90% of American public schools now hold mass shooting drills for students | Hacker News Reader

90% of American public schools now hold mass shooting drills for students

vox.com

50 pointsgumby143 comments

We have such a strange culture of guns in this country.

This point became poignantly clear to me once when I was a potential juror on a gun-murder case. I remember they were screening the potential jurors for biases and they asked the large group of us:

"How many of you personally own a gun"

I looked around the room and and figured out of the 30 or so people maybe 5 would raise their hand.

It was more like 25.

It was on that day that America's gun obsession became real, quantifiable for me. Here was a cross section of my community, and I was a significant minority when it came to firepower. Almost everyone in that group, young and old, black and white, you name it, had a gun. People I was sure wouldn't raise their hand, raised their hands.

Based on research, it looks like around 30% of Americans own a gun [1]. So you may just live in an area with a lot of gun owners. Also, not everyone owns a gun for the same reason. Some for protection, some for hunting, some for antiques, etc etc. I've owned my house for a few years and last year I found a couple of shotguns tucked away next to a bookcase in a closet. I eventually got rid of them, but for a few months I would have technically had to raise my hand for that question.

[1] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/the-demographics-o...

I'm doubtful of that statistic. Many americans hate the government knowing what guns they have.

Ghost guns are hugely popular for this reason, and only increasing in popularity

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/law-enforcement-struggling-to-c...

This is a poll done by Pew Research Center, not a registry of guns that the government knows about. Obviously there is still a possibility that people are lying to pollsters, but there are extremely frequent speculations about things like that (e.g. the "Shy Tory Effect") that almost never end up skewing things by more than a few percent.

I think President Trump proved people are lying to pollsters more than ever. Also Americans lie about guns quite a bit. I've even meet some who don't consider handguns as real guns or call them baby guns.

> I've owned my house for a few years and last year I found a couple of shotguns tucked away next to a bookcase in a closet.

I mean, this just supports OP's comment that the US has a weird gun culture. That you can have more than gun and then just find them is weird.

I am curious of the distance of the sample distribution and society's was when that question was asked. To clarify, assuming jurors were picked randomly and people did not try to actively defer (or maybe use a different trick) to land on that case, how many of them strived really hard to stay as jurors that were gun owners etc.

P.S. The gun culture surprises a part of me every day recently. Another part of me responds as "yeah, I kinda saw that coming a mile away. Want some refreshing tea?"

P.S.2 25/30 might be a lot or acceptable depending on the country or region. The reasoning for gun ownership and lack of training and common misconceptions about weapon usage in general are things that terrify me. (E.g. Canadians and Swiss have a higher gun ownership probability, yet...) The notion that arming schools is even suggested by some people, even if they are emotionally affected (victims), shows extreme and dangerous ignorance about gun usage and handling. Really U.S. should be the last country to even joke about that (e.g. kid went to school with a clock and got arrested due to fear it might have been a bomb, guy shoots pedestrian, swat team responds to a fake call during the night and kills the occupant)

P.S.3 Prediction: If we continue like this, the public shootings will increase to the point of becoming a normal news report on a Tuesday night.

I never owned one until I was about 31 and my daughter was born.

I live in a rural area and there was a break in less than a mile from my house, in the middle of the day, while the mom was inside. Some guy strung out on something decided to break in and attacked her. Somehow she managed to hit him hard enough that she got away, locked herself in a room and called the police while the guy ran away.

Police arrived about 10 minutes later and luckily she wasn't permanently harmed.

When something like that happens and you start running through scenarios in your head of what you would do if somebody had broken into your house while your family was inside?

The amount of time it would take to get the kids safely into a room so that we could call the police and wait things out, especially once somebody is potentially already in your house...is very high.

At the same time, as soon as somebody realizes you can shoot back...they run away. That's one of the reasons why 12 gauge shotguns that make the extremely loud cocking sound are so popular for home defense. People take for granted the value of an unfired gun because the threat is generally enough of a deterrent.

I have never considered myself to be a "gun nut" or "gun obsessed" in any way shape or form. I've spent some time at ranges to make sure I was accurate and I've taken classes in responsible handling because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing.

At the same time, because I 100% view it as a home defense mechanism, the idea of not having it makes me very uncomfortable. Knowing that it is there and it will work in the unlikely event that I need it to work...that I won't have to wonder if batteries have run out or a pepper spray has expired...that is reassuring.

Schools are a unique situation in the firearm world because in most locations where firearms are not allowed, government buildings, etc there is some type of security in place. Usually at the doors with armed guards and metal detectors.

Schools are the place where that isn't the case, which makes them a prime target for things like this.

The part where it's frustrating to have this conversation is that I fully understand the concerns of both teachers and parents about the idea of having armed guards, etc in a school. The problem is that the amount of people who die is directly related to the response time of somebody stopping the shooter. Lock-down procedures that have been implemented are a great step in that direction to buy time for police to arrive. Maybe the solution is metal doors with bullet proof glass to allow classrooms to be secure in the event of an emergency?

Beyond that, I can't think of many other ways to cut down response time other than having somebody on site, who is trained by police, authorized to do so.

The problem solver in me wants to solve the problem, but there's not an easy answer unfortunately. What I do know is that when police are called, they are arriving at the school to stop the shooter with guns.

In my mind it's increasingly difficult in the face of tragedies like this to ignore that fact and insist that the only people able to respond must be people who have to drive to the location to do so.

