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Comment by keeganjw | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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.

>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.

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)

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

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...

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.

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...

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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...

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...

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.

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 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).

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.

I had never even considered such a drill could exist.

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.

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

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

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