We had our trauma but here we are at the start of school year with the first shooting
Posted by Lovethisjourney4me@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 248 comments
Yeah, our parents kind of ignored us and let us roam free. But damn we didn’t worry about getting shot at school.
bmiddy@reddit
This.
1000 times this.
I see these STUPID memes about how previous generations had it sooo much tougher and we're so bad ass and we lived without gps and cell phones.
Then when I say, yea man, but we didn't go to school and think about and be TRAINED ON active shooter drills, ding dongs get SUPER defensive.
Bro, hit me up when you remember getting military combat training in school to deal with high stress, high trauma situation then get back to me.
Expensive_Stretch141@reddit
To be fair though, kids did train for what to do if their city got nuked while at school back in the day. That seems a just a wee bit more high-stress and traumatic.
Brewdude77@reddit
This will never be normal to me. Still strange to think that we were doing duck and cover drills into the 70's (if you grew up near a military base), and thought that was the worst possible thing that could ever happen to us.
Expensive_Stretch141@reddit
Idk. As awful and tragic as school shootings are, nuclear war sounds far worse. For the whole world.
dragonchilde@reddit
I love about 2 hours from it. One in high school, one just graduated. When I told them, they just blinked and moved on. They're so desensitized.
Expensive_Stretch141@reddit
That's a sign of secondhand trauma. Be there for them whenever they need it and be ready to answer any questions that they may have. Sending hugs through the screen.
I_Am_Telekinetic@reddit
This should not be the new normal.
potato_for_cooking@reddit
It has been for years. It's appalling and embarrassing.
daisydawg2020@reddit
We're 30 minutes away from this school. I have two high schoolers. My kids went to a football game there recently. Kids and teachers at our high school have friends and family members that were in that school yesterday. It's horrible. To make things even worse, some kids were watching video of the shootings all day on TikTok and Snapchat. My kids say they're okay, but deep down they can't be.
wellbloom@reddit
Also from Georgia. My friend’s daughter attends this high school. Definitely terrifying!
Powerpoppop@reddit
We're less than an hour away. I have two kids in high school (one 14). I didn't even mention it. We're all desensitized and it sucks.
cassssk@reddit
In my high school, late 80s, rural bumfuck Texas, dude walked right up the classroom aisles in his math class, pulled out a gun and shot the teacher in the face in front of the class. (Teacher lived and returned to the classroom.) This trauma has gone on for a long long time.
ReggieDub@reddit
Where are you from? While I don’t resemble bumfuck Texas, I’m from coastal Texas and know bumfuck Texas.
cassssk@reddit
Western part of Texas. I lovingly refer to my birthlands as “the armpit of Texas.” Zero stars, do no recommend.
ReggieDub@reddit
Where are you from? While I don’t resemble bumfuck Texas, I’m from coastal Texas and know bumfuck Texas.
Cultural-Parsley-408@reddit
I’m a teacher. I worry about getting shot at school now, or more so, I have gone over a hundred different plans in my mind. They built a fence around the school with a buzzer, but still, do we go to the left, and try to make it out the side gate ? Do I try to squeeze them in with the art supplies?I’m an older Xer, too old for this.
Top_Quit_9148@reddit
I totally agree, it's horrible and ridiculous that we're dealing with this. I'm a substitute teacher now, work in elementary schools. Last year due to a technology glitch one of our drills lasted way longer than it should have. We were all getting nervous and the kids kept asking what was going on. We're also instructed to not open the door once in lockdown even if we think it's a student because the shooter could be with them. The thinking is possibly sacrificing one is better than a whole classroom full. I never thought I'd be making this kind of choice! Now this year has barely begun and there's already a shooting, one hour from where I live in Georgia. It makes me sick and my heart breaks for the victims and their families. I am just so done with this and not sure I can work in a school anymore. I may end up working retail but so be it.
cyranothe2nd@reddit
Crazy how used to terrorism we have all gotten. The first school shooting I ever heard of was in 1995 in my home town. 3 people died and our town was never the same. Now that is happening dozens of times a year, plus in malls, theaters, etc. Absolutely insane how normalized mass violence has become.
blackhorse15A@reddit
"...I ever heard of..." May be doing a lot of work here. You're making a statement about your perception and not one about the total reality of the world.
It is interesting that apparent rise in mass school shootings begins just after the introduction of gun free school zones in 1990. Also the growth of the Internet.
But school shootings are not anything new. The first school shooting in America was in 1764. It was the worst school massacre until 1966 University Texas tower shooting. And the worst K-12 shootinh until Columbine in 1999. It is still the #7 highest number of deaths for a school shooting with 11 deaths.
A recent research study begins it's conclusion with the following:
The main points of the article are that many of the typical "solutions" that are brought up or implemented are known to not do anything based on the research. Scientific methods based on evidence says they don't work.
Shootings and school homicides have been going on for a long time. They were high in the 1970s, dropped in the 1980s and back up in the 1990s.
What's maybe more interesting about exaggerated perception is to consider that a school child in America is more likely to be struck by lightening than to be shot at school. I'm not saying it isn't horrible and traumatic if a child is killed. I'm not saying to do absolutely nothing at all. But we do need to understand what the risk is in reality and how it relates to other risks. Then act accordingly. If children and parents and teachers are under the misperception that they gave a constant imminent threat of being shot and they aren't likely to make it to graduation without it happening - that's a problem, and we should fix it.
defixiones@reddit
Wow, is it true that hundreds of children are hit by lightning in school every year?
blackhorse15A@reddit
No. And hundreds of k-12 students are not shot at school every year either.
defixiones@reddit
Last year was a bit quieter (63) but there were 140 in 2022;
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-over-time-incidents-injuries-and-deaths
Lightning injuries are a little harder to come by but there were 14 fatalities in 2023;
http://www.lightningsafetycouncil.org/Summary-of-2023-Fatal-Lightning-Incidents.pdf
So on average 70 k-12 students have been shot every year since 2018 but very few people at all are killed by lightning. I hope you aren't an actuary.
blackhorse15A@reddit
I didn't say killed by lightning I said struck. According to the National Weather Services, that averages 270 a year
defixiones@reddit
That figure is for the total population, not K-12 students.
blackhorse15A@reddit
Yes, and when you divide by the total population you get the risk probability. We are talking about "being struck by lightening" as the quintessential 'it can happen but is so rare it's not worth worrying about' benchmark. So how does something (children being shot in school shootings) compare to that?
National Center for Education Statistics reports 131 people killed in active shootings at K-12 schools between 2000-2022. Average 5.70 per year. There are 56.6M children enrolled in K-12 schools. Chance of a school child being killed in a school shooting is about 1 in 9,937,000. If we include injured+deaths its 14.26 per year, or a 1 in 3,969,000 chance. (And it's actually a little lower for the children because those casualty numbers include adults. But let's call it close enough and in the noise.)
National Weather Service reports the odds of an American being struck by lightening as 1 in 1,222,000 (the 270 strikes divided by the population). So whether we consider being killed in a school shooting or just shot in a school shooting, the risk is significantly lower than being struck by lightening.
"the impression [is] that school shootings are a growing epidemic in America. In truth, they're not." And, "it's misguided to put kids through metal detectors and active shooter drills" according to the well known ultra Conservative outlet....[checks notes]...NPR.
defixiones@reddit
The problem there is that you are measuring something that is relatively constant (lightning strikes per capita) against something trending upwards (school shootings). That's why when you extend the start date back from 2018 to 2000, the average number of schoolchildren shot per year drops.
In addition to as extending the timeline, you have minimised the number of shootings by excluding high school students and only counting fatalities. The automatic weapons ban was still in place in 2000.
Your statistics actually show 485 children shot in the time period you have chosen. And by extending the range, you have dropped the average from 70 to 22.
As a child, you are still more likely to be shot in school than hit by lightning and you will be even more likely to be shot in your classroom next year.
blackhorse15A@reddit
No. I didn't. I used the numbers for "elementary and secondary schools", which is K-12. Your 485 is adding in "postsecondary institutions". Postsecondary is university, college, and tradeschools, after high school. I.e. adults. Not children. (High school is secondary.)
No. If you go read again, you should notice I have provided both the fatalities only and also the total casualties including injuries.
Where are you getting the number 70 from? I can't find where in what you or I linked that number might come from.
