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The Huffington Post recently ran a story featuring Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA saying that,

"Putting police and armed security guards in our schools to protect our children ... it's the one thing that would keep people safe"

Is a school with a regular police presence or armed security less likely to be involved in a school shooting incident?

This is not the same as this question about your average bystander, but about qualified, trained guards or police.

Coomie
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    Maybe it's a detail but "would" indicates an opinion, not a certainty, and we can't predict the future. – Sklivvz Feb 23 '18 at 07:17
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    @Skliwz Schools in the US regularly have police or armed security. So there should be information on whether it is effective or not. – Coomie Feb 23 '18 at 07:36
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    Can we find a claim that the current schools with armed security are safer. then? The claim you posted says something different, i.e. that extending this has a specific effect. This is to say, it's well known for example that putting security cameras makes an area safer, but does not diminish crime levels as it just moves crime to darker alleys. So these are two different, even if similar, claims. – Sklivvz Feb 23 '18 at 08:53
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    Wait, this is also a dupe of https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/40750/would-arming-teachers-prevent-or-lessen-us-school-schootings and https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/14123/what-is-the-value-of-armed-bystanders-in-preventing-gun-deaths – Sklivvz Feb 23 '18 at 08:58
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    What does "safer" mean? If you're talking about mass murders, then US schools are already 99% safe from those, regardless of security. There might be a do-able study on gun incidents, but there are so many factors, that trying to measure the effect of armed security would be difficult (since armed security is very rare in US schools, outside of large events like sports games). Until these points are clarified, this is just about opinions. – Clay07g Feb 23 '18 at 16:50
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    @Clay07g There won't be a study on gun incidents. The NRA lobbied and Congress obeyed, legislatively forbidding the CDC to even *try* to study the patterns. – Shadur Feb 24 '18 at 11:55
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    @Shadur Ah, yes, the NRA's invisible force field that prevents each and every person from looking at the data that's publicly available. Forgot that the CDC is the only entity that can do studies. The main reason there are no studies is because schools don't have armed security guards in the US, except for a select few you have patrolling sheriff deputies (which hardly count), and maybe some extremely high crime rate areas like Chicago who have stationed officers. You can't compare these two groups because one barely even exists. – Clay07g Feb 25 '18 at 17:12
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    This question contains a *post hoc ergo propter hoc* fallacy big enough to drive a school bus through. Will you next suggest that the prevalence of detectives at crime scenes tells us whether detectives cause crime? – Ben Voigt Feb 28 '18 at 02:39
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    @Coomie: Some schools perceive that they are at higher risk of attacks (especially from outside the school community), so they post armed guards. [Examples from Australia.](http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/armed-guards-increasingly-common-in-australian-schools/news-story/cf6cf81bd9e2c6fba11f3409dbf86759) Because they had a higher risk of attack than most schools *before* posting armed guards, we can't generalise any data about attacks on those schools to unarmed schools. A randomised trial would address the question, but is unlikely to have been carried out. – Oddthinking Feb 28 '18 at 02:58
  • @BenVoigt Perhaps if we had information that said the detective was at a crime scene before and during a crime we could point to that detective causing crime, yes. I'm suggesting comparing pre-police and post-police crime rates. – Coomie Feb 28 '18 at 07:34
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    @Coomie: But just as detectives go to scenes in response to crime, armed guards are placed at schools in response to threats and violence. Schools with guards almost certainly have more problems than those without (as predicted by Bayes' Rule), but the strong correlation doesn't prove causation. The problem is the selection bias. – Ben Voigt Feb 28 '18 at 07:43
  • Possible duplicate of [What is the value of armed bystanders in preventing gun deaths?](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/14123/what-is-the-value-of-armed-bystanders-in-preventing-gun-deaths) – SIMEL Feb 28 '18 at 11:38
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    I can't see this as a duplicate. Armed guards are different from armed bystanders. – DJClayworth Feb 28 '18 at 14:33

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