School Shootings, Dick's Sporting Goods, And Real Numbers

Dick's Sporting Goods, Walmart, and Kroger's “Fred Meyer” stores have announced they will no longer sell rifles to anyone under the age of 21. This was done following the Parkland, Florida, shooting because the shooter is only 19.

Let's take a look at the supposed wisdom of this decision.

Since 2009 there have been 156 school shootings. They varied in scope, magnitude and number of victims but there were 156 shootings that were somehow school related, according to reports.

Of those 156 shooters only two were under the age of 21. If you do the math it comes out to .012%. So Dick's, Walmart and Kroger's decisions are hopefully going to prevent about 1/10^th of 1% of future school shootings? Talk about overreaction.

I'm not trying to minimize what happened in Parkland. It was tragic. But neither the gun nor the age of the shooter were the problem. The problem in Florida was the lack of action taken by law enforcement when they not only made contact with the shooter multiple times but were told that he openly stated he wanted to be the next school shooter.

So Dick's, Walmart, and Kroger you can pat yourselves on the back if and when another shooter under 21 opens fire at a school and your name doesn't appear in the headlines as being the store that sold him the gun. But based on the numbers above the chances of that happening are miniscule. I wouldn't be boasting about it yet. It's likely you're going to get sued over it.