My class were test subjects of these drills. They did them constantly in Florida in the very late 90's ('98-). First thing I asked at our 9th grade orientation. "Aren't we showing the shooters how to get around all the precautions?" I asked that in front of all the students and parents. I got no answer.
There are a couple of schools that were recently built in my neighborhood and now each classroom has an exit to the outside for this very reason. This is America.. šŗšø
Many conservatives are parents. As a fellow parent (albeit liberal) I cannot fathom how a parent can talk to their kids about what to do during school shootings and not think "what the living fuck are we doing in this fucking country?"
I'm a parent in a very conservative area and many of my closest friends are conservative leaning parents. The answer is complex and multi-faceted of course but in short they don't think guns are the root cause of the problem and they also think the actual danger is being overblown/hyped for political purposes.
My personal take is that the guns are the how but not the why.... and the why ought to be obvious but everyone's too busy blaming whatever aspect of society they don't like rather than actually trying to understand or deal with it.
Frankly, it doesn't really matter what we speculate on what will be solved. The problem that I see is that we're not even trying. It is not a priority to "end mass shootings at schools." That's what I mean by "what the fuck". I've yet to hear any politician, right or left say "whatever it takes, we're stopping mass shootings at schools."
I see some subtle changes going on- there seems to be a lot more awareness on mental health issues and more resources in school from what I've seen. But you're right, there's no real "whatever it takes" initiative just a bunch of empty words for the most part.
It's pretty consistent that these shooters seem to be people who are so tormented that they want to die and so angry at society that they want to cause suffering on their way out. The reasons why are varied just like people which is IMO why it's not so easy to just make a blanket policy at a government or institutional level like everyone wants.
Government and institutions can help by making the resources available but IMHO our overall society needs a bit of an attitude adjustment. We need a lot more of us paying attention to the people in our communities- kids especially and helping. Some people need some heavy duty professional help but sometimes just being a friend to someone who needs it is enough.
This a great youtube video I try to spread around from a guy who almost became a school shooter...it's worth a watch to understand how simple it can be sometimes if we just made the effort.
As a Canadian I remember we had "lock down drills" occasionally but it was in regards to anything not specifically shootings, just any major emergency setting.
Albeit tbh in recollection, these only came about after Columbine happened.
The problem with conservative ideology on this issue is that they will never, ever care about it until itās their own kid theyāre getting the call about from the police.
They have No fucking empathy or consideration for anyone or anything but themselves.
As one of their heroes once said,
"I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that ā it does a lot of damage."
From the guy who brought you, "I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
I did! And you were wrong. He said itās bad because itās was centric. It makes someone elseās pain about you. Ie. EMPATH. And that the better word would be sympathy, a feeling of sorrow regardless of what you perceive. And I looked them up, seems heās right. Or was right.
It has to be worth it. Unfortunately there are demented evil sick people that are psychos.
Stalin said - A Single Death Is a Tragedy; A Million Deaths Is a Statistic
Yes, your graphic is used as propaganda, and to cause a major political issue showing dead children and dead Charlie. Go read the raping of Nanjing. Democide (death from governments) is the #1 cause of death ever in history. The U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights is there to give a common citizen some means of personal defense from enemies both foreign and domestic.
Bro, they WANT a violent world. Soldiers of god and all that. I think about Israel; who would they shoot and abuse if the Palestinians were gone? The conservative right wants to be strapped everywhere they go, and kill at least one terrorist a day. Btw: they think liberals, and gays, and melanin are terrorists.
Just ask if there are āanyā drills where you practice what to do in an emergency, āfor example like a fire drillā. Donāt leave him alone in this.
My kid started kindergarten right after uvalde. She was telling me about a drill she had and I was like āoh a fire drill? Did you go outside?ā And she said āno, a bad guy drill. We hid in the bathroomā like so matter of factly. Meanwhile Iām weeping.
I'll never forget my now 13yo coming home from kindergarten and telling me about the "special fire drill" they had at school that day where half of his class hid in the bathroom and the other half hid behind the teachers desk. All I could say was that I wasn't a fire drill. The school actually calls them safety drills. He was in the same grade as the kids who were killed in Uvalde and I damn near went and pulled him out of school early that day just because I needed to see him and be sure he was ok.
I ask about what they do and how the kids behave because I want to know itās being taken seriously. I donāt ask if theyāre scared or if they know why theyāre drilling because Iām not sure I can answer those questions.
My kindergartner had one on the third day of school, and theyāve been terrified to go back to school ever since. Going to a new school is scary enough, now letās tell you to run and hide because thereās a bad guy with a gun coming to hurt you, oh, just kidding, this was just a drill, now letās go back to working on our hand writing.
The school has been giving us crap because our kid didnāt want to participate in class and doesnāt talk, well no shit, you traumatized the crap out of them and didnāt even give parents a chance to talk to their kids and prepare them for it first. Itās so infuriating to watch your children go through this when they should be having fun and just being a kid.
I grew up with guns, friends had BB guns or hunted deer. In schools upstate and everywhere else kids get a day off of school when deer hunting season starts. It was not traumatic.
Two things can be true. The school administration, not teachers, is absolutely at fault for not alerting parents that they were going to perform that type of drill or providing prior explanation to the kids as to what that type of drill was and why they were having it. While yes, they do not have control over society and the issues we have with firearms, they do have control over school communications, and they should have alerted parents that this was going to happen so they could have prepared their kids for the first one and answered their questions.
I have the utmost respect for teachers; they have a difficult job, and Iām very thankful that they dedicate their professional careers to teaching our children.
This isn't a mutually exclusive situation. They have been traumatized by a gun obsessed society and by this school poorly handling school shooter drills for kindergartners.
Messed up in a different way, maybe. We didnāt have the internet back then, so I donāt know how wide spread this was, but I remember my middle school receiving several bomb threats after the Oklahoma City bombing in ā95. Drills for that also fell into the regular rotation with fire and tornado drills.
I also remember the local PD Canine Unit regularly sweeping the halls during class. School staff tried to keep that quiet though, so you only knew about it if you had a bathroom pass and happened to see them in the hallway.
Maybe they do think it, but their answer is ālibs, immigrants and trans peopleā
Do not underestimate the power of fox news and YouTubers, to redirect peoples high levels of discomfort to right wing distractions. White, q anon shoots up a school and they happily reconstruct the narrative into āimmigrants and trans peopleā
I was parent volunteer on school shooter drill day when my eldest was in Kindergarten because I was a teen parent and was in search and rescue in my junior year of high school and had helped train local police on drills.
What I mean by that is our team was large we had about 60 high school kids, they got other youth law associated teams and on a weekend after columbine they had us run at police at full force and create āobstacleā for them in a small school. They had swat, Multnomah County Sheriffs, Portland Police, and a few others to talk strategy.
When my kids teacher and I were talking about the upcoming shooter drill and how the school was designed for protection with active shooters, we talked about my experience from having Kip Kinkle the year before columbine and then columbine. She asked if I could volunteer that day and I said yes.
I think all parents should participate in that drill, it has far less emotions than a real thing, but teaching your kindergartener to ball up in a corner and be quiet as possible regardless of what they will hear is heart breaking.
When I was in high school after columbine the worst we had was metal detectors for a while, but doing this was way worse.
Jesus Christ is a scapegoat for the moral decline in this country. Worshipping a dude whose "dad" is an egomaniacal narcissist with an actual "God complex" isn't such a good thing. Guns - weapons of death - have become a political wedge issue between Americans whose children are all at risk for indiscriminate bullet fire. It's disgusting how fetishized guns are in this nation. The argument that only criminals would then have them does nothing. Most school shooters aren't criminal gun owners, until they use their gun in a crime.
My daughter in the second grade ranted after she got home they were all gonna die because her classmates wouldnāt stfu during their drill.
They HAD a real shooter situation on day 1 of that grade too, five miles away. The county it happened in all shit down for it. But we were on the edge of that county, and we were told about it after the kids got home. So the one time it was even remotely relevant they didnāt tell the low income county where the suspect apparently fled to until the school day was over.
My bad, must be bot behavior being upset at kids getting murdered in schools and having to practice shooter drills in a world where people claim the problem isn't guns but they just need to pray more. I'll update my programming algorithm š
Practicing Christian here. Although, I'm a Methodist, and we're a very "New Testament" sect of Christianity. Ya know, feed the poor, help the needy, welcome the foreigner, forgive your neighbor, let any man without sin cast the first stone kind of people.
Anyway, an argument I often hear from my fellow Christians is that the problem today isn't guns; it's the fact that not enough people have Jesus in their lives. However, so many people who say they love Jesus also love guns and shooting stuff, which seems antithetical to the New Testament, but that's an argument for a different day. This is anecdotal, I know, but everyone I know who doesn't identify as a Christian is also a pacifist, and these people stay as far away from guns as possible.
I'm definitely not saying that shootings occur for religious purposes. What I am saying is that most mass shooters have some sort of faith foundation in their lives. Their lives aren't devoid of religion. And some of the biggest gun nuts are also highly religious, which makes the "They need Jesus" argument a bunch of nonsense.
I remember nuclear bomb drills in elementary school. Theyād have us get under our little school desks as though that was going to shield us from nuclear fallout.
There are legitimate reasons to get low during a nuclear blast, fallout comes much later after the blast, the radioactive material has to reach the stratosphere get mixed with the atmosphere and then "fall out" of the clouds as rain
That's kind of what I said, The fallout comes after you're going to be gone from school after a nuclear blast if you even survived, fallout comes later, the reason for duck and cover is to not be standing at a window looking for the light source of the explosion so you don't get blasted in the face, later is when you have to worry about the fallout depending on the way the wind blows
Duck and cover also shielded your eyes from the flashes, it helped with glad and debris (as u/XennialBoomBoom said), and it prevented "gaper's ~~block~~ blast".
people, being naturally inquisitive, would instead run to windows to try to locate the source of the immensely bright flash generated at the instant of the explosion. During this time, unbeknownst to them, the slower movingĀ blast wave, would be rapidly advancing toward their position, only to arrive and cause the window glass to implode, shredding onlookers.
It depends where the bomb detonates, right? A desk isn't going to help much against 100 million degree heat in the primary blast zone. If it's 10+ miles away, it could help a lot against shockwave damage and debris.
I was born in '81 & had nuclear drills in elementary school. A mouthy kid said they were stupid, obviously a nuclear bomb would kill us.
The PE teacher said "Yeah, you'd be crispy. Getting low & spread out helps bodies be counted & maybe identified, kiddo."
It's possible we continued having them later in the Cold War than other areas due to proximity to the Port of Houston, a likely target in an accidental launch or for vengeful economic hindrance.
same! just did a little research and turns out a tornado hit a school in Michigan once, and school wasnāt even in session. but we had to line up against the cinder block wall in the hallway like 3 times a year at least.
yup same in atlanta, lined up in the hallways in duck and cover formation. i had recurring tornado nightmares as a kid and cannot imagine what SHOOTER DRILLS would have done to me
Strange country? It doesn't matter what country you are in.... Some one can bring a weapon inside a school and do damage. Any unhealthily person can do damage by hand, guns, knives, bombs, or other matter.
However, when the 1989 earthquake hit, everyone was suddenly aware that for all the drills, no one had mentioned what an earthquake actually was, so we just ended up running around panicked.
I live in NY and did not have those but I do remember them from Saved by the Bell. So when we had an earthquake here and I was peeing as soon as I could stop it was inside the doorway for me.
In case you find yourself in an earthquake again - theyāve revised it to DO NOT go in a doorway. Turns out a swinging door is a liability. Basically just get under the sturdiest piece of furniture available (to minimize crush risk if the building comes down) or get outside if you can do so quickly and away from buildings.
Same here ā Iām slightly younger (late 80s millennial) and we had fire drills, earthquake drills, and lockdown drills. We also got a free skip day my senior year because a bomb threat was called in.
A shooting occurred at my (future) university campus when I was in middle school, killing a professor my family knew. My high school went on lockdown my junior year following a domestic shooting nearby, and my university went on lockdown when I was a student there after a shooting in a local coffee shop.
All of this was post-Columbine but pre-Sandy Hook.
