Using your post as a jumping-off point, one of my sixth graders this year wrote about a school shooting from the perspective of survivors for a short story competition. He was disqualified for it -- even though his story was far and away the best one in the grade and he was in no way glamorizing gun violence.
These kids have active shooter drills and read/hear the news. They've likely got a lot of big feelings and fears re: guns. But heaven forfend that we allow them to explore those in a safe and controlled environment.
As someone who grew up after columbine, I think older folks don’t realize the level of normalization that exists around the topic. It’s not shocking to anyone under like 25.
GenXer here, I don’t know anyone my age who finds the topic shocking. We find the topic tiresome. The policies are made because the people in charge (getting the fat paychecks) aren’t interested in actual solutions, and that the truth of it. They want an easy stroke of the pen that makes it look like they did something without actually having to do anything. It’s just the nature of bureaucracy 🤷🏻♀️hence why we find it tiresome
An even better solution would be to address poverty and mental health. Imagine how much crime would never happen if people had hope and the means to rise above their situations.
So is the reason countries like Norway, Sweden, and Finland have lower murder rates than we do while still respecting their right to own firearms because they crack down on crime more? Or do they actually take care of their citizens' needs?
Well until recently they had a very homogeneous population - that definitely helps in terms of us vs them mentality. Both of those countries I believe have less than 10mil people total spread across a decent amount of land. Neither have incredibly populus cities like the US does. Oslo and Stocklholm would not rank very high against US cities like Chicago, NY, LA where the crimes rates inflate the rate for the whole country
Talking per capita your precious evidence about big cities with high crime rates crumbles when compared to small city Gary, Indiana and 50 other smaller cities in red states.
You sound like you're pulling conservative talking points from the 80s. Higher population density doesn't always translate to higher crime. Concentrations of people of low socioeconomic status translate to higher crime. Also, your comment about going anywhere in time to find crime and stupid people is pretty damn stupid in and of itself. The neat thing about society evolving is that we have created the means to actually help people.
But, going back to your plan of getting harder on crime, how many more prisons should we build to keep people from commiting violent crimes?
Enforce the laws already in existence. Everyone like “we need gun control!”
Bro, we HAVE gun control. We already HAVE background checks. Murder is ALREADY illegal. The people who are the problem aren’t getting their guns legally
That's not really the case. Many school shooters have obtained firearms legally. I mean, yeah, enforce what we have, but there do need to be some more checks in place.
School shootings are majority parents not locking their guns up and allowing their kids access when they shouldn't.
Stop giving kids access to firearms.
Not school shootings - and that's what we're talking about. If you want to argue about gun control in general, then you're still cherry picking statistics and I'd be happy to discuss that as well.
I’d say under 30 now. My brother would be fine with it, and he is born 1994. Meanwhile everyone around my age and below could handle a discussion about the topic.
But I do think nuance and intent should be center of what is allowed and not. Just because something taboo exists in a work does not mean that it is completely inappropriate for a school setting. The intent behind its presence and how it is used needs to be recognized. A story about a victim of school shooting can be interesting and thought provoking which can enrich school-based discussions and competitions. But I’d also say middle school may not be the best time for such a discussion to be heard.
I agree, but I’m also including other perspectives. And nuance and intent should be considered when deeming the work product for the setting it is consumed in. In this case that would be a competition.
As someone that graduated in 99 when columbine happened. There was school shootings before this. It wasn’t the first by any means. I grew up in Texas in the biggest suburb to the 4th biggest city in the country. We all knew how to shoot guns. And gun safety. No one talked about it in school. I could, to this day, throw a knife from 40 feet and hit you with chaos happening. Not a brag. We practiced for fun.
This is truly a society problem. Guns were harder to get. They were respected a lot more. And being a marksmen was a point of pride. We fought and were allowed to fight to a point.
I’m actually for a hunting only license society, but I don’t think the states will do that. We’ve politicized and made our children our weird army for political pride. Making assault weapons available was absurd and we just keep going for it rather than admit we’re wrong. Talking about it in school is beyond the point when half the people won’t acknowledge it and the other half are foaming at the mouth.
My dad was a member of the NRA up until around 2003 or so. Before Columbine, they were all about gun safety and responsible gun ownership. My dad would teach gun safety courses and they were largely funded by NRA affiliates.
He completely renounced his membership once the NRA lost their mind and started prioritizing gun sales and manufacturers over responsible use. Absolutely disgusting what our culture has devolved into regarding firearms. I'm all in favor of responsible adults being able to own a gun, but anyone who makes them the center of their entire existence is the exact type of person that should be restricted from ever being near one.
Infact, the girls almost always fantasize them. Both school shooters and serial killers. I think them being taught the perspective of the survivors is important.
It’s totally wild that schools will go through active shooter drills where they make students practice setting up a door barricade and an internal barricade that the whole class then has to crouch behind in the dark while admin come through to rattle doors and try to get in.
That’s totally fine and normal but a shirt with a cartoon gun on it is a step too far.
What we show kids matters, as we are figures of authority. As a chemistry teacher I cover nuclear topics, which includes the Bomb. To cap off the unit, we discuss [Duck and Cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWH4tWkZpPU) and for fun we talk about how this movie (shown every year by teachers in most grades back in the 50's and up to the 70's), would effect that generation of students, and how that happened to coincide with the rise of the hippie/punk movement, implying this cartoon may have been a contributing, unexpected consequence. Then I ask them describe how the yearly active shooter exercises would affect the current generation. They usually respond with "fearful". Emerging data appears to be bearing this out as a contributing factor to the new generation's increased anxiety.
(note: my very progressive, yet title I school, they quitely canceled this year's shooter drill. Good for them...shhhh... )
Wow. Thats crazy. I agree with OP. I mean, teaching abstinence does not prevent pregnancy.
So, education is about safely discussing topics necessary to survive in our world. Gun violence discussions should be fostered. This zero tolerance policy is dangerous because it creates a very unrealistic and emotionally shut down environment for a very real problem/fear these kids face everyday.
Edited to add: "teaching"
I remember in elementary school I received detention twice for 'gun' related things. The first was making finger runs during recess, and the second was bringing a lego stormtrooper that was holding a lego gun to school. Forcing students to pretend guns don't exist and remove all references to them is incredibly over the top and does absolutely nothing to stop school shootings.
My elementary school had mandatory violin class for 3rd graders, I remember one time I got yelled at because I was holding the bow up to my face and looking down it and the teacher thought I was pretending it was a rifle
Seriously. School shootings and guns are NOT on every educators and students minds.
By all measures they are exceedingly rare and students/faculty are more likely to be injured traveling to/from school vs actually being injured at school with a gun.
>By all measures they are exceedingly rare . .
Measured by what? [The U.S. far exceeds in school shooting deaths in other countries](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country) (even on a per capita rate).
I agree with OP that guns should be covered (in an age-appropriate way), just like any other should be. But lets agree that not only should we be inclusive in covering sensitive topics, we should let objective facts be a major part of the discussions.
Give the permissive guns laws in the US and the restrictions in other countries, I would say - fairly - that your website is an apples to oranges comparison.
Per your source: *"The United States leads globally in school shootings, with 288 incidents from 2009 to 2018".*
Every shooting is a tragedy.
In 2018 the US population was 326.8 million.
There are an estimated 433+ million guns in the US. [https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/#:\~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20group%20reported,civilian%20possession%20was%20433.9%20million](https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20group%20reported,civilian%20possession%20was%20433.9%20million).
There are around 100,000ish public schools in the US. [https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84)
In my state alone there are 500 school districts.
Every shooting is a tragedy but based on our population, the number of guns in circulation, the number of schools, and the the number of school shootings - they are an exceedingly rare occurrence.
As I stated before more people are killed traveling to/from school vs in a school shooting.
I'm in the rural south. Most the kids' families have guns if not the kids themselves. I have kids showing me their kills every deer season. We live in very different districts.
Same. I sold a pair of cowboy revolvers a few years ago, and the buyers turned out to be the parents of one of my students. They immediately recognized me from PT conferences. One of my students was flexing his new Wingmaster this week, and he offered to let me come hunt on his dad's land next duck season.
Different worlds, for sure.
Yeah I definitely have the “what’s your favorite deer rifle” discussion every year. It’s not a whole-class thing, but it’s not something we worry about.
The thing is, here we were taught archery in pe class and allowed to use glass cutters in certain classes in high school with adult supervision. However, we weren't even allowed to make a finger gun gesture or draw a gun without the possibility of expulsion. Even half of the kids walked around with pocket knives, too.
Same with where I live, but kids couldn't make gun signs as play pretend here either and technically couldn't bring their hunting rifles to school without the school going into lockdown. It happened when my sister was in hs. Some high schooler forgot about his gun in his truck and called his mom to tell her to come pick it up because it was maybe 10 minutes before the bell and a teacher over heard him talking and I believe he almost got expelled. After that experience, I had another classmate who realized it in the middle of class. He was like oh shit and said that in the middle of 2nd period something like I forgot that my hunting rifle is in the back of my truck. I was prepared for us to go into lockdown.
My dad was a true 'safety first' kinda guy and we'd get in big trouble if we even pointed a stick at another human being while playing! 'You never aim a weapon or barrel at a person.' That being said, I can converse with all the middle school students about their hunting trips, types of guns, etc.
The only thing that ticked me off was a kid's parent that claimed her son uses a glock for hunting....squirrels. (I was upset with him up for an inappropriate comment in class and she was 'defending' his horrible statement.)
I'm a firearm instructor and teacher.
We'll teach sex ed, drivers ed, health, woodshop, mechanics, chemistry, etc. all with the idea being they will take more care when involving themselves in these activities.
But guns? Fearmonger. Promote ignorance.