A) I'm talking about casualties, not "school shootings". And especially not "school shootings" defined in a way that includes brandishing of weapons and cases where no shots were even fired and absolutely no one was injured. I.e. the definition used in the article you linked.
B) Let me quote your own source that you linked: "Despite the recent uptick in campus firearm incidents, the number of violent deaths of students in schools hasn’t followed a similar trendline and remains rare". So, no, the deaths and casualties I am discussing is not trending upwards.
As stated in your source- these are very rare events. Rare events are problematic from a statics standpoint because almost all of the data are outliers that would normally be excluded from analysis. That's why you need to consider lumps of data across wide time spans. That's why the lightening strike data is handled as average over multiple years, and why I took an average over years.
But if it makes you feel better, let's take a shorter window. 76 deaths in K-12 school shootings in the ten years of 2013-2022. Works out to 7.6 per year which is 1 in 7,447,000 odds. Or all casualties (killed+wounded) = 217 total or 21.7 per year. Which is 1 in 2,608,000. Even on this closer, smaller, set of data, it is still less likely than being struck by lightening.
How small do you want to make the window? It's not a trend. You're trying to take advantage that 2018 was a spike because one of the worst school shootings in the entire history of the country happened in that year. But that's the problem with rare events - stuff like that which is rare for a rare event occasionally happens. It's why you need to lump data together across several years. So how small will make you stop thinking it's just a trick to use old data to cover up a supposed recent upward trend? How about annual data? 12 month windows. Let's see: 36, 6, 12, 0, 11, 27, 81, 14, 0, 14, 52. That doesn't look like any trend at all- it's noisy data. 131
What's more, while NCES hasn't posted the 2023 data yet (that I could find) multiple other sources, using various different methodologies and definitions and ways of counting (like "in and around schools" instead of just schools) so the raw numbers aren't useful to combine here- but all of them using their slightly different ways of looking at it, conclude that casualties, deaths, injuries, dropped in 2023. Seems to be about 10%.
Let's say you want a 5 year window. Well that spikes moves back out of the .ost recent data. So the 2014-2018 total is 131. And the 2019-2023 total is at most 132, but probably will be around 126. Your upward "trend" suddenly points back down. At worst, flat. (FYI those are total injured+deaths in K-12 school shootings.) That's the problem with rare events data. It's noisy and spikey unless you average over long terms.
So let's consider that 5 year window. Even the worst case high is 26.4 per year. Or 1 in 2,2144,000 odds of a K-12 student being injured or killed in a school shooting at school. Which is still rarer than being struck by lightening.
As discussed above, this absolutely false and is not supported by the data. Even your own source that you referenced to support your claim says that numbers of deaths and injuries are down from their high in 2018. And in another place says these casualties are not trending up.
defixiones@reddit
I was curious about the lightning comparison and where it comes from, because it is very media-friendly. Only fatalities are recorded by the lightning safety council but the numbers are low compared to school casualties.
Anyway, as far as I could tell the comparison originates in an interview with Dr Peter Langman, an expert on school shootings;
https://ed.lehigh.edu/news-events/news/school-shooting-facts
However, you'll notice that the interview is from 2018 - after Parkland, but just as the trend was accelerating. In more recent interviews, Langman has struck a notably different tone;
https://www.wested.org/wested-bulletin/insights-impact/preventing-school-shootings-dr-peter-langman/
blackhorse15A@reddit
This is absolutely incorrect. The number I used is based on deaths plus injuries, not deaths alone. It's right there in black and white in a simple table and comes from the National Weather Service, like I said, and the link was provided.
If you can't be bothered to even look yourself, and would rather accuse me of misstating the facts without doing the simplest of checking yourself before you say things....then you're not engaging in honest debate.
Not all of us just parrot back what we heard from the media.
I have been making this comparison since before that article and interview even happened.
defixiones@reddit
I see another 4 people have been killed in a school shooting, 9 injured. What's the lightning strike tally today?
blackhorse15A@reddit
Based on NWS data, the estimate is 186 so far this year.
defixiones@reddit
Lol, is that "not worth shit" data? Because the National Weather Service don't collect statistics for school children.
defixiones@reddit
Here's the list of lightning-related fatalities I linked to earlier http://www.lightningsafetycouncil.org/LSC-Lightning-Fatalities.html
Feel free to add any of your own statistics as you regard yourself as the originator of the concept.
defixiones@reddit
You have narrowed the range to K-12 to exclude school shootings. Many students in universities, colleges and trade schools have not reached their majority.
You quoted the 131 fatalities from your link and left out the 197 children wounded.
It's the average shooting per year from the second diagram in the link; https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-over-time-incidents-injuries-and-deaths
The figures are for killed and injured children, not incidents. I don't think someone needs to be injured for it to be a 'school shooting incident' but that's not relevant here.
In this case 'violent deaths' also encompasses non-shooting related deaths. Shooting deaths and injuries are strongly trending upwards, as evidenced by the graph in the article.
You can only compare like with like and the trend in school shootings is a recent phenomenon. Lightning strikes have a long, stable history.
defixiones@reddit
Why have you now taken 2013 as a start date and where have you sourced these new figures? The article I provided gives 487 shot children since 2018, not 217.
You are looking at the figures for school shooting incidents rather than the casualty figures we are discussing. The longer time period (https://www.the74million.org/article/new-data-school-shootings-surge-to-a-record-high-two-years-in-a-row/) also indicates a rapidly growing number of shootings but I can only confirm the source for the 2018-2024 period.
As you say, the trend isn't linear - it's noisy and spiky.
132 is the figure for deaths, the total number of shot children in the 5 year window is 487. Are you using the Education Week source or statistics from somewhere else?
Again, I make that just under 70 per year for the 5 year window. Are you excluding non-fatal shootings or using a different source
As a child, you are still more likely to be shot in school than hit by lightning and you will be even more likely to be shot in your classroom next year
To reach this conclusion you have excluded children who were shot but didn't die and you have also included violent deaths that were not shooting-related. A one-year drop in 2023 does not change the trend.
cyranothe2nd@reddit
That is literally what I said and what I meant.
Of course not, but they are much more frequent and deadly now. There are about 2 mass shootings per day in the USA. You are minimizing a very rational fear -- that mass shootings are happening in public places in a massively increased rate since around 2001.
I do agree with you that misunderstanding why mass shootings happen can and will foul up proposed solutions, but I absolutely disagree that the perception of risk is exaggerated at all.
Also, after the fall of the USSR. Non sequiters are fun, aren't they?
SOURCES since some of you can't google shit:
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/31/us-mass-shooting-2-every-day-2023-stats
https://www.statista.com/statistics/811487/number-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us/
RiffRandellsBF@reddit
🎵 Tell me why, I Don't like Mondays.... 🎶
It happened long before 1995.
cyranothe2nd@reddit
Oh so know, but most people kinda cite Columbine as the trendsetter.
RiffRandellsBF@reddit
Boom Town Rats would agree. When they recorded their song about the San Diego shooting, it was such a uniquely horrifying event, no one who heard that song thought it would be repeated.
And then...well...fuck.
camelslikesand@reddit
And then Jeremy spoke in class
ImHereForThePies@reddit
To the the other kids with the pumped up kicks
Hockey_socks@reddit
April 20, 1999. I remember that date because I was in grade 12 on the other side of the continent in a similarly sized high school and all the cops came to our school and it was freaky vibes.
BCCommieTrash@reddit
Judging by the .88 Magnums in 80s comedy it wasn't taken seriously until Columbine, yeah.
Money_Magnet24@reddit
Do you have any sources of “that is happening dozens of times a year in malls, theaters etc ? “
Your statement seems so…cynical and misleading
cyranothe2nd@reddit
It isn't. Look it up.
Money_Magnet24@reddit
No, you provide sources . It’s your responsibility
I’ve reported your comment because it’s misleading
cyranothe2nd@reddit
Lol ooookay
The word "dozens" refers to at least 2 sets of 12. If we look at (this source)[https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings], There where 349 reported school shootings and 239 fatalities in the USA in 2023. That does not include mass shootings in other places, like malls and concerts.
So if anything, I vastly underestimated.
ornerybastage@reddit
Kent from Real Genius? Didn't know it was impression night.
Away-Equipment4869@reddit
You can just Google mass shootings in America. They are almost a daily occurance.