We had several bomb threats at my school in my senior year (1995). Each one was met with a school evacuation, so copycats took advantage of that when they didnāt study for a test or something. There was only one where an actual package was found, and it turned out to be a precision scale that a person stole to measure drugs, then return to the school by wrapping it up in brown paper, setting it outside, and calling 911. So weird.
During exams one year, a kid called in a bomb threat because he hadn't studied. He called it in from the payphone beside the cafeteria, in full view of a camera. He was arrested before we were even let back into the school.
I lived in multiple states. Experienced Fire drills in all, tornado drills in multiple, and earthquake drills in one. These school shooting drills didnāt exist until the 2000s
I'm on the older side of xennial and have a vague memory of doing one duck and cover drill in early elementary school and getting to see the bomb shelter in the school basement.
I remember having one ācampus threatā drill. Our teacher just turned off the lights and we sat quietly. I remember thinking what a waste of time it was, and definitely thinking the chances of somebody coming onto our campus was basically 0%. I canāt remember if that was before or after the Columbine shooting, though. I was in high school for one more year after that event, so it could have been in reaction to itā¦ but l feel like it was before it happened. Our local high schools would occasionally have bomb threats called in, I think that might have had more to do with the drill.
I was bullied pretty badly as a kid. To the point I was homeschooled in 7th grade.
That all said?
When the school day was down I could relax and let down my defenses because the internet, while around and available, wasnāt as pervasive. I could relax and enjoy life.
Iād rather go through all that again, as painful as it was, than what kids have to live through these days (and with bullying that doesnāt stop when they get home).
Columbine happened at the end of 8th grade for me. School shootings were still fairly rare. Itās said that āfairly rareā seems enviable compared to what we have now when it should be zero.
That got nothing to do with it. School shootings happen in schools with armed SRO's. The Harvest Fest in Las Vegas was shot up and every tour bus was armed. Some schools are get shot up android the ERT just waits outside send arrests parents who shout out still them to do something
I think a lot of people miss the point. The guns have always been there. I also went to a pretty rural school where it was not a big deal to see guys coming in after deer hunting with shotguns in the racks of their trucks. No one thought twice about it. They werenāt going to bring them in and shoot up the school. The culture has changed. And Iām a firm believer that we need to restrict who can access guns. The fact that this scumbag shooter was able to purchase a firearm like that legally with such ease, that really bothers me. I donāt care if he didnāt have a criminal background. We have to do something, I donāt know what the solution is but it aināt this.
I am a kindergarten teacher. We do at least 4 of these drills a year. However we donāt have the kids hide now- they are taught to be ready to run. Every time I have to blockade my door and show them where to go to be out of sight, and how to crouch so they can move as fast as they can if needed, it puts a hole in my heart. I know itās necessary to teach them this but for the love of all thatās holy it shouldnāt be. I have my own kids, I donāt want to have to choose between taking a bullet for my class or surviving for my children and I donāt want to be a martyr.
Is there a change happening? Hiding is still the procedure at most that Iāve heard of. Doesnāt make a ton of sense to me for rooms with exterior access.
We donāt teach them to hide in small spaces or closets like we used to. Now itās get out of sight but be ready to run, donāt block your own access out of a room if you can.
In my day, we had fire, bomb, and gang riot drills. I went to a ghetto ass school. We didn't have it this bad. I mean, a fight with melee weapons was bad, but everyone lived. Even the kid that was stabbed in the head with a flat head screw driver walked to class. He didn't know he had been stabbed. Teacher saw the handle sticking out. Even then, no guns.
Gang and riot drills were 2 different things. Gang drills were similar to school shooting drills. Lock the class room doors. Riot drills wanted everyone to go to one location usually the football field. Bomb and fire drills meant we went to the field behind the football field.
I've said this here before, but I think kids today have it WAY worse than we did. The world's a much scarier place now than when we kids. And that isn't even nostalgia talking.
As a non American this is absolutely horrifying and the fact that the society has people saying welp it's worth it because of our gun rights is impossible to understand
I lived in SC for 1st grade and we had nuclear attack drills, and then in CA my senior year we had shooter drills after columbine. So I got a little bit of both!
I was a junior during Columbine and in CO but a different school district. We didnāt have any active shooter drills my senior year. I think the first I heard about someone participating in one was a couple years later when a college friend became a teacher.
We never did drills, but after Columbine, my school had the brilliant idea to chain the school doors shut during class times, trapping everyone inside.
I graduated 2001. Never had active shooter drills, and by then the teachers were like "fuck it, if its burning or there is a tornado its taking all of us with it"
Can confirm. I grew up in an area with a massive military presence, and several shipyards that built and repaired navy ships. We were doing nuke drills right up until the collapse of the USSR, as we were considered the first target, after DC
I did for the first few years of grade school in the mid 80s.Ā I remember seeing the nuclear bomb test videos and wondering how climbing under my desk and putting my hands over my head and face was going to save me.
Exactly and the point is that they had to do it because of the shootings we've had for decades now which is why I'm confused on the title of the post being "glad we didn't have to do this" when the reason we even have to do this now started with one of the biggest mass shootings a school had ever had and it was when we were teens. Perhaps if we had had this sooner we could have prevented some. We shouldn't have to have these but reality is we need them and needed them.
Yeah I don't understand that. We were the ones in HS when Columbine happened. Xennials were the shooters and the student body at the time. Maybe we should have had these drills if there wasn't anything in place stopping it from happening otherwise.
Better to have these drills than to end up not prepared and becoming a casualty. We shouldn't have to but circumstances have necessitated it.
Yeah I was a middle school teacher and our district decided to make a video like this with our high school kids. Imagine watching a video of all your past students running, hiding, some pretending to get shot. I was sobbing. Itās atrocious. Itās barbaric. What is wrong with our country??!!!
Itās more that even if you were younger, when it first happened no one would have suspected that it would be a trend. It was more of an inexplicable anomaly which obvious is quite different than what we have now.
Do you think these are done to scare the kids? Not because it could help save lives if a shooting did happen? I have a kid in HS right now and while it's scary to practice I'd rather know the kids knew what to do in an actual shooting which is much more scary.
I think we were forced to be in this position since nothing else is done (and hasn't been for the last couple of decades at least). Fire drills are scary. Earthquake drills are scary. But we do them so we're prepared and survive when the real thing happens.
It's choose between something that sucks or something that sucks worse. Most would choose the former.
They are not usually announced ahead of time. I got the post drill email yesterday afternoon for my kids elementary school. It's hard to think about it.
Ugh, sending your kid to school without a hat in terms 1 or 4 is like sentencing them to jail. Not even allowed to play in the covered sports courts! I always feel so bad, as they have a pretty shitty day.
Just Friday while teaching I was thinking about exactly what I would do with my students if there was a shooter on campus, planning it out in my head. Itās a different world.
Oh please. As a school employee as well that is not happening. Maybe possibly in some red states and even then maybe just some obscure towns there, where I'm sure they also make pennies and have no union protection, but most school officials are not doing that and if they were asked to most would leave. Even the highest paid employees still wouldn't be paid enough to be expected to yield guns and save students like freakin Rambo.
They could take all the money that would cost and put it into hiring extra security and personal officers, metal detectors, etc., for each school in America and yet they still don't. So instead we get shooter drills with the hope it's enough because apparently after all this time that's all that can be offered.
The problem is we're 26 years after Columbine and not much better so we have to do these drills and probably should have done them sooner. I don't think it should be "glad we didn't have to do these" like the OP said, but instead should be "it sucks this even has to be done and maybe we should have done these sooner", if nothing was going to prevent them, then and since then.
Anyone else touched my gun violence here? My son survived a mass shooting. That was 9 years ago. With each new mass shooting itās like a reminder of how truly terrible we are as a country. Property (including guns) takes priority over people. And when you tack on unregulated social media, late stage capitalism, and a governmental administration that made lying to us and dividing us as a foundation of its platform, itās a recipe for disaster.
i was one movie theatre away from the Aurora shooting and if i had joined my friends that night we would have gone to Aurora instead because the one they went to was almost sold out and they werenāt sure i could get a ticket since I was arriving late, but i decided not to go ā and havenāt seen a movie in a theatre since then.
the King Soopers i frequently shopped at had a mass shooting
a friend of a friend was murdered in a mass shooting in downtown Denver
I thought it is well-established we had it pretty damn good. We didn't really do those (honestly silly and pointless) Cold War era nuclear bomb drills since that had wound down and we were mostly out of HS (or close to it) by the time Columbine happened.
As to the issue at hand, people will say this is dramatic, but Sandy Hook was when I gave up on this country. Up to then I was still proud to be an American. Not since. I was on the fence about having children, that pushed me into deciding firmly to be childfree. A similar incident happened in the UK and they basically banned guns afterwards. We couldn't even have a discussion on sensible reforms, much less a ban of any sort. A country that refuses to protect its youngest and most vulnerable citizens is not a country worth much of anything.
We didn't have to worry about school shootings because it wasn't such a huge problem, but after Columbine and 9/11, we were definitely aware that nobody was safe anywhere
I took my kids to their very first concert last night... My 10yr old son told me he was nervous because "what if someone just comes in and starts shooting?". These are not things I thought about when I went to my first concert.
This definitely breaks my heart. When Columbine went down, I was in middle school. We dealt with several fake bomb threats soon after. At least once a week during my high school years, I looked at our wide open cafeterias and tried to figure out the best way to react. I was at Virginia Tech in 2007. From adolescence, I have primed myself for this bullshit. Contemplating this subject gives me the shakes.
There were kids at Evergreen whose parents are Columbine survivors. To me, that's the part that just hurts the most. An entire generation and we STILL haven't done a damn thing.
My kids' school had a "soft lockdown" on Sept 11. I only found out because my 5th grader told me. They were told that a student was having a "tantrum." Who knows what was really happening, as parents we weren't told anything by the school at all.
Wish I could homeschool them, I hate this fucking shit.
We didn't have a 24/7 news cycle providing an opportunity for people to get [in]famous instantly, and then it got hyper-charged by social media.
Guns in cars in the school parking lot was pretty common, at least where I grew up. Mag dumping into trash was a pretty standard weekend activity. Hell, you could walk into a store and buy a full-up machine gun up to 1986.
Yeah I think there are a lot of factors here. I think guns back then were less controlled and often times secured.
Social media just amplifies bullying to a level we never had to deal with. And the fact that there are communities of disturbed individuals out there that glorify violence just helps push people over the edge.
And, although I know this is an unpopular take, I think graphic videos and games aren't doing vulnerable kids any favors. After the assassination video was out, a thread from a teenagers sub came up in my feed and there were handfuls of kids saying the close up video is "no worse than what they see in games".
The fact that anyone said that was just disturbing. Many others commented how that was fucked up because this is real, but there were others that came in support of that point.
It's more probable it being allowed to expire correlates with other stuff going on at the same time - it didn't functionally do anything that anyone can point to to prevent mass shootings, as it was almost completely toothless.
Too bad 98/99 are the only years during the AWB that were more than a dot on this graph, and 99 was Columbine. Otherwise '94-04 is pretty flat, and then it explodes after the AWB expires. So reality disagrees with your statement.Ā
Yeah I think youāre onto something with the video games and unfettered access to graphic violence. They can do study after study but I donāt buy it. I think it desensitizes people, along with the fact that you can pretty much watch the entire war on terror on YouTube. Isis dudes getting blown up, 40 people getting mowed down by an attack helicopterā¦. Not to mention all of the death websites out there. Hell even in the early Internet days a lot of of us checked those out. Iām not saying itās the cause, but it aināt helping matters. The fact that I saw the Charlie Kirk video and while I was stunned I wasnāt nauseous, that shows that even I have become desensitized. And Iām 45 years old. Now imagine somebody in their teens or early 20s that has grown up with this shit.
Desensitization to violence has got to be part of it. We had LiveLeak and a few others when were coming up, but that's nothing like the continual steam of shit ISIS and the cartels have flooded the Internet with over the past 20 years.
I'm a parent and a teacher at a public school. This low level fear and anxiety is sometimes overwhelming. But it's like all the stress you have while driving a car. You suppress it despite the number of deaths caused by car accidents. But it is still there.
My 16 y.o. niece sometimes has panic attacks related to active shooter drills. I am so sad for her and all kids. They claim to keep kids safe by withholding books and ideas while inviting a culture of warfare into their learning sanctuaries.