But it's more difficult when the conversation centers on two groups of people who feel threatened. One group is threatened by people who have guns. The other is threatened by not having guns themselves.

You're right about the home defense thinking. There's been a break in at night at a neighbor 2 houses away from me. Nobody called the police, they arrived the next day with questions. No one was home, but what if they were?

But take away the legality of guns and all I have is the phone, the police, a few kitchen knives and me. A gun would be a huuuge advantage. However, since few have guns, any potential assailant is also likely to not have one.

It's really different for the US right now, because even if a ban was implemented, anyone with criminal intent can have one fast, while the rest can just hope the police arrive fast enough...

It would take decades, a generation even, to completely remove guns from most people's lives.

I think to have a totally honest discussion you have to look at the full path of outcomes:

1) the odds of successful prevention given whether the assailants are armed with a gun or not (and the probability they are, based on policy/availability) 2) are the actually assailants or a family member sneaking in/a drunk 3) what is the probability that the weapon will be used for self harm (intentional or accidental) 4) what is the odds (to avoid presuming moral perfection of gun owners) that the gun will be used in a different crime?

I don't think anyone would argue that some crime has not been prevented because of armed homeowners. The most simple reduction is that if you add together all the negative outcomes, are they balanced out by the positive and that is the sweet spot for policy. However, that ignores the positive utility that people have for the right to own firearms. Some people effectively effectively confer infinite utility to that ("Molon labe" folks) and how should society deal with such people in attempting to reach some sort of balance?

ps - preemptively, "1) the odds of successful prevention given whether the assailants are armed with a gun or not (and the probability they are, based on policy/availability)" is always controversial. "criminals will always find a way to get guns"... strikes me as an altogether and false framing. We attempt to regulate all sort of harmful activities uncontroversially to great degrees of success.

Statistically speaking a gun in your home is more likely to be used against you than in a successful defense of your home and property.

It also is actually a target for theft.

So while it feels nice to have one for this reason you are, again statistically speaking, actually not making yourself safer: quite the opposite.

But I understand the emotional reasons why it would feel better. It feels like you'd have more control, so it's calming.

Also if you store it safely (e.g. unloaded and in a safe) you can't use it for defense very effectively. If you store it unsafely, it is more likely to harm than protect you.

I mean, I'd own a gun or two if it wasn't such a hassle to get them. Just for fun. But as it is, I can just go to the local shooting range on the weekend and be done with it.

>> While one of the primary goals of crisis preparedness is to develop a sense of empowerment and control, armed assailant drills not conducted appropriately may cause physical and psychological harm to students, staff, and the overall learning environment.

This is the most interesting comment in the article. The purpose of a school is to introduce a functioning person to the society. How long will it take till kids feel school shootings are a norm, they are terrified or worse a viable approach to release your frustrations and end your life.

I don't think people realize the effect various solutions have to future generations. One could consider Metal detectors in schools as a stepping stone to feeling it is normal to be considered as a threat by the society as a kid and ok to be watched by the Big Brother. (Where I grew up, I remember they added a fence at some point and people were negative (on average) as "it will make kids feel like they are, or it is acceptable, to be caged and not free citizens." To that society, saying you are doing a shooting drill will appear as a post-apocalyptic universe idea.)

P.S. FYI gun ownership is high in that area (from hunting rifles to operational WWII assault rifles).

I'm American and I remember doing these in school. If people from other countries could weigh in here, is this common where you're from? Even though school shootings are far less common in most places, do you still have the drills?

Wow, no. No way. Western European; never ever heard of anything like it. School shootings are considered typically American, like hamburgers and Coca Cola.

Another Western European, School Shooting was not even a thing at all when I was at school. Columbine is the event that made that phenomenon real, but, as you said, as a typical American thing.

edit: and to illustrate, I had to look on wikipedia to be sure there had been any earlier than that.

Nope, not common where I grew up.

Why would it be common? Unless we are in a war situation or something - the drills are only for natural stuff like fire, not some crazy person spraying bullets. This seems like a uniquely American problem

>is this common where you're from?

Never even heard of the concept of the mass shooting drill before this hn post.

Seems bizarre frankly but I can see how it's a necessary consequence if one is determined to maintain a US style gun culture.

A fire drill once a year or so is all there is at German schools.

In Brazil, there's no such thing as drills. In Australia, I didn't have any either. Neither did my brother in Canada. Japan has earthquake drills.

AFAIK, the US is the only developed country with a systemic school shooting problem

Fire drills and tornado drills are pretty standard though right?

We had fire drills in my work office in Toronto. Never had a tornado drill (but to be fair, I never lived anywhere with high tornado risks)

We have proper laws to prevent wide-scale availability of firearms, so, no.

I had never even considered such a drill could exist.

Schools in Toronto, Canada have been doing "lockdown" drills for a while, but those usually assume that there's something dangerous outside the school. (I've seen the lockdown procedures invoked a few times when there has been some serious crime in the close vicinity of school). These drills mostly consist of "lock doors and avoid line-of-sight from outside". It sounds more mild than the "active shooter" scenario drills described in this article.

I think it's counting "lockdowns" as part of the 90% number.

I am American and these were not a thing when I was growing up. We had natural disaster drills, like tornado drills. We did not have mass shooting drills.

I am 52. This is a more recent phenomenon.

28. Also never had these - only fire and earthquake drills (yay California!).

Yeah, Fire Season was not a season I grew up with. But it's a season California has.