Money_Magnet24@reddit
No I can’t
There are no mass shootings in America
You need to be very specific with your comment
Provide primary sources and in news sources or reports and links
Here’s your chance to prove me wrong
I’ve reported your comment because it’s misleading
Either provide sources or I will continue my contact with you the Mods
Away-Equipment4869@reddit
Okay you do that. I hope that works out for you.
Money_Magnet24@reddit
Don’t you want to prove me wrong and redeem yourself ?
Where’s the sources for mass shootings ?
Need them ASAP.
Hilsam_Adent@reddit
First school shooting I remember was the Cleveland School Shooting in San Diego back in '79. There were plenty before that, too, but I wasn't alive for those.
Not a school, but I also vividly remember the McDonald's massacre also in San Diego in '84, Luby's in Killeen, TX in '91 and the list goes on.
It's been going on a long time. Fixing the issue is a monumental task and neither side of the argument has any good solutions, sadly.
elissapool@reddit
And you guys still think it's a good thing to be able to own guns. It baffles me. My American friend who now lives here in UK says she is astounded at how much safer she feels living here, for herself and her children
Leadmelter@reddit
You do realize that us gun toting yanks saved your ass in 2 world wars. That killed 10’s of millions of people. So peaceful.
elissapool@reddit
Oh please
oneupme@reddit
If you ignore the stabbings, of course.
SoMuchForSubtlety@reddit
I like my odds of surviving being stabbed with a 6" knife a lot better than being hit with a hollow point hydroshock expanding bullet fired at ~400 mph from someone 40' away from me. But you do you, man.
vividtangerinedream@reddit
I feel so bad for not only the victim's families, but every single student in the school who feared they would not get to go home.
No matter what, we live in a different time. In our time there were no semi-automstic rifles with or without modifications. I was raised in a family of hunters, and as a female, would go out hunting with them from a very young age. This was the norm for rural South Georgia.
It's time to take a real long look at common sense gun regulations. No one wants to come get anyone's guns, I don't want anyone coming to get mine. But if laws were passed to ban the type weapons used in these shootings, that weren't a thing when we were in school, I would give it up in a heartbeat to protect my granddaughter who is in 4th grade in North Georgia. We did not fear school and here we are sending kids to places they can be shot and killed on a daily basis. It no longer happens here and there, this is the 45th one this year. We, as a nation, should be ashamed of it and do something. But no, we clutch our guns even tighter.... How selfish we are.
No, I don't care if I'm voted down. I would like to leave this planet in a better way than I found it and have allowed it to fester. If a school shooter lives through it, the parents should be sent to jail the same amount of time as their kid.
Sawathingonce@reddit
A few kids in my school was so dedicated to hunting that they'd bring their guns in a rifle rack attached to their truck's back window so they could go right from school.
Helmett-13@reddit
Same, guys had folding Buck knives as well. We had availability of firearms and knives on campus and on people but didn’t shoot up our schools or go on stabbing sprees.
Hell, I had a battered Marlin lever action behind the seat in my little pickup truck when I was 18 as well.
What changed??
EmmyNoetherRing@reddit
So I assume I’ll be downvoted, but when I was a kid our fiction/media had more gang violence fantasies than urban warfare fantasies—- if you wanted to picture shooting someone the trope was more about dark alleys than office buildings. In late high school there was Doom, and a batch of movies with mass violence inside buildings, and my first year of college there was Columbine.
I honestly wonder if some of it was delayed cultural trauma from the wars in Iraq. America has always had a taste for violence, but our imagery of it shifted to aim at regular civilians.
Helmett-13@reddit
I’m really not sure, it’s puzzling.
Our media now is almost Puritan to the late 70s and the entire 80s.
Maybe the shift in setting, as you said, since Time Square and typical places that were violent became less-so over the years. It became closer to home as ‘Crime Alley’ was less of a thing?
Violent crime has decreased over 40% since the late 1960s but it doesn’t seem that way.
Turbulent-Bus-8876@reddit
In what way is today's media "Puritan" now? Have you seen how graphic movie and TV shows have become?
EmmyNoetherRing@reddit
It’s probably shifted where it’s happening.
bmiddy@reddit
The ready availability and ease of access.
Look at the legislation that was in place during your years as a kid.
Helmett-13@reddit
I can’t tell if you’re saying there is more access or less but it was much easier to obtain a firearm in 1989 than it is today.
I walked into a pawn shop two days after my 18th birthday, put down my drivers license, filled out the yellow form, gave them $125 bucks and walked out with a Marlin lever action rifle in .35 Remington inside of 15 minutes. It went behind the seats of my truck and stayed there my senior year in high school, in the parking lot, along with many trucks having shotguns and rifles hanging in window racks in plain view, in that same parking lot.
It’s not access that’s easier.
I worked part time at gun ranges and gun stores during my time in the military in the 1990s and early 2000s and the process was more stringent with live background checks via phone and digital systems. If any kind of flag was raised you got a three day wait to see if it would clear.
Sometimes, we called the Sheriff’s Office ourselves.
I had a customer that was a Lt. Col that flew Apache helicopters and had a clearance but his name was close to someone else with a record and he had to wait three days, every time.
The owner of the store vociferously stated, “I don’t care if they pass the background check, if you’ve got a bad feeling, don’t complete the sale. I’d rather lose a customer than sell a gun to a legal psycho.”
There are more gun laws on the books, now.
Again…there is no access to firearms in schools now whereas we could walk out to our vehicles and obtain one when I was in school in the 1980s.
I don’t know what’s changed but it’s not access.
I’d like to know the root cause.
GenXChefVeg@reddit
Before Columbine, it never occurred to me to shoot a school or even buy a gun. Having been bullied all through high school, and my requests for help ignored by school staff, why didn't this ever cross my mind? It was was just so so far out there of a concept. Now it's a) a common occurrence, and b) automatic weapons are easy to get.
Alex_Plode@reddit
I was a never a gun guy, but I grew up with a shitload of gun guys. The gun guys back in our day respected the tool, respected the weapon. Go to a gun range and start acting a fool and you get a boot in your backside and never allowed back.
The gun guys were the last guys to worry about when it came to gun ownership. I feel like that still holds true, more or less.
What changed is that "gun culture" spread into other cultures where, quite frankly, it never fucking belonged. It was glorified through channels like movies, TV and yes, the NRA. Guns weren't for gun guys anymore, they were for everyone.
Fuck 2A, not everyone needs a gun. There are many, many people who should never own a gun. But because it's every American's birthright to own one, let's glorify this terrible, terrible idea.
Not only is the genie out of the bottle on this one, but the whole damn genie's family. There's no quick answer here anymore.
I will say this -- The NRA had their chance to get ahead of this. They could have got out in front of this issue, worked with legislators, community groups, etc. to get out in front of it. The NRA has the money, the backing and the power to police its own, so to speak. But they chose not to. In effect, the NRA let groups who are afraid of guns, gun owners and the culture to dictate policy. They basically left this problem to the least qualified people to solve it.
When the guns go away, just remember this.
JokersWyld@reddit
To directly answer your questions about what changed at schools. Schools are now "Gun-Free" zones and become soft targets.
bmiddy@reddit
LOL, stop being obtuse. We had massive firearms legislation in place. When it was repealed. Boom. Dead kids.
We had ALL KINDS OF FIREARMS legislation. We slowly repealed it and when we repealed the assault weapons ban. KABLOW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_United_States
Get your head out of your gun nozzle.
bmiddy@reddit
People can easily obtain an assault rife to mass kill people. We also SUPER fetishize violence here at an early age so, yea, gun violence.
America has sorta just said, f-it, let the kids deal with combat style violence we don't really give a f. This is mainly due to right wing interference in laws being passed to try and deal with a real pressing problem. Instead they go on about, can't do anything, thoughts prayers, then more dead kids.
smackmycrack50@reddit
My answer to this? We had our trauma as kids? Kids are fucking ruthless. I'm talking 70' 80' wise. Thing is? I get this. Dad was probably a kid that got fucked with. I obviously don't condone this. Anyone asking?I took a gun to school in 82'. I grew up with them. You get fucked with for so long? This happens.
smackmycrack50@reddit
I showed the kid I wanted to shoot the gun.
smackmycrack50@reddit
He didn't tell on me. Never fucked with me again.