There is no evidence these drills improve safety for kids, and there is evidence they increase anxiety/depression. We need to stop these. Their only purpose is to make parents feel better.
Train the teachers. Stop doing this to kids for no benefit.
Because our government sucks as much as the next one and allows foreign entities to buy up OUR housing and property and sell/rent it back to us...among many other really fucking stupid factors.
I wouldn't let that stop you though. I'd rather love out of a car in Canada than live in a house in the US.
I've been homeschooling my son for a decade, since the school system in my town is terrible. This isn't a case of 'just send him to the other school,' because there is no other school. One elementary, one middle school, one high school. But when he was going to the elementary school, he had a lockdown in kindergarten, a teacher who bullied him verbally in first grade, and a teacher who bullied him physically in second grade. I knew I couldn't trust them to use what little intelligence they had when the new principal was wearing 'juicy' pajama pants to work.
Fucking hell...this is totally the age of my kids so this hits hard. We live in Canada so they haven't had to do these sorts of gun specific drills (they do fire and general lock down drills). But fuck America...maybe, just maybe, you have too many fucking guns in your country.
Columbine happened right at the tail end of my piblic school career. To think at the time we assumed that would be a fluke thing that would rarely ever happen again.
Columbine wasnāt the first school shooting, though, so anyone who would have been like āoh wow what a tragic horrific clearly isolated event that wonāt recurā wasnāt paying attention.
I know it wasn't the first, it was only the most recent at that time. My memory of it was that was the sentiment and discourse about the event in the years after. Point is we did almost nothing to prevent it from happening again.
Yeah, we never do. I try not to be pessimistic but I am thoroughly that way about this issue. I canāt imagine anything ever changing. Itās depressing as shit.
The columbine guys really kicked something off. Im more of a lefty but also not for gun control. However, it is extremely worrying that this is becoming more common practice. When we need to have literal police on campuses ro ensure the kids can stay safe.
This is fucked. Sandyhook was 13 years ago and when that classroom full of cherubic little white kids got lit up and Americans still did nothing, miss me with any further talk about gun violence being a problem. They didnāt do shit then so fuck it.
Yup! As a Canadian, Sandy Hook is when I gave up all hope on America, and this is a pretty common feeling up here. Now we just want to minimize the impact on our country, as yours descends towards civil war. It's no long an "If" but a "when".Ā
Crazy how my fellow parents at my kids elementary school got so obsessed with books and sex edā¦ but this is ok. If they are ready for active shooter drills, I think they can handle that some kids have two moms.
I have three kids, none of them have been shaken by these drills.
Just like we werenāt shaken by fire drills, or the āstop drop and rollā drills, or any other kind of drill.
Itās all about context. Your kids have a better chance getting struck by lightning than getting killed in a mass shooting, approach the drills like this. If you act like your kid could die at any moment in a firestorm of gun fire, they will pick up on that.
Homeschool your kids. There are plenty of awesome programs to keep them socialized. Can't wait till AI replaces public school as Bill Gates said it would.
I lived through a school shooting in high school. It really saddens me that my kids now have to do these types of drills in school. Almost nothing has changed.
I had these drills when I was in elementary school in the 80ās. It may not have been nationwide occurrence but it isnāt new to me. Evil acts arenāt a new event
We live pretty close to a major Air Force Base so I do remember bomb drills, because during the Cold War we would have been a target and probably annihilated had anything popped off. Oddly, even in Indiana we had an earthquake drill because there was a report that the new Madrid fault line was activeā¦ but yeah the school shooter stuff was nonexistent. I graduated in 1998 so it wasnāt a thing until after Columbine of course.
And like others have said, at least at my somewhat rural school we had plenty of dudes that would come in after hunting season with shotguns in their trucks. No one taught twice about them coming in and shooting up the school. I still maintain that we need to reduce guns and how easy it is to obtain them, but the culture has changed. Society has shifted for the worse. There are a ton of causes, and I donāt know all the answers. But itās really sad that my elementary school aged sons have to do these drills. And the fact that their school is built like Fort Knox because it was constructed into 2006 after Columbineā¦ also sad
What sucks is the overwhelming majority of citizens are for common sense gun laws that would go a long way in protecting children but the people in charge answer to the all mighty lobby dollar.
I graduated high school in 2002, and I remember we had exactly one of these drills. We got marched single file to the nearby county fairgrounds, and lined up against a chain link fence.
I vocally pointed out the stupidity of this plan, but I know it was just that they had no idea what to do in that situation, but felt they had to try something. It fucking kills me that it's been twenty years, and due to the shittiest people in the would, all we've been able to do about it since then is hopefully get a little better at practice drills ...
When I was in elementary school, we did earthquake and tornado drills even though we never had either. I cannot imagine having to drill for something that has such a high likelihood of happening. Bless their hearts.
I guess the Boomers in charge of our lives lived through nuclear attack drills, so they accept THIS as perfectly normal, and it's an easy solution to an unfixable problem.
Iām a teacher in the US and I fucking HATE that we have to do this shit. That I have to explain to 5 year olds what to do if they are caught outside the classroom. I have to whisper to colleagues what my REAL escape plan is for my kids and myself should anything ever actually happen because Iām definitely not leaving the way we have practiced-which is to go through the building! We have been told to do whatever we need to do to escape, but still.
Every school shooting gives me such anxiety. I panic for weeks afterwards about sending my own kids to school and sending myself to work. Itās not right. I didnāt grow up with these drills. The shit they sell us to protect ourselves from shooters-like that doorstop you watched the girl use in this video-is reactive, expensive and does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. Also, please donāt message me to tell me I need to carry a gun in my classroom. Justā¦.NO! Thank you for reading the rant of an American teacher.
I edited it - I had the date a year earlier in my head. I was 15, sorry. Definitely part of the sub generation, and at least the 2 years above me also experienced it, so a significant amount.
I can say confidently not everyone 2 years above you did. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but it's still not a typical experience for the vast majority of xennials.
My daughter told me about how her old school did a "surprise active shooter drill" one day. She said some of the kids were freaking out and crying because they thought it was real. Luckily, they shut that school down a year later.
I remember being in preschool (maybe 1989 or 1990). Our teachers often played a game with us wherein we pretended to be ducks. There was a silly song playing on a record player, and when it got to a part where a hunter with a shotgun emerged, all of us little kids would run and hide somewhere in the classroom, like ducks hiding in tall grass, making sure we couldnāt be seen.
I thought it was just a fun game to play. I didnāt really consider it may have been preparing us for live shooting situations.
Me: "Kids today are so sheltered. In my day, we could go out and play for hours without checking in, so long as we were back for dinner."
Also me: "My niece and her middle school had an 'Active shooter drill' yesterday. In my day, we just had fire drills in middle school. The only thing we really worried about was Sister Mary Nicolette yelling at us for talking during the fire drill."
My kid is in elementary school. We live in a suburb of a southern mid size city. Our town has pretty low crime rate. I hate the fact that she has to go through metal detectors to enter school and they practice lock down drills. Every time there is a school shooting in this country I just think and often say out loud āI hate it here.ā I hate that this is what it has come to, because this country canāt change laws even when innocent children are killed. But my 2nd amendment rights! Ughā¦.. so tired that my 9 year old even has to think about this shit happening.
When I went to school, 96 graduate, fall leaves would blow through the halls. The doors at the ends of the halls were propped open since no buildings had AC. We used to crunch the leaves... Granted a rural district... But my kids go to the same district, metal detectors...
I've always thought they should train kids to get OUT of the school primarily unless there was no choice. I remember there being so many exit doors in my schools it would have been crazy to lock yourself in with a shooter rather than just get out the nearest exit. Then again I feel like common sense went out the window somewhere along the way.
It got worse at my school. A bunch of the "weird" kids got suspended/expelled for whatever excuse they could come up with. One girl got in trouble for drawing this cute little trench coated angel (that was a character she'd been drawing for years) because someone thought it was supposed to be something about one of the Colubine shooters. Teachers even backed her up that she'd been drawing that same little guy forever, but she still got suspended. A friend's boyfriend got expelled for making a joke in bad taste.
It got really dumb for a while. One girl's dad offered to pay for metal detectors for the high school, but he was turned down because he owned a strip club.
This stuff school shooting stuff worse. The social media stuff is worse. Being under 24 hour video surveillance with zero ability to move freely, not great.
But compare that to much higher rates of teen risky behaviors killing our peers or leaving them on fast track to an early death, higher levels of criminality, enormous incarceration rate of economically disadvantaged and marginalized groups. And we had the rampant homophobia, misogyny and racism of the crotch obsessed 90s cultural zeitgeist.
We wonāt know for a while- and isnāt totally up to us to judge, only to compare.
When our company was bought but an American company and they started forcing us to do this sort of shelter in place active shooter stuff we complained loudly.
I live in Hampshire, England... š¤£
Sounds like the propaganda machine has been running again, the real truth is the wallabies are part of the resistance, it's kangaroo attacks under order from the emu overlords that we worry about, the emus are always trying to turn us humans and wallabies against each other
but nothing can break the alliance, viva la resistance! ;)
Sadly, I remember having active shooter/suspicious person drills at school as early as 5th/6th grade (I'm in my 40s) but I lived in a REALLY rough area so maybe that had something to do with it.
We had campus intruder drills in high school - basically close the blinds, lock the door, turn off the lights, sit on the floor quietly. They started after Columbine and they were active shooter drills, they just werenāt called that and werenāt as advanced/in depth as they are now.
WinterYak1933@reddit
This is very depressing. :(
But good song choice.
Fear_Punk_Planet@reddit
My class were test subjects of these drills. They did them constantly in Florida in the very late 90's ('98-). First thing I asked at our 9th grade orientation. "Aren't we showing the shooters how to get around all the precautions?" I asked that in front of all the students and parents. I got no answer.
Hermans_Head2@reddit
We had to prepare for nuclear missiles.
Substantial-Pin-3833@reddit
lol like hiding under your desk would protect you from a nuke. I never got that.
Hermans_Head2@reddit
Yeah it was weird.
For us, once a month on the first Tuesday at 12:01 pm
Prestigious-Skirt-14@reddit
There are a couple of schools that were recently built in my neighborhood and now each classroom has an exit to the outside for this very reason. This is America.. šŗšø
SecondSaintsSonInLaw@reddit
School shooting became the norm while we were in high school, this has been our reality since Columbine
Substantial-Pin-3833@reddit
School shootings have been happening long before Columbine. They just got massive media coverage.
somethingsoddhere@reddit
Jesus Christ.
SignoreBanana@reddit
Many conservatives are parents. As a fellow parent (albeit liberal) I cannot fathom how a parent can talk to their kids about what to do during school shootings and not think "what the living fuck are we doing in this fucking country?"
Smokeythemagickamodo@reddit
Donāt forget the parents that turn around and teach their sub 10 year olds how to shoot a gun.
andrewclarkson@reddit
I'm a parent in a very conservative area and many of my closest friends are conservative leaning parents. The answer is complex and multi-faceted of course but in short they don't think guns are the root cause of the problem and they also think the actual danger is being overblown/hyped for political purposes.
My personal take is that the guns are the how but not the why.... and the why ought to be obvious but everyone's too busy blaming whatever aspect of society they don't like rather than actually trying to understand or deal with it.
SignoreBanana@reddit
Frankly, it doesn't really matter what we speculate on what will be solved. The problem that I see is that we're not even trying. It is not a priority to "end mass shootings at schools." That's what I mean by "what the fuck". I've yet to hear any politician, right or left say "whatever it takes, we're stopping mass shootings at schools."
andrewclarkson@reddit
I see some subtle changes going on- there seems to be a lot more awareness on mental health issues and more resources in school from what I've seen. But you're right, there's no real "whatever it takes" initiative just a bunch of empty words for the most part.
It's pretty consistent that these shooters seem to be people who are so tormented that they want to die and so angry at society that they want to cause suffering on their way out. The reasons why are varied just like people which is IMO why it's not so easy to just make a blanket policy at a government or institutional level like everyone wants.
Government and institutions can help by making the resources available but IMHO our overall society needs a bit of an attitude adjustment. We need a lot more of us paying attention to the people in our communities- kids especially and helping. Some people need some heavy duty professional help but sometimes just being a friend to someone who needs it is enough.
