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This has always annoyed me. I know a few people even IRL who say with a straight face they are afraid to send their kids to school because of not just gun violence but mass shootings specifically. I'm incredulous. First because it remains rare enough that reacting to it, especially in an area as important as basic childhood education, is illogical. It's like developing agoraphobia from lightning strikes, as a lazy example. There are some fears that are unhelpful. Second, by legitimizing this fear, we actually propagate it. Kids are especially sensitive to these kinds of signals from adults, and may go on to develop real, illogical, and damaging fears and phobias based on their legitimization. Which is extra frustrating because some on the left seem at least aware of this on some level, because we are pretty sure that the way the media treats mass shootings is a self-fulfilling prophesy because of the increased number of copy-cat shooters.
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