26 from Massachusetts - only ever had lockdown + fire drills, never anything related to active shooters

I believe a lockdown drill is the same as a mass shooting drill, or at least that's how they were explained to me (I'm a few years older than you and from the Midwest but we had them too).

We did them in Alberta, Canada after the shooting in Taber, Alberta in 1999.

I'm from Canada and we had these once per year when I was in high school about 10 years ago.

A fire drill, where everybody exits the building in a reasonable ordered fashion is the only drill that ever happened in my school in Germany.

Grew up in Yugoslavia and live now in Slovenia. We had fire drills (maybe about 3 during all years of my schooling), but never and still don't for shootings as they don't happen.

In the UK we had fire drills which always seemed rather pointless since schools generally go up in flames at night time when there is nobody in them.

We have had a few mass shootings in the UK but they are quite rare since it's not common for people to own a gun.

Not only pointless but imo they became dangerous because they over did it. When there was a real alarm people just thought it was a drill and were relunctant to bother moving.

For real, we have one every few months and a short alarm test every week (because it failed once during the drill). So now, "fire alarm" = "ugh not this shit again", and no one even moves...

It's not just uncommon, it's unthinkable here in Italy. I wish it will stay this way.

UK here, no, never.

We had fire drills, but other then that no. My parents had nuclear attack drills when they were at school, this was during the cold war.

UK also. We had a bomb scare at school in the IRA days, a few years before the big Manchester attach. It was a hoax call.

Schools are just starting to have "terrorist drills" which are similar, from all I've heard, to USA active shooter drills. They're not everywhere but they're not uncommon either.

Eastern Europe (Belarus). What is mass shooting?

Last year our country was shocked by a mental health sufferer adolescent, who took a chainsaw and murdered one person, and injured another one at a shopping mall. That's what I can remember.

Belarus is interesting for me, because no one knows anything about it, it's all "last dictatorship in Europe" around here... Are the laws more similar to Europe or Russia? Then again, when it comes to guns, I believe Russia is just as strict as the EU. No school shootings on either side, though, afaik...

Your comment is tragic and funny because it's almost exactly an onion headline:

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...

We aren't the first nation to have a problem with mass shootings, but we are the first nation to not respond by banning guns. For case studies, read up on mass shootings in England, Germany, Japan, and Australia.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/15/so-america-t...

That onion article is the best/worst thing I've read in a long time... best in how true it hits, worst in how tragic that truth is...

Not sure if you're aware, but they publish it repeatedly – changing only the location and the number of people killed:

(Sutherland Springs) https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...

(Las Vegas) https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...

(San Bernardino) https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...

(Parkland) https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...

>We aren't the first nation to have a problem with mass shootings, but we are the first nation to not respond by banning guns.

That's what happens when your nation is founded on the thesis that an armed populace is necessary for a free state...

The US is not even close to the first to have an armed populace for the national defense. English longbowmen are another example of an armed populace. Many countries have compulsory military service for young men.

There are now similar drills ("armed intruder" drills) in french schools since the attacks of late 2015. I think it would have been unthinkable before.

No way.. it would be completely unbeliveable. We might have a firedrill, but that would be super rare.

Already weighed in on this above. Maybe as a post-apocalyptic horror movie.

Both grandparents fought in WWII -- not in a battlefield far away, but moments away from their homes. They would find this idea and all the surrounding discussions crazy and ridiculous.

I can't even describe how distant this is in Europe. (I hope it stays that way.) The only non-US friend of mine that would go on about shootings is from South Africa and even then...

I'm originally from the UK. We had fire drills. That's it.

The idea of doing a shooting drill is almost comically bizarre to me. The fact it's been normalized here to the level that you have to ask this is extremely fucked up.

I'm from New Zealand. Definitely no shooting drills. I think this is the first time I've even heard of the idea.

I just looked it up, and apparently the only school shooting ever in New Zealand was in 1923, by a Canadian... http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8112416/Murder-in-a-small-Ki...

India a country of 1.3 billion people, has its own share of law and order issues but never in my life I heard anything like this. Thanks to Britain, we have anti gun legislation from the colonial era, though the reasons were different back then.

My father had a licensed gun. I believe my family got it for crop protection in 60s. I don’t recall it being used anytime but I do remember that he needed to surrender it at local magistrate office, anytime there were state or federal elections. After he passed away, we surrendered it permanently. I guess I had a choice to transfer the license to my name which I never did.

  never in my life I heard anything like this.

In contrast, never in my life has America faced anything like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks

In America, mass shootings only seem to occur in "gun-free zones", where perpetrators know there is little chance of armed interdiction before they have accomplished their mission.

> In America, mass shootings only seem to occur in "gun-free zones", where perpetrators know there is little chance of armed interdiction before they have accomplished their mission.

The most recent widely publicized one took place at a school with armed police on campus (even though schools might be fun free but for law enforcement, it doesn't meet your description); of the five deadliest mass shootings in the US, three were in nothing even remotely like a gun-free (even excluding law enforcement) zone.

So, it may “seem” to you to be as you describe, but that's an issue with your perception, not the substantive facts.

Really? Then list which five you're referring to.

  armed police on campus

In fact, just one security guard was assigned to the campus but was not, in fact, near any of the buildings... and all officers who eventually responded made NO attempt to interdict the shooter.

  of the five deadliest mass shootings in the US, three were in nothing even remotely like a gun-free

Really? This is what CNN calls the 5 deadliest:

The Harvest Music Festival: the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival grounds disallowed attendee guns and used metal detectors.

the Pulse nightclub in Orlando -- posted "no guns allowed" club.