This a great youtube video I try to spread around from a guy who almost became a school shooter...it's worth a watch to understand how simple it can be sometimes if we just made the effort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azRl1dI-Cts
weltvonalex@reddit
As a Austrian it's super absurd and strange to see that.
cerealkilla718@reddit
It's not because you're Austrian. It's because you're human.
traxxes@reddit
As a Canadian I remember we had "lock down drills" occasionally but it was in regards to anything not specifically shootings, just any major emergency setting.
Albeit tbh in recollection, these only came about after Columbine happened.
koei19@reddit
I feel the same way as an American.
AliveInTheFuture@reddit
The problem with conservative ideology on this issue is that they will never, ever care about it until itās their own kid theyāre getting the call about from the police.
They have No fucking empathy or consideration for anyone or anything but themselves.
As one of their heroes once said,
Toblogan@reddit
That's not true at all.
AliveInTheFuture@reddit
I'm willing to engage in a real conversation about this with you. I know you're being downvoted into oblivion, but let's chat anyway.
We see this time and again whenever something happens to conservatives that they didn't care about before.
Frankly, I'm tired of it. They're running our country into the ground with outrage over bullshit that doesn't matter.
Speaks_for_the_Plebs@reddit
To clarify, do you mean C.K. didn't say that quote, or that you disagree with C.K's statement?
These downvotes might be in error if you meant "it's worth it" is "not true at all".
Outrageous_Lychee819@reddit
From the guy who brought you, "I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
SlayerAlexxx@reddit
Dam someone really said thatā¦wait ,if I look up the contextā¦. Itās not going to be completely different is it?
Outrageous_Lychee819@reddit
So did you look it up? The context is exactly what you think, and the speaker (Charlie Kirk) was just shot and killed.
SlayerAlexxx@reddit
I did! And you were wrong. He said itās bad because itās was centric. It makes someone elseās pain about you. Ie. EMPATH. And that the better word would be sympathy, a feeling of sorrow regardless of what you perceive. And I looked them up, seems heās right. Or was right.
Outrageous_Lychee819@reddit
Oh, I see now you were replying to the comment I replied to, not to me.
SignoreBanana@reddit
Not unless you try to do mental gymnastics to justify it.
GarminTamzarian@reddit
PersianCatLover419@reddit
š
patriotAg@reddit
It has to be worth it. Unfortunately there are demented evil sick people that are psychos.
Stalin said - A Single Death Is a Tragedy; A Million Deaths Is a Statistic
Yes, your graphic is used as propaganda, and to cause a major political issue showing dead children and dead Charlie. Go read the raping of Nanjing. Democide (death from governments) is the #1 cause of death ever in history. The U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights is there to give a common citizen some means of personal defense from enemies both foreign and domestic.
babbylonmon@reddit
Bro, they WANT a violent world. Soldiers of god and all that. I think about Israel; who would they shoot and abuse if the Palestinians were gone? The conservative right wants to be strapped everywhere they go, and kill at least one terrorist a day. Btw: they think liberals, and gays, and melanin are terrorists.
SignoreBanana@reddit
I'm not sure I believe this, but I do think they think the world is a lot more dangerous than it actually is.
Panek52@reddit
Both my kids get shaken up by the drills.
My youngest wouldnāt go to school the day after the CO high school and Kirk shootings.
We grew up in a different world.
Trixie1143@reddit
I'm in Canada, it's almost the same now as it was then.
drainbamage1011@reddit
My kid gets super anxious, but has never mentioned doing an active shooter drill at school.
I'm afraid to ask, because I don't want to put the idea in his head and get him preoccupied.
BigFatBlackCat@reddit
Just ask if there are āanyā drills where you practice what to do in an emergency, āfor example like a fire drillā. Donāt leave him alone in this.
GrumpyDietitian@reddit
My kid started kindergarten right after uvalde. She was telling me about a drill she had and I was like āoh a fire drill? Did you go outside?ā And she said āno, a bad guy drill. We hid in the bathroomā like so matter of factly. Meanwhile Iām weeping.
Murda981@reddit
I'll never forget my now 13yo coming home from kindergarten and telling me about the "special fire drill" they had at school that day where half of his class hid in the bathroom and the other half hid behind the teachers desk. All I could say was that I wasn't a fire drill. The school actually calls them safety drills. He was in the same grade as the kids who were killed in Uvalde and I damn near went and pulled him out of school early that day just because I needed to see him and be sure he was ok.
EsotericPenguins@reddit
Our schools call them ālockdown drills.ā Sad my main thought watching this was āthey forgot to cover the window.ā I hate it here.
jawanessa@reddit
Sad my first thought was "they're supposed to turn off the lights". I also hate it here.
jdsmith575@reddit
I ask about what they do and how the kids behave because I want to know itās being taken seriously. I donāt ask if theyāre scared or if they know why theyāre drilling because Iām not sure I can answer those questions.
CircuitSynapse42@reddit
My kindergartner had one on the third day of school, and theyāve been terrified to go back to school ever since. Going to a new school is scary enough, now letās tell you to run and hide because thereās a bad guy with a gun coming to hurt you, oh, just kidding, this was just a drill, now letās go back to working on our hand writing.
The school has been giving us crap because our kid didnāt want to participate in class and doesnāt talk, well no shit, you traumatized the crap out of them and didnāt even give parents a chance to talk to their kids and prepare them for it first. Itās so infuriating to watch your children go through this when they should be having fun and just being a kid.
sidvictorious@reddit
It's not the school that traumatized your and other kids, they are trying to reduce the likelihood that they are murdered while in their care.Ā
It's our gun obsessed society that traumatized your kid (and many others).
PersianCatLover419@reddit
I grew up with guns, friends had BB guns or hunted deer. In schools upstate and everywhere else kids get a day off of school when deer hunting season starts. It was not traumatic.
CircuitSynapse42@reddit
Two things can be true. The school administration, not teachers, is absolutely at fault for not alerting parents that they were going to perform that type of drill or providing prior explanation to the kids as to what that type of drill was and why they were having it. While yes, they do not have control over society and the issues we have with firearms, they do have control over school communications, and they should have alerted parents that this was going to happen so they could have prepared their kids for the first one and answered their questions.
I have the utmost respect for teachers; they have a difficult job, and Iām very thankful that they dedicate their professional careers to teaching our children.
Brave_Gur7793@reddit
This isn't a mutually exclusive situation. They have been traumatized by a gun obsessed society and by this school poorly handling school shooter drills for kindergartners.
Bakingsquared80@reddit
My school always gives us advanced notice before drills
CircuitSynapse42@reddit
Thatās great! All schools should do that.
shatmycat@reddit
Yeah, when the number of shootings really started ramping up I was in 8th grade.
Did you know there was a brief time where it was completely acceptable to not warn the students in advance when performing a drill?
I was fucking neurotic, still am.
Korben_Reynolds@reddit
Messed up in a different way, maybe. We didnāt have the internet back then, so I donāt know how wide spread this was, but I remember my middle school receiving several bomb threats after the Oklahoma City bombing in ā95. Drills for that also fell into the regular rotation with fire and tornado drills.
I also remember the local PD Canine Unit regularly sweeping the halls during class. School staff tried to keep that quiet though, so you only knew about it if you had a bathroom pass and happened to see them in the hallway.
Panek52@reddit
Damn, definitely was not my experience (graduated HS in ā95 in MD), so I guess we all werenāt fully removed from it when we were that age.
Opposite_Category_88@reddit
1000% this ā¬ļø
Into-the-stream@reddit
Maybe they do think it, but their answer is ālibs, immigrants and trans peopleā
Do not underestimate the power of fox news and YouTubers, to redirect peoples high levels of discomfort to right wing distractions. White, q anon shoots up a school and they happily reconstruct the narrative into āimmigrants and trans peopleā
Toblogan@reddit
No, we all know crazies come in all flavors. Try again...
SignoreBanana@reddit
Most come in vanilla.
mickeltee@reddit
And they wouldnāt care to look up the actual statistics to see that conservatives are actually committing most of the political violence.
boundlesschagrin@reddit
Statistics are gay & come from Satan, dontchaknow!
PirateWheeler40@reddit
"What the living fuck are we doing in this fucking country?"
There is no more fitting a statement than this.
BlueEyedGranger@reddit
God, remember when we were young and the biggest talks we got from our parents was about sex and drugs?
thickboihfx@reddit
It's fucked up that they need to do it, but if these measures save any lives I guess it was worth it? Sad to see though I agree.
Illustrious_Tap3171@reddit
I was parent volunteer on school shooter drill day when my eldest was in Kindergarten because I was a teen parent and was in search and rescue in my junior year of high school and had helped train local police on drills.
What I mean by that is our team was large we had about 60 high school kids, they got other youth law associated teams and on a weekend after columbine they had us run at police at full force and create āobstacleā for them in a small school. They had swat, Multnomah County Sheriffs, Portland Police, and a few others to talk strategy.
When my kids teacher and I were talking about the upcoming shooter drill and how the school was designed for protection with active shooters, we talked about my experience from having Kip Kinkle the year before columbine and then columbine. She asked if I could volunteer that day and I said yes.
I think all parents should participate in that drill, it has far less emotions than a real thing, but teaching your kindergartener to ball up in a corner and be quiet as possible regardless of what they will hear is heart breaking.
When I was in high school after columbine the worst we had was metal detectors for a while, but doing this was way worse.
Chief_Chill@reddit
Jesus Christ is a scapegoat for the moral decline in this country. Worshipping a dude whose "dad" is an egomaniacal narcissist with an actual "God complex" isn't such a good thing. Guns - weapons of death - have become a political wedge issue between Americans whose children are all at risk for indiscriminate bullet fire. It's disgusting how fetishized guns are in this nation. The argument that only criminals would then have them does nothing. Most school shooters aren't criminal gun owners, until they use their gun in a crime.
sunshineparadox_@reddit
My daughter in the second grade ranted after she got home they were all gonna die because her classmates wouldnāt stfu during their drill.
They HAD a real shooter situation on day 1 of that grade too, five miles away. The county it happened in all shit down for it. But we were on the edge of that county, and we were told about it after the kids got home. So the one time it was even remotely relevant they didnāt tell the low income county where the suspect apparently fled to until the school day was over.
somethingsoddhere@reddit
š¢
notapunk@reddit
And in many schools this is a monthly drill.
RadTimeWizard@reddit
Remember, Charlie Kirk said it's worth it.
sandaier76@reddit
All this so that Ted Cruz and others can take in millions in NRA campaign contributions under the guise of "2Nd AmEnDmEnT iS gOd GiVeN rIgHt"
magster823@reddit
Literally what I muttered aloud before opening this post.
highpriestess420@reddit
Lies. If there's an omnipotent all loving god that lets this happen, there is no god.
Illustrious-Lead-960@reddit
All they said was āJesus Christ!ā.
Are you a bot?
highpriestess420@reddit
My bad, must be bot behavior being upset at kids getting murdered in schools and having to practice shooter drills in a world where people claim the problem isn't guns but they just need to pray more. I'll update my programming algorithm š
DBE113301@reddit
Practicing Christian here. Although, I'm a Methodist, and we're a very "New Testament" sect of Christianity. Ya know, feed the poor, help the needy, welcome the foreigner, forgive your neighbor, let any man without sin cast the first stone kind of people.
Anyway, an argument I often hear from my fellow Christians is that the problem today isn't guns; it's the fact that not enough people have Jesus in their lives. However, so many people who say they love Jesus also love guns and shooting stuff, which seems antithetical to the New Testament, but that's an argument for a different day. This is anecdotal, I know, but everyone I know who doesn't identify as a Christian is also a pacifist, and these people stay as far away from guns as possible.
I'm definitely not saying that shootings occur for religious purposes. What I am saying is that most mass shooters have some sort of faith foundation in their lives. Their lives aren't devoid of religion. And some of the biggest gun nuts are also highly religious, which makes the "They need Jesus" argument a bunch of nonsense.
drainbamage1011@reddit
It's just a deflection. Praying for God to step in and fix the situation absolves us of any responsibility to take action ourselves.