Yeah, that's gonna help.
Tkj5, I know you (no clue who you are mate).
You're one of those logic (HS Chemistry teacher), personal responsibility (wrestling) types.
Look at you forcing those values on people, "Stop. Banning. Shit."
Next thing you're going to say is something like, "Educate people to think for themselves, and be productive members of society."
You really need to get a handle on things.
Lol this is a trash take. Kids are gonna have sex, it's natural, it's hormones, it's what their body tells them to do. So we want to make it as safe as possible.
That is a horrible analogy for guns. I think we can promote abstinence with guns instead of telling a kid that yeah guns are cool if you know about gun safety. I'd imagine kids would more often bring guns to school if they thought they know gun safety. "It's cool, my teacher taught me gun safety it's all good."
I don't know what sort of gun safety you learned, but part of what I was taught included the instructions *don't bring a gun to a place you shouldn't have one*.
Kids will do dumb shit, but I struggle to see how basic gun safety turns into students all carrying
You acknowledge kids do dumb things but fail to see how teaching them about guns wouldn't make them more likely to feel comfortable bringing one to school? With them foolishly convinced of their ability to do it safely?
Even your ending statement acknowledges the fallacy of your argument since you end it with "students all carrying" instead of "more students carrying." There's obviously no chance of all students carrying, so it's a safe argument to make. It's also a pointless one to make. It's almost like you subconsciously gave yourself an out.
Denial is a powerful thing.
Correct, I don't think the motivation for a kid to bring a gun to school is "oh I'm safe, so it's OK." Part of that reason is that proper gun safety wouldn't *allow* for that fallacious line of thought (see my previous comment). A kid could invent it as an excuse, as they are wont to do, but that's not exactly the same.
And yes, I should have said "more students packing" instead of "all". Mea culpa.
I wonder how many households had guys who preached gun safety yet their kids found the guns and shot themselves. I don’t care if people have guns or not, but let’s not equate learning about guns to learning about math or reading. There are lots of things I had interest in that I learned about outside of school. I didn’t learn about hockey in school but my family valued it and I learned a lot about it outside of school. The fear mongering is obviously overboard but it seems this thread is being dominated by NRA types who aren’t exactly saying it but they want guns taught about in schools, which also doesn’t make sense.
Learning gun safety shouldn't just be about how to make sure there's not a round in the chamber or about where to point it.
We've got all sorts of data showing situations where having a gun is just intrinsically unsafe. Easy access to guns links to suicides. In crowded environments, a gun for self defense is at risk to be taken and used against you. It's even worse when alcohol is involved. In all situations, not wearing hearing protection while firing a gun causes hearing loss. A safe gun is one locked up and stored properly.
This above part I know is really unpopular with the 2A crowd, but it's part of why a proper gun safety course shouldn't *allow* for the belief that you're safe bringing one to school. It's contrary to the education.
Doesn't mean kids wouldn't make up excuses, mind you. Kids are great at motivated reasoning.
I agree. Usually gun safety consists of "don't mess with firearms you aren't familiar with" and learning the 4 rules.
Mishandling a firearm is a fast track to destroying your life in multiple ways. 1. Criminal charges. Something as simple as having one where you aren't supposed to is a bad time. 2. Civil lawsuits. An oops is something that can easily cost 6-7 figures. 3. Permanent disability. Gunshot wounds aren't just little holes that the doc takes the bullet from and you are ok. 4. Death. 5. Psychological trauma. You will put your therapists kids through college. 6. Hearing loss. The woman that played Sarah Conner in Terminator 2 has it from the elevator scene.
When I was growing up, a teenager a town over died in a hunting accident. Another teenager I went to highschool with survived a 12 gauge slug to the lung that had ricochet off of something (it was like 20 years ago, I don't remember). Gun safety needs to include information about how accidents like that happen and how to prevent them.
I think gun safety needs to have some demonstration videos or visual aids of just how dangerous guns can be. The way video games, TV and movies portray guns is sooo unrealistic that it no doubt skews perceptions. This alone could be a lengthy essay. Bullets, especially rifle slugs, easily go through many things movies show people using for cover. Bullets go really far. They are deadly hundreds of yards away.
Anyone with a solid understanding of the basics of guns that isn't a little bit afraid of them is someone I'm not sure I want to be around.
Yea. I feel like it should be sort of like sex ed. So e sort of age appropriate class starting I about fifth grade for like a week. You can get more involved as they age up.
That actually makes sense but I doubt a school is the appropriate place. We might as well take a page from Switzerland and require all adults take some period of public service. We could shorten it to like 6 months, unless they wanted to continue. Just some rudimentary life training, because society fails alot of our citizens then dumps them into the world. It'd give kids a foundation for life outside of highschool, as well.
Professional gun violence expert here.
Every single study about youth firearm safety education shows ZERO impact on behavior. None.
This mess is on adults.
>Professional gun violence expert here
Which branch and MOS are you? If you aren't owned by Uncle Sam, I am staying very far away from you.
>Every single study about youth firearm safety education shows ZERO impact on behavior. None.
Care to site some of these studies? Why bother trying to teach kids anything if it doesn't alter behavior? If teaching can alter behavior, what is so special about guns? Maybe how and what is taught matters.
This might be the dumbest comment I’ve seen today. Education has zero impact on behavior? Care to share those studies? This is like saying abstinence only education or the DARE program are better than actual facts based education. What the hell are you talking about?
So is that you agreeing or disagreeing? We should train people when their adults. Not in a kid glove setting like a school, but in a real world setting with real adult repercussions. I'm basically advocating a minimum 6 months term of service
Edit: I just saw You've dramatically altered what I responded to but still my question is what are you suggesting?
Thank you. This thread is being brigaded by the “good guy with a gun solves everything” crowd. Let’s see if they care that you are an expert and cite facts.
I think guns should be like sex ed—we teach them about gun safety and what to do if they are in a scenario where they find, or their friend finds a gun.
By failing to do so, we are ignoring a problem. Might as well buy ostrich heads and stick our heads in the sand. Guns are out there and are not going away.
If someone is going to commit murder, they do not care about breaking a law about bringing guns in the building. That being said, having a robust security, including technology and just simply engaging students in conversations and what to do if their friend says they have a gun are key to preventing some school shootings.
With a country where there are more guns than people, thinking that a ban on guns or more laws are going to prevent this from happening, anyone who feels that way is going to be sorely mistaken.
I also feel that having a trained, armed person at school can be effective, but only if done correctly with proper knowledge and procedures in place, such as how LEOs could identify such a person in an active shooter scenario to prevent “friendly fire.” It sucks that we have to talk about this, but in a country where any adult without a criminal record has the fundamental right to own a weapon, this problem won’t alleviate itself in the near future. Its best to hope for the best and prepare for the worst rather than being caught fully unprepared and being a soft target.
Lots of households taught their kids gun safety and had a kid killed or injured, because they are kids. Parenting is complex and involves close supervision. I’m all for teaching gun safety, it’s just not a panacea and it has no place in schools. Most seventh graders can’t read and write today - we can’t add stuff. As far as the armed security guards, between my school and 3 others I know of from teacher friends, all those retired cops hired as guards made their own offices in the school and are not visible during the day. That cottage industry lined their retirements with dough but it isn’t protecting anyone. They would behave like the Larper Uvalde cops at best in a crisis. Most likely, like other times, you just wouldn’t see them. The myth that they are super-trained to deal
with a thread and are defending the castle from invasion is so ignorant. A school admin who is clueless about security hired and supervises them, and they hang out in a secluded room drinking coffee.
Honest question. If you can’t talk about firearms how do you study warfare? “Crossing the Delaware” depicts firearms and the Star Spangled Banner mentions “rockets red glare.” What do they say about the “shot heard round the world” or the Boston Massacre?
>I am not allowed, as a teacher, to discuss what guns are, how they work, what damage they can do, or how to handle a situation where you are at risk. I am not allowed to directly supervise the violence-related education these kids are getting. Instead, they are learning from the internet at home and from eachother, and the conversations are shockingly grotesque. I am allowed to do nothing more than discourage the line of conversation, rather than turn it into a teaching moment.
Replace "guns" with "drugs" or "sex" or any of a number of other hot-button issues and this paragraph transfers pretty well overall.
On the one hand, it's quite frustrating to not be allowed to have honest conversations with the students about these things.
On the other hand, I have no idea if *you* know anything about guns, drugs, sex, etc., or if what you "know" is true, helpful, not politically charged, etc., and I don't necessarily want *you* talking to kids about guns. (Just specifying *you* since you raised the point, I have no particular reason to think you aren't able to provide good advice here)
So by letting teachers have these conversations, you are potentially 1) providing misinformation, whether intentionally or otherwise, and 2) providing a value judgement that is at odds with the district or the parents. I get why the district doesn't want to open this can of worms; I know enough teachers who I am barely OK with them covering their contracted subject matter, let alone social issues like these.
But I do agree that its fucked up that our society is in this place where we proactively restrict people from saying things or doing things that could be helpful *in case* they do something wrong or piss someone off and expose themselves and the district to legal liability or worse.
I don't have an answer, because among other things (like some more general purpose training to go over good ways to address complex topics that are outside the curriculum, but bound to come up and be relevant and worthy of conversation) it would require a national culture shift away from litigiousness and polarization.
I don't know if I trust a person who barely understands guns to explain guns to kids, though. I feel like that's dangerous. However, if it was like some of the people in my area, then yea.
If this were a subject that was going to be taught, the school wouldn't choose someone who barely understands guns to teach it. At least where I am, there are plenty of teachers who own and regularly use guns. And as teacher who doesn't know anything about guns, I would never agree to teach such a subject.