Virginia Tech: gun-free campus except for weapons stored at range.

Sandy Hook: gun free school zone

First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs: posted "no guns allowed".

That's FIVE of five.

It "seems" your "substantive facts" need better research.

You have to go back to 2008, to a series of events that killed 170 people.

About 60 people have been killed in mass shotings in the US in the 48 days of this year.

> In America, mass shootings only seem to occur in "gun-free zones", where perpetrators know there is little chance of armed interdiction before they have accomplished their mission.

No. In America mass shootings are so common they're not widely reported. You're cherry picking mass-shootings to fit your narrative. If you look at all of them you'll see they occur all over, and not just in "gun free" zones. This is a consistant tactic used by gun rights advocates: exclude any gun violence they can to reduce the numbers. "This mass shooting doesn't count, it's gang violence", "These deaths don't count, they're suicide", "This isn't a mass shooting, because only 3 people died"

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/10/kentucky-murd...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/05/three-police-offi...

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/crime_police/art...

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/tag/mass-shooting-detroit/

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/breaking-news/breaking-pbs...

etc etc (This is an incomplete list of February's mass shootings.)

>This is a consistant tactic used by gun rights advocates: exclude any gun violence they can to reduce the numbers. "This mass shooting doesn't count, it's gang violence", "These deaths don't count, they're suicide", "This isn't a mass shooting, because only 3 people died"

The irony is that your sibling poster also wrote this: "Mumbai attack was a terrorist attack. My response was in context of mass shooting in schools."

If I may suggest, please read 2008 Mumbai attack and see if there are really any parallels. There is a difference when someone from a foreign land acquire weapons outside and attacks you (unless I am missing the point you are trying to make).

You're reduced to counting police shooting a murderer who shot one person as a "mass shooting"?

Mumbai attack was a terrorist attack. My response was in context of mass shooting in schools.

What percentage of public schools allow teachers to carry firearms?

I know a couple schools in Texas went forward with proper training for a few teachers who wanted to carry in school. Frangible ammo, clearing tactics, proper concealment. I'm sure if there were any incidents at those schools, it would be all over the national news, but I haven't heard anything yet.

It seems like teachers with guns would be a better option than teachers as [temporary] shields for students. Also seems better than "turn the lights off and hide."

I've heard all the arguments about students getting ahold of a teacher's gun, accidental discharge, etc. If you're making those sorts of arguments, do you also carry a gun?

As others have mentioned, the gun culture in America is not going to change any time soon, so the politicians are not going to "take away the guns." We're also continuing to pump psychotropic drugs into our children by the millions. Add to that the environment of public school: raging hormones, toxic bullying, dehumanizing suppression of individuality. Not exactly a recipe for peace.

Perhaps it's time to try something different?

> We're also continuing to pump psychotropic drugs into our children by the millions. Add to that the environment of public school: raging hormones, toxic bullying, dehumanizing suppression of individuality.

Whilst simultaneously both decreasing mental health funding, AND increasing availability of weapons to people with mental health issues.

It's not just that we're "not doing something good" for the problem...

We're _actively_ making the problem worse, in some of the most obvious / blatant ways.

As a purely practical matter, does it really make sense to prioritize the arming of millions of teachers to handle this?

I know a lot of teachers and they are really busy with all the other stuff that they have to do, what would you trade off in favor of training?

Without getting into the politics of this, the fact of the matter is that these types of shootings are really rare, and if I had to draft up a list of problems that schools face then mass shootings would certainly not crack the top 10, or even top 100 problems / priorities to focus on.

The solution to arming the teachers would be purely opt-in, as in, remove legal barriers to teachers defending themselves and their students. I'm not suggesting any sort of new program.

There is no way to not make it a program though. Some issues I see here:

- if teachers are allowed to be armed, then as a parent I believe that I have a right to know which of the teachers at my school carry firearms, and I want to be able to verify that they have the proper training and safety precautions in place

- the standard procedure for this type of situation is for the teachers to stay with their students and to lock the doors. If some of the teachers have weapons, then what is the plan for them? Are they meant to leave their students alone and unsupervised in the classroom as they confront and attempt to gun down the assailant? The school would have to figure out and plan for this too.

- Insurance companies would have something to say about this as well, where would the budget come from to pay for increased premiums?

It is not as simple as just removing legal barriers, there are tradeoffs involved.

I've always found this debate interesting. I own a few guns and don't want to see my rights restricted. But I also don't feel comfortable with the thought of my kid's teacher carrying a gun. And while I don't dismiss the possibility of armed teachers being a deterrent for school shootings, I do question the fact that so many other countries that have more restrictive gun control laws also have far fewer homicide rates (especially in mass shooting situations).

As a scientist, it feels like I'm looking at a dataset of the rest of the world that shows a strong correlation between strict gun control and lower homicide rates. But then I say to myself, "maybe we (America) can have less gun control, which will cause us to exhibit even lower homicide rates". But I know that thought doesn't really make sense.

... my response can be summed up with "wat"

Edit: fine, alright. He's questioning the fact so many other countries with strict gun controls have fewer homicide rates. No shit they do.

Acknowledging the correlation between gun control and lower homicide rates, this "scientist" then says to himself "maybe we can have less gun control, which will cause us to exhibit lower homicide rates".