Calm-Tree-1369@reddit
Maybe there's an omnipotent all-hating god, or multiple very not omnipotent mini-gods who can only watch helplessly.
-threefeetoffun-@reddit
I do not remember any drills outside fire ones.
sweetbeard@reddit
I remember nuclear bomb drills in elementary school. Theyād have us get under our little school desks as though that was going to shield us from nuclear fallout.
ScottishKnifemaker@reddit
There are legitimate reasons to get low during a nuclear blast, fallout comes much later after the blast, the radioactive material has to reach the stratosphere get mixed with the atmosphere and then "fall out" of the clouds as rain
XennialBoomBoom@reddit
Being under a desk doesn't help with fallout. It's the shockwave blowing out windows/collapsing the structure.
ScottishKnifemaker@reddit
That's kind of what I said, The fallout comes after you're going to be gone from school after a nuclear blast if you even survived, fallout comes later, the reason for duck and cover is to not be standing at a window looking for the light source of the explosion so you don't get blasted in the face, later is when you have to worry about the fallout depending on the way the wind blows
jkpublic@reddit
Duck and cover also shielded your eyes from the flashes, it helped with glad and debris (as u/XennialBoomBoom said), and it prevented "gaper's ~~block~~ blast".
--Duck and cover - Wikipedia
RickThrust@reddit
It depends where the bomb detonates, right? A desk isn't going to help much against 100 million degree heat in the primary blast zone. If it's 10+ miles away, it could help a lot against shockwave damage and debris.
VelocityGrrl39@reddit
In what state did you go to school? Iām a little older than you and we never had nuclear bomb drills, and I grew up outside NYC.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
You might be Gen X.
My older sister talks about those drills but I never had one.
sweetbeard@reddit
Born in 1980
elliemff@reddit
Born in 81 and did fallout drills in elementary only. I think it was only the first couple of years though. Also fire and tornado because Texas.
ForceGhost47@reddit
I was born in 79. We did air raid drillls too
Goblinboogers@reddit
Yup right there with ya. We had those drills too. Found out years later they were more for identifying the bodies because they had seating charts.
OstrichMean7004@reddit
I was born in 75, and don't remember ever having one.
I lived in Connecticut, close enough to NYC that they likely figured we'd be dead no matter how many desks we hid under.
boundlesschagrin@reddit
I was born in '81 & had nuclear drills in elementary school. A mouthy kid said they were stupid, obviously a nuclear bomb would kill us.
The PE teacher said "Yeah, you'd be crispy. Getting low & spread out helps bodies be counted & maybe identified, kiddo."
It's possible we continued having them later in the Cold War than other areas due to proximity to the Port of Houston, a likely target in an accidental launch or for vengeful economic hindrance.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
I like that PE teacher. Keeping it real.
VioletVenable@reddit
We didnāt specifically have air raid drills, but during earthquake drills, we were always reminded to follow the same procedure.
-threefeetoffun-@reddit
I've only seen the videos. Basically crawl under your desk and kiss your ass goodbye. I don't remember ever doing one. I might have. Don't remember.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
I had earthquake drills
TP_Crisis_2020@reddit
Grew up in tornado alley, and we had tornado drills.
Outrageous_Lychee819@reddit
No earthquake drills in Michigan but we had tornado drills. Had to go sit in a non-windowed bathroom or a hallway away from windows.
DirtRight9309@reddit
same! just did a little research and turns out a tornado hit a school in Michigan once, and school wasnāt even in session. but we had to line up against the cinder block wall in the hallway like 3 times a year at least.
lydatl@reddit
yup same in atlanta, lined up in the hallways in duck and cover formation. i had recurring tornado nightmares as a kid and cannot imagine what SHOOTER DRILLS would have done to me
tcpukl@reddit
Only America has gun drills now. You know because you love guns!
I could send my kids to school thinking they could have another gun shooting every day.
What a strange country.
Successful-Account70@reddit
Strange country? It doesn't matter what country you are in.... Some one can bring a weapon inside a school and do damage. Any unhealthily person can do damage by hand, guns, knives, bombs, or other matter.
tcpukl@reddit
Guns aren't freely available in most civilized countries.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
Resolution_Usual@reddit
Lol I also had earthquake drills
However, when the 1989 earthquake hit, everyone was suddenly aware that for all the drills, no one had mentioned what an earthquake actually was, so we just ended up running around panicked.
-threefeetoffun-@reddit
I live in NY and did not have those but I do remember them from Saved by the Bell. So when we had an earthquake here and I was peeing as soon as I could stop it was inside the doorway for me.
ammodramussavannarum@reddit
The one time I was in an earthquake I was also peeing
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
Better to piss yourself than have a building fall upon you.
-threefeetoffun-@reddit
It's crazy weird right? It's weird when you recognize danger before the brain tells the other things.
Spiritual_Sorbet_870@reddit
In case you find yourself in an earthquake again - theyāve revised it to DO NOT go in a doorway. Turns out a swinging door is a liability. Basically just get under the sturdiest piece of furniture available (to minimize crush risk if the building comes down) or get outside if you can do so quickly and away from buildings.
MasticatedDorks@reddit
Same here, earthquake and fire drills
mayonnaisejane@reddit
We had lock down drills but not active shooter ones. It was just "everyone must be inside a classroom with the doors shut and blinds drawn."
Started after Columbine, so it was late high school when we started doing that.
Only real lock down we ever had was for a live skunk that wandered into the building thru some doors left open by the gym teacher.
Objective-Ad5620@reddit
Same here ā Iām slightly younger (late 80s millennial) and we had fire drills, earthquake drills, and lockdown drills. We also got a free skip day my senior year because a bomb threat was called in.
A shooting occurred at my (future) university campus when I was in middle school, killing a professor my family knew. My high school went on lockdown my junior year following a domestic shooting nearby, and my university went on lockdown when I was a student there after a shooting in a local coffee shop.
All of this was post-Columbine but pre-Sandy Hook.
catjuggler@reddit
The one for getting out of the bus was my fave
PuppyJakeKhakiCollar@reddit
We had nuclear drills when I was in elementary school. This was 85 or 86.
Forever_Forgotten@reddit
We started doing earthquake drills after the area I lived in had a sudden series of them in the early 1990s.
Torringtonn@reddit
Grew up in the midwest so we had tornado ones too.
burnafter3ading@reddit
In high-school, we got several bomb threats. I remember them clustered weirdly over a two month period. This would have been around Columbine.
jkpublic@reddit
The high school next to my elementary school had a bomb threat in the 80s, so both schools evacuated into one huge crowd in the grassy field between.
Illustrious_Tap3171@reddit
Yeah our school got that a lot and so did my daughterās high school years.
ammodramussavannarum@reddit
We had several bomb threats at my school in my senior year (1995). Each one was met with a school evacuation, so copycats took advantage of that when they didnāt study for a test or something. There was only one where an actual package was found, and it turned out to be a precision scale that a person stole to measure drugs, then return to the school by wrapping it up in brown paper, setting it outside, and calling 911. So weird.
Battle-Any@reddit
During exams one year, a kid called in a bomb threat because he hadn't studied. He called it in from the payphone beside the cafeteria, in full view of a camera. He was arrested before we were even let back into the school.
treemoustache@reddit
We had 'bus ridership' which amounted to making everyone jump out the back door of a school bus.
resispaloquiter@reddit
We had hurricane drills on top of fire drills, but nothing like this.
Eric848448@reddit
We did tornado too in Indiana.
m1coles@reddit
I lived in multiple states. Experienced Fire drills in all, tornado drills in multiple, and earthquake drills in one. These school shooting drills didnāt exist until the 2000s
WhattDoIKnow50@reddit
I had bomb drills. In NY.
JasonZep@reddit
I remember sitting in the hallway against the walls. I think that was tornado?
EatPie_NotWAr@reddit
Confirmed (grew up not far from Xenia Ohio)
hamburgler26@reddit
Yup this was Tornado, had them in Texas.
Seven22am@reddit
And in PA (and I suspect most everywhere in between).
degeneratesumbitch@reddit
Yessir. Tornado alley kids knew this one by heart.
superneatosauraus@reddit
Yep. Texas kid checking in.
big_ringer@reddit
Ah, we had tornado drills.
Aggravating_Raise868@reddit
In Indiana we had tornado drills
illini02@reddit
In the midwest. We had tornado drills
Comfortable_Tale9722@reddit
Midwest here, also tornado drills
Billy-Ruffian@reddit
I'm on the older side of xennial and have a vague memory of doing one duck and cover drill in early elementary school and getting to see the bomb shelter in the school basement.
bakedveldtland@reddit
I remember having one ācampus threatā drill. Our teacher just turned off the lights and we sat quietly. I remember thinking what a waste of time it was, and definitely thinking the chances of somebody coming onto our campus was basically 0%. I canāt remember if that was before or after the Columbine shooting, though. I was in high school for one more year after that event, so it could have been in reaction to itā¦ but l feel like it was before it happened. Our local high schools would occasionally have bomb threats called in, I think that might have had more to do with the drill.
realcommovet@reddit
We did tornado and fire drills in elementary
nectarinetree@reddit
We also had tornado drills.
koei19@reddit
I grew up in Kansas. We had tornado drills.
SeaOrgChange@reddit
We had nuclear missile drills in Florida.
heresmytwopence@reddit
Same here. They brought in a trailer one time and we had to crawl out of it through fake smoke. Other than that, just garden-variety fire drills.
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
Active shooter drills started after Columbine. The younger among us (self included) did have to do them.
-threefeetoffun-@reddit
Oh I am sure. I graduated 2000. They didn't start them in my school by that time.
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
They did in mine a few months later, start of the new year.
elkniodaphs@reddit
We did nuclear drills in our school, what with the Cold War ending in 1991.
ChromeDestiny@reddit
I recall having one drill on what to do during a shooting/ lockdown but apart from that it was only fire drills.
TheSwissdictator@reddit
I was bullied pretty badly as a kid. To the point I was homeschooled in 7th grade.
That all said?
When the school day was down I could relax and let down my defenses because the internet, while around and available, wasnāt as pervasive. I could relax and enjoy life.
Iād rather go through all that again, as painful as it was, than what kids have to live through these days (and with bullying that doesnāt stop when they get home).
Columbine happened at the end of 8th grade for me. School shootings were still fairly rare. Itās said that āfairly rareā seems enviable compared to what we have now when it should be zero.
pgsz@reddit
We didnāt, but we were also allowed to have rifles in cars/trucks at high school. At least where I lived out in the country.
SecondSaintsSonInLaw@reddit
That got nothing to do with it. School shootings happen in schools with armed SRO's. The Harvest Fest in Las Vegas was shot up and every tour bus was armed. Some schools are get shot up android the ERT just waits outside send arrests parents who shout out still them to do something
cmgww@reddit
I think a lot of people miss the point. The guns have always been there. I also went to a pretty rural school where it was not a big deal to see guys coming in after deer hunting with shotguns in the racks of their trucks. No one thought twice about it. They werenāt going to bring them in and shoot up the school. The culture has changed. And Iām a firm believer that we need to restrict who can access guns. The fact that this scumbag shooter was able to purchase a firearm like that legally with such ease, that really bothers me. I donāt care if he didnāt have a criminal background. We have to do something, I donāt know what the solution is but it aināt this.
Waughwaughwaugh@reddit
I am a kindergarten teacher. We do at least 4 of these drills a year. However we donāt have the kids hide now- they are taught to be ready to run. Every time I have to blockade my door and show them where to go to be out of sight, and how to crouch so they can move as fast as they can if needed, it puts a hole in my heart. I know itās necessary to teach them this but for the love of all thatās holy it shouldnāt be. I have my own kids, I donāt want to have to choose between taking a bullet for my class or surviving for my children and I donāt want to be a martyr.
catjuggler@reddit
Is there a change happening? Hiding is still the procedure at most that Iāve heard of. Doesnāt make a ton of sense to me for rooms with exterior access.
Waughwaughwaugh@reddit
We donāt teach them to hide in small spaces or closets like we used to. Now itās get out of sight but be ready to run, donāt block your own access out of a room if you can.
bikemandan@reddit
But is it?
Waughwaughwaugh@reddit
In the current climate, yes. It shouldnāt be but it is.