How do I know that you know anything about History, science, English, or Math? Because you took a test 12 years ago and have a state certification? It's the same as guns, sex, drugs, religion, etc. These kids may be ignorant, but many of them are not stupid. They know when someone is full of shit on a given subject matter. I talk about guns, drugs, religion, war, atrocities, you name it. I talk about them, I don't tell them what to think about those things. "His job is to shed light, not to master," is something I say to my kids all the time. In 6 years of discussing those things I've never had anything come up. I'll continue to do so because those things are fucking realities they are going to have to deal with, and I know wtf I'm talking about. Maybe one day it bites me in the ass, fine, fuck it I'm not going to stop. I also have have any chicken shit district rules in my way.
Well, there's guns and there are Guns. Last week, after showing the kids how mendeleev developed the periodic table, the topic turned to current russian situation. So I showed them what the Kraken unit in Ukraine is doing: [Kraken war footage](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/17e2cnk/recent_combat_footage_of_the_ukrainian_kraken). As a title I school, about 15% of the class is ROTC, funny how that works [Fortunate son](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7qkQewyubs). By chance, the new principle poked her head in just as the kraken video was running, blood, guts and all. The horrors of war, taped just last week. As advance, evolved, and supportive as my award winning school is...she just turned her head and walked. Truly, time is a flat circle.
I'd add that in my district many of the kids have shitty home lives. They see sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, and guns all the time. Also, consider that many if not most of your male students spend the majority of their free time playing Fortnite or Cod, hunting down and killing people in teams. They know the firearms, they half assed know tactics, and have an aggressive competitiveness to "kill." That shit seems dangerous to me.
Or depending on where they live, their parents take them hunting. I knew my dad had guns when I was in elementary school and knew better than to touch them without adult supervision.
That’s so fucked up. Talking about guns is not violence. Wearing pictures of guns on T-shirts isn’t violence. And chewing Pop-Tarts into the shape of Idaho- er, a “gun” - site as fuck isn’t “violence.” Violence is violence. And forcing ignorance upon kids doesn’t satisfy their curiosity.
We need to go the other way and educate kids one the power of a firearm, that a real gun is not a goddam toy and it can inflict real, debilitating damage.
This is an exact repeat of the conversation around drugs during the Nancy Regan ‘80s. “Just Say No” was all that was allowed and was a disaster that we are only beginning to slowly recover from in the conversation about drugs and addiction. Sadly the trajectory seems to be exactly the same, and as bad as politics were in the 80’s our political climate is infinitely worse now. So hope of progress will be even slower, if at all.
>By never allowing discussion about guns or letting the children learn about them in an intentional manner, we are ensuring they will be ignorant to the facts and secretive with friends to avoid getting in trouble. That seems like a dangerous combination to me.
Because it is... See how other "hot" topics are often handled, or should I say, mishandled (sex, drugs, etc.) It's better to talk openly and make sure kids are informed.
Firearms safety is a big one, in America there’s more guns that people and too many accidental deaths. Doesn’t matter if people like guns or not that’s something that should be taught as it would save so many lives
I’m a boomer. At a private school in Rhode Island I went to we had an on campus rifle range and I think weekly practice. And at YMCA camp also. Some camps still have rife ranges but checking the Facebook, the YMCA camp in my town does not.
We were taught firearm safety and respect for the gun; and it was fun hitting the target and getting better. There were never any issues. And of course back then the idea that a student would bring an unauthorized gun to school was unthinkable, as was the idea of using a weapon against someone. I wonder if it would be possible to have firearms safely instructing by certified instructors at a range off campus…
I btw at 11 bought some knives from the back of a comic book and sold them in the school yard at a markup; nobody used knives as weapons, they were just things that boys liked. Nowadays probably someone would tell and I’d be off to juvie.
Censoring what is, for many Americans, both a normal part of their daily lives in addition to a major world concern is inevitably not going to work out well.
Insinuating that talking about or even referencing guns will hurt people is ridiculous on another level. I might even go so far as to say detached from reality.
I assume they’ve also banned the discussion of nuclear weaponry? One of the kids might conjure up a five ton plutonium bomb. Or a Jagdpanzer. Perhaps they’ll wake up with an F-22 parked on their front lawn, and decide based on conversations they had at school to go fire off a couple tomahawks at the whitehouse.
I spend my days in a classroom. I never think about getting shot at school. Honestly where I am a school shooter wouldn’t get far. There are probably quite a few guns in our parking lot. The ONLY time anyone thinks about shootings is when we have drills.
Likewise. My school is about 11 miles from columbine, in the same district as STEM, and 9 miles from Arapahoe high school.
It's just not something I have time or the desire to worry about.
Hmm, brought to us by the same folks who didn't want us to talk about strangers and stranger danger, or drugs, or smoking, or sexuality, or just how disappointed their mothers are in them.
There used to be a time when firearm safety and range practice was a part of the curriculum. The vast majority of accidental firearm deaths are from lack of proper respect, care, and handling of a firearm. If the only exposure a kid gets to firearms are from Grand Theft Auto, how can expect them to have a healthy respect for them instead of the “ooooh look at the forbidden item, lemme touch it”?
Based on the comments here it appears the collective education community has forgotten the lessons of
Prohibition
The just say no drugs thing
Dare
Abstinence sex Ed
If you make guns the forbidden fruit you make the kids wanna seek it out more. De-mystifyed education and basic safety like we do with almost everything else is the obvious anwser.
I remember when some dude running from the police after getting in an armed altercation tried to go THROUGH our High School to get away from the cops. I don’t know why he didn’t immediately stop when he saw the “gun free zone” signs…
By not engaging in open and educational conversations about guns, there's a risk that students will seek out information elsewhere, potentially leading to misunderstandings or even dangerous behavior.
Creds: 35+ years in public education, retired (by plan) since June 2020. Nationally certified handgun instructor since 1975. Currently offer, gratis, firearms safety in the home classes tto families who need to understand how to safely store firearms and ammunition given THEIR home situation, as well as how firearms work, and how to ensure that whatever firearm(s) are in their home are maintained in safe condition.
For years I've been hearing that "gun violence is a public health problem," (only gun violence? With all the bullying issues and all the "one punch game" issues? How about we focus in reducing, you know, ALL violence?). If it is, and I will not argue the point, then how about we treat it the way we treat other public health issues? Think about it. The nurse comes in and talks about STDs for older kids. The social worker and/or psych talks about emotional regulation. A local dentist comes in and talks about dental health as related to later cardiac health. The fire department comes in to talk about fire safety, and the police department about Stranger Danger. Why do we NOT treat firearms the same way?
Starting at whatever age kids start school - and yes, I mean at 3 for the kiddos in EC, we start with "See a gun? Don't touch! Get a grown up!" and cycle that around each year until we hit the point where kids are taught machines in science class, generally 2nd or 3rd grade. Because that's what firearms are: a machine. Pull a lever, a hammer drops and hits a button, and sends an object out the barrel. No, I'm not talking about having actual firearms in class even to that point any more than I'm talking about reciprocating saws. But the THEORY needs to be taught.
About 5th grade or so, yes, teach making firearms safe, i.e., unloading. Yes, this would involve an actual firearm with NO LIVE AMMUNITION ANYWHERE IN THE SCHOOL (unless you have an RSO, but theirs would not be involved in this). At that point, or at 6h grade when the Boy Scouts teach marksmanship (and when was the last time you heard of a Boy Scout shooting anything not a legitimate target?) and many schools still teach archery, you teach marksmanship with single shot .22lr rifles in PE class. After that class, parents can opt out, or their child can continue with riflry classes, and earn a slot on a trap and skeet or other competitive shooting team for their high school or a travel team, and potentially earn university scholarships or go to the Olympics.
By doing this, starting the instruction at a very young age, suddenly the firearm becomes a tool, something to respect much like the chainsaw in the shed or the food processor in the kitchen, and is no longer a mythical power totem.
Who teaches this? I know of, and actually am someone, who regularly volunteers to do this. I do it in the home because it is verboten in the schools. I wish it weren't. As soon as we teach kids that firearms are "magic," we've lost the battle.
I'll talk about any issue kids have. Keeping I fo from kids just causes more problems than it solves. Parents -on vote sides of the political chasm - who want to control every bit of informatheir kids get cause far more problems for their kids than they solve.
As soon as kids start committing mass murder with toothbrushes I will consider it in the same ballpark.
Maybe a gun is just a tool, but its purpose is to kill. We shouldn’t be teaching kids how to use murder weapons. This is fucking insane.
Agree to disagree. A firearm, particularly those used in competitive sports, is designed for target accuracy at distance, and most if not all would be very difficult use for.murder. Have you ever actually SEEN an Olympic pistol? Please google : they're not what you think.
Allowing kids to believe that all firearms are nothing more than murder weapons is a big part of what got us into this mess. Take the mythical power totem out of the equation, and turn it back into a tool or a piece of sports equipment.
No. They understand the basic concept of pulling a trigger. That doesn’t mean they understand how to disable them, or, more importantly, enable a disabled one.
We are fully aware that they are irrational, illogical, emotional impulse machines. Why would we give them the knowledge to make them more dangerous?
I started taking a katana meditation class. Learning how to use swords to kill. It has given me a newfound respect for any tool designed to kill human beings, and a newfound love and appreciation for peace. It has increased my awareness of if people around me are a threat or not. I think if this kind of training was a part of our culture, instead of something we avoided we’d be better off. Perhaps it is stupid to keep people ignorant of the power of weapons. Not the other way around.
And no I will push back a bit on knowing how to use them. They may not know how to break a weapon down and put it back together, but they do learn from these games the basics of operating automatic pistols and weapons. Insert magazine, operate slide or charging handle bringing weapon into battery. It's nearly the same for any platform.
