Does the threat of grizzly bear attacks justify allowing guns in schools? That’s what Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, suggested Wednesday during her Senate confirmation hearing.
When asked if she believes guns have no place in schools, DeVos said the decision is best left to the states. When pressed further, she cited Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi’s story about a school in Wapiti using a fence to keep out bears. “I think probably there, I would imagine there is probably a gun in a school to protect from potential grizzlies,” DeVos said.
Given that DeVos did not cite any other reason for needing a gun on school property, let’s look at the likelihood of a school grizzly attack.
Grizzly attacks in general are rare. There have been just 11 fatal attacks from brown bears, of which grizzlies are a subspecies, since 2010 in the United States, and just 12 in the 2000s. There are certainly bears in Wyoming, which contains most of Yellowstone National Park. (Wapiti School is about 25 miles from Yellowstone.) Although the park harbors more bears than anywhere in the US but Montana, there were just 38 people injured by grizzlies from 1980 to 2015, according to the National Park Service. During that same time, there were 104 million visitors — meaning the chances of being injured by a bear, even in Yellowstone, are still just 1 in 2.7 million.
Okay, you may say, but aren’t there some areas of the park that are more unsafe, bear-wise, than others? Yes, there are. If you remain in developments, roadsides, and boardwalks, the chances of injury by bear drop to 1 in 25.1 million. And if you camp in a roadside campground, you’re still at 1 in 22.8 million. Where things get more risky is in the backcountry.
Merely staying for a night in the backcountry carries a 1 in 1.4 million chance, and actively traveling through it carries a risk of 1 in 232,000 “person travel days.” So if, say, you’re parading a band of elementary schoolers through the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park, a gun may be a good idea.
But wait, are bears known to attack groups of people? No, they are not. If you examine the fatal bear attacks in Yellowstone, of which there have only been eight from 1872 to 2015, you’ll notice a commonality. The last two people to die, in August 2011 and August 2015, were hiking by themselves. The third-most-recent victim to die, in July 2011, was in a party of two. Prior records, which don’t include another death until way back in 1986, don’t indicate party size. But according to Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance, by Stephen Herrero, no death has ever been recorded in a group of six or more people. Statistics for party size in non-fatal bear attacks are not available, but the rule is the same. In fact, one of National Geographic’s recommendations for not getting attacked by a bear is to travel in a group. In other words, a bear attack on a classroom of six or more people would be highly irregular.
In fact, no grizzly attacks have ever been recorded on an American school ground. The closest incident involves a boy who was killed on the way home from school in 1933 after stopping to feed a pet bear chained outside an inn.
A much more likely scenario is a school shooting. Since 2013 alone, there have been more than 200 school shootings, according to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an independent, non-partisan organization. Already this year, a gun was discharged without injury at an Alabama middle school, and a man killed himself at a community college in Ohio. And if trends since 2013 continue, we can expect an average of a school shooting nearly every week in 2017.
Numbers aside, not even the superintendent of the school district DeVos was referring to wants guns in schools. When reached by CNN, Ray Schulte confirmed the presence of fences to keep out wildlife and added, “We do not allow weapons on school property.”
He also noted that grizzly bears are currently in hibernation.
