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

@Adrift Funny, we weren't talking about that. We were talking about school shootings, and banning guns. There haven't been any school shootings in the UK since 1996.

@SW-User We are not the UK.

@Adrift How is that still not better than mass shootings? With a knife you can't even kill many people at once. With a gun you can kill a lot of people really fast, and it's harder for teachers and police to get the situation under control. Not many people do "mass" stabbings, compared to people who do mass shootings. Most children don't have the guts to stab someone. If you think as many people die from stabbings or other kinds of violence, around the world, as people who die from mass shootings in the US, you are totally wrong. I assume other crimes go up a little when people don't have access to guns, but BY NO MEANS can it be compared to the amounts of deaths caused by guns in the US, like we are not even talking REMOTELY, so how is banning guns not going to improve the situation A LOT?

@WowwGirl only in America. Money and influence are more important than your children’s lives.

Oh well, you’ll always have “thoughts and prayers”.🤦🏻‍♂

@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.

@wildbill83 True in theory, but armed robberies are far less common in the US than mass shootings of children at schools. Get rid of the guns.

@walabby Yup. With the possible exception of Gaza, Lebanon or Syria, schoolchildren will be far safer anywhere else in the world than in the US. How very, very sad.

@Adrift we had God in our schools

@saragoodtimes s

Thank goodness they didn't do animal sacrifices to please their imaginary god at that time.

@WaryWitchWandering
We have those things here, and elsewhere too. But we still don't have the same school shooting problem. I think a big problem in the US is a lack of feeling of belonging, a lack of solidarity. And of course it is made worse by easy access to effective long distance weaponry.

@SW-User 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.

@Diotrephes Why should they be rewarded with lower taxes? It's not as if those jobs (if any) were created out of some charitable impulse and anyway the profit is generated by those working people.

@ninalanyon
If the rich did not invest their money into businesses, would there be any real jobs for the poorer people? Look at other countries for the answer.

@Diotrephes How can rich people avoid investing? They have to keep the money somewhere.

@UBotMate 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.

@UBotMate Those ideas will only work if there is a nation wide database of gun owners. How are you going to get that through congress and past the president (any president, not just Trump)?

@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.

@Adrift Understood but locking doors to prevent unauthorized access into classrooms will not prevent students from leaving in the case of a fire. That there are fewer ways out now is a separate issue. Last school I went to was modern like that, no way out but was basically fire proof, nothing in there would burn, not even the curtains. Everything was brick, metal or fireproof. I guess with some work you could burn a desk if it was wood.

@Johnson212 We had slam bars on the doors leading out of building but the classroom doors were with a handle that could be opened from the inside but not the outside of the classroom.

@GlitterEater Off topic ,i answered the op question, don't send your kid to school.

@kodiac You said not to send them to public schools

@GlitterEater ok .

@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

@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?

@BizSuitStacy I'd say the internet but parents still need to keep their guns away from their children.

Get a security guard for the illegal gun problem. @BizSuitStacy

@Jenny1234 used to distract us from what is happening

@MasterLee and what would that be? 😂

@Notsimilarreally pay attention to congressional hearings

@joe438 So what are the budget estimates, per taxpayer, for adding armed guards and metal detectors to every school in a town?

@ElwoodBlues that’s not my area of expertise. School boards take up these issues for their own schools.

@joe438 Quora has this estimate:
I think it makes the most sense to levy a tax per year per gun to pay for the $27 billion to guard schools against guns. There are an estimated 500 million guns in circulation in the US, so $54 per gun per year should do the job.

@Heartlander both issues need to be addressed.

@SW-User

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.

@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

@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.

@Rokan good point, so very true.

AI can help come up with some solutions as well.

@Notsimilarreally we have plenty of security technology already its just no plans have been made to implement it into schools. All our air ports have it.

@AthrillatheHunt 🎶🎵 we don't need no education 🎵🎶 we don't need no thought control 😙 🎶🎶

@Notsimilarreally I actually AM a teacher and I hear that song in my head weekly (Floyd is also my #2 all time ).

@fanuc2013 They might better rethink that.

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

@TheRascallyOne like the bunny squad? 🐰

@Diotrephes don't you know some people abuse kids at the border

@MasterLee The illegal aliens parents know that happens but they consider it to be a cheap price to get what they want.

@SW-User Getting out of a country is easy. Moving permanently to another that is better for you is less so. You generally need a residence permit. To get that you either have to have a job, for which you need a work permit, or you have to take a large sum of money with you. These are insurmountable barriers for many people who don't have skills or qualifications that are in demand in the destination country.

And if you are a US citizen you have the added complication of the IRS chasing you for tax even if you are no longer a resident of the US.

@uikakarotuevegeta You don't understand what ad hominem is. It's mostly incels doing it, like I said. How do we solve this? I gave an answer. Think before you speak, do better.

@Rolexeo still using ad hominem

Think before you write

@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.