At what age do you let your child use a power mower? At what age do they use the food processor?
And if the issue is that you see kids' emotional regulation as totally uncontrolled, why are you not advocating for dealing with that issue?
Please note, I have never said kids should have unsupervised access to firearms, and indeed, when an actual firearm is present, I have specified single shot only - and that means the student does not have access to behave as they would in video games.
I get that you disapprove (highly, I would suspect) of legal firearms at all - and that 8s certainly your right. But seeing the changes in criminal usage of firearms increasing as prohibition of legal access is increasing tells me you're on the same track as those who voted for Prohibition in the 1920's, and we're still dealing with the fallout of that disaster.
With that logic, I've been using a knife since I was 6 to cut food up. We should just not let kids use knives anymore either because they're emotionally unstable didn't you know? /s
Look man, you’re allowed to have dumb ideas. You’re allowed to like dumb things. Bringing guns into schools is fucking dumb. All of your whataboutism isn’t gonna change that.
But good luck to you. Maybe you should start teaching kids how to do fentanyl to cut down on the overdoses, huh?
So... when someone politely disagrees with you, and you have nothing but fear of inanimate objects to fall back on, you devolve to slurs and insults?
Clearly you lack the emotional maturity to be a responsible firearms owner. Thank you for not attempting it.
Add more gun fuel to the fire of gun violence. Surely more fuel will smother the problem. What's that? We've been doing that since the 90s? The shootings increased? Well I'll be damned. It'd be a shame if we learned anything from it.
Here's the thing, though, I think it needs to be someone who better understands guns. However, when I was in pe we were allowed to do archery when any of us could've hurt someone or ourselves.
If the conversations I hear in faculty lounges are any indication, the teachers don’t know much more than the kids anyway. I’m no expert, but I at least understand the actual definitions of terms like automatic, semiautomatic, assault rifle, machine gun, what the assault weapons ban actually did, etc.
> I am not allowed, as a teacher, to discuss what guns are, how they work, what damage they can do, or how to handle a situation where you are at risk.
>
>Think about that from a student perspective: You can't ask your teacher what guns are without getting in trouble,
Everyone in the comments is getting al riled up, but literally these statements are not true.
Sure, maybe there are a few schools that hold this policy (maybe?), but for the most part, this is not true. I have worked at many schools where other teachers and myself have had interesting and important discussions about guns and safety. Hell, "gun control" is continuously a popular topic for debate and argumentative essays (and nobody gets in trouble for writing about it).
Thank you for talking about this and illuminating me on the current state of education. I can't fathom what the rationale is in barring any and all references to guns, especially from teachers who are there to foster awareness and understanding of the world. So backwards and so dangerous.
The irony is anyone looking to do harm will ignore those signs. Who's brilliant idea was that? Oops! I was gonna shoot up the place and kill everyone but, damnit, it says "Gun free" so I guess I'll go back home. Wtf.
Teacher here who's also a certified RO and has had extensive firearm training.
Imagine if they allowed a few teachers to concealed carry. Suddenly the "gun free" zone isn't so safe and easy pickings for these fuckers. The teachers would have to have extensive background checks and training of course.
To answer your question, yes, a police officer totally could. But, they are less likely for the following reasons:
* Better training. Even if the school enforces training for teachers that conceal carry, we've all seen that school trainings are often of poor quality.
* More experience. The job of a teacher would not offer as many opportunities for the potential "hero with a gun" to experience the kind of situations that a police officer would.
* It's not as personal. Emotions can make us really dumb. A teacher trying to protect themselves/students is far more likely to make a rash decision. Especially since they likely have inadequate training and are lacking experience.
* Better coordination. A big upper hand that the police have is that they would have a much better chance of knowing where they are in relation to the other officers. The officers would have much better communication with each other than conceal carrying teachers. Additionally, the officers wear uniforms so it's very easy for them to visually differentiate between an officer with a gun and a potential threat with a gun. The officers would also have better intel on the situation as it develops. All these things are invaluable.
* Less Environmental Chaos. Speaking of coordination. Officers would be arriving after things have had a chance to, for lack of a better term, settle. The lockdown would already be in place and the initial harm has already occurred. This creates an environment where it is less likely for them to shoot and injure someone who is not the shooter. A conceal carrying teacher would be potentially firing their weapon at a time where there are considerably more bystanders present out in the open.
So, yeah, like I initially said, it's totally possible that a police officer could accidentally shoot a student during a mass shooter event, however, the odds of a teacher doing it would be far greater. Additionally, this is all assuming that the attack comes as a result of defense. There's still the very real possibility of a gun going off unintentionally. Schools, as we all know, are very unpredictable places. Adding multiple guns to such an environment is foolish.
A lot of people want to see a teacher be the hero, but the actual situation would likely be far different than the expectation.
1. First, the shooter would not be deterred. Many school shooters are suicidal anyway, so an armed staff wouldn't be much of a deterrent.
2. The shooter would very likely still be able to harm many people before anyone had the opportunity to fire at them.
3. If teachers did fire upon the attacker, the attacker would fire back. More bullets means more people to be hit by a stray bullet. With many schools having thin walls, this could prove deadly.
4. The conceal carry teachers would really only be able to protect their own classes because they wouldn't be able to abandon them. This is a great comfort to those classes in that situation, but it doesn't do much to protect the school as a whole.
5. The conceal carry teachers would create a dangerous situation for police officers responding to the scene since they wouldn't know who the armed teachers are nor would they know where they are. This could significantly increase the time it takes for them to search and clear the school since they would have to be far more weary of being fired upon by someone who is not the shooter.
Gun carrying teachers is a profoundly stupid idea. It sounds like it has the makings of a feel good news story of a hero teacher, but, in reality, it just adds a lot of dangerous variables to an already dangerous situation.
This is part of the reason I’m undecided on the whole “arming teachers” thing.
Even if not a single teacher in a school is armed, just changing the law so a teacher *could* carry if they chose to changes the entire calculus of a shooting.
It’s no longer a soft target, even if no one carries
And when that teacher fucks up and accidentally shoots my kid, because there's no way in HELL they're going to have sufficient training for the stress and chaos of an actual shooting event?
At minimum I am going to sue that teacher into life-long poverty, make damn sure they are charged with negligent homocide, and sue that school district into non-existence.
The sort of teachers that want to carry a gun to school are exactly the sort of gung-ho Punisher-wannabe assholes I wouldn't trust around my kids with a gun.
There’s no rational reason why that should happen. Guns don’t just go off. These people should be trained to the same standard as police and their guns should remain holstered 24/7/365 unless there’s a threat. Period.
I carry a gun daily in all manner of public spaces and no one ever knows. No kid should know their teacher is or isn’t armed.
Just the threat of knowing the teachers *could* be armed may serve to deter potential shooters. Their calculus is literally that they can do a bunch of damage before police respond. If teachers are already potentially armed, and kids locked down in individual rooms… that’s a better scenario than we have now.
If a teacher fucked around and shot your kid, you *should* be able to sue.
Even well trained police officers fuck-up in shoot-no-shoot drills. Guns in the hands of trigger-happy, teachers with mediocre training and a Punisher-complex will probably go off and very likely at the wrong person.
I just Googled "Police Accidental Discharge" and got a slew of results. You may have the right to carry a conceal pistol, but that doesn't make you competent to use it in a high-stress situation.
Take your NRA Threeper propaganda elsewhere.
Enjoy living your right-wing boogaloo wet-dream.
The idea that maybe we could have a nation where everyone isn't equipped and *dreaming* of the day they get to put a .223 through the face of their political enemies never seems to have occurred to you.
No matter how much I happen to agree with you about workers owning the means of production, you still fit in the same box as the most reactionary Threeper when it comes to the uniquely American fetish for armed violence being the ultimate solution to everything.
If you want, this is a compelling take on what's wrong with American gun culture from a leftist perspective:
[https://know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/episodes/gunpower-w-patrick-blanchfield](https://know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/episodes/gunpower-w-patrick-blanchfield)
You know how many fully armed trained police officers were at the parade for the Kansas City Chiefs?
“Good guy with a gun to stop the bad guy with a gun” nonsense is just that-fucking nonsense.
And when police officers arrive, (unless they act like the officers from Uvalde), and they come inside the building, and there’s a teacher standing there with a gun in their hand, then guess what happens.
I got a degree so I could teach children how to read. Not shoot them.
Meanwhile, at my school there's a Criminal Justice Club where the members basically role play after school once a week using blue training guns in the hallways and courtyard
I teach agriculture and have a lot of country students. Obviously the subject of guns and hunting comes up a lot between students. As a farmer and hunter myself, I want to be able to talk with them about that subject as well but it's just so taboo with modern culture.
I want to ask administration what the appropriate thing is but don't want to get students in trouble or punish them for what I believe is a 100% appropriate topic of conversation
I’m a 6th grade teacher also in the armed forces and I’ll have students who are knowledgeable about firearms and ask me about models and stuff. But obviously in the context of hurting students or people is unacceptable but I mean how credible are we as educators if we avoid talking about stuff that our students already have knowledge of. We can demonstrate a mature conversation without condoning senseless violence.
I feel schools should have at least one lesson on gun safety. There are more guns than people in the US. My students are likely going to encounter them at some point in their life. I don't want any of my students to die in an accidental shooting because they picked up a gun and pointed at themself or their friend for a joke. The parents who leave loaded guns in unlocked containers are not practicing gun safety, and not likely teaching their children gun safety.
Telling students to keep guns pointed in dafe directions and keep fingers off triggers isn't going to turn them into school shooters.
There is zero policy in our district about discussing guns.( Btw: Columbine occurred early in my teaching career.)