Tribe303@reddit
I just asked my 14 year old Canadian kid if she ever did any 'mass shooter drills'... The reply I got was "Oh hell no!, this isn't the US".
brackthomas7@reddit
What about the cold war bombing drills?
BecauseImGod@reddit
In my day, we had fire, bomb, and gang riot drills. I went to a ghetto ass school. We didn't have it this bad. I mean, a fight with melee weapons was bad, but everyone lived. Even the kid that was stabbed in the head with a flat head screw driver walked to class. He didn't know he had been stabbed. Teacher saw the handle sticking out. Even then, no guns.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
What is a gang riot drill?
BecauseImGod@reddit
Gang and riot drills were 2 different things. Gang drills were similar to school shooting drills. Lock the class room doors. Riot drills wanted everyone to go to one location usually the football field. Bomb and fire drills meant we went to the field behind the football field.
heresmytwopence@reddit
https://i.redd.it/hb1qmm2ouwof1.gif
BecauseImGod@reddit
https://www.facebook.com/groups/351222423395156/posts/393882945795770/
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
What is a gang riot drill?
Upper_Comment_9206@reddit
We had tornado and earthquake drills
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
Where has both tornadoes and earthquakes?
Upper_Comment_9206@reddit
Moved a lot!
insainodwayno@reddit
Aaaand, that's one of the reasons we left the US. Seeing my kids have to practice active shooter drills in kindergarten? Fuck that.
GuidoCarosella82@reddit
I've said this here before, but I think kids today have it WAY worse than we did. The world's a much scarier place now than when we kids. And that isn't even nostalgia talking.
ES_Legman@reddit
As a non American this is absolutely horrifying and the fact that the society has people saying welp it's worth it because of our gun rights is impossible to understand
djsynrgy@reddit
Reason #1 why I'm deeply grateful I married a Canadian and get to raise my kid up here.
VVrayth@reddit
Too late for nuclear attack drills, too early for active shooter drills. We truly did have it the best.
PuppyJakeKhakiCollar@reddit
My elementary school actually did have nuclear attack drills.
ComebackShane@reddit
I lived in SC for 1st grade and we had nuclear attack drills, and then in CA my senior year we had shooter drills after columbine. So I got a little bit of both!
RandyArgonianButler@reddit
I was still in high school when Columbine happened, so not quite.
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
Not too early for all of us. Active shooter drills started when I was in high school, after Columbine.
FeralRubberDuckie@reddit
I was a junior during Columbine and in CO but a different school district. We didnāt have any active shooter drills my senior year. I think the first I heard about someone participating in one was a couple years later when a college friend became a teacher.
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
I grew up in CT, and my school had them starting the next fall.
braxtel@reddit
We never did drills, but after Columbine, my school had the brilliant idea to chain the school doors shut during class times, trapping everyone inside.
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
Sounds.... Safe....
VVrayth@reddit
Ahh, I was class of '98, I guess that wasn't long after I was out of high school.
Ol_Turd_Fergy@reddit
I graduated 2001. Never had active shooter drills, and by then the teachers were like "fuck it, if its burning or there is a tornado its taking all of us with it"
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
Yeah, not much.
ApatheistHeretic@reddit
Some areas still had the nuclear drills into the early 80s.
monsterdaddy4@reddit
Can confirm. I grew up in an area with a massive military presence, and several shipyards that built and repaired navy ships. We were doing nuke drills right up until the collapse of the USSR, as we were considered the first target, after DC
pogulup@reddit
I did for the first few years of grade school in the mid 80s.Ā I remember seeing the nuclear bomb test videos and wondering how climbing under my desk and putting my hands over my head and face was going to save me.
NathanTheKlutz@reddit
This makes me weep. We have failed the very future of our species on a profound level.
blownout2657@reddit
It is terrible we they had to do this but the kids did amazing.
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
Exactly and the point is that they had to do it because of the shootings we've had for decades now which is why I'm confused on the title of the post being "glad we didn't have to do this" when the reason we even have to do this now started with one of the biggest mass shootings a school had ever had and it was when we were teens. Perhaps if we had had this sooner we could have prevented some. We shouldn't have to have these but reality is we need them and needed them.
blownout2657@reddit
There was a mixer in my high school in 93. What?
MostlyOrdinary@reddit
So many questions. Why was this video made? Why is Pumped Up Kicks playing? Why do this drills only exist here (rhetorical)?
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
Look up what the song Pumped Up Kicks is about.
MostlyOrdinary@reddit
I know what it's about.....I guess that's sort of why it feels almost too on the nose if that makes sense....
bikemandan@reddit
Looks like a promotional video for the door blocking device
Angylisis@reddit
SHES LIKE 9 AND IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE THE DOOR IS SECURED?
REALLY???
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
The smallest one is least likely to be hit by gunfire
DirtRight9309@reddit
āwe didnāt have it so badā - anyone who wasnāt connected to/didnāt know anyone involved in Columbine.
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
Yeah I don't understand that. We were the ones in HS when Columbine happened. Xennials were the shooters and the student body at the time. Maybe we should have had these drills if there wasn't anything in place stopping it from happening otherwise.
Better to have these drills than to end up not prepared and becoming a casualty. We shouldn't have to but circumstances have necessitated it.
DirtRight9309@reddit
exactly šÆ
NoFerret3250@reddit
Yeah I was a middle school teacher and our district decided to make a video like this with our high school kids. Imagine watching a video of all your past students running, hiding, some pretending to get shot. I was sobbing. Itās atrocious. Itās barbaric. What is wrong with our country??!!!
mizushimo@reddit
Most of us were either close to being out of high school or in college when Columbine happened.
user08182019@reddit
Itās more that even if you were younger, when it first happened no one would have suspected that it would be a trend. It was more of an inexplicable anomaly which obvious is quite different than what we have now.
GutsAndBlackStufff@reddit
Not a parent, but I think Iād tell me kid to stay home on shooter drill day.
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
Do you think these are done to scare the kids? Not because it could help save lives if a shooting did happen? I have a kid in HS right now and while it's scary to practice I'd rather know the kids knew what to do in an actual shooting which is much more scary.
GutsAndBlackStufff@reddit
I think they think itās the second reason that ends up being the first.
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
I think we were forced to be in this position since nothing else is done (and hasn't been for the last couple of decades at least). Fire drills are scary. Earthquake drills are scary. But we do them so we're prepared and survive when the real thing happens.
It's choose between something that sucks or something that sucks worse. Most would choose the former.
Jasperlinc@reddit
They are not usually announced ahead of time. I got the post drill email yesterday afternoon for my kids elementary school. It's hard to think about it.
GutsAndBlackStufff@reddit
I can imagine.
FaithlessnessHot2422@reddit
Fucks sakes, worst we get here in Australia as kids is āno hat,no playā for going out in the bloody sun during breaks.
jeffois@reddit
Ugh, sending your kid to school without a hat in terms 1 or 4 is like sentencing them to jail. Not even allowed to play in the covered sports courts! I always feel so bad, as they have a pretty shitty day.
handerburgers@reddit
Just Friday while teaching I was thinking about exactly what I would do with my students if there was a shooter on campus, planning it out in my head. Itās a different world.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
Aren't they arming teachers now? Don't you get bonus pay for being strapped?
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
Oh please. As a school employee as well that is not happening. Maybe possibly in some red states and even then maybe just some obscure towns there, where I'm sure they also make pennies and have no union protection, but most school officials are not doing that and if they were asked to most would leave. Even the highest paid employees still wouldn't be paid enough to be expected to yield guns and save students like freakin Rambo.
They could take all the money that would cost and put it into hiring extra security and personal officers, metal detectors, etc., for each school in America and yet they still don't. So instead we get shooter drills with the hope it's enough because apparently after all this time that's all that can be offered.
handerburgers@reddit
lol, Iām not in one of those states
ScottishKnifemaker@reddit
I mean we had Columbine, so I don't know, it's not like this thing was unheard of during our time in high school, so we really didn't
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
The problem is we're 26 years after Columbine and not much better so we have to do these drills and probably should have done them sooner. I don't think it should be "glad we didn't have to do these" like the OP said, but instead should be "it sucks this even has to be done and maybe we should have done these sooner", if nothing was going to prevent them, then and since then.
JeremiahCLynn@reddit
What are we doing to our kids?
fidgetypenguin123@reddit
Well it's come to either possibly die in a school shooting or practice to not die in one.
Lazy-Western304@reddit
Only had fire & Tornado drills when I went to school
emozolik@reddit
Anyone else touched my gun violence here? My son survived a mass shooting. That was 9 years ago. With each new mass shooting itās like a reminder of how truly terrible we are as a country. Property (including guns) takes priority over people. And when you tack on unregulated social media, late stage capitalism, and a governmental administration that made lying to us and dividing us as a foundation of its platform, itās a recipe for disaster.
DirtRight9309@reddit
my cousin had a friend die in Columbine.
i was one movie theatre away from the Aurora shooting and if i had joined my friends that night we would have gone to Aurora instead because the one they went to was almost sold out and they werenāt sure i could get a ticket since I was arriving late, but i decided not to go ā and havenāt seen a movie in a theatre since then. the King Soopers i frequently shopped at had a mass shooting
a friend of a friend was murdered in a mass shooting in downtown Denver
Colorado is fucked
Trevon45-2@reddit
It's so sad
wyc1inc@reddit
I thought it is well-established we had it pretty damn good. We didn't really do those (honestly silly and pointless) Cold War era nuclear bomb drills since that had wound down and we were mostly out of HS (or close to it) by the time Columbine happened.
As to the issue at hand, people will say this is dramatic, but Sandy Hook was when I gave up on this country. Up to then I was still proud to be an American. Not since. I was on the fence about having children, that pushed me into deciding firmly to be childfree. A similar incident happened in the UK and they basically banned guns afterwards. We couldn't even have a discussion on sensible reforms, much less a ban of any sort. A country that refuses to protect its youngest and most vulnerable citizens is not a country worth much of anything.
S0bchak@reddit
This is so beyond f--cked up. And for what?
LetWaltCook@reddit
Poor kids. Better practice than not I guess.
ExportTHCs@reddit
Wow! The USA is shit
BrattyTwilis@reddit
We didn't have to worry about school shootings because it wasn't such a huge problem, but after Columbine and 9/11, we were definitely aware that nobody was safe anywhere
Mal2014@reddit
I took my kids to their very first concert last night... My 10yr old son told me he was nervous because "what if someone just comes in and starts shooting?". These are not things I thought about when I went to my first concert.
RandyArgonianButler@reddit
Middle school teacher here. We have to do drills twice a year. Nothing this complex though.
We just lock our doors and have the kids sit on the floor where they canāt be seen from the window.
moggin61@reddit
This is sad AF. Iām glad to be Gen X. I was left alone a lot, but guns werenāt in the classroom and everywhere yet. Kids deserve so much better.
PirateWheeler40@reddit
This definitely breaks my heart. When Columbine went down, I was in middle school. We dealt with several fake bomb threats soon after. At least once a week during my high school years, I looked at our wide open cafeterias and tried to figure out the best way to react. I was at Virginia Tech in 2007. From adolescence, I have primed myself for this bullshit. Contemplating this subject gives me the shakes.
FluffySpell@reddit
There were kids at Evergreen whose parents are Columbine survivors. To me, that's the part that just hurts the most. An entire generation and we STILL haven't done a damn thing.
FluffySpell@reddit
I don't have kids, but I absolutely hate that this is the world you guys have to raise your kids in. I don't know what else to even say.
jojocookiedough@reddit
My kids' school had a "soft lockdown" on Sept 11. I only found out because my 5th grader told me. They were told that a student was having a "tantrum." Who knows what was really happening, as parents we weren't told anything by the school at all.
Wish I could homeschool them, I hate this fucking shit.
Mike__O@reddit
We didn't have a 24/7 news cycle providing an opportunity for people to get [in]famous instantly, and then it got hyper-charged by social media.
Guns in cars in the school parking lot was pretty common, at least where I grew up. Mag dumping into trash was a pretty standard weekend activity. Hell, you could walk into a store and buy a full-up machine gun up to 1986.
RealisticSorbet@reddit
Yeah I think there are a lot of factors here. I think guns back then were less controlled and often times secured.
