At my D’s school, it is easy for anyone to access campus, especially when students are exiting classrooms for the day (as they were in FL).
If we - as a country - aren’t going to address gun laws or mental health problems, you’d think the very least we could do is secure and protect our schools better.
This school is a more modern design, with several buildings and entrances. My kids’ Florida high school, not this big but fairly new, was also one with several entrances and several portable classrooms. There were gates (not locked) at the front by the administration office, but if you just walk forward you could get to the other buildings off the central courtyard.
Our community is advertising “Stop the Bleed” training to teachers and community members. So they can know what to do in the (inevitable) event of gun shot wounds.
There are no words.
What’s good about this forum is intelligent people can have a good debate about various issues. Children getting killed is a great concern to us parents. If we do not talk about gun control and mental illness and what we can do about about it then all we could say is we pray for the community. I am kind of sick and tired of saying it. As obama said it is not enough, some how it has become routine. This is something worth politicize. I am typing this as I am listening to Obama on TV.
As an aside, happy to report that one major gun manufacturer (Remington) has filed for bankruptcy http://www.journal-news.com/business/gun-manufacturer-remington-file-for-bankruptcy/g4noAhBMgkpHTx82rXCSjL/
It’s a Chapter 11. They will not stop manufacturing for one day.
IMO, Sometimes with these types of tragedies it’s best to let the conversation run a bit.
Look. Until we’re ready to sit down and review each of these cases in detail and work toward the true root causes this will continue. Everyone’s knee jerk reaction is either anit-gun vs. pro 2nd amd, or mental health, etc. etc. Marches, protests, and screaming at each other on Fox, CNN, MSNBC get’s nowhere. We can’t solve the problem because we aren’t even looking at the problem.
As for school safety, I can’t imagine what it is like in other areas. At our schools all entry/exit during school hours is thru the front office. Not even into a lobby. You enter into the vestibule and then the office. At the elementary/middle school levels you are even buzzed into the office. The high schools have a police officer inside.
I don’t pretend to have any answers. But my thoughts and prayers do go out to the families and that is in no way a bad thing. As a parent who got a notification to my phone “Active shooter: Run, hide, fight” I do know the panic these families are going through. Luckily I was able to make contact with my child. I had many people contact me offering thoughts and prayers. I appreciated and felt comfort with every single one and not once did I criticize or think it was not enough. Thoughts and prayers to all involved!!!
I have zero rational words to say to anyone who thinks this is inevitable or that the solution is more guns.
I saw the alert as we were walking out of lecture thanks to a fire alarm. I was surrounded by my students. It was a punch to the gut.
This is preventable.
This is not inevitable.
This isn’t mental illness.
This is guns. Period.
I’m not pro gun control or against it. I’m just a realist, and I uphold the Constitution. This wasn’t a problem in the past. Now it is. There were always weapons in this country from the very beginning.
So clearly, it is not the weapons.
The point is we can do both. Why does it have to be one or the other. I’m tired of people criticizing those who offer thoughts and prayers. It meant a lot to me coming from friends and family and it meant a lot coming from anonymous strangers. We can advocate for politicians to work on the problem without criticizing "thoughts and prayers "
Things like this are an unimaginable tragedy and I can’t even begin to think about how those parents and others affected feel. There has got to be more of an effort to get down to the root cause of these things and why they keep happening. Guns are not the cause, just the chosen means to carry out evil intent. This country has always been saturated with guns and yet these types of shootings are for the most part a fairly recent phenomenon, what is it that is truly responsible for these types of actions. Of course sometimes mental illness is involved, but that can’t explain all of it, there is more going on, which could also be said of the increase in suicides by young people.
When I was in high school, most of the boys(sometimes girls as well) and lots of the teachers had guns in their vehicles. Lots of them would hunt before or after school and often they had gun racks in the back glass of their trucks, often they weren’t even locked so the rifles were openly displayed and easily accessible. It wasn’t that unusual for a fistfight to break out at school, but no one went and grabbed a gun and opened fire. Sometimes the fight broke up on it’s own, other times a teacher or administrator would show up and handle the situation. The more important question is what causes someone to decide to go into a public place and basically slaughter people, until that question can be dealt with the problem will still exist.
That is common here too. But I am not sure how much faith I out in it. I think those procedures just slow down a madman intent on harm (which is a good thing to have). But this shooter would have gotten in school perhaps, if he concealed his weapon, so I am not sure how vestibules etc can help a student who smuggles a weapon in.
I think the point @suzy100 is trying to make is, you CAN do both but many politicians are NOT doing both. All they are doing is offering ‘thoughts and prayers’ instead of concrete, proven solutions or strategies.
thoughts and prayers may help to give some degree of comfort to those that may have lost loved ones. I don’t call that useless. Some here have said they do nothing. I don’t call it a cure-all, but it may help the grieving of some.
Prayers and thoughts are good if it combined with some actions.
Thoughts and prayers are good regardless of if they are combined with some actions. Maybe best if combined with some actions but not bad on its own. They are separate entities.
Being careful here, not to say what’s good or bad, or to offer an opinion, but only speaking legally- those who feel guns are too easily legally obtained could seek to amend our Constitution to “tighten up” laws. Some might have differing opinions on whether tighter gun laws would deter those with a criminal intent, nevertheless it could be amended to add restrictions. And/or current laws could be amended to have harsher penalties on those that use weapons to harm others.