And then he edits it with "But I know that thought doesn't really make sense".

Fucking social media, I swear. I want to quit it like I want to quit nicotine and alcohol.

I was trying to point to the absurdity of the debate, even as someone who (moderately) opposes gun control laws. And I think we actually agree with each other on the "scientific" basis of my comments. I view the logic behind the debate in a similar way that a drunk driver might say, "well, if I was even more intoxicated, then I wouldn't have caused that accident". It doesn't really make sense to think that way. But the narrative of putting more guns into schools as a benefit has been pushed so hard that it actually makes me question the potential positive outcome (as opposed to outright rejecting it based on the preponderance of evidence to the contrary).

Actually, "I want them to get rid of other people's guns but not mine" is probably a widely held opinion on the gun debate in the US. I admittedly share this point of view. "I like this law as long as they don't apply it to me" is how this country works!

> I've heard all the arguments about students getting ahold of a teacher's gun, accidental discharge, etc. If you're making those sorts of arguments, do you also carry a gun?

The teachers I know dislike this idea for those reasons: it makes them targets and in a non-prison environment the gun would either be easy for a student to get or too secure for them to get in an emergency situation, especially when they’re supposed to be managing panicked students.

Looking at the number of police officers who accidentally injure people despite far more training and an easier environment, it’s really hard to imagine this ending well – we have trouble keeping pens and paper in classrooms, are we really going to consistently find the money and time for regular training?

>> I've heard all the arguments about students getting ahold of a teacher's gun, accidental discharge, etc. If you're making those sorts of arguments, do you also carry a gun?

>The teachers I know dislike this idea for those reasons: it makes them targets and in a non-prison environment the gun would either be easy for a student to get or too secure for them to get in an emergency situation, especially when they’re supposed to be managing panicked students.

Count in there following accidents: teacher shooting teacher, teacher shooting kid, teacher overreacting (false alarm), teacher misplacing gun, kid getting access to a gun locker, police shooting teacher or kid (kids will decide at that point to play superheroes and go for a gun).

People complain in this country about police officers shooting kids. People that are trained for years and are reviewed (supposedly regularly) for their ability to carry a firearm and play judge, jury, executioner in a stressful situation as a team.

People just don't get how impractical and unrealistic this idea is. You want an average Jane/Joe to coordinate with their peers and dependents (kids) to incapacitate a person armed with an assault rifle (does not matter if it is semi-automatic if you are trained really) armed with a handgun.

You ask superhuman feats from the teachers: i) to be paradigms and caretakers and nurturers for our kids ii) to be trained, tactical and cold blooded killers.

I don't want any kid of mine near a teacher trained to respond to these situations (I accept there are people that are able to cut themselves emotionally and react with cold blooded clarity and precision, while not being on their guard and paranoid: call them naturals and good luck...).

My wife was a teacher and eventually principal. One time we were discussing the idea of buying a bullet proof vest just in case. Then the absurdity of what we are now accepting as normal struck me.

This is scary... kids are impressionable, and having drills like this may actually backfire and romanticize the idea of becoming the shooter for a number of kids who already could be prone to doing that.

When we had fire drills I'd often imagine pulling the red lever walking back into the school... to trigger another... not the same thing, and I never thought of starting a fire -- but I also often kind of hoped that one of these drills would be the real thing so we wouldn't have to go back into school.

My SO is a teacher and has them monthly, randomly scheduled. They just lock the door, turn out the lights, and play with their phones in the corner until the all clear bell. It messes up the curriculum and learning to just stop-drop and chill for 30 minutes.

'Fortunately' the largest concern they have is the suicide cell currently working it's way through. Turns out, suicide is pretty contagious: http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-contagious-c...

In 1999, the middle school I attended required meshed or see-through bookbags. May be more schools should put in policies like these while we wait on our politicians to do something.

Yes and see-through clothes would also improve security

That really doesnt make sense. I cannot imagine a single situation a clear backpack could stop or even reduce.

That sounds useless [0] considering you could just cut out a hole in a textbook or hide a gun anywhere else. A lot of schools have metal detectors these days as well as random bag checks. Seems like that's the future we're choosing.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

Or, you know, the shooter doesn't decide to spend the day at school before they start shooting. They just walk in the front door with guns blazing.

Clear backpacks are more for spotting drugs I think, and even then it's pretty useless. Dealers in schools aren't carrying around kilos of coke, they're carrying easily concealable dime bags and the like.

These mass shootings are mostly in rich white suburbs.. The shooters are largely white males. Good luck getting metal detectors in these communities. Even if you turn schools into a prison you will have large groups of kids lined up to get to class in morning, at sporting events, activities and the other functions. So a motivated shooter will get to people anyway. So even though high school can feel like it is a literal prison, actually making it so solves very little. The only reasonable and logical action to take is gun control. You can't ask teachers to make threat assessments, determine mental state or act be law enforcement. Teachers are there to teach.

How does that solve anything? The shooter just comes in and starts shooting... he doesn't wait around to get checked first.

Let's just skip straight to requiring all students to be naked and start the school day with cavity checks.

I will never understand why people think starting from an assumption of guilt and treating all of the potential victims as guilty parties is some kind of improvement. This does not foster a more civilized environment. It has the opposite effect. It just escalates the atmosphere of terror.

You laugh, but...: https://www.courthousenews.com/dehumanizing-body-cavity-sear...

No, not funny at all. Thank you for posting it. Under some jurisdictions, this would qualify as sexual assault and it's horrible.