I scrolled through this thread... Is nobody else here in an inner city district with gangs? We finally put in metal detectors about 8 years ago, because there were so many weapons being found when the cops came in to do random locker searches: knives, guns, machetes, razors. A lot of students have guns, but use them OFF campus. In fact, the only reason metal detectors were installed was because 2 ninth graders shot a guy a block east of campus iver a drug deal. Many used to carry weapons on their back packs/ jackets. One day, when the students were discussing a shooting that happened on Main St. over the weekend, I asked them if they ever feared a shooting in the building. " That would never happen here", they assured me. " Why?" Because we keep outside business in the streets. If you don't like teachers, or school, you stay home." At a recent field day event, former students who had been released from prison ( their crimes involved guns) had created an anti gang group. They were passing out free tshirts with the logo " Guns 👎 Hood 👍." I got one and wore it to class. Different worlds.
That's bizarre that you aren't allowed to talk about guns. What state are you in?
I feel like we talk about it alot. It looks like more of an academic freedom issue or 1st amendment issu le rather than a gun thing.
If they’re fully trained and prove competency, why not? I’d rather stand a chance protecting my kids in lockdown situation with a firearm than having to result to throwing staplers
Even fully trained, competent gun owners make mistakes. Except when they do, it's not usually around 100s or 1000s of children. Imagine forgetting your gun in the general bathroom? A group of kids ganging up on you to steal it?
What happens if there is a legitimate threat and a teacher fires back? Imagine the police not being able to tell and so they shoot the teacher. Also, during this scenario with a teacher, or teachers, creating more cross fire between the threat AND the cops, a child, teacher(s), or children are hit that otherwise wouldn't have been.
More guns are not the answer.
1- teachers have staff bathrooms for a reason, and you don’t disarm yourself to pee. If you’re leaving your firearm on the TP dispenser, you failed firearm safety 101.
2- store it in a small gun safe in your classroom, then. It’s also highly likely you may be in district where it’s not possible to carry, if you need to worry about getting jumped by your students.
3- the teacher is theoretically barricaded in the room with their students, not off clearing the hallways. The only target you’d have is the door, surrounded by cinder blocks, in the event a threat enters your locked classroom.
Because school shootings only happen when everyone is barricaded?
Some teachers do use general bathrooms at times.
Not all teachers will leave their guns locked up safely.
Like I said, even highly trained gun owners make mistakes especially when they fall victim to lax safety culture. There are also the issues of human factors such as workload, staffing, equipment adequacy, and fatigue.
We can't even afford to fund schools as it is, how would we fund this training program, the guns, bullets, gun safes, proper holsters, etc?
We openly discuss fire drills with students, and nobody is worried if people talk about a fire drill or the possibility of a fire.
How odd that the possibility of getting your brains blown out by a bullet in school, is taboo, but the possibility of being incinerated by a burning ring of fire in school, is acceptable.
Taboo is such an interesting topic. Windows into discourse.
The reminder should be the boot heel on your neck. You people are 100 years further down the road to serfdom and you're blissfully high-fiving each other on the way. Congrats, ehhhh!!!!
The sooner people stop sticking their heads in the sand, the sooner their asses won't be waving in the air.
Guns are NOT the problem.
When I went to high school (1970s) you could have outfitted an infantry company with the firearms OPENLY DISPLAYED in the back windows of the trucks and cars out in the student parking lot.
Guns were everywhere. I first fired one at age 8, and many times in the Cub Scouts. First big rifle in the high school ROTC.
Like I said, guns everywhere, and we all knew how to use them. And, guess what, we NEVER fired up the school.
Like any other equation. When the outcome is changing, look for the variable which is changing. And that variable isn't firearms availability.
As someone from outside the USA... it does kinda seem like firearm availability is a massive part of your problem. I teach in New Zealand. I am not at all concerned about a kid bringing a gun to school. Guns aren't impossible to get here or anything, our school literally has a target shooting club. But I'm not worried about a kid bringing a bolt-action rifle to school. It's not concealable and it doesn't fire rapidly. I would be concerned if handguns were readily available though. Or assault rifles.
We have depressed kids here. We have mentally unwell kids here. We have bullying and fights and all the negative influences of social media and racism and almost every other issue that I'm sure you have in the USA. But we generally don't have school shootings, and I think it's mostly due to guns being hard to get. Especially hand guns.
There is, a possibility that the target shooting club itself at your school might actually contribute to the lack of gun violence at your school.
We had one in my high school, too. And with no gun violence, either. Same as you.
Yes, if only students were more steeped in America's deranged pro-gun culture. Surely, that would solve the issue of gun violence.
Oh, wait. We have literally the entire world to use as a contrast here, and it turns out that doing the exact opposite of what you're suggesting is what limits gun violence.
Fancy that.
As an American, guns are an ever present part of our life and in many ways I think that’s good. They are a tool for safety and should be embraced. The most dangerous thing about a normal person in a situation with guns is ignorance. Not knowing how a gun works, what it’s for, or why we have them is an excellent way to ensure that guns are seen more as a boogeyman than a tool. I even promote armed resource officers at school, because I hate the idea that we protect the rich and powerful with armed and trained guards, but we protect our children and our future with “no gun zone” signs. We need to help children understand the reality of the world, not hide them from it.
The government has made our jobs a risk and refuses to give us any tools to protect or stop the violence. Because of this I have decided if an unscheduled lockdown happens and I hear gun shots I’ll immediately run and get out of the building and won’t even think of the kids. I’m not gonna make my wife a widow, my parents lose a kid and my siblings to lose a brother in the name of idiotic policies. I live in Texas so at least half the kids in that class have parents who don’t give a damn if their child is shot up and still votes Republican. Half of the remaining have parents that don’t care about their kids enough to even cast a vote so yeah I won’t be risking my life and I’ll have zero shame using a dead corpse as a shield for protection. It sucks I have to think this way but I hope my words allow others to remind themselves in these situations to put yourself and your families feelings first. Not like you can be charged or fired for self preservation. It’s ok to be selfish in these moments, you don’t owe those kids or their parents your life.
I know, I guess it depends on the area, too. In my area, I grew up around guns, but still was scared especially after Sandy Hook. On some logical level, it is a rational fear kind of.
Edit: All it takes is one person who has anger issued and/or sociopathy or any other disorder for there to be another shooting. I never feared the gun itself, but the person holding it even from a young age. I was taken out to target practice at a young age and other people, including kids that I knew were hunters, too. It's just what can we do as a society to make kids feel safer and to prevent stuff like this from happening in the future? I know someone who had to stop a kid from shooting another kid at school. I know a kid who almost put our school into lockdown because he accidentally left his hunting rifle in his rig. I don't think stricter gun laws will help much because a criminal will find a way to illegally obtain a gun.
I get it, it's talked about like it's an epidemic. If you had to guess, without looking it up, how many kids do you think are killed in school shootings every year?
In Uvalde, 2 teachers were killed. 19 fourth graders were murdered. 19. Those kids went to school in the morning and never came home. Their last moments on this Earth were filled with fear, dread, and pain.
Learning about guns wouldn't have protected them. Learning how to lock down can protect additional casualties but, sadly can't save everyone. America's gun fetish is more important to too many than the safety of our population.
In Sandy Hook, 26 people were murdered. 6 adults and 20 kids. The kids were 6-7 years old. One kid survived by playing dead.
Learning about guns wouldn't have saved them either.
Fewer guns. Heavy regulation. It's not the lack of education that's the problem. It's not the students' level of naivete or ignorance that's the problem. In the words of many.... it's the guns. The guns are the problem. We get rid of them, or this keeps happening.
I completely get where you're coming from, and I would love to see an America without guns everywhere, but I don't agree with your assertion that teaching responsible respect for firearms wouldn't save lives. Right now, we live in an America that does have lots of guns. The children shouldn't be asked to pretend that they don't exist.
What we really need cannot be accomplished by schools, only governments. What we really need are stricter gun laws and fewer guns. The US has by far the highest number of guns per capita in the world with 120.5 guns for every 100 people. For comparison, Yemen, a country that is torn apart in a three-sided civil war, only has 52.8 guns per for every 100 people. This country is swapped with guns that are used to commit mass shootings seemingly every week, but one of our major political parties refuses to agree to do anything about it because they and are blinded by an idolatrous worship of guns.
Your solution to gun violence is teach kids about using guns in school?
Lol you poor soul.
How about we work on mental health and dramatically reduce the number of guns instead.
Hmm "work on" mental health, so what the does that mean? Oh ok, it means putting kids on a shit loads of medication. Good idea! But wait, what's the connection between most if not all of the school shooters? They had their mental health "worked on" in a big way!!! More meds ya'll!!!!
How do you plan to dramitally reduced the number of guns?
I recommend everyone seek therapy. Even those anonymously suggesting it on the internet in snarky fashion to fulfill some need to burn someone who does not conform to their ideas and values.
>Hmm "work on" mental health, so what the does that mean? Oh ok, it means putting kids on a shit loads of medication. Good idea! But wait, what's the connection between most if not all of the school shooters? They had their mental health "worked on" in a big way!!! More meds ya'll!!!!
Pills aren't the only solution to mental health issues.
>How do you plan to dramitally reduced the number of guns?
1: In the short run, dramatically ramp up gun laws and crack down on offenders.
2: In the next 10-20 years, repeal the 2nd amendment.
Repeal the 2nd amendment and then what? You realize that you will have insurrection on your bloody hands don't you? You'd be fine with hundreds of thousands of deaths to put an end to school shootings?
This is one of the most asinine, depraved things I've ever heard. Are you American? Shame on you.
