At what age / grade level

@LordShadowfire wow never thought of it that way

the more children are slaughtered the more their donations go up. I think you just published part of the NRA's business model :

1) enable school schooters by blocking gun control efforts
2) wait for a school shooting
3) watch it rain (in donations) well that adds a whole new take on "from my cold dead hands"


https://www.science.org/content/article/nra-donations-spike-counties-have-experienced-school-shootings

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi7545

@DeWayfarer I love that you put data into your answer and that you used PEW which is a great source. I can get to this later---it is a great talking point and I hope others also respond to it.

@DeWayfarer I agree with everything you said however, gun control isn't on table at the federal level, although it varies from state to state.

I think access to guns could be cool on here but in the idea that neither party will pass control legislation to say "more gun control" or "less access to guns" (aka gun control) is to side-step the issue of protecting children in the USA from mass shootings.

@Ananke Children should be educated in this basically immediately upon entering the school system bc...school shootings can occur that early. Sandy hook....

@Ananke good point about sandy hook and when it should be introduced. hard to argeu with that incident as evidence that elementary is a good starting point.

@MrBlueGuy I think kindergarden is smart too / but i think it is better to tell them it is an active shooter drill. They have to be quiet and they have to know the consquences for not being quiet (death). kids when they play, giggle and laugh which is reasonable for a game but not for an active shooter situation.

@666Maggotz that is great answer! would you tell us what your drills were like in 6th?

@robertsnj for the bomb drills, we would practice organizing ourselves as a class and meeting at a certain point in the back of the school. During the active shooter drills, they would be random and announced like it was real (same with the bomb drill). We would gather in the furthest corner in the room from the door, turned off the lights, and waited until we were cleared.

@666Maggotz bomb drills are a good starting point to integrate mass shooting training. I think the schools starting with the thought process in bomb scares vs mass shooters is smart instead of starting over from scatch / trying to reinvent the wheel.

@mooncrest02 what are those drills like what do they do in them? I think Elementary is a good time too.

@robertsnj they turn off their classroom lights and have them practice being quiet and find a hiding spot while the teacher barricades the doors. I let my kids know why its important and they follow the drills well.

@Patriot96 I appreaciate you answered and gave context. If I can have conversation, not so much a debate; . the sticky part with arming teachers is they are teachers not police or soldiers. Many of them do not have a mindset to be in any kind of confrontation much less a gun fight.

if we had plumbers and electrians and said arm all the plumbers and elec's I would maybe raise an eyebrow but I do realize that the people who do those kind of jobs, culturally are more rugged and you could in theory have an easier time finding a better mindset for being armed and tactical while doing their day to day job. I think with teachers it just is a more difficult idea.

In addition given their current pay scale tell them to be teachers / soldiers / bodyguards may be a tough sell.

@ninalanyon yeah so anything other than sitting there and getting slaughtered is something. How effective it is is complicated though. some issues that exist in the USA

1) Gun control is off the legislative table at the federal level . Our congress has decided to not bring more gun control less access of guns to the table . Some of our presidents from time to time make an executive decision for gun control measures sometimes. To further complicate it in the USA access to guns is seen as the will of God and I live in a really religious country. Congress legislates on the will of God from time to time as does our Supreme court

2) Our police are ofen (but not always) not intersted nor able to protect the children. There was a court case that went to our supreme court that challenged the idea that police were obigated to protect the public. The court found they were not. How it apples to mass shootings is the police can be fired (like Uvalde Texas) but not held legally liable if they choose not to contest the gunman. We have seen this play out in a number of school shootings were law enforcement hides as opposed to contronts the gunman. However to be fair the opposite has happened too.

3) The shooters often have high capacity magazines and guns that empty a 30 round clip in seconds that are highly accurate. In addition many of them plan months in advance and already know the layout of the school ahead of time.

4) There is not a standarized format hence the reason I keep asking the mothers and ex-kids on here what they did / do. Protocols vary from the run/ hide / fight model to the hide and barricade that is appearing on this thread. So when you ask "does it work" what it is tricky and varies. However we have enough historical data to suggest that hiding and barricading works.

5) On a personal footnote I don't have kids, however I still don't want to see them slaughtered in schools and am concerned about their welfare.

6) the link sandyhook promise (3rd to last footnote) is a political organization that wants more gun control however they do a good job of listing data. Sandyhook was a school shooting that occured in an elementary school in 2012. The shooter killed 20 first graders and 6 teachers mostly with a Bushmaster AR15 rifle. It was signifigant not just for the deaths of children and teachers but because it was the time when Congress when asked what they were prepared to do to protect children took gun control off the table over the course of the following years.

7) Probably good to make this post to give the non-American's on here a context.

footnotes

https://www.aclu.org/cases/castle-rock-v-gonzales

https://cops.usdoj.gov/uvalde

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/18/uvalde-school-shooting-federal-investigation-police-response/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/florida-deputys-legal-team-says-he-didnt-have-an-obligation-to-stop-parkland-school-shooter

https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/blog/gun-violence/facts-about-gun-violence-and-school-shootings/

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gunman-kills-students-and-adults-at-newtown-connecticut-elementary-school

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html

@robertsnj What are they for then?

In a number of European countries I think one could argue that not only the police but also the general public have such a duty. It is at least a legal requirement, for instance, in Italy for bystanders to render aid to accident victims.

@ninalanyon real quick I like interacting with you on here and I like your perspective on things. To address


that is a complicated question in my country. However public safety is not what we have them for . If they do something to protect a person they did because they decided to not because had to. No obligation for them to protect the pubic at all.

@bijouxbroussard I'm curious. Nobody's ever given me a straight answer. Where did the schools get nuke proof desks?

@LordShadowfire That was something they really got wrong. We would’ve simply been piles of ashes, if that. We knew this much from Hiroshima.

@bijouxbroussard your point of is solid.

Had metal detectors in some schools in my school distrct for the same reason---to alert sutdents and staff to potential active shooters.

It took a kid sneaking a handgun into class and killing himself in front of a girl he liked (but who said no to him) in order for the idea of metal detectors made it past the school board. Those kids got lucky. He only shot himself.

But realistically all schools at all levels should have metal detectors ---at this point given our culture and climate it is common sense. As common sense as putting seat belts in cars.

@Lostpoet not asking to put guns in kids hands. more like emergency response drills to an active shooter. some of the posters on here talk about barricading and some ideas revolve around the escape, hide fight model.

but it is a good point you bring up. A number of politicians want to turn gun free zones into the O.K. Corral by making it a gun battle between teachers and the active shooter with kids in the middle. Not sure if I like that idea but it is on the table in our legistlative branch.