Helmett-13@reddit
Man, I went to high school and there were trucks in the senior parking lot with rifles and shotguns in window racks. I had a battered old Marlin lever action behind the seat in my little Datsun pickup when I turned 18 after buying it for $125 bucks at a pawn shop.
Guys had folding Buck knives in little leather sheaths on their belts.
No one got shot.
No one got stabbed.
So, despite there being firearms on campus and knives on people we didn’t do this.
What changed? You can’t have either on a campus now and there are 25,000 gun laws on the books and gun free zones but now it happens??!?
keirmeister@reddit
Respectfully, that’s not the right question.
What changed? Simple: American society changed.
This entire subreddit is about how different things are now than when we were kids - for better or for worse. The world changes, technology changes, how we look at things changes. Now that we have kids in this different world, how have our values changed?
The REAL question is what are we going to do to adapt to this new reality?
Helmett-13@reddit
Looking for a root cause to try and fashion a fix is in indeed a good question even if no one is interested in figuring it out in this thread.
I’m not sure any policy or fix is going to work well if we pave over a root cause and throw stuff to see what sticks.
keirmeister@reddit
What is the root cause for Saturday morning cartoons no longer be as ritualistic for kids?
My point is that sometimes a Root Cause Analysis is irrelevant; you have to deal with the immediate emergency based on the current patterns.
Our kids are getting shot and murdered in their schools, and the U.S. seems to be the only country with this problem. What root cause do we need to understand before we TRY some things to stop it (or at least get it to happen less often)?
“Let’s look at mental illness!” Great. Do that. But what are we going to do to stop the shootings RIGHT NOW? “Arm the teachers!” No. Think a couple steps ahead and you’ll understand why this is insane. “Turn schools into fortresses!” Maybe, but go back to the mental health question. “Outlaw guns for children under 18!” Perhaps that’s a good start. For chrissakes, they can’t drink, vote or smoke, but owning a gun is fine? “Make parents criminally liable for not securing their guns!” I’m listening…is that fair? Maybe, if their kids shoots up a place. “Ban weapons such as AR-15’s!” Not a huge issue for school shootings, but should probably be done in general (yes, I snuck that one in there.) “Restrict access to heavy metal music and violent video games!” Studies show there’s no correlation to gun violence. “Allow prayer in the schools!” Aside from it being patently unconstitutional, there’s also the question of “to which god?”
Helmett-13@reddit
You can't legally purchase a long gun (rifle or shotgun) until you're 18 and a handgun until you're 21.
We had long guns, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles, in our vehicles in the school parking lot for seniors, when I was in high school 1985-1989. Once I turned 18 I also had an old lever action rifle in my truck behind the seats.
Firearms, even semi-automatic ones, were on campus and readily available, if a student walked out to their vehicle.
It was easier to obtain a firearm legally as well as electronic background checks weren't prevalent yet, just a yellow form...that if you lied on was a felony, of course, but you went on record for the purchase.
It's more difficult to obtain firearms, schools are gun free zones, and yet we have mass shootings.
Availability to firearms is not a factor, as noted.
So far your solution is to gather up all the firearms or make them illegal?
Despite the fact that having firearms actually on campus during a time when it was slightly easier to legally obtain them resulted in very, very few shootings?
I've seen speculation that since violent crime has decreased by over 40% during the last few decades society has moved from an idea of a Crime Alley, Times Square, or 'bad part of town' being prevalent for violence to one where it's in our neighborhoods instead might be a factor.
You seem disdainful of any other solution other than confiscation, which would result in legal gun owners becoming felons with the stroke of a pen for non-compliance, and a root cause still escapes us both.
keirmeister@reddit
I read what you just wrote and notice you haven’t offered a single solution.
Also, I don’t know what area you grew up, but in the places I’ve lived, you weren’t allowed to just have guns hanging out in your truck. People didn’t feel the need to have such things lying around unsecured.
So yeah, the same kids can go stabbing folk, but a gun in their hands makes them more lethal to more people at a time. That’s our reality now. And yeah, I want to cute down on the proliferation of guns on our society. You’ll be just fine, and a law-abiding citizen will stay that way unless he decides to buy something illegally or use it to kill folks because he snapped.
Simply stated, American society, as a whole, has demonstrated that it can no longer handle unfettered access to firearms. Again, that’s our reality now. Confiscating some firearms is a start. Or do you value ownership of these weapons over the lives and safety of others, including children?
Helmett-13@reddit
I didn’t say I had a solution, I’ve been wondering out loud why, when there were firearms on campus and students had access to them, we didn’t have school shootings.
I’ve been asking and also speculating about what the Hell has changed so much.
People hunted where I grew up, there were injured animals and livestock (a neighbor hit a Brahma coming home at 2AM from a road trip, it nearly killed him and destroyed his dump truck, but only mauled the bull…who he had to shoot, regretfully despite the circumstances) and I had to put down a doe who was mangled but alive after being hit by a Camaro.
Sometimes guys went hunting right after school. I fished, instead.
But the rifle was a tool with a specific purpose much like a fire extinguisher is; better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
As for law-abiding citizens being ‘just fine’ I can cite cases where the ATF and the President made people felons if they did not turn in or destroy previously legal parts of firearms with the stroke of a pen. No law, no accountability and that’s just within the last 10 years.
I have no trust in that assertion that we will be ‘just fine’. Ruby Ridge is a tragic example of this.
The, “when did you stop beating your wife”, false equivalence is a tired trope and addresses nothing.
I point out that “think of the children” is one of the most common insincere pearl-clutching tropes out there.
It’s been used to justify mass surveillance. It’s been used to justify the destruction of a person’s right to privacy through encryption. And it’s been used to falsely smear politicians and people and create ridiculous conspiracy theories, and revoke the rights of LGBTQ children as well.
The worst part is, most people who use the trope rarely actually care about children, and that’s unfortunately true in the case of gun control advocates as well. Instead of advocating for social safety nets and programs to help children, and prevent people from wanting to engage in violence, they focus on bandaid and feel-good solutions instead.
Prohibition and the War on Drugs show that legislation and enforcement don’t always make us safer but how things like AA, NA, needle exchanges, community outreach, etc. can make society safer and healthier.
I’ve seen alcohol and drugs ruin lives. But I’m for their legalization and decriminalization. Those aren’t contradictory positions.
Back to you.
corpusapostata@reddit
I find it sad that a collective knee jerk reaction to "rights" will overwhelm the absolute horror of someone opening fire in a building full of children to the point where we willingly accede to this sick idea that dead children is "the price we pay for our freedoms."
I know, I know, plenty of people don't believe it. But if so many of us are upset, then why does nothing change?
TesseractToo@reddit
It's all nonsense. What about the right to be safe? I have no idea how the gun lobbyists in the US did that but wtf, the gun people are completely are out of order
corpusapostata@reddit
Ah, but there is no constitutional right to be safe. Hence the police are not legally obligated to either serve or protect. Because "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" is in the constitution, the gun people have the people locked in to this belief that owning a gun trumps all other human rights, such as life, which are not enshrined in the constitution.
So we need an amendment to the constitution that allows gun control, or that just cancels out the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Either that or one that clarifies the nebulous statement "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State".
Leadmelter@reddit
Funny how all the people shot at schools have no guns. Lack of guns in the right hands is the problem.
corpusapostata@reddit
Didn't seem to help at Uvalde.
Leadmelter@reddit
Who got shot at uvalde that access to guns? Nobody. I’m not saying nobody will die or get hurt. But at least give them the chance to fight and maybe make a difference.
bmiddy@reddit
A well regulated militia, has the right to keep and bear arms.
This amendment is incorrectly interpreted. We have had SCOTUS's even point this out.
corpusapostata@reddit
Whose SCOTUS? Because as the current SCOTUS has so often shown, precedent isn't worth squat.
bmiddy@reddit
Oh, LOL, no it is not the current one. I should have added SCOTUS justice, my as they say, bad. It was Burger.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/second-amendment-does-not-guarantee-right-own-gun-gun-control-p-99
corpusapostata@reddit
That wasn't SCOTUS. That was a paper written by a former supreme court judge. Not the same thing.
bmiddy@reddit
Hence, "my bad", still a SCOTUS judge saying it is interpreted incorrectly. We get rid of this bought out, wack nut, theological SCOTUS and maybe we can solve some actual problems. Like dead kids and felons running for POTUS.