>I will never understand why people think starting from an assumption of guilt and treating all of the potential victims as guilty parties is some kind of improvement.

Why? That is what widespread civilian disarmament does. There are many countries which use it to create a more civilized environment, like Russia and China.

My high school banned backpacks entirely. Everyone had to carry all their books. It was incredibly stupid, but maybe its a more honest depiction of high school. Basically prison.

Are there any states where guns are allowed and prevalent in schools? Seems like a mass shooter would want to go to a place where he knows he is the only person with a gun.

On one hand, if there a tons of guns in schools, perhaps kids would randomly shoot eachother during fights. On the other hand, there are mass shooters who see schools as easy targets.

The shooter in FL apparently had lots of FBI data on him. He told kids about guns, he posted weird comments on youtube.

Are there any states where guns are allowed and prevalent in schools? Seems like a mass shooter would want to go to a place where he knows he is the only person with a gun.

I don't know. But Florida is notorious for having some of the loosest gun laws in the country and it didn't seem to affect the outcome here at all (or in the Orlando nightclub).

The Texas army base shooting seems like a double whammy: extremely loose gun laws, and highly armed target. The recent church shooting happened in Texas, too.

It is fascinating. It seems like the availability/nearyby availability of guns seems correlated with the occurrence of mass shootings, but has no correlation with prevention.

I wonder if the CDC has been able to conduct any research on this subject using data that state level law enforcement collects?

It's a fairly common misconception that military bases are full of people running around with guns. Generally speaking, the Army loves soldiers, and loves guns, but hates soldiers with guns.

Gate guards, MPs, and soldiers on an active firing range would (generally) be the only ones equipped to defend themselves.

Isn’t the CDC specifically prohibited from doing studies involving firearms?

It's not quite that general, but is pretty close. The "Dickey Amendment" requires that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment_(1996)

I found this article which talks about a few incidents of civilians stopping other shooters. It isn't often but it does happen.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

It's illegal in Florida to conceal carry in a bar or any establishment that derives more than 50% of it's revenue from the sale of alcohol.

Also, it's a big assumption that gun ownership = gun carrying. There are a lot of people who have 2-3 guns (shotgun, rifle, pistol) at home, and never carry them unless specifically heading to a shooting range or hunting.

Also, as others have pointed out, personal firearm carrying is highly restricted on active duty military bases. You'd probably find more guns in cars at a Texas Walmart than you would at a Texas military barracks.

"it's a big assumption that gun ownership = gun carrying" ... seems like one is an obvious prerequisite to the other, so you'd at least expect some degree of correlation, correct? I'm certainly not suggesting there aren't responsible gun owners (in fact I believe they are a large majority). I personally know many people just like you describe (generally do not carry, otherwise stored unloaded in a safe).

To go back a bit, why didn't a CCL bystander intervene, though, in the Orlando shooting even if nobody was armed in the club? I just think the asymmetry of active shooter situations renders an armed population basically useless most of the time, and people apt to grossly overestimate how effective they would be.

My suspicion is that the risk from death (all cause and homicide only) from firearm is highly correlated with degree of gun ownership. And the real discussion is how much should people give away in the balance of their right to stay alive vs other peoples' liberty to own firearms. It think that is not a bad faith reduction. Firearm deaths will never be zero, and there are and must be restrictions on ownership of weapons (NBC weapons, artillery) at some level.

I'm slightly guilty of bad faith with asking a bad faith question. I know the CDC is prevented by law from doing this sort of epidemiological study, so we are sort of left in a state arguing without facts (and that seems intentional).

  affect the outcome here at all

The school is a "gun-free zone".

  (or in the Orlando nightclub).

The club was a "gun-free zone".

  Texas army base

A gun free zone: Servicemembers were disallowed from carrying guns on base from a Clinton-era Executive order.

  recent church shooting

another posted gun-free zone (the church's choice).

The correlation you seek is not "availability of guns" but the lack of proximate self-defense, guaranteeing a low risk hunting ground.

Wow. And back when I was in school, we only used to hide under furniture like that for tornado drills. What hte hell is the world coming to...

We as a society are fine with mentally unstable individuals having access to multi-shot, and semi-automatic handguns and assault weapons.

When a person takes one of these weapons and begins indiscriminately killing people it's not an "evil" act, it's the act of a mentally ill individual, plain and simple. When we label it as "evil" we absolve ourselves of our duty to act, because evil is a nameless, faceless, and uncontrollable entity, it's just something we must live with. When in reality what's causing these shooting is the crisis of mental illness that is facing this country, and that is something we can control, but we've chosen to ignore. Mental illness is one of those topics that can't be discussed, it's private, and it's embarrassing, but it's killing us.

Mentally unstable individuals have unlimited access to weapons and ammunition is fully supported by our laws, and by the majority of the population. It's only prudent for schools to hold drills for dealing with active shooters because it's an accepted and encouraged part of our culture.

I suspect that both the willingness to attribute shootings to "evil" and the reluctance to address mental health both stem from the religious belief that still pervades American society to a much greater extent than it does other western countries. I have actually had a person tell me that this is a "sin-sick country" as his explanation for the recent event.

Perhaps things will improve gradually as the population becomes less religious.

I don't know about that. If you take the doctrine of human sinfulness as a hypothesis, and read the news for a month, you could reasonably regard it as empirically proven...

Here's the challenge with "more arms".

