What can be done to protect children from school shootings immediately?

@Jeephikelove I agree with all of that!

Mental health is an absolute crisis in America

So is bullying, and it gets looked past way, way, way too often. It can have such huge negative effects on children (obviously) and it's far too often not punished in any way at all. Such a sad thing.

@GlitterEater people don't seem to have a problem with armed guards everywhere when they're protecting their money (like banks); why would they be concerned about armed guards protecting their kids?

Is their money more valuable than their own children?

sounds like a society problem, not a gun problem...

@GlitterEater Guards at the front door, other doors locked from outside access, and if it's crime-riddled area like Chicago, metal detectors at the entrance. If would-be shooters don't know where the armed good guys are, most of them won't plan on shooting. If there's only one entrance and they can't just walk in with a gun, most won't try.

@wildbill83

1. Lots of people don't want armed guards around them when they go in a bank
2. Children don't spend 7-8 hours a day in a bank
3. I never said it was a gun problem, you just made that up. I like guns.

@Adrift I've discovered that democrats get ill when you use that deductive reasoning...

kids used to have two (present) parents, a mother and a father; God was still in school; kids recited pledge of allegiance every morning; hunting clubs/gun safety was still a high school course; society didn't hand out participation trophies nor reward cheaters; being a delinquent meant a leather belt or hickory switch; bullies got a busted nose instead of a counselor and a slap on the wrist; etc.

that's what changed

@Adrift We also had more stable communities where neighbors knew one another and schools were better integrated into our communities. Schools were much smaller, neighborhood schools where most kids walked to school. Teachers and parents knew one another and kids had fewer opportunities to slip under the radar. Most households, then, were 2+ adult households where there was almost always one or more adult at home.

Today’s America is very different from that. Very different.

Anyone remember when there was once a legal definition to community standard? Is there such a thing today?

@Adrift we had God in our schools

@bookerdana not sure I agree with your analysis

@MasterLee We have more guns per capita than any other nation on Earth by far..and more gun violence

@FishBotDimwit yes these are really strong ideas!!! Involving medical professionals is one I don't think I've ever come across or had myself. Interesting. Too bad they are stretched so thin already. That said, mental health is a crisis itself, and the field should be expanding and more people should be training for this so why not include weapons safety health professionals. Probably would stand in the way of their gun toting uniformed professionals 🙄 aka cops because half of them shouldn't be allowed the power they have.

The immediate is what really stands out to me in this entire situation in America right now because the rest gets so complicated with the impossibility of removing weapons.

@ElwoodBlues I think he was saying that we have to step up and address it, not just resign ourselves to having dead kids. But you knew that already - you just want Vance to look bad.

@Jenny1234 used to distract us from what is happening

@MasterLee and what would that be? 😂

@Notsimilarreally pay attention to congressional hearings

@BearDownChicago unfortunately there will always be a shortage of common sense in this world.

@Notsimilarreally that is so true unfortunately

The problem isn't unsecured guns in the household; was never a problem before school shootings (back when everyone had more guns and trigger locks didn't exist...)

The problem is that society teaches people to fear guns instead of respect them

@Heartlander both issues need to be addressed.

@HannahSky

Whether it’s giving the car keys car keys or a rifle to a reckless and threatening son, the parents have a responsibility and should suffer consequences if the rifle or car is used to murder or harm another.

@Heartlander I don't think it's that simple in regards to parents being responsible for everything but it does seem like if there's a known problem, steps need to be taken to help people, including the parents, before it gets to the point where someone is at the point of endangering others. It's not always easy to catch all of it. It's usually at the point of a crisis, rather than at the prevention level. We need more preventative measures. Like healthcare, get your annual checkups and prevention. Don't wait til you need to go to the emergency room. It might be too late.

@swirlie It’s fundamentally a society issue. Until America finds a way to care for and protect children and from themselves there are few options beyond military type security measures.

It may take a village to raise a child, so how do we do that when our villages are being dismantled? How do we do that with children left to raise themselves?

@Heartlander
It's fundamentally a gun issue, not a society issue. No guns, no issues. It isn't rocket science, Heartlander.

@swirlie Disarming American citizens would simply empower our criminal population. Our cities with the strongest gun laws have the highest levels of gun related crime.

@Spoiledbrat this didn't happen much prior to 1999. Americans owned 200 million guns then. Root cause is a different issue.

@BizSuitStacy Yes but parents STILL need to keep their guns away from their children. Times have changed and we have to change with it. Kids are still growing.

@Spoiledbrat I agree that parents absolutely need to store their firearms safely. I'm saying that safe gun storage isn't the issue.