TesseractToo@reddit
Well there's also no constitutional right to bear arms except under a well regulated militia, but that hasn't stopped them from going off the map
canstucky@reddit
There’s no except anywhere near that.
drsfmd@reddit
Well regulated doesn't mean what you think it means. In 18th century parlance, that would have been widely understood to mean "well equipped".
corpusapostata@reddit
But it doesn't say that. It can be implied. And so the Supreme Court can, and does, interpret it any way they want.
TesseractToo@reddit
Yeah your system is broken
corpusapostata@reddit
Not so much the system as the people. No system can make up for everything, but an educated, thinking people can work well within a flexible system. The American people have become rigid and inflexible, unable to think on their own, they are easily manipulated. So, we have the current situation, the roots of which were planted in the 40's by Republicans and the fear mongering of McCarthyism. But even before that were planted the seeds of "Government is evil" given to us by American conservative philosophy all the way back to Thomas Paine.
Catladylove99@reddit
Or we could just create a new constitution like every other country in the world does periodically, because a lot of what the founding fathers were concerned with in the 1700s no longer applies. Only San Marino has an older constitution still in use. Everyone else recognizes that it’s counterproductive to cleave stubbornly to outdated and irrelevant nonsense.
millersixteenth@reddit
Clearly this amendment needs further instructions. The 2nd has become a suicide pact, but I don't hold out hope of any changes in my lifetime. We get to live with the occasional member of the militia deciding to cut short our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
defixiones@reddit
It's nothing to do with the constitution, it's just that the public are very far down the list of political priorities - definitely far below the gun lobby.
TesseractToo@reddit
Yep. I'm glad I don't have to live there (and I have sympathy for those who do), y'all are a mess.
drsfmd@reddit
Honestly... because the gun isn't the problem. The shooter yesterday was 14 years old and had already been visited by the FBI for threatening to shoot up his school previously. He was a crazy, dangerous kid and no one intervened and stopped this from happening.
Same story with most of these shooters. Adam Lanza's (Sandy Hook) mother tried to get him committed to an asylum, but no one would listen to her. She was his first victim.
middleageslut@reddit
Nothing changes because the answers are expensive and require we take a hard look at ourselves.
mojojomama@reddit
The will of the people is nothing compared to a big pile of cash.
DrGoManGo@reddit
Probably because we weren't pussys and had no problem getting our asses kicked.
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
You're probably insufferable to everyone. The old, tired, boring person yammering about kids today and "Why can't they be like we were? Perfect in every way...!" You aren't remotely edgy or interesting or smart. Everyone just wants you to shut up.
DrGoManGo@reddit
Well then stop talking to me unless you have a good movie recommendation, I'm trying to find something to watch. I'm thinking Oppenheimer but idk. You couldn't be farther than the truth from who I am, but whatever think what you want.
Have you seen Oppenheimer?
TheGoatsDad@reddit
I liked it, good movie, hope you enjoy it.
DrGoManGo@reddit
Thanks. I'll check it out tonight
Flashy_Watercress398@reddit
Serious question: why in the Wild Wild World of Sports would you, I, or any other sensible person not want our children to be safer than we were? Do you actually believe that exposing your offspring to risks like illness, injury, or death builds character?
DrGoManGo@reddit
Point is we didn't shoot up schools and put multiple kids in grave danger. We dealt with being bullied differently. I got picked on a lot, I fought the kids who picked on me, I didn't try to kill them or everyone around them.
I'd rather have 2 kids get into a schoolyard fight then to read about school shootings and mass casualties.
Flashy_Watercress398@reddit
School shootings and attacks have happened for longer than you or I have been alive. They've absolutely accelerated since the earliest one I remember (1979, probably? The basis of the Boomtown Rats' "I Don't Like Mondays.")
But kids aren't worse. They're children.
During the span of time when we improved safety regulations like car safety seats, robust vaccination programs, "back to sleep" to reduce SIDS, and removed teddy bears and bolsters and lead paint from baby cribs, we as a body politic have done fuck all to address safer gun storage or access to mental health care for our children. And yeah, that's not great in my opinion.
DrGoManGo@reddit
No agree, that sucks. As a gun owner I fully support stronger gun laws and see people everyday that need better mental health care than what is available.
I'm not saying kids are worse, they just seem more sensitive than our generation was. We lived in a time of insensitivity and that strongly molded our personalities to not get hurt over little things, like words.
Idk where I'm going with this but I'd rather see a kid with a black eye and not in a body bag.
School shooting are a lot worse than they were when I was growing up. They have drills for it, that's scary and fucked up. I never heard of them until Columbine and now hear about them too frequently.
CreatrixAnima@reddit
I’m not sure about that. They used to be a legitimate legal defense about what was called fighting words. There were some things that someone could say that made it “justifiable” for someone to react with violence. My point is just that words have always been something that people reacted violently to.
Flashy_Watercress398@reddit
I understand your point of view.
I'm not sure we were less sensitive. We were just subject to cultural norms that emphasized not expressing our feelings.
Raising the next generations? I'm so flipping proud of my kids when they can confidently set a boundary or cry if it's time to cry or tell me what they want/need.
We learn better, we try to do better.
If kids are accessing guns, it's not their generation that's less responsible. That's failure from a parent/grandparent/allegedly responsible adult to secure a weapon and/or seek health care for a child. (Shooting up a school is almost certainly never first sign that someone needs help.)
I wish there were an easy answer to fix this mess, but there isn't. I flatly won't blame it on "kids these days," because it's a lot more complicated than any single isolated child with unmet needs and unfettered access to firearms and ammo.
TesseractToo@reddit
I think the thing is that kids who do school shootings aren't the ones that get into fights. They don't want to get hurt and even the notion of being killed is preferable to them to the ego bruising of losing face in a fight. It's a desperate insecurity they have where the death and suffering of an entire community is preferable to them than being humiliated
DrGoManGo@reddit
That's what I'm saying. Get beat up, don't kill people.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Yes, Im sure you grew up in a rough area/time. You probably had people like John Bender in your school. So scary!😄
DrGoManGo@reddit
Actually there were quite a few of them.
Flashy_Watercress398@reddit
Just a quick dive into your profile, but would you wish a prosthetic eye upon your child if you could prevent that?
I don't know your circumstances. But would you just shrug and say "well, I survived it, so that's what I'd want for my kid."?
DrGoManGo@reddit
My kid lost his leg when he was 9 from bone cancer. I'm glad he survived it, I obviously didn't want it but it happened.
Flashy_Watercress398@reddit
I'm so sorry about the bone cancer (osteosarcoma?) But you make my point. During my childhood, that was a death sentence. Today, your child lost a leg, and I wouldn't wish that journey upon anyone's baby or any parent.
The advances in treatment, safety, and prevention for things that routinely killed people 50 years ago is absolutely mind-boggling to me. And it didn't make me tough in any way when I went through that.
I'm so grateful that I'm able to access newer ways to raise healthy kids. I hope that our children and grandchildren continue the trend
DrGoManGo@reddit
Well, it did unfortunately happen and it also did make him tough. Toughest kid I know. He went to hell and back and I'm proud of him. He is bold, confident and will tell you if he thinks you are wrong. He also went through school with straight A's. That's tough.
Flashy_Watercress398@reddit
If no one else said it today? Your kid is an absolute badass, and his parents are too.
DrGoManGo@reddit
Seriously thank you, his brothers too. It affected the whole family and we are stronger from it now and everything we have dealt with since hasn't been as bad as that and we can cope with little things better.
Flashy_Watercress398@reddit
And this is where our paths cross.
Both of us want our children and theirs to grow up to be happy, responsible, educated, empathetic, and generally good people. I don't know whether our mutual goal requires the kind of difficulty you've been through. And I know you didn't have a choice in that path.
Kids don't get much choice in learning how to be resilient. But I think my job as a parent is to help them find their feet as they reach altitude. You can't build character by just airdropping them on a big mountain without gear.
We're on the same page, I suppose.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
If someone like John Bender was the worst your school had to offer, then that means you did not grow up in a rough area.
DrGoManGo@reddit
I never said I grew up in a rough area. There were still people who made wrong choices, people make wrong choices in all areas, nice or not. Not growing up in a nice area and still not shooting up a school only shows that we weren't pussies and handled problems differently.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
School shootings by decade
1970s: 49
1980s: 74
1990s: 121
2000s: 85
2010s: 265
AlarmedApricot@reddit
You also drank from the hose didn't you?