We talk about the "need to protect against an unjust government" (going back to the original reasoning why 2A was enshrined)...

You basically have two scenarios there, as we've seen play out around the world:

1. The military / soldiers revolt, 'remember the patriotism', whatever you want to call it. The government is toothless because their military isn't going to quell civil uprising.

2. A general or colonel decides it's his time, and has the backing of the military. A military with access to fighter jets, armored helicopters, bombers, not to mention the actual big guns, NBC weaponry. And then we have the 'militia' populace, limited to largely semi automatic small arms or less. Is the military going to "play fair", or are they, per current US doctrine, "shock and awe" a demonstrative show of force.

Either way, largely, we'd be fucked. The days of rebel insurgencies hanging out in the jungle/desert/ wherever providing credible resistance to a tyrannical government never really applied to the US.

If that were true, the USA would having a good time in the middle east now.

Advanced weaponry is great to destroy,but you arent going to rule a population with it.And you sure aren't going to get away with nuking a country to glass.

You still need boots on the ground for an occupation. Civies with guns will make that a nightmare, if not impossible.

We cant even do it in a small third world desert countries.

A nation like america would be near impossible to occupy.

There's no need for that, the US is already occupied...

I think the intent of the second amendment was also very much about a man being able to defend himself when police forces were not around.

That being said, it's wrong to assume that a popular revolt would automatically lose an asymmetric war against the US military. History is full of examples of local rebellions winning against greater numbers of professionally equipped soldiers. See: American Revolutionary forces vs the British Empire.

> The days of rebel insurgencies hanging out in the jungle/desert/ wherever providing credible resistance to a tyrannical government never really applied to the US.

It did at the very beginning. The rebel insurgency had just used weapons they had personally available to resist a tyrannical government until it gave up. (Or at least, until foreign powers were willing to provide enough aid that the foreign aid plus the personal arms of residents was enough to defeat the government.)

Immediately after that experience, they wrote the amendment.

If you want to make a case that things are different now, you can perhaps do so. But don't say it never applied in the US. It did.

>When we label it as "evil" we absolve ourselves of our duty to act

Likewise, when we automatically label someone as crazy/mentally ill we absolve society from critical introspection as to the causative influence it may have had on the person's actions.

Ah, America, the land prepared to allowed the continued slaughter of children and other innocents on a scale that would take a civil war anywhere else, all for a particular interpretation of the Second Amendment.

"There's nothing we can do" from a country with a problem that literally no one else has.

The slaughter goes well beyond the borders of the US too. Handing out opiates like candy without holding doctors responsible has created a zombie army of heroin addicts. The war on cannabis in the 1970s and beyond was so successful that cannabis became harder to get and more expensive than meth or heroin. Good call that.

And that market demand drives drug cartels in search of the billions of dollars US citizens spend on illegal drugs and that war is fueled by... guns from the USA.

Watch any of these reality border shows and you'll see the trafficking trade is in drugs going north and money and guns going south.

But sure, let's argue that the founders meant for every idiot with anger issues to have an AR-15 with a bump stock and that the slaughter of children is the price of "freedom".

Good call.

In elementary school and middle school we had "lockdown" drills, which as a kid I did not associate with mass shooting. No teacher mentioned guns, terrorism, or anything scary. It was just "lockdown".

I wished Americans were as obsessed with keeping their privacy as they are with keeping their guns. Then the internet would be an entirely different place.

It sounds to me like the best way of perpetuating, spreading, and eventually somewhat normalizing the idea of entering a school and shooting everybody.

Agreed. It also makes me think, at a glance, you're teaching gunners how to do more damage. But I have no idea how shootings play out.

My school- district started right after Columbine and the less notable incidents that followed.

In my day we held nuclear attack drills. Not sure what is more terrifying/depressing tbh.

Considering school shooters actually happen, and quite often at that, I'd say it's a bit more scary than a nuclear drill.

Nuclear drills don't really do anything anyway, if a nuke is coming you're going to be dead regardless of you hiding under your desk.

That depends on how far away you are. There is a radius within which you simply die, and a radius beyond which you will be fine regardless. Between those two radii, you can absolutely reduce your risk of death.

...if a nuke is coming you're going to be dead regardless of you hiding under your desk.

Ridiculous as it may seem, I remember some information in the late 1970's about 'what to do in the event of a nuclear attack' and 'underneath a table' was one of the places they advised as a good place to hide.

This is actually quite good advice. If you're close enough, you're dead regardless, but even miles away from an impact you still need to protect yourself against things like flying glass and falling debris.

Kind of like the Israeli standard warning to get into a concrete stairwell if you hear a missile alarm and don't have a real bomb shelter available. In a direct hit you're dead anyway, but mild defensive measures can vastly reduce the lethal radius of an attack.

EDIT: Here's a vintage poster on the subject. Fairly factually correct, but awful for morale: https://i.redd.it/fw2xx579qw401.jpg

The instant death zone of nukes will kill, I believe, significantly less than half the victims. Many more people will die of fairly "pedestrian" causes like building collapses or even fire. In other words, a nuclear explosion at medium distance is pretty similar to a chemical bomb hitting somewhere close. So hiding under your desk isn't actually that useless.

How many people do you know who have been injured or killed from gun violence? How many do you know who have been victims of nuclear violence? I know for me personally I've witnessed gun violence, and know people who've been injured because of it. For me at least gun violence is much more personal, and thus more depressing and terrifying.