There's basically two kinds of school shootings. More common are the gang related shootings that take place on or near school campus. And gang members don't get their guns legally.

Then there is the crazed lunatic, who shoots a bunch of kids because they are angry. Why is that happening?

@Johnson212 My niece is a teacher and we were discussing the some of the designs of the new school buildings being a death trap.
Only one way out through a hallway.
The older designs in some of the buildings had several doors leading out of the classrooms.
There was the main entry door from the hallway but also doors that connected to other classrooms.
Several ways to escape the classroom in case of an emergency.
When I was growing up the outside doors to the classrooms were always locked during class.
You had to knock to get in if you were late.

@Adrift Yes the key there is it is only one way in through a hallway but not one way out if there was a fire or other emergency.

@Johnson212 I asked about fire. She said they have fire procedures down pretty well.
There is only one door to the classrooms and that is through the main hallways, with exit doors leading outside the buildings.
The hallways would be the main choke points.

@TheRascallyOne
That was already tried and it doesn't work.

@TheRascallyOne like the bunny squad? 🐰

@Notsimilarreally like what?

@MasterLee
Oh the possibilities are endless use your imagination.

@Adrift it would end the lefts ability to distract the public for one

@Johnson212
She wasn't in charge of the problems at the border. Joe Biden was and still is in charge of that problem. Were you forgetting who your President is?

@swirlie When the Biden Harris team took charge in 2020 she was tasked to deal with the root causes of migration from Central America as illegal border crossings were rising in 2021. She totally failed to resolve the self-inflicted crisis at America’s borders. Further, she has a prior track record of opposition to border security and interior enforcement and this helps explain her failure. To think people want a failure for a President.

@Johnson212
Regardless of who was tasked to do what, it is still Joe Biden who's in charge of the border issue, not Harris. She didn't fail at doing anything. The border problem is one that was inherited by the Biden Administration from Trump after Trump dropped the ball on immigration. The border problem did not begin with Biden nor will it end with Biden. If you want to see another failed President, vote for Trump and see how far that gets you in your delusion of reality.

@Heartlander 50 to 1 almost seems pointless. Just a recipe for disaster.

@Notsimilarreally Yes pointless. Beyond 20 kids in most classes with 10, 11, 12 ... year olds it becomes a drill sergeant exercise. Also the class layout. Sit students in columns and rows and the students are interacting with one another. Put them in a semi-circle and they are all face to face with the instructor.

@Heartlander

Yes, I agree with everything you've written here and thank you for responding to my post.

You have probably always wondered why I am so socially inclusive, well-behaved and come across with such an intelligent outlook toward most things that are discussed here on SW, right?

Well, I've been hiding it from you up until now, but I really think it's time to let the cat out of the bag. 🐱

I went to private school, K-13. Why 13 instead of 12 you ask? Because in the Canadian school system, grade 13 is optional which is called "University entrance". Grade 13 is the equivalent to the 1st year of university for a Bachelor of Arts Degree for example and the likelihood of being accepted by a Canadian university post high school is almost guaranteed for those who accept that grade 13 option, versus those who graduate from the standard pubic high school program which ends at grade 12.

The only subject my sisters and I were home-schooled for was sex education. This is because like the American sex ed curriculum, the Canadian sex ed curriculum is abysmal at best. Many reasons for this, the most glaringly obvious one being the foundational bias of British Colonial roots still firmly engrained within both countries which dramatically affects our society's social awareness of sex which then enshrines our future attitudes about sex.

My parents immigrated to Canada as newly-weds of pure Scandinavian stock, one from Norway, the other from Sweden. In Scandinavian countries, sex ed begins in grade 1, not in the second year of high school as is otherwise done in North America. Sex ed for me and my two sisters ran for a full 13 years in our home, which was conducted like clockwork every evening from 8 to 9pm for those 13 years I speak of. We began with how bees pollinate flowers and we ended with genetic outcomes from interracial intercourse, all of which was taught the same kitchen table for all those years.

How was this done? My mom taught my sisters and I from her own high school-issued 'sex manual' which she kept tucked away in storage until she had a family of her own. As each of my sisters and I turned 11 while in grade 6 of private school while coincidentally starting puberty at that same age for each of us, my mom's sex manual would come out onto the kitchen table and she taught my sisters and I everything she too was taught from that same manual in Scandinavia.

Private school was great for all the reasons you've outlined and I highly recommend it to those who can afford it, but it ain't cheap. But public education ain't cheep either because what you end up with at the end of the day is poorly educated high school graduates.

K-12/13 is either paid up front in the form of private school funding and paid for by the parents, or it's paid for the rest of that child's life because of what they did NOT learn when they were otherwise enrolled in the public school system, particularly when it comes to sex education.