DrGoManGo@reddit
Straight out the creek, what's your point, shit was different back then and yes we did shit that kids these days don't do.
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
K, gramps.
DrGoManGo@reddit
Not gramps yet but the truth is the truth.
ThginkAccbeR@reddit
As an American who no longer lives in the US I keep wondering what it’s going to take for the US to realise how broken it is.
Cahoonhollow@reddit
As an early gen x person my kindergarten was in the basement of the high school in New Jersey . We used to have frequent bomb threats. Became a norm the evacuations. And early core memories for me.
MoonageDayscream@reddit
My 12yo asked me tonight if I was afraid to send her to school tomorrow. I don't really know how to answer that. All I could say is the fact we have safe storage laws makes me feel better.
Antiphon4@reddit
What? Safe storage laws do not change the landscape. They simply make you feel safer.
MoonageDayscream@reddit
Are you misunderstanding the question? She asked me if I was afraid. Of course I have fear, because I see the news and know the statistics on causes of childhood mortality. And yes, those laws make me feel safer because most gun owners I know follow the laws.
But I can look at those statistics and know that at least my region has laws and active teams following up on red flag notices to remove firearms from those who have shown they are a danger to the public. And storage laws mean that the average gun owner will have it secured from those not authorized to handle it. We of course will never be safe from those that won't follow the law, but at least knowing that most of the parents in my kids school will follow the basic safety procedures gives me some comfort.
What would you have me tell my child? That I am afraid to send her to school tomorrow? I already had to have a discussion with her when late this summer a middle school kid was shot in a park by her school in some sort of craigslist ripoff scam, he died, and while he was not in her class, his death was a shock to our community. We talk about safety, abut what to do if she sees an unsecured weapon, what to do if someone makes a threat of harm.
Do you recommend I tell her I fear for her at school? Or do I tell her the truth, that I feel like no where is truly safe but at least we are trying?
Antiphon4@reddit
WTF? I didn't respond to her question but to your inadequate answer about safe storage laws. You're so all over the place I don't think you can show anything but fear to your daughter. She can probably feel your fear through any facade you try to erect. So, you trying to hide that from her is a likely failing endeavor.
Red flag and safe storage laws don't change the landscape. They more often come into play after an event. Why not be honest about their effectiveness? Same with "no gun zones".
When she asks, the answer should be along these lines,
"Yes, I am afraid that something might happen to you, but I also feel that way when someone else is driving you somewhere, or when you go to parties with your friends, or when you eventually go off to college. The world is a beautiful and dangerous place. We can't remove all of the risks."
And then go about your day.
Im_tracer_bullet@reddit
We aren't trying.
I_Am_Telekinetic@reddit
Most. Not all. You keep saying most…
Square_Band9870@reddit
I was concerned about nuclear war & total annihilation.
Remarkable-Foot9630@reddit
Quicksand, USSR, way to many boomers singing songs about SA high school females, Drugs, kidnapping,.. the list goes on. If someone would have unloaded a pew pew at school, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Mick13-@reddit
Quicksand! Forgot about that one...I think that fear came from "The Land of the Lost" or some show like that.
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
Quicksand. Lol.
Square_Band9870@reddit
yes. very disappointed when I grew up & learned how quicksand actually works.
Rottanathyst@reddit
I mean both of those are definitely still on the table, just not at the forefront anymore
oneupme@reddit
There has to be some liability for the parents that fail to secure their weapons. I believe many 2A supporters would support this as well. Owning a gun is a great responsibility and most gun owners take safety very seriously.
battery_pack_man@reddit
I agree but zero chance that ANY gun control measure, no matter how just an sensible it may be will be met with anything but apoplectic mouth foam from the 2A crowd, literally doesn't matter what it is. They will not let any opportunity to display vibrational outrage at the slightest mention of gin control. Freaks will threaten civil war is someone tries to change the font on a number two pencil because Disney made "Ariel" black or something. Do not attempt to apply rationality.
oneupme@reddit
Well, we can all advocate for it, right? I'm part of the 2A crowd - look at my profile. You have reasonable allies there. The pushback isn't against reasonable policies - there will be some, but most gunowners favor and support reasonable gun safety policies.
SoMuchForSubtlety@reddit
Yeah? They sure as hell don't vote like they do!
oneupme@reddit
I am here saying "yes we can" and you are saying "no we can't." Who is preventing progress here?
SoMuchForSubtlety@reddit
The same "2nd amendment crowd" you just so proudly claimed to be part of. Your claims of supporting any kind of gun reforms are pure lip service if you're going to continue to vote for NRA puppets who will do nothing. You might as well mumble something fatuous about "thoughts and prayers" like every other right- winger in Georgia.
oneupme@reddit
You have reading comprehension problems. I didn't say that. You also have no idea how I vote. If this is how you treat people who could be your allies in enacting stronger gun control laws, then people like you are the reason such efforts have failed.
SoMuchForSubtlety@reddit
Hmm...
"I'm part of the 2A crowd - look at my profile."
So now you're saying you DIDN'T say that? Were you lying then, or are you lying now?
I think we can live without 'help' from lying hypocrites, thanks very much.
bayoublue@reddit
While we grew up with more crime than other generations, on a national scale missed out on both the political violence of the 60s and the wave of mass shootings that started in the late 90s.
sof49er@reddit
Agree, we just got kidnapped, tortured sexually assaulted and killed. Oh, and put on a milk carton and forced to give our fingerprints to the police.
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
Um. Kids are still sexually assaulted and killed. Most kidnappings, even in our day, are and were by noncustodial parents.
ParsleyMostly@reddit
To be fair, it was different back then. Like when a kid told an adult about abuse usually people (and the law) put the blame on the kid. It was far easier to get away with harming kids and to rely on people keeping quiet to protect reputations (not the kid).
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
Kids still get completely fucked by "the system" every day.
ParsleyMostly@reddit
No one is disputing that. It’s true, however, that it once was worse.
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
Crime was higher in the '70s and '80s all around, yes, although school shootings were far rarer. Six of one, half dozen of another. As a Gen X kid living in the burbs, my life was never remotely dangerous for one second, lol. Old timers love to yammer on about how tough they were as kids. I was about as tough as a nag of marshmallows, and I'm guessing most on this sub were the same (it seems to skew super white and suburban, like a bunch of people who emerged straight from a Steven Spielberg movie).
ParsleyMostly@reddit
Are you talking about crime or the system? I’m not quite following. My comment was in reference to the person saying crime and violence against kids was different back then. Which is true. School shootings weren’t as rampant then. You said kids still get assaulted, to which I replied that back then it wasn’t taken as seriously as it is now. Which is also true. You replied kids still get fucked by the system, and again, no one is disputing that. And now you’re going off about old timers.
I’m really not sure what’s happening here.
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
You seem really desperate to try to prove your childhood was deeply dangerous. Why is anyone even "what abouting" this? Kids today have to worry about things that hardly crossed our minds. And most of us were not victims of kidnapping (almost always a relative both then and now, "stranger danger" has always been wildly overstated -- even most milk csrton kids wree taken by a parent) or assault. Just as most kids today won't be shot in school, but it's more of a concern than it was. It's really not a contest. Old people like Gen X always try to make it seem like kids today were pussies and they are tough. Happened to us, too. Just quit trying to make it a contest.
ParsleyMostly@reddit
Lol I said nothing about me personally. Again, no idea what you’re talking about. Pls realize Reddit isn’t therapy.
sof49er@reddit
Wow this is so true. Great point.
sof49er@reddit
True. Absolutely as I said I wasn't discounting but you cannot deny the epidemic tbh at occurred in the 80s for us gen x kids.
Impossible-Will-8414@reddit
Not really. You know the black van was an urban myth, right? The vast majority of us were never kidnapped, lol. It's actually quite rare and was then, too.
Pepper_Pfieffer@reddit
Tell that to Jacob Wetterling.
12781278AaR@reddit
The only massive drop since the 70s in child mortality has been due to car safety laws. The rate of kids killed on bicycles or walking has dropped by 91%— which is obviously awesome.
However, the rate of children killed by neglect and abuse has actually risen since the 70’s and continues to rise.
sof49er@reddit
Here's a sourced article that's interesting.
12781278AaR@reddit
Thanks. This actually was very interesting. It contradicts the very little bit that I read, but I trust the BBC.
