Talk:Gun violence in U.S. schools

Statistics in the lead section
There are a range of statistics in the lead section of this article that are not analysed in further detail in the body of the article. This starts with the assertion in the first sentence that Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens under the age of 20 in the United States. This is misleading, as the article is about Gun violence in U.S. schools, not Gun violence against U.S. children. Additionally, the cited source says "... firearm injuries were the leading cause of death among children and teens ages 1-19 in 2020 and 2021." This statement includes all sources of injuries, including accidental ones, and says nothing about how many occurred in U.S. schools. This is an invalid synthesis of the research, because it mis-represents the research statistics purporting to say something they do not. This is a form of editorial bias.

The rest of the first couple of paragraphs also consists of statistics that are not explained elsewhere so their importance and overall relevance to the topic is unclear. If one looks at the statistics in the lead one might conclude this is not a huge problem because, on average, a person is killed in one of two incidents, and about one other person is injured, per incident. However, the title of the cited research would suggest, on average, over 90 children experience each incident. Without a comparative analysis of whether these numbers are statistically meaningful, or not, in the context of the population of school pupils in U.S. schools, it is not possible to properly quantify the extent of the problem.

The last few lead sentences do observe that there are different political and policy responses, but no assessment of how effective these responses might be. One thing that is lacking from the lead is any international comparisons about the extent of this issue in other countries. As a reader, I am left wondering if this problem is unique to U.S. schools or symptomatic of a wider problem in education or simply a subset of gun violence in the United States. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 01:54, 31 March 2024 (UTC)