aristidedn

Hi Sophie,

One of the more frequently discussed dimensions of influence operations - especially in the United States - is the observed disparity between operations that target people with right-aligned political views and people with left-aligned political views.

In the data you ran, what did you observe with respect to political alignment? And if you did observe a disparity, how wide was the divide? Do you have any theories as to why you observe this?

Per the National Center for Education Statistics (part of the federal Department of Education), in the 2017-18 school year (the most recent year for which data is available), fully 45% of high schools nationwide had an armed SRO assigned to and present on campus.

(This doesn't include LEO, so the actual percentage of schools with armed security staff on site is even higher.)

To be as clear as possible:

Despite 45% of high schools having SROs on-site, only 0.5% of shootings are stopped by SROs.

Given that, does it sound like putting armed security staff in every school is an effective way of solving the school gun violence problem?

(The answer is: No.)

Well, now, that isn’t entirely true. Obsidian frequently does comment on rumors or speculation in order to deny them when they are false - see any of the responses over the last few years to rumors that Obsidian has acquired the license for or been selected to develop new Star Wars or Fallout games.

The shift in behavior away from denying false rumors outright to not commenting on rumors is actually a pretty good indication that the rumors are not baseless.

In case you were wondering whether a hot take this stupid was brought to you by a Trump supporter, yes. Yes, it was.

I used that language to highlight that it actually is very common for SROs to be present on high school campuses. The WaPo reporters were not being at all misleading by characterizing SRO intervention the way they did.