But obviously it is still horrific that any child has ever been killed by gunfire at a school, much less how often it’s happened. We keep saying something has to change, but nothing ever does.
sof49er@reddit
I can't imagine the kids worrying about going to school. It's horrible.
TesseractToo@reddit
Wait what?
sof49er@reddit
Yea. The wrangled is up in shopping malls. We all had to line up and give our fingerprints to the local police. Our parents (partially due to the Atlanta child murders and partially due to the epidemic of child abductions) were freaked the fk out and took us in to get our fingerprints done. All this in case they had to identify us. Seriously.
zbornakssyndrome@reddit
They did mine at the YMCA at our mall. Had parents scared of kidnappings
Cowboy_Corruption@reddit
Don't forget the DnD Satanic Murderers that our parents were convinced would kill us in the sewers if we played it. My mom now gives my nephew money to buy tabletop figurines and lets him borrow her car to go to his weekly gaming session.
mojojomama@reddit
They still push that today. Some “nonprofit” will wash the state’s money by providing a service handing out ID cards to schools. It’s pushed on a national level and promoted as child safety kits. https://www.mcgruffsafekit.com
It’s morbid as hell and puts kids in a frame of mind that it’s necessary because the world out to get them. If you ever need to provide your child’s fingerprints to the police, point them to the refrigerator.
blackhorse15A@reddit
Where I grew up the police just gave the card to your parents to hold onto in case it was needed. But it was super common. The police were always at the county fair, community day carnivals in town, visits to the schools, taking fingerprints of kids. Heck, there was special FBI card with its own form number for it. The ones for criminal arrests were in one color, another color for adults doing background checks, and another color for kids. I think ours were green?
NorseGlas@reddit
Yea they came into the schools and had us all fingerprinted. Cops kept one copy and one was given to our parents ….. in case we were ever kidnapped.
Nothing to do with police/govt illegally gathering intel for down the road.
TesseractToo@reddit
That's messed up
bmiddy@reddit
Whu? Those were UNCOMMON occurrences any time in any generation.
Mass school shootings are now a common thing, every year, since we rolled back the assault weapons ban.
And it's almost ALWAYS the same weapon, some form of AR-15.
myloveisajoke@reddit
Schools in the 69s though the late 90s were outright war zones.
...they just didn't get reported on because they were poor minority schools.
Gobucks21911@reddit
I can’t imagine being a kid today. Even my (now adult) kid had lockdown drills and one scary false alarm that sent everyone into a panic. I recall the first mass school shooting where I grew up (California Central Valley) but that was a random sick adult, not a student, and I was already out of high school. It was pretty unheard of at that time, still shocking.
I can’t imagine being a student today. The trauma of knowing that at any given moment at school, which should be a safe place, somebody might open fire and kill a bunch of kids. And it saddens me that even I’ve gotten to the point that each new school shooting seems to shock me a little bit less. And I don’t know what anyone can do to stop it. Yeah, we should be offering up more robust mental health services, cps should be doing a better job, kids shouldn’t be able to access guns, etc., but in reality, even if all of the services were improved 200%, we couldn’t stop all of these. I mean, this latest kid was on the FBIs radar and they weren’t able to do anything.
I think the way to make the biggest impact is to start charging parents criminally on the regular. Make parents responsible for their kid’s actions. If you know your kid has mental health issues (and let’s be honest, it’s most likely because of the parents) then you should absolutely not have a single gun in your home, car, garage, etc. There should be zero way your kid can obtain a weapon from you to commit any crimes. That would prevent the vast majority of these shootings.
dekehairy@reddit
In our day, all the mass shooters worked for the post office.
Raging_wino@reddit
“Going postal” was the saying when I was younger, pre Columbine.
FatFuckinPieceOfShit@reddit
Going Postal was a very controversial game.
camelslikesand@reddit
Pardon the expression, but it kills me when I hear about a little kid telling their parents they don't want to wear the light-up shoes that gave them so much joy before because they learned in [gag me with a motherfucking spoon] ACTIVE SHOOTER DRILL that the lights make them a target. What have we become?
fusionsofwonder@reddit
It's the Kevlar backpacks that make me sad.
Hockey_socks@reddit
As a Canadian I did not know rhis
billymumfreydownfall@reddit
I mean, why would we?
Hockey_socks@reddit
I don’t know but I recently returned from the States and found it pretty wild that stores like Whole Foods need to have a sign on the door that it is a gun free zone.
billymumfreydownfall@reddit
Jfc...
rakshala@reddit
I remember seeing a story on Reddit a while ago of a Mom talking about her kid's campaign to get her pony to be the school mascot, and how much effort the kid went to in petitioning the principal, until the kid abruptly stopped when she was a breath away from succeeding. Why? The kid went through an active shooter drill and realised her pony couldn't fit in the panic room (or something like that) and she didn't want her pony killed.
Silvaria928@reddit
Oh damn, this just brought tears to my eyes...
bafras@reddit
Gag me with a spoon needs to make a comeback.
tultommy@reddit
I preferred gag me with a chainsaw
Chitown_mountain_boy@reddit
It’s not gag me with a chainsaw. It’s fuck me with a chainsaw…
Junior_Ad_3301@reddit
Gag me with a hairy finger. Gag me with a birth control pill. Was that Valley Girls or am I misremembering?
afternever@reddit
Hairy fingered valley girls
EstimateAgitated224@reddit
You know what is terrible, my first thought was relief as my youngest graduated HS in the spring. FFS kids need to be safe at school.
Outrageous-Buy734@reddit
I have a cousin who's the same age as me. He grew up in New England. When the kids went to school in the morning during hunting season, they'd bring their hunting rifles into the school to deposit them in the main office since loads of them had junk cars that couldn't be locked up.
When I was in 7th grade, we had to do a project for history class. I made a wood replica breach loading rifle from the civil war and focused my project on the advantages it offered and how that impacted the nature of combat. I walked around with a big fake rifle all day from class to class and nobody cared. The barrel was made from copper plumbing pipe lol.
skaara481@reddit
On the first day of school, my kid's high school had a threat and went on lockdown. A few weeks later a student was arrested for trying to bring a gun to school. Thankfully his grandmother saw it and called the police. It's a scary time.
marigolds6@reddit
Speak for yourself. That depended very much on where you went to school. (Although, to be fair, those shootings were school adjacent immediately before or after school in the parking lot or on the sidewalks, rather than actually in the classroom.) And, of course, we had plenty of school stabbings. Getting a switchblade or butterfly pulled on you at lunch or in PE was way too common.
SilanceDoGood@reddit
I only SPEAK FOR MYSELF!
marigolds6@reddit
It just bugs me when people say some variant of "Gen X didn't have school shootings!" when we absolutely did and in huge numbers, which mostly was because of the perceived victims and perpetrators of the shootings before Columbine.
WhiplashMotorbreath@reddit
These shooting are timed events, Any election year, the lead up, this starts up. I don't care if you call me a tin foil hat wearing fool. I think MK ULTRA is still in use/play.
But also , back in our day, the bullies would bully someone and at somepoint they have had enough and beat the ever living shit out of the bully. and it was done and over with. maybe with a few days vacation from school. but it was over. today the admin punish the bullied just as much if not more so than the bully that they turn a blind eye to. So the bullied feel trapped, they get it at school, and online and 24/7/365. maybe they need to rethink the way the handle this, so the parent can teach their child that is being bullied how to land a nice left hook and it be over.
But the timing of these are suspect. Any election time or any gun bills in the works and out comes a school shooting, just in time. seems susp. as they kids would say.
SoMuchForSubtlety@reddit
Yes, you idiot, it's very sus that every time an election is scheduled for November a bunch of school shootings happen in September. It must be some sort of wild coincidence THAT STUDENTS GO BACK TO SCHOOL IN SEPTEMBER! The reason you don't have school shootings in July or August is because the schools are empty, you absolute tool.
But no, you've uncovered some elaborate conspiracy that's been going on for decades. Amazing how brilliant you are and how clever the thousands of conspirators must be to have kept this all secret for 30+ years.
I am very tempted to call you a word for developmentally disabled that was in common parlance when I was in school, but is now considered a slur.
popdivtweet@reddit
Our cops would scare us straight just by uttering the words: “wait until I’ll tell your mom.”