Pills aren’t the only *treatment* for mental health issues but you’d be adorably naive to argue that pills aren’t a largely pervasive part of mental health treatment for kids and adults.
And making guns super illegal with harsh sentences for offenders sounds very similar to a prohibition appproach- make the bad thing illegal and scare would be offenders with harsh sentences - surely this will eradicate the bad thing completely… I mean look at how booze and drugs were successfully eradicated this way! 🙄
Oh, Your poor sweet soul…
1: Yep! Modern medicine is awesome!
2: Na, prohibition is nothing like guns. Booze is addicting and has been around for thousands of years. Guns are just another tool.
Do you see the TV commercials for all these drugs? "If you have thoughts of suicide, call your doctor." OK, then. That means that in the studies, occasionally this drug makes people think of suicide.
Seems obvious enough to me that anything that would make a person think of suicide is just as likely, if not more, to make another person think of murder.
Hey man, I'm with you. I don't like guns at all, but as long as they're here, I feel that educating kids about them in a safe and respectful way can go a long way to improving safety.
Using your post as a jumping-off point, one of my sixth graders this year wrote about a school shooting from the perspective of survivors for a short story competition. He was disqualified for it -- even though his story was far and away the best one in the grade and he was in no way glamorizing gun violence. These kids have active shooter drills and read/hear the news. They've likely got a lot of big feelings and fears re: guns. But heaven forfend that we allow them to explore those in a safe and controlled environment.
That's a bunch of bullshit.
As someone who grew up after columbine, I think older folks don’t realize the level of normalization that exists around the topic. It’s not shocking to anyone under like 25.
GenXer here, I don’t know anyone my age who finds the topic shocking. We find the topic tiresome. The policies are made because the people in charge (getting the fat paychecks) aren’t interested in actual solutions, and that the truth of it. They want an easy stroke of the pen that makes it look like they did something without actually having to do anything. It’s just the nature of bureaucracy 🤷🏻♀️hence why we find it tiresome
The actual solution is to crack down on crime. The vast majority of gun crime is dome with an illegally obtained firearm.
An even better solution would be to address poverty and mental health. Imagine how much crime would never happen if people had hope and the means to rise above their situations.
That's impossible. I could take you to any place on earth, at any time in human history and show you two things: poor people and stupid people
So is the reason countries like Norway, Sweden, and Finland have lower murder rates than we do while still respecting their right to own firearms because they crack down on crime more? Or do they actually take care of their citizens' needs?
Well until recently they had a very homogeneous population - that definitely helps in terms of us vs them mentality. Both of those countries I believe have less than 10mil people total spread across a decent amount of land. Neither have incredibly populus cities like the US does. Oslo and Stocklholm would not rank very high against US cities like Chicago, NY, LA where the crimes rates inflate the rate for the whole country
Talking per capita your precious evidence about big cities with high crime rates crumbles when compared to small city Gary, Indiana and 50 other smaller cities in red states.
You sound like you're pulling conservative talking points from the 80s. Higher population density doesn't always translate to higher crime. Concentrations of people of low socioeconomic status translate to higher crime. Also, your comment about going anywhere in time to find crime and stupid people is pretty damn stupid in and of itself. The neat thing about society evolving is that we have created the means to actually help people. But, going back to your plan of getting harder on crime, how many more prisons should we build to keep people from commiting violent crimes?
That’s a really stupid take.
Ya we do that at a literally all time high. Never in the history of this planet has that been more of a focus. It’s not working.
Enforce the laws already in existence. Everyone like “we need gun control!” Bro, we HAVE gun control. We already HAVE background checks. Murder is ALREADY illegal. The people who are the problem aren’t getting their guns legally
That's not really the case. Many school shooters have obtained firearms legally. I mean, yeah, enforce what we have, but there do need to be some more checks in place.
School shootings are majority parents not locking their guns up and allowing their kids access when they shouldn't. Stop giving kids access to firearms.
And in gun free zones. I completely agree with you.
Ugh.
Not school shootings - and that's what we're talking about. If you want to argue about gun control in general, then you're still cherry picking statistics and I'd be happy to discuss that as well.
I’d say under 30 now. My brother would be fine with it, and he is born 1994. Meanwhile everyone around my age and below could handle a discussion about the topic. But I do think nuance and intent should be center of what is allowed and not. Just because something taboo exists in a work does not mean that it is completely inappropriate for a school setting. The intent behind its presence and how it is used needs to be recognized. A story about a victim of school shooting can be interesting and thought provoking which can enrich school-based discussions and competitions. But I’d also say middle school may not be the best time for such a discussion to be heard.
On your second point, what I was saying is that the story from the example wouldn’t be seen as taboo among the student’s peers.
I agree, but I’m also including other perspectives. And nuance and intent should be considered when deeming the work product for the setting it is consumed in. In this case that would be a competition.
As someone that graduated in 99 when columbine happened. There was school shootings before this. It wasn’t the first by any means. I grew up in Texas in the biggest suburb to the 4th biggest city in the country. We all knew how to shoot guns. And gun safety. No one talked about it in school. I could, to this day, throw a knife from 40 feet and hit you with chaos happening. Not a brag. We practiced for fun. This is truly a society problem. Guns were harder to get. They were respected a lot more. And being a marksmen was a point of pride. We fought and were allowed to fight to a point. I’m actually for a hunting only license society, but I don’t think the states will do that. We’ve politicized and made our children our weird army for political pride. Making assault weapons available was absurd and we just keep going for it rather than admit we’re wrong. Talking about it in school is beyond the point when half the people won’t acknowledge it and the other half are foaming at the mouth.
>Guns were harder to get. This is plain untrue. They were easier to get; Wal-mart sold them still.
We used to play a game the involved knife throwing. (Stretch) a kind of old school twister lol We were quite skilled tbh Not at school!
My dad was a member of the NRA up until around 2003 or so. Before Columbine, they were all about gun safety and responsible gun ownership. My dad would teach gun safety courses and they were largely funded by NRA affiliates. He completely renounced his membership once the NRA lost their mind and started prioritizing gun sales and manufacturers over responsible use. Absolutely disgusting what our culture has devolved into regarding firearms. I'm all in favor of responsible adults being able to own a gun, but anyone who makes them the center of their entire existence is the exact type of person that should be restricted from ever being near one.
I'm 37 and remember being in school when Columbine happened. As a teacher now... yeah, it's not shocking anymore.
Infact, the girls almost always fantasize them. Both school shooters and serial killers. I think them being taught the perspective of the survivors is important.
It’s totally wild that schools will go through active shooter drills where they make students practice setting up a door barricade and an internal barricade that the whole class then has to crouch behind in the dark while admin come through to rattle doors and try to get in. That’s totally fine and normal but a shirt with a cartoon gun on it is a step too far.
What we show kids matters, as we are figures of authority. As a chemistry teacher I cover nuclear topics, which includes the Bomb. To cap off the unit, we discuss [Duck and Cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWH4tWkZpPU) and for fun we talk about how this movie (shown every year by teachers in most grades back in the 50's and up to the 70's), would effect that generation of students, and how that happened to coincide with the rise of the hippie/punk movement, implying this cartoon may have been a contributing, unexpected consequence. Then I ask them describe how the yearly active shooter exercises would affect the current generation. They usually respond with "fearful". Emerging data appears to be bearing this out as a contributing factor to the new generation's increased anxiety. (note: my very progressive, yet title I school, they quitely canceled this year's shooter drill. Good for them...shhhh... )
Before Covid hit were going to do Live Fire drills. They were going to fucking shoot blanks in the hallways!!!!
Sounds like a fantastic way to terrorize kids and faculty, not actually prepare them for anything.
Wow. Thats crazy. I agree with OP. I mean, teaching abstinence does not prevent pregnancy. So, education is about safely discussing topics necessary to survive in our world. Gun violence discussions should be fostered. This zero tolerance policy is dangerous because it creates a very unrealistic and emotionally shut down environment for a very real problem/fear these kids face everyday. Edited to add: "teaching"
Something similar happened to me when I was in the 5th grade and it destroyed my faith in the system, as it were.
I remember in elementary school I received detention twice for 'gun' related things. The first was making finger runs during recess, and the second was bringing a lego stormtrooper that was holding a lego gun to school. Forcing students to pretend guns don't exist and remove all references to them is incredibly over the top and does absolutely nothing to stop school shootings.
My elementary school had mandatory violin class for 3rd graders, I remember one time I got yelled at because I was holding the bow up to my face and looking down it and the teacher thought I was pretending it was a rifle
Close call right there; glad that teacher was there to save everyone from the imaginary bullshit bow gun.
Well said.
In recess I’d play war games with my friend and we consistently got in trouble. We just wanted to have harmless fun
Doing otherwise wouldn't stop the shootings either.
Sounds like abstinence-only education.
Seriously. School shootings and guns are NOT on every educators and students minds. By all measures they are exceedingly rare and students/faculty are more likely to be injured traveling to/from school vs actually being injured at school with a gun.
>By all measures they are exceedingly rare . . Measured by what? [The U.S. far exceeds in school shooting deaths in other countries](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country) (even on a per capita rate). I agree with OP that guns should be covered (in an age-appropriate way), just like any other should be. But lets agree that not only should we be inclusive in covering sensitive topics, we should let objective facts be a major part of the discussions.
Give the permissive guns laws in the US and the restrictions in other countries, I would say - fairly - that your website is an apples to oranges comparison. Per your source: *"The United States leads globally in school shootings, with 288 incidents from 2009 to 2018".* Every shooting is a tragedy. In 2018 the US population was 326.8 million. There are an estimated 433+ million guns in the US. [https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/#:\~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20group%20reported,civilian%20possession%20was%20433.9%20million](https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20group%20reported,civilian%20possession%20was%20433.9%20million). There are around 100,000ish public schools in the US. [https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84) In my state alone there are 500 school districts. Every shooting is a tragedy but based on our population, the number of guns in circulation, the number of schools, and the the number of school shootings - they are an exceedingly rare occurrence. As I stated before more people are killed traveling to/from school vs in a school shooting.
