside but other guns (even rifles) are quite rare

So if you’re wealthy and have connections, you can get a gun in the UK?

Sure, if there's a verifiable active threat against your life.

I'd honestly expect most PPW holders in GB to be prison officers. There'll be a few wealthier folk in NI as a hangover from the troubles - business owners who refused to pay protection money, high court judges who sat on prominent terrorist trials, that sort of thing.

But the criteria are much the same as those for being afforded police protection, so your actual billionaires and dukes would almost certainly opt for that instead if they were under that sort of threat.

> So yes to be fair that kind of very extreme approach does seem to work so far

I do not see evidence that the approach works. There were very few school shootings (or any shootings, really) before the handgun ban too. There are only two on this list that predate the handgun ban: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

The UK has a lower per capita level of knife murders than the US too so its not just access to guns that is an issue.

What about school stabbings? Or use of other weaponry or substances?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_stabbings_in_the_...

3 in the last year, none in a school. I'm not sure what your point is.

The point is that guns are not the only weapon that are used to harm people. Fewer guns does not necessarily prevent people from harming others. If making comparisons between countries, account for the population of the country and that guns are not necessarily used in the same frequency in all countries so we should be looking at school incidents as a whole including stabbing, shootings, automobiles, or other lethal methods.

What you said stays equally true even if every US school had a shooting morning, noon, and evening, while Europe had exactly 2 shootings ever, both in the past 10 years. A statement of fact can be worthless or misleading too if presented a certain way.

That's why I didn't say you were factually wrong but that you're trying to play down the reality in one giant whataboutism effort. Whataboutism is all misdirection and deflection rather than factually wrong statements.

Finland had one last year, and the previous one in 2008, "since August" doesn't say much.