Important-Proposal21@reddit
why aren’t there metal detectors at the schools(none in my area at least)??
why are the school resource officers(again, in my area) elderly retirees that couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag? i want the ex-military roid-rage guy with an itchy trigger finger to protect my kids.
why do we keep sending money to protect ukraine when we need to protect our children??
why? ??
SoMuchForSubtlety@reddit
Because making schools into prisons has been proven to seriously degrade the educational benefits the students get from going.
Because the roided up school cops are already beating the black kids and putting toddlers in handcuffs and making the school feel even more like a prison.
Because we can do more than one thing at once with our tax dollars.
Uvalde had hundreds of heavily armed, roided up cops in full SWAT gear who had just trained for a school shooting a couple of weeks before. How did that work out? Oh, they're still trying to suppress the report detailing their incompetence years later? What a surprise.
Maybe the answer has something to do with there being too many easily-accessible guns everywhere? Or the lack of mental health support (thanks Reagan!) that means even when family knows someone is going to go postal there's not a damn thing they can do. They certainly can't take away the guns of anyone acting crazy because red flag laws keep getting struck down. Maybe if there were more counselors in schools, better funding for teachers, a more solid community and resources schools could use to identify and work with these kids before they went psycho? Oh wait, that would conflict with the Republican plan to privatize the school systems with "vouchers" so they can bring back de-facto segregation.
But all of these questions are hard to consider and make both the right-wing era in government and their NRA masters uncomfortable. And answering them night require things to change or (worse!) be expensive. So nothing's going to change until the people demand it.
Downvoted me all you want, but if a couple of dozen dead toddlers at Newtown didn't force some sort of government action, nothing will. Australia had one school shooting and immediately banned guns country wide. America has very clearly decided that a few hundred dead children every semester is a price they are perfectly happy to pay in order to keep gun nuts happy.
Don't like that fact? Then DO something about it.
LurkingViolet781123@reddit
I think we're one of the last generations to practice fire drills instead of shooter drills in school.
Wait_No_But_Yeah@reddit
We did. Gang violence.
marigolds6@reddit
I am realizing that a lot of the posters here lived in areas where they were not directly exposed to gang violence, much less on a regular basis.
It is easy to forget that charts like this exist:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/477466/number-of-serious-violent-crimes-by-youth-in-the-us/
https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb//victims/qa02310.asp?qaDate=2020
https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/ojjdp/trendsinmurderjuve.pdf
zippyphoenix@reddit
A kid in my class brought a gun to school to threaten my brother’s class with (he failed a grade and was being bullied). He told other kids about it and kids reported it to my teacher. The gun was found by police. This was roughly in 1988.
eesh13@reddit
My nephew was at the school during the shooting. He is ok but I don’t know about long term. This is a horrifying feeling that I’ve not quite experienced before. 😢😔
hariboho@reddit
I’m so glad he’s ok. Hugs for your family.
This fucking sucks.
eesh13@reddit
Thank you so much. It’s very painful and then wondering if it’s ever possible to stop this madness. I’ve sat and watched and cried to so many of these since columbine and here we are. Now it’s my family that has to deal with this.
SilanceDoGood@reddit
Back in my day, Some kids (especially in the area I grew up) had easy access to guns (display cases); yet, I can’t recall a single instance of a school shooting. What has changed so radically???because it can’t be access!!!
VoodooSweet@reddit
When I was in HS(I’m a late GexXer, graduated in 95) one kid brought a gun to school, on a dare from another kid. They both got told on almost immediately, and were both expelled. Nobody got hurt, or killed, I don’t even think the gun was loaded. That was the extent of “Guns in School” when I was a kid. Definitely you didn’t have to worry about getting shot at school.
To be fair this Shooting yesterday ABSOLUTELY COULD have been avoided. SOMEONE, they don’t know if it was the shooter, called the school, and told them there was going to be shootings at 5 Schools, and that one would be the first. School Officials didn’t lock the school, or take ANY APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS. Those dead Kids and Teachers are just as much on that School(for not taking the threat seriously) as it is on the Monster who pulled the trigger!!!
LtLemur@reddit
It’s all fucked
PhonicEcho@reddit
Currently in lockdown at school. There was a gun on one of our campuses.
billymumfreydownfall@reddit
My GAWD I am so effing happy to live in Canada.
BetterPops@reddit
Not the first. This was apparently the 8th school shooting already this school year.
I guess this one was just more newsworthy for whatever reason. The rest didn’t even make a blip, because it’s so damn common now.
TechSergeantTiberius@reddit
It’s more newsworthy because it’s election season.
xAlice_Liddell@reddit
I lived about a mile away from Columbine when that happened. It broke my heart and I remember asking my partner why anyone would do this. Now I have kids who have lockdown drills. Glad the 2A folks value their guns over innocent lives. I’m tired.
SnooConfections7276@reddit
I told my parents if I ever got killed in a mass shooting at least they could hug their guns on Christmas. Got told I was being dramatic
SoOutOfFocus@reddit
I live right by the local high school & all of my friends who have kids (I don’t) know that all of their kids are absolutely welcome to haul ass to my house if anything goes down at the high school. A couple of them have brought their kids to my place to show them where to run to! Freaks me out that the back gate where we snuck out to smoke or skip is where my friends kids might actually go to escape a shooter.
tultommy@reddit
This is true, unfortunately it's also a big chunk of us that prevent this country from doing anything at all to prevent it. Nothing will change until common sense finds it's way back.
45thgeneration_roman@reddit
UK here with nothing to say but feeling sorrow for the children and families that go through this
kraftymiles@reddit
If only there was something you could do about it.
As a guide, we had a school shooting here a few years back. Guns were then banned and we've not had a school shooting since. These things might be related.
Existing_Beyond_253@reddit
Guns and vehicles
The top 2 killers of children in 'merica
Excellent_Brush3615@reddit
Umm you guys didn’t have the “Duck and Cover” drills? I mean if the nukes were launched, hiding under your desk was going to save you.
WildRaspberry9927@reddit
How often were nukes in the news as the cause of death in the U.S.?
Excellent_Brush3615@reddit
Damned if I know, I don’t live in the US.
T20sGrunt@reddit
To be fair, the elders would’ve passed some bi partisan legislature to help prevent things like this happening.
Sadly, it is now more important to stick to party allegiance and funding, than prevent disasters.
Crime may have been higher back then, but school shootings were pretty much unheard of. The US is the only country with this issue, and many people don’t care why.
People are clearly OK with their child learning how to dodge bullets before they can learn multiplication. Let that sink in.
LeoMarius@reddit
Because we had effective gun laws and a Supreme Court that didn’t rewrite the 2nd Amendment. Even Reagan passed gun laws.
Appropriate_Cow94@reddit
When I was in school, we did call in bomb threats to get out of tests and to get out of school.
At some point many of us thought about and wished we could come to school and shoot up the place. But we didn't actually do it. We didn't know we even could do it.
I never meant any harm to anyone else. (Besides Jeff Logenslager who can suck a bag of dicks)
Now I have a 13 year old kid. She has to go through drills about active shooters in her school. But thankfully her school system is protecting her from God damn gay ......books. this is my tax dollars at work.
How did we fuck up so God damn bad?
middleageslut@reddit
Republicans.
Impossible1999@reddit
Not only schools have drills, offices too. Most lock their front doors nowadays during office hours.
Agreeable_Branch007@reddit
But we did produce serial killers
Status-Effort-9380@reddit
When my daughter and I watched Heathers, it didn’t read as dark humor but really sour humor because a school shooting wasn’t a joke.
aogamerdude@reddit
I nearly thought this was the one by me, although they were under 18 here but just 1 shot, in the hospital & not at school.
Money_Magnet24@reddit
lol.
We had drive by at our school here in L.A. in theb89’s and 90’s and it was a common thing the local news didn’t even report on it.
We still have a serious issue with guns in the hands of gangs and the local news does report on it
Most recently an actor was shot and killed a month ago. The thieves were stealing his catalytic converter from his car. He approached the thieves and the gang members aka pieces of shits, shot him point blank on his chest. His coworker witnessed the entire event and he died in her arms.
Fuck these gangs, they need to be eradicated.
ranchoparksteve@reddit
Our school emergency was when a strange dog—not the three trusty neighborhood dogs that bummed food at lunchtime—was loitering on school grounds.
PlantMystic@reddit
I know. I just heard about that. Just horrible.