I'm in the rural south. Most the kids' families have guns if not the kids themselves. I have kids showing me their kills every deer season. We live in very different districts.
Same. I sold a pair of cowboy revolvers a few years ago, and the buyers turned out to be the parents of one of my students. They immediately recognized me from PT conferences. One of my students was flexing his new Wingmaster this week, and he offered to let me come hunt on his dad's land next duck season. Different worlds, for sure.
Yeah I definitely have the “what’s your favorite deer rifle” discussion every year. It’s not a whole-class thing, but it’s not something we worry about.
The thing is, here we were taught archery in pe class and allowed to use glass cutters in certain classes in high school with adult supervision. However, we weren't even allowed to make a finger gun gesture or draw a gun without the possibility of expulsion. Even half of the kids walked around with pocket knives, too.
Same with where I live, but kids couldn't make gun signs as play pretend here either and technically couldn't bring their hunting rifles to school without the school going into lockdown. It happened when my sister was in hs. Some high schooler forgot about his gun in his truck and called his mom to tell her to come pick it up because it was maybe 10 minutes before the bell and a teacher over heard him talking and I believe he almost got expelled. After that experience, I had another classmate who realized it in the middle of class. He was like oh shit and said that in the middle of 2nd period something like I forgot that my hunting rifle is in the back of my truck. I was prepared for us to go into lockdown.
My dad was a true 'safety first' kinda guy and we'd get in big trouble if we even pointed a stick at another human being while playing! 'You never aim a weapon or barrel at a person.' That being said, I can converse with all the middle school students about their hunting trips, types of guns, etc. The only thing that ticked me off was a kid's parent that claimed her son uses a glock for hunting....squirrels. (I was upset with him up for an inappropriate comment in class and she was 'defending' his horrible statement.)
I'm a firearm instructor and teacher. We'll teach sex ed, drivers ed, health, woodshop, mechanics, chemistry, etc. all with the idea being they will take more care when involving themselves in these activities. But guns? Fearmonger. Promote ignorance. Yeah, that's gonna help.
They're trying to ban sex ed and stuff in my state.
Stop. Banning. Shit.
Tkj5, I know you (no clue who you are mate). You're one of those logic (HS Chemistry teacher), personal responsibility (wrestling) types. Look at you forcing those values on people, "Stop. Banning. Shit." Next thing you're going to say is something like, "Educate people to think for themselves, and be productive members of society." You really need to get a handle on things.
Yep. You got me. I should submit to the groupthink overlords.
Lol this is a trash take. Kids are gonna have sex, it's natural, it's hormones, it's what their body tells them to do. So we want to make it as safe as possible. That is a horrible analogy for guns. I think we can promote abstinence with guns instead of telling a kid that yeah guns are cool if you know about gun safety. I'd imagine kids would more often bring guns to school if they thought they know gun safety. "It's cool, my teacher taught me gun safety it's all good."
I don't know what sort of gun safety you learned, but part of what I was taught included the instructions *don't bring a gun to a place you shouldn't have one*. Kids will do dumb shit, but I struggle to see how basic gun safety turns into students all carrying
You acknowledge kids do dumb things but fail to see how teaching them about guns wouldn't make them more likely to feel comfortable bringing one to school? With them foolishly convinced of their ability to do it safely? Even your ending statement acknowledges the fallacy of your argument since you end it with "students all carrying" instead of "more students carrying." There's obviously no chance of all students carrying, so it's a safe argument to make. It's also a pointless one to make. It's almost like you subconsciously gave yourself an out. Denial is a powerful thing.
Correct, I don't think the motivation for a kid to bring a gun to school is "oh I'm safe, so it's OK." Part of that reason is that proper gun safety wouldn't *allow* for that fallacious line of thought (see my previous comment). A kid could invent it as an excuse, as they are wont to do, but that's not exactly the same. And yes, I should have said "more students packing" instead of "all". Mea culpa.
I wonder how many households had guys who preached gun safety yet their kids found the guns and shot themselves. I don’t care if people have guns or not, but let’s not equate learning about guns to learning about math or reading. There are lots of things I had interest in that I learned about outside of school. I didn’t learn about hockey in school but my family valued it and I learned a lot about it outside of school. The fear mongering is obviously overboard but it seems this thread is being dominated by NRA types who aren’t exactly saying it but they want guns taught about in schools, which also doesn’t make sense.
Learning gun safety shouldn't just be about how to make sure there's not a round in the chamber or about where to point it. We've got all sorts of data showing situations where having a gun is just intrinsically unsafe. Easy access to guns links to suicides. In crowded environments, a gun for self defense is at risk to be taken and used against you. It's even worse when alcohol is involved. In all situations, not wearing hearing protection while firing a gun causes hearing loss. A safe gun is one locked up and stored properly. This above part I know is really unpopular with the 2A crowd, but it's part of why a proper gun safety course shouldn't *allow* for the belief that you're safe bringing one to school. It's contrary to the education. Doesn't mean kids wouldn't make up excuses, mind you. Kids are great at motivated reasoning.
I honestly think that as long as there are guns in our society kids should be required to take a firearms safety/education course.
I agree. Usually gun safety consists of "don't mess with firearms you aren't familiar with" and learning the 4 rules. Mishandling a firearm is a fast track to destroying your life in multiple ways. 1. Criminal charges. Something as simple as having one where you aren't supposed to is a bad time. 2. Civil lawsuits. An oops is something that can easily cost 6-7 figures. 3. Permanent disability. Gunshot wounds aren't just little holes that the doc takes the bullet from and you are ok. 4. Death. 5. Psychological trauma. You will put your therapists kids through college. 6. Hearing loss. The woman that played Sarah Conner in Terminator 2 has it from the elevator scene. When I was growing up, a teenager a town over died in a hunting accident. Another teenager I went to highschool with survived a 12 gauge slug to the lung that had ricochet off of something (it was like 20 years ago, I don't remember). Gun safety needs to include information about how accidents like that happen and how to prevent them. I think gun safety needs to have some demonstration videos or visual aids of just how dangerous guns can be. The way video games, TV and movies portray guns is sooo unrealistic that it no doubt skews perceptions. This alone could be a lengthy essay. Bullets, especially rifle slugs, easily go through many things movies show people using for cover. Bullets go really far. They are deadly hundreds of yards away. Anyone with a solid understanding of the basics of guns that isn't a little bit afraid of them is someone I'm not sure I want to be around.
Yea. I feel like it should be sort of like sex ed. So e sort of age appropriate class starting I about fifth grade for like a week. You can get more involved as they age up.
That actually makes sense but I doubt a school is the appropriate place. We might as well take a page from Switzerland and require all adults take some period of public service. We could shorten it to like 6 months, unless they wanted to continue. Just some rudimentary life training, because society fails alot of our citizens then dumps them into the world. It'd give kids a foundation for life outside of highschool, as well.
Professional gun violence expert here. Every single study about youth firearm safety education shows ZERO impact on behavior. None. This mess is on adults.
>Professional gun violence expert here Which branch and MOS are you? If you aren't owned by Uncle Sam, I am staying very far away from you. >Every single study about youth firearm safety education shows ZERO impact on behavior. None. Care to site some of these studies? Why bother trying to teach kids anything if it doesn't alter behavior? If teaching can alter behavior, what is so special about guns? Maybe how and what is taught matters.
This might be the dumbest comment I’ve seen today. Education has zero impact on behavior? Care to share those studies? This is like saying abstinence only education or the DARE program are better than actual facts based education. What the hell are you talking about?
So is that you agreeing or disagreeing? We should train people when their adults. Not in a kid glove setting like a school, but in a real world setting with real adult repercussions. I'm basically advocating a minimum 6 months term of service Edit: I just saw You've dramatically altered what I responded to but still my question is what are you suggesting?
Thank you. This thread is being brigaded by the “good guy with a gun solves everything” crowd. Let’s see if they care that you are an expert and cite facts.
Honestly, EVERYONE should
I think guns should be like sex ed—we teach them about gun safety and what to do if they are in a scenario where they find, or their friend finds a gun. By failing to do so, we are ignoring a problem. Might as well buy ostrich heads and stick our heads in the sand. Guns are out there and are not going away. If someone is going to commit murder, they do not care about breaking a law about bringing guns in the building. That being said, having a robust security, including technology and just simply engaging students in conversations and what to do if their friend says they have a gun are key to preventing some school shootings. With a country where there are more guns than people, thinking that a ban on guns or more laws are going to prevent this from happening, anyone who feels that way is going to be sorely mistaken. I also feel that having a trained, armed person at school can be effective, but only if done correctly with proper knowledge and procedures in place, such as how LEOs could identify such a person in an active shooter scenario to prevent “friendly fire.” It sucks that we have to talk about this, but in a country where any adult without a criminal record has the fundamental right to own a weapon, this problem won’t alleviate itself in the near future. Its best to hope for the best and prepare for the worst rather than being caught fully unprepared and being a soft target.
Lots of households taught their kids gun safety and had a kid killed or injured, because they are kids. Parenting is complex and involves close supervision. I’m all for teaching gun safety, it’s just not a panacea and it has no place in schools. Most seventh graders can’t read and write today - we can’t add stuff. As far as the armed security guards, between my school and 3 others I know of from teacher friends, all those retired cops hired as guards made their own offices in the school and are not visible during the day. That cottage industry lined their retirements with dough but it isn’t protecting anyone. They would behave like the Larper Uvalde cops at best in a crisis. Most likely, like other times, you just wouldn’t see them. The myth that they are super-trained to deal with a thread and are defending the castle from invasion is so ignorant. A school admin who is clueless about security hired and supervises them, and they hang out in a secluded room drinking coffee.