Social media just amplifies bullying to a level we never had to deal with. And the fact that there are communities of disturbed individuals out there that glorify violence just helps push people over the edge.
And, although I know this is an unpopular take, I think graphic videos and games aren't doing vulnerable kids any favors. After the assassination video was out, a thread from a teenagers sub came up in my feed and there were handfuls of kids saying the close up video is "no worse than what they see in games".
The fact that anyone said that was just disturbing. Many others commented how that was fucked up because this is real, but there were others that came in support of that point.
Tribe303@reddit
It was the Assault Weapons ban. When that ended, shootings skyrocketed.
It's not the video games, AT ALL. I'm Canadian, we play Helldrivers 2 as well, yet no schools or podcasters get shot up here. Gee, I wonder why?Ā
It's the fucking guns FFS!Ā
dontbajerk@reddit
It's more probable it being allowed to expire correlates with other stuff going on at the same time - it didn't functionally do anything that anyone can point to to prevent mass shootings, as it was almost completely toothless.
Tribe303@reddit
Too bad 98/99 are the only years during the AWB that were more than a dot on this graph, and 99 was Columbine. Otherwise '94-04 is pretty flat, and then it explodes after the AWB expires. So reality disagrees with your statement.Ā
https://www.statista.com/statistics/811504/mass-shooting-victims-in-the-united-states-by-fatalities-and-injuries/
cmgww@reddit
Yeah I think youāre onto something with the video games and unfettered access to graphic violence. They can do study after study but I donāt buy it. I think it desensitizes people, along with the fact that you can pretty much watch the entire war on terror on YouTube. Isis dudes getting blown up, 40 people getting mowed down by an attack helicopterā¦. Not to mention all of the death websites out there. Hell even in the early Internet days a lot of of us checked those out. Iām not saying itās the cause, but it aināt helping matters. The fact that I saw the Charlie Kirk video and while I was stunned I wasnāt nauseous, that shows that even I have become desensitized. And Iām 45 years old. Now imagine somebody in their teens or early 20s that has grown up with this shit.
Mike__O@reddit
Desensitization to violence has got to be part of it. We had LiveLeak and a few others when were coming up, but that's nothing like the continual steam of shit ISIS and the cartels have flooded the Internet with over the past 20 years.
Tribe303@reddit
Yes you did. You don't remember the "shock and awe" of the first gulf war involving Kuwait? That's what made CNN a household name.Ā
Mike__O@reddit
Maybe? I was in first grade, so obviously not as plugged in as I was a few decades later.
SpiritualUse121@reddit
I grew up being bombed by the IRA but schools were never targets. š«£
Skore_Smogon@reddit
I grew up with all the violence of the troubles in the 80s/90s, but schools were always off limits on both sides.
I cannot fathom being a parent in America today.
Rampasta@reddit
I'm a parent and a teacher at a public school. This low level fear and anxiety is sometimes overwhelming. But it's like all the stress you have while driving a car. You suppress it despite the number of deaths caused by car accidents. But it is still there.
RadTimeWizard@reddit
That's the American right wing for you.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
I was just in Belfast and Dublin.
Crowley-Barns@reddit
Yeah. I had at least one school trip to some museum or whatever in London delayed because of a bomb or bomb threat.
Same thing on a trip to Gatwick airportāevacuated because of a bomb threat.
ClaudeB4llz@reddit
It kills me that my kid has to do this
SteakJones@reddit
We did not have it that bad at all.
heresmytwopence@reddit
My 16 y.o. niece sometimes has panic attacks related to active shooter drills. I am so sad for her and all kids. They claim to keep kids safe by withholding books and ideas while inviting a culture of warfare into their learning sanctuaries.
Speaks_for_the_Plebs@reddit
Because gender and sexuality are dangerous, corrupting subjects, but war, violence, and weaponry are wholesome and patriotic. Obviously. /s
The South Park movie hit hard on that contradiction, as famously stated right in the film:
CountGensler@reddit
Nah, tell your daughters there are other.....ways....to subdue a crazed teenage boy.
HialeahRootz@reddit
Surreal
Aggravating-Alarm-16@reddit
Why is the kid putting the door blocker on
Environmental_Bus623@reddit
This country is fucked
ajrpcv@reddit
We don't homeschool for this reason, but every time I see stuff like this I am so happy that we do.
Apparently a lot the school safety stuff is big business, because it's the American way.
Shehulks1@reddit
This is so dystopian š
MaybeSwedish@reddit
Yeah
1block@reddit
There is no evidence these drills improve safety for kids, and there is evidence they increase anxiety/depression. We need to stop these. Their only purpose is to make parents feel better.
Train the teachers. Stop doing this to kids for no benefit.
https://www.everytown.org/solutions/active-shooter-drills/
Original_Round1697@reddit
This is why I took my wife's good advice and moved to Germany.
Le_Sadie@reddit
Holy Jesus ...thank glob I'm Canadian and not worried about my kid being SHOT when I send him to school
Seriously, the US is fucking over. I don't know how you guys can possibly fix your shit.
Cutestory@reddit
As an American with younger kids living an hour from the Canadian border I've definitely considered my options. Why is housing so expensive in Canada?
Le_Sadie@reddit
Because our government sucks as much as the next one and allows foreign entities to buy up OUR housing and property and sell/rent it back to us...among many other really fucking stupid factors.
I wouldn't let that stop you though. I'd rather love out of a car in Canada than live in a house in the US.
Tribe303@reddit
Because there is a high demand to live in a country free of school shootings.Ā
gyrlonfilm6@reddit
I am so glad that I am not teaching anymore. This is so sad.
_buffy_summers@reddit
I've been homeschooling my son for a decade, since the school system in my town is terrible. This isn't a case of 'just send him to the other school,' because there is no other school. One elementary, one middle school, one high school. But when he was going to the elementary school, he had a lockdown in kindergarten, a teacher who bullied him verbally in first grade, and a teacher who bullied him physically in second grade. I knew I couldn't trust them to use what little intelligence they had when the new principal was wearing 'juicy' pajama pants to work.
canadasecond@reddit
Fucking hell...this is totally the age of my kids so this hits hard. We live in Canada so they haven't had to do these sorts of gun specific drills (they do fire and general lock down drills). But fuck America...maybe, just maybe, you have too many fucking guns in your country.
twirlerina024@reddit
We have more guns than people.
buppiejc@reddit
I know it clichƩ, and every generation says it, but we truly are the last generation before social media had a stronghold on the public. We REALLY did have it best.
superfebs@reddit
Jesus Christ your country is BLOODY SCREWED. I'm thankful not to be American. No offense intended, just a lot of worry.Ā
Kalle_79@reddit
Every time I come across such videos, I wonder how come the vast majority of sensible people can't see how insanely backwards the whole thing is.
It's so counterintuitive it just doesn't register with me.
Just stop selling guns in supermarkets and see the need for such measures magically reach zero rather quickly.
But nope, 2nd amendment and "muh freedom" are worth the hassle, the anxiety and the body count.
amindfulloffire@reddit
And as I understand it, these things only make the kids more anxious.
But they'll continue to be done be ause why bother trying to find ways to stop themmfrom occurring in the first place?
resispaloquiter@reddit
I think we are the first generation who actually believe our kids have it tougher than we did.
epired@reddit
This is the only country in the world where this has to happen
mrswoolygoat@reddit
This video made me cry, man. How fucking sad is it that our kids have to do this?
We have our lost our way, America.
Thamnophis660@reddit
Columbine happened right at the tail end of my piblic school career. To think at the time we assumed that would be a fluke thing that would rarely ever happen again.
Stevie-Rae-5@reddit
Columbine wasnāt the first school shooting, though, so anyone who would have been like āoh wow what a tragic horrific clearly isolated event that wonāt recurā wasnāt paying attention.
Not that they do now anyway. Obviously.
Thamnophis660@reddit
I know it wasn't the first, it was only the most recent at that time. My memory of it was that was the sentiment and discourse about the event in the years after. Point is we did almost nothing to prevent it from happening again.
Stevie-Rae-5@reddit
Yeah, we never do. I try not to be pessimistic but I am thoroughly that way about this issue. I canāt imagine anything ever changing. Itās depressing as shit.
Moquai82@reddit
There is no reason why a civilized society needs protection of arms bearers right over school children lifes.
Sharpshooter188@reddit
The columbine guys really kicked something off. Im more of a lefty but also not for gun control. However, it is extremely worrying that this is becoming more common practice. When we need to have literal police on campuses ro ensure the kids can stay safe.
Tribe303@reddit
No, it was the Assault Weapons ban that expired in 2004 that kicked it off.Ā
mtron32@reddit
This is fucked. Sandyhook was 13 years ago and when that classroom full of cherubic little white kids got lit up and Americans still did nothing, miss me with any further talk about gun violence being a problem. They didnāt do shit then so fuck it.
Tribe303@reddit
Yup! As a Canadian, Sandy Hook is when I gave up all hope on America, and this is a pretty common feeling up here. Now we just want to minimize the impact on our country, as yours descends towards civil war. It's no long an "If" but a "when".Ā
MNDOOOM@reddit
We had fire drills in my day
spicedoubt@reddit
A scary drill like that should not be paired with fun music like pumped up kicks but I guess it makes sense since thatās what the song is about
LameSaucePanda@reddit
Most schools donāt have that door lock. I wish they did. Theyāre not approved by boards and theyāre expensive. Really annoying.
Vault_Master@reddit
Fucked up. I'm glad I was sandwiched between the Cold War "duck and cover" kids and the current "prepped for school shooting" kids.
mikehamm45@reddit
Crazy how my fellow parents at my kids elementary school got so obsessed with books and sex edā¦ but this is ok. If they are ready for active shooter drills, I think they can handle that some kids have two moms.
Full-Ball9804@reddit
And now you see why I have absolutely no sympathy for an asshat like Kirk.
pneighthan@reddit
We only had tornado and fire drills. Our parents had nuclear bomb drills. We definitely didn't have it so bad.
Darkkhart@reddit
I had bomb drills as well as bomb threats called in a few times throughout middle school and high school in the nineties.
Rudagar1@reddit
Same. We had bomb drills frequently and had a few bomb threats called in.
GrumpyDietitian@reddit
Fuck this is bleak
brighthannah@reddit
We were the last to have it decent
NotEvenOncePoutine@reddit
A good chunk of Reddit is non-American and for us, the US look like a mental hospital really.
How the fuck do you normalize having shooter's drills in elementary schools?
nopester24@reddit
it'd be much more effective if adults mitigated the cause before expecting the children to deal with the consequences
jerseygunz@reddit
I always like it when older people go āwell we had nuclear bomb drillsā as if that isnt still a problem
Mondoweft@reddit
I never had to do lockdown drills, and neither have my kids. It is one of the reasons I will never visit the US again.
Mata187@reddit
Ok
Giving_Dad_Advice@reddit
I was just talking to my daughter about how school shootings were never something that even crossed our minds.
zuiu010@reddit
I have three kids, none of them have been shaken by these drills.
Just like we werenāt shaken by fire drills, or the āstop drop and rollā drills, or any other kind of drill.
Itās all about context. Your kids have a better chance getting struck by lightning than getting killed in a mass shooting, approach the drills like this. If you act like your kid could die at any moment in a firestorm of gun fire, they will pick up on that.
patriotAg@reddit
Homeschool your kids. There are plenty of awesome programs to keep them socialized. Can't wait till AI replaces public school as Bill Gates said it would.
Notredamus1@reddit
I lived through a school shooting in high school. It really saddens me that my kids now have to do these types of drills in school. Almost nothing has changed.
207Menace@reddit
No they just banned black trench coats and Manson merch where I am. š„“ so everyone e started showing up in different color trenches
frustratedComments@reddit
lol I remember this. They did that where I was too
BlackestHerring@reddit
Our poor babies! What the fuck are we allowing to happen to them?! Weāve failed them all.
kimchiman85@reddit
Yeah we didnāt do this at all.
AlwaysFormerlyKnown@reddit
Me watching this video from under my plastic and metal chair waiting for a nuclear bomb to go off.