Gun violence frequently kills a small number of people.

USA/USSR nuclear war is an extremely rare event (to the point where it never actually happened; but any reasonable reading of history recognizes that it could have happened), that kills a large number of people. Lets estimate between 70 and 160 million immediate deaths in the US. [0]. This would be between 35 and 80% of the population. Lets round this estimate to a flat 100 million.

In 2013, there was about 100,000 firearm injuries (~34,000 of which were fatal. and 21,000 were suicide) [1]

These two number are not directly comparable, because of population growth, and my considering non-fatal gun injuries but only immediately fatal nuclear injuries. However, both of these facts serve to make gun violence look relatively worse than nuclear violence.

Even with these simplifications, our gun violence is equivalent to a nuclear war every 100 years. Readings of history may vary, but I doubt we could survive 100 years of cold war without starting a nuclear war.

For simplicity, lets ignore population growth and just focus on the absolute numbers (which will make shootings look even worse, because the total population has increased).

[0] http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/129966

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

> How many people do you know who have been injured or killed from gun violence?

Um, none?

Exactly. The chance of this affecting your kid is tiny, compared to choking, being hit by car, etc. bought it does serve to terrorize the kids.

In 8 years i live in usa i did not witness any gun-related violence. Nor nuclear-related.

Perhaps it is taboo to say this but it seems like a catch-22 to me: that in an effort to prevent mass murder with firearms, many US citizens would turn to the same government which has prepared to commit the greatest indiscriminant mass murder in history with their nuclear weapons.

I'm kind of surprised the figure isn't 100%

I'm surprised it's that high at all given the likelihood that a child will ever be in a school shooting. It's not quite in lottery-winning territory, but as a child you are more likely to be killed by a vehicle than a gun by several orders of magnitude. It's not even close.

It's a good example of the media shifting our fear to the wrong thing.

I completely agree regarding the media being terrible at discussing risk. However, I do think the attention is somewhat warranted because every other developed nation in the world has solved this problem (as is made abundantly clear in another thread in this same post). If the solution is so obvious, why not implement it and start saving lives?

Lastly (and somewhat pedantically) I'm not sure about your "several orders of magnitude" remark. Could you elaborate? Wikipedia[0] says that about four times as many Americans die in traffic collisions each year as die from firearms (once you take out the 2/3 of firearms deaths that are suicides).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preventable_causes_of_death#An...

It should be a 100%. They also need to get armed security.

My alma mater had its own police force, and it was really helped. It reduced not just shootings, but violent crime in general.

EDIT: Also the FBI needs to be investigated. Apparently they were warned several times about that Florida shooter. It's just utterly unbelievable, Wray should be fired, and a special counsel set up to investigate this unbelievable failure. Ex. The Fbi said it couldn't verify the shooter, who used his own name on youtube with death threats. Unbelievable!

You realize that most countries in the world have neither armed security, police, or even metal detectors in -any- of their schools and don't have these issues?

Why is our solution here always "more guns!"?

I gave a realistic solution for the united states, One that I have personally seen work.

You will not be able to do a gun grab without a civil war or extreme violence in the united states.

And yet as an EMS responder, I've seen and heard personally of the challenges that come with it.

There are cases where shooters have been brought down by "a good guy with a gun".

There are others where there have been plenty of armed security around, even police, and it's done nothing to stop things.

And there's been cases where now you have a bunch of inconsistently trained people running around an active shooter scene, confused and terrified, possibly injuring bystanders or each other. "Hey, are you the shooter?" Shooter: "no, i'm just like you, hunting him too!" (if indeed the reaction is not "see gun, shoot").

I'm not advocating for random people with guns, but law enforcement officers.

>There are others where there have been plenty of armed security around, even police, and it's done nothing to stop things.

Just because a small number of bad cops haven't done their job, doesn't I mean I think we get should get rid of all cops.

Where did I mention getting rid of all cops?

If we went this route, I'd probably rather have the military (though I know that comes with even more 'concerns' for our 'freedom') - more tightly controlled rules of engagement, more experience with and training with respect to returning fire, compared to law enforcement, who only do active shooter exercises themselves a couple of times a year, if that.

Active shooter scenarios are terrifying, to state the obvious. I've been involved in training at a school here in Washington where even as a medic, we go in while the shooter is still active, covered by a SWAT team, for pulling victims out of the hot zone, and it is loud, it is confusing.

I appreciate that you're trying to be realistic to the culture here, and I agree that 'yes, there would most likely be civil uprising if we attempted to claw back firearm ownership', so then the only alternative is an escalating arms race.

Which the NRA, which long ago ceased to be a sportsman's club and is now "by with and for" the gun manufacture industry, can't fail to be happy about.

There are millions of black-market firearms available in the United States that may be acquired by a motivated killer with relative ease. I'm not entirely convinced they can "unfry that egg", so to speak.

For now, in the short-term, I think the suggestion that we could harden these soft-targets with on-site security is an idea worth examining. Perhaps, even staff with pertinent experience, training, and the trust of the faculty, could volunteer as "sheepdogs" and are permitted access to weapons on-site, during such emergencies?

By no means to I want you to take the above as a complete solution, but neither is simply banning guns. What does that even mean, anyway? Why not ban murder? Crime-stats make it clear that illegally-owned handguns are most-often used to commit violent crimes, after all. Criminals don't seem to care what the laws are.

As always, it is important to note that this issue is highly politicised, to a maddening degree.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com