DJDevine@reddit
I had these drills when I was in elementary school in the 80ās. It may not have been nationwide occurrence but it isnāt new to me. Evil acts arenāt a new event
rjcpl@reddit
Gee wonder why the birth rate is shrinking.
mkafrka@reddit
The obvious solution is to give each kid their own gun. 'Murica
SnackPro@reddit
Speak for yourself. There was a school shouting at my middle school in 1988.
m1coles@reddit
How can we possibly prevent this from happening? Asks the only country in which this regularly happens.
cmgww@reddit
We live pretty close to a major Air Force Base so I do remember bomb drills, because during the Cold War we would have been a target and probably annihilated had anything popped off. Oddly, even in Indiana we had an earthquake drill because there was a report that the new Madrid fault line was activeā¦ but yeah the school shooter stuff was nonexistent. I graduated in 1998 so it wasnāt a thing until after Columbine of course.
And like others have said, at least at my somewhat rural school we had plenty of dudes that would come in after hunting season with shotguns in their trucks. No one taught twice about them coming in and shooting up the school. I still maintain that we need to reduce guns and how easy it is to obtain them, but the culture has changed. Society has shifted for the worse. There are a ton of causes, and I donāt know all the answers. But itās really sad that my elementary school aged sons have to do these drills. And the fact that their school is built like Fort Knox because it was constructed into 2006 after Columbineā¦ also sad
Adrasteia-One@reddit
Bloody hell. As if kids that age don't have enough mental or emotional struggles to deal with. As a parent, this is absolutely worrying.
tinacat933@reddit
And they wonder why kids are so anxious now a days
Promoting-Smiles@reddit
All this instead of him control policies that protect kids. Smh.
Kadaththeninja_@reddit
Well, we still have to deal with this as parentsā¦.in retrospect maybe our parents didnāt have it so badā¦..
cranberries87@reddit
Yeah, Iāll take the tornado drill kneeling in the hall to this any day. šMy God, these poor kids. š
fourofkeys@reddit
ugh this makes me so sad.
Robosl0b@reddit
I would not have been able to cope with this. But then, to be given the responsibility of putting the block in the door is next level panic mode.
Skipptopher@reddit
What sucks is the overwhelming majority of citizens are for common sense gun laws that would go a long way in protecting children but the people in charge answer to the all mighty lobby dollar.
DaveofTheFireflies@reddit
I graduated high school in 2002, and I remember we had exactly one of these drills. We got marched single file to the nearby county fairgrounds, and lined up against a chain link fence.
I vocally pointed out the stupidity of this plan, but I know it was just that they had no idea what to do in that situation, but felt they had to try something. It fucking kills me that it's been twenty years, and due to the shittiest people in the would, all we've been able to do about it since then is hopefully get a little better at practice drills ...
NessaDeadSouls@reddit
Gun Laws
That's perfect way to teah victims they are responsible for the violent unstable ones.
TheDivine_MissN@reddit
When I was in elementary school, we did earthquake and tornado drills even though we never had either. I cannot imagine having to drill for something that has such a high likelihood of happening. Bless their hearts.
PokerbushPA@reddit
Fantastic song choice. What a world we live in.
I guess the Boomers in charge of our lives lived through nuclear attack drills, so they accept THIS as perfectly normal, and it's an easy solution to an unfixable problem.
Unfixable to them. Yeah, I know.
PeanutButterViking@reddit
With all due respect, fuck your stupid country.
sunisublime@reddit
Iām a teacher in the US and I fucking HATE that we have to do this shit. That I have to explain to 5 year olds what to do if they are caught outside the classroom. I have to whisper to colleagues what my REAL escape plan is for my kids and myself should anything ever actually happen because Iām definitely not leaving the way we have practiced-which is to go through the building! We have been told to do whatever we need to do to escape, but still. Every school shooting gives me such anxiety. I panic for weeks afterwards about sending my own kids to school and sending myself to work. Itās not right. I didnāt grow up with these drills. The shit they sell us to protect ourselves from shooters-like that doorstop you watched the girl use in this video-is reactive, expensive and does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. Also, please donāt message me to tell me I need to carry a gun in my classroom. Justā¦.NO! Thank you for reading the rant of an American teacher.
Dakota1228@reddit
Thereās only ONE FUCKING PARTY that thinks this is better than gun regulation
Aeriila@reddit
The girl was smiling practicing an active shooter drill. How is this helpful?
rtekaaho@reddit
The solution is simple. Have school security. We have it everywhere else but the most important place. Schools.
Verbull710@reddit
We didn't have it bad at all, we were the last ones to have it maximally excellent
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
Ahem, some of us did have to do these in school. Started after Columbine. I was 14.
Metzger4Sheriff@reddit
If you were 14 in 1999, you really were at best in the tail end of the xennial sub-gen and so you're experience is not typical for most xennials.
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
I edited it - I had the date a year earlier in my head. I was 15, sorry. Definitely part of the sub generation, and at least the 2 years above me also experienced it, so a significant amount.
Metzger4Sheriff@reddit
I can say confidently not everyone 2 years above you did. I'm sorry you had to go through that, but it's still not a typical experience for the vast majority of xennials.
VaselineHabits@reddit
Columbine also happened when I was in high school and I don't remember having any drills the rest of my high school experience
My child, however, grew up with them
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
Huh, I definitely remember having to do them.
DirtRight9309@reddit
we literally had Columbine
-threefeetoffun-@reddit
We had unmonitored freedom and AIM. It was pretty good.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
Very true
rearwindowpup@reddit
Aaaaand this is why we homeschool, which is so much work to do right but worth it to spare our kids from these drills.
FollowingNo4648@reddit
My daughter told me about how her old school did a "surprise active shooter drill" one day. She said some of the kids were freaking out and crying because they thought it was real. Luckily, they shut that school down a year later.
magsli@reddit
Glad I donāt have kids, tbh.
Copy-Elegant@reddit
Everything changed in 1999, I believe it was millennial males that set this all off.
Paleo_Fecest@reddit
My kids have to do this and it genuinely terrifies them.
Sapphire-YLF@reddit
I remember being in preschool (maybe 1989 or 1990). Our teachers often played a game with us wherein we pretended to be ducks. There was a silly song playing on a record player, and when it got to a part where a hunter with a shotgun emerged, all of us little kids would run and hide somewhere in the classroom, like ducks hiding in tall grass, making sure we couldnāt be seen.
I thought it was just a fun game to play. I didnāt really consider it may have been preparing us for live shooting situations.
OtherwiseAd1045@reddit
Scotland sorted this after one. Never again.
elegantlywasted1983@reddit
My two-year-old did one of these this week. We are so fucked š«¶
conace21@reddit
I wrote the following a few years ago
Me: "Kids today are so sheltered. In my day, we could go out and play for hours without checking in, so long as we were back for dinner."
Also me: "My niece and her middle school had an 'Active shooter drill' yesterday. In my day, we just had fire drills in middle school. The only thing we really worried about was Sister Mary Nicolette yelling at us for talking during the fire drill."
I believe Doc Brown would call that a paradox.
Lord_Wicki@reddit
We had duck and cover, and stop drop and roll.
Hans-moleman-@reddit
We had it way better than kids today.
MVIVN@reddit
Fuck man, itās depressing seeing that kids need to practice for this. America needs to get its shit together about guns
upnytonc@reddit
My kid is in elementary school. We live in a suburb of a southern mid size city. Our town has pretty low crime rate. I hate the fact that she has to go through metal detectors to enter school and they practice lock down drills. Every time there is a school shooting in this country I just think and often say out loud āI hate it here.ā I hate that this is what it has come to, because this country canāt change laws even when innocent children are killed. But my 2nd amendment rights! Ughā¦.. so tired that my 9 year old even has to think about this shit happening.
Accomplished-Act5264@reddit
The song tho. Dang yall.
Lugubrious_Lothario@reddit
š¤
Ray5678901@reddit
When I went to school, 96 graduate, fall leaves would blow through the halls. The doors at the ends of the halls were propped open since no buildings had AC. We used to crunch the leaves... Granted a rural district... But my kids go to the same district, metal detectors...
CloudlessEchoes@reddit
I've always thought they should train kids to get OUT of the school primarily unless there was no choice. I remember there being so many exit doors in my schools it would have been crazy to lock yourself in with a shooter rather than just get out the nearest exit. Then again I feel like common sense went out the window somewhere along the way.
Big_Slope@reddit
Theyāre still trying to sell everybody on that stupid doorstop? That required way too much fine motor skill from a panic child.
PM_ME_YOUR_DOGE_PICS@reddit
As a New Zealand kid we did earthquake drills in school. Maybe the occasional fire drill.
Risikio@reddit
Was really weird how everyone was SUPER nice to me right after Columbine.
JamieC1610@reddit
It got worse at my school. A bunch of the "weird" kids got suspended/expelled for whatever excuse they could come up with. One girl got in trouble for drawing this cute little trench coated angel (that was a character she'd been drawing for years) because someone thought it was supposed to be something about one of the Colubine shooters. Teachers even backed her up that she'd been drawing that same little guy forever, but she still got suspended. A friend's boyfriend got expelled for making a joke in bad taste.
It got really dumb for a while. One girl's dad offered to pay for metal detectors for the high school, but he was turned down because he owned a strip club.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
The Virginia Tech shooter went to my high school
Ordinary-Buy-8511@reddit
Gen X here, we did this except it was for nukes
BoboliBurt@reddit
This stuff school shooting stuff worse. The social media stuff is worse. Being under 24 hour video surveillance with zero ability to move freely, not great.
But compare that to much higher rates of teen risky behaviors killing our peers or leaving them on fast track to an early death, higher levels of criminality, enormous incarceration rate of economically disadvantaged and marginalized groups. And we had the rampant homophobia, misogyny and racism of the crotch obsessed 90s cultural zeitgeist.
We wonāt know for a while- and isnāt totally up to us to judge, only to compare.
bikeonychus@reddit
When I was a kid, we had the Dunblane massacre and the government banned guns instead of making our kids do this absolutely insane shit.
weltvonalex@reddit
Good that they train the shooter too
RoboJ1M@reddit
When our company was bought but an American company and they started forcing us to do this sort of shelter in place active shooter stuff we complained loudly.
I live in Hampshire, England... š¤£
Wooden-Bookkeeper473@reddit
Glad I grew up in the UK.
flanneljack1@reddit
This is an ad for some ālife saving deviceā. As if we didnāt know ready access to firearms and a strong social safety net were the answer
Then-Ad-2090@reddit
Terrifying. Thought Ana sprayers for those kids having to live like this in America a
_meestir_@reddit
Wtf who said we had it bad? I think consensus is we had it fucking good. What a weird post.
Sugar_Fuelled_God@reddit
We never had these, fire drills yes, but nothing else...and we still don't have these or anything else except fire drills, it's good to be Australian.
MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit (OP)
We don't have wallaby attacks.
Sugar_Fuelled_God@reddit
Sounds like the propaganda machine has been running again, the real truth is the wallabies are part of the resistance, it's kangaroo attacks under order from the emu overlords that we worry about, the emus are always trying to turn us humans and wallabies against each other but nothing can break the alliance, viva la resistance! ;)
Sam_Boundy1984@reddit
Why is she smiling?!?!
hmcfuego@reddit
Sadly, I remember having active shooter/suspicious person drills at school as early as 5th/6th grade (I'm in my 40s) but I lived in a REALLY rough area so maybe that had something to do with it.
Somethingisshadysir@reddit
I remember them starting in high school, after Columbine.
Striking-Access-236@reddit
Civil War by GnR was playing when seeing this clipā¦goosebumps
thekurgan79@reddit
A student opened fire in the cafeteria my freshman year of high school in 1995. He didn't hit anyone though.
jusxchilln@reddit
only in america
Basic-Pair8908@reddit
Bloody hell, all we had were jimmy saville drills š¤£
Chucky230175@reddit
Now then, now then
sarahzilla@reddit
I regularly did bomb drills and had armed soldiers ride my bus to school. But then I lived in the middle east at the time and
Spiritual_Sorbet_870@reddit
We had campus intruder drills in high school - basically close the blinds, lock the door, turn off the lights, sit on the floor quietly. They started after Columbine and they were active shooter drills, they just werenāt called that and werenāt as advanced/in depth as they are now.
LisaWinchester@reddit
"Run baby, run". Jesus Christ what's going on in this world