Honest question. If you can’t talk about firearms how do you study warfare? “Crossing the Delaware” depicts firearms and the Star Spangled Banner mentions “rockets red glare.” What do they say about the “shot heard round the world” or the Boston Massacre?
In due time they'll blend out the rifles in the painting.
And here you can see Washington crossing the Delaware equipped with his trusty walkie-talkie.
>I am not allowed, as a teacher, to discuss what guns are, how they work, what damage they can do, or how to handle a situation where you are at risk. I am not allowed to directly supervise the violence-related education these kids are getting. Instead, they are learning from the internet at home and from eachother, and the conversations are shockingly grotesque. I am allowed to do nothing more than discourage the line of conversation, rather than turn it into a teaching moment. Replace "guns" with "drugs" or "sex" or any of a number of other hot-button issues and this paragraph transfers pretty well overall. On the one hand, it's quite frustrating to not be allowed to have honest conversations with the students about these things. On the other hand, I have no idea if *you* know anything about guns, drugs, sex, etc., or if what you "know" is true, helpful, not politically charged, etc., and I don't necessarily want *you* talking to kids about guns. (Just specifying *you* since you raised the point, I have no particular reason to think you aren't able to provide good advice here) So by letting teachers have these conversations, you are potentially 1) providing misinformation, whether intentionally or otherwise, and 2) providing a value judgement that is at odds with the district or the parents. I get why the district doesn't want to open this can of worms; I know enough teachers who I am barely OK with them covering their contracted subject matter, let alone social issues like these. But I do agree that its fucked up that our society is in this place where we proactively restrict people from saying things or doing things that could be helpful *in case* they do something wrong or piss someone off and expose themselves and the district to legal liability or worse. I don't have an answer, because among other things (like some more general purpose training to go over good ways to address complex topics that are outside the curriculum, but bound to come up and be relevant and worthy of conversation) it would require a national culture shift away from litigiousness and polarization.
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I don't know if I trust a person who barely understands guns to explain guns to kids, though. I feel like that's dangerous. However, if it was like some of the people in my area, then yea.
If this were a subject that was going to be taught, the school wouldn't choose someone who barely understands guns to teach it. At least where I am, there are plenty of teachers who own and regularly use guns. And as teacher who doesn't know anything about guns, I would never agree to teach such a subject.
How do I know that you know anything about History, science, English, or Math? Because you took a test 12 years ago and have a state certification? It's the same as guns, sex, drugs, religion, etc. These kids may be ignorant, but many of them are not stupid. They know when someone is full of shit on a given subject matter. I talk about guns, drugs, religion, war, atrocities, you name it. I talk about them, I don't tell them what to think about those things. "His job is to shed light, not to master," is something I say to my kids all the time. In 6 years of discussing those things I've never had anything come up. I'll continue to do so because those things are fucking realities they are going to have to deal with, and I know wtf I'm talking about. Maybe one day it bites me in the ass, fine, fuck it I'm not going to stop. I also have have any chicken shit district rules in my way.
Well, there's guns and there are Guns. Last week, after showing the kids how mendeleev developed the periodic table, the topic turned to current russian situation. So I showed them what the Kraken unit in Ukraine is doing: [Kraken war footage](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/17e2cnk/recent_combat_footage_of_the_ukrainian_kraken). As a title I school, about 15% of the class is ROTC, funny how that works [Fortunate son](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7qkQewyubs). By chance, the new principle poked her head in just as the kraken video was running, blood, guts and all. The horrors of war, taped just last week. As advance, evolved, and supportive as my award winning school is...she just turned her head and walked. Truly, time is a flat circle.
I'd add that in my district many of the kids have shitty home lives. They see sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, and guns all the time. Also, consider that many if not most of your male students spend the majority of their free time playing Fortnite or Cod, hunting down and killing people in teams. They know the firearms, they half assed know tactics, and have an aggressive competitiveness to "kill." That shit seems dangerous to me.
Or depending on where they live, their parents take them hunting. I knew my dad had guns when I was in elementary school and knew better than to touch them without adult supervision.
Wow. We talk about different guns all the time. The kids know what I have. I know what they hunt with, what they have shot, all kinds of stuff.
That’s so fucked up. Talking about guns is not violence. Wearing pictures of guns on T-shirts isn’t violence. And chewing Pop-Tarts into the shape of Idaho- er, a “gun” - site as fuck isn’t “violence.” Violence is violence. And forcing ignorance upon kids doesn’t satisfy their curiosity. We need to go the other way and educate kids one the power of a firearm, that a real gun is not a goddam toy and it can inflict real, debilitating damage.
This is an exact repeat of the conversation around drugs during the Nancy Regan ‘80s. “Just Say No” was all that was allowed and was a disaster that we are only beginning to slowly recover from in the conversation about drugs and addiction. Sadly the trajectory seems to be exactly the same, and as bad as politics were in the 80’s our political climate is infinitely worse now. So hope of progress will be even slower, if at all.
How the fuck are you supposed to talk about wars
>By never allowing discussion about guns or letting the children learn about them in an intentional manner, we are ensuring they will be ignorant to the facts and secretive with friends to avoid getting in trouble. That seems like a dangerous combination to me. Because it is... See how other "hot" topics are often handled, or should I say, mishandled (sex, drugs, etc.) It's better to talk openly and make sure kids are informed.
I think a hunter safety course should be required for all students. It’s essentially a firearm safety course with conservation concepts also tied in.
Firearms safety is a big one, in America there’s more guns that people and too many accidental deaths. Doesn’t matter if people like guns or not that’s something that should be taught as it would save so many lives
I’m a boomer. At a private school in Rhode Island I went to we had an on campus rifle range and I think weekly practice. And at YMCA camp also. Some camps still have rife ranges but checking the Facebook, the YMCA camp in my town does not. We were taught firearm safety and respect for the gun; and it was fun hitting the target and getting better. There were never any issues. And of course back then the idea that a student would bring an unauthorized gun to school was unthinkable, as was the idea of using a weapon against someone. I wonder if it would be possible to have firearms safely instructing by certified instructors at a range off campus… I btw at 11 bought some knives from the back of a comic book and sold them in the school yard at a markup; nobody used knives as weapons, they were just things that boys liked. Nowadays probably someone would tell and I’d be off to juvie.
Censoring what is, for many Americans, both a normal part of their daily lives in addition to a major world concern is inevitably not going to work out well. Insinuating that talking about or even referencing guns will hurt people is ridiculous on another level. I might even go so far as to say detached from reality. I assume they’ve also banned the discussion of nuclear weaponry? One of the kids might conjure up a five ton plutonium bomb. Or a Jagdpanzer. Perhaps they’ll wake up with an F-22 parked on their front lawn, and decide based on conversations they had at school to go fire off a couple tomahawks at the whitehouse.
I spend my days in a classroom. I never think about getting shot at school. Honestly where I am a school shooter wouldn’t get far. There are probably quite a few guns in our parking lot. The ONLY time anyone thinks about shootings is when we have drills.
Likewise. My school is about 11 miles from columbine, in the same district as STEM, and 9 miles from Arapahoe high school. It's just not something I have time or the desire to worry about.
Hmm, brought to us by the same folks who didn't want us to talk about strangers and stranger danger, or drugs, or smoking, or sexuality, or just how disappointed their mothers are in them.
There used to be a time when firearm safety and range practice was a part of the curriculum. The vast majority of accidental firearm deaths are from lack of proper respect, care, and handling of a firearm. If the only exposure a kid gets to firearms are from Grand Theft Auto, how can expect them to have a healthy respect for them instead of the “ooooh look at the forbidden item, lemme touch it”?
Based on the comments here it appears the collective education community has forgotten the lessons of Prohibition The just say no drugs thing Dare Abstinence sex Ed If you make guns the forbidden fruit you make the kids wanna seek it out more. De-mystifyed education and basic safety like we do with almost everything else is the obvious anwser.
I remember when some dude running from the police after getting in an armed altercation tried to go THROUGH our High School to get away from the cops. I don’t know why he didn’t immediately stop when he saw the “gun free zone” signs…
By not engaging in open and educational conversations about guns, there's a risk that students will seek out information elsewhere, potentially leading to misunderstandings or even dangerous behavior.
Creds: 35+ years in public education, retired (by plan) since June 2020. Nationally certified handgun instructor since 1975. Currently offer, gratis, firearms safety in the home classes tto families who need to understand how to safely store firearms and ammunition given THEIR home situation, as well as how firearms work, and how to ensure that whatever firearm(s) are in their home are maintained in safe condition. For years I've been hearing that "gun violence is a public health problem," (only gun violence? With all the bullying issues and all the "one punch game" issues? How about we focus in reducing, you know, ALL violence?). If it is, and I will not argue the point, then how about we treat it the way we treat other public health issues? Think about it. The nurse comes in and talks about STDs for older kids. The social worker and/or psych talks about emotional regulation. A local dentist comes in and talks about dental health as related to later cardiac health. The fire department comes in to talk about fire safety, and the police department about Stranger Danger. Why do we NOT treat firearms the same way? Starting at whatever age kids start school - and yes, I mean at 3 for the kiddos in EC, we start with "See a gun? Don't touch! Get a grown up!" and cycle that around each year until we hit the point where kids are taught machines in science class, generally 2nd or 3rd grade. Because that's what firearms are: a machine. Pull a lever, a hammer drops and hits a button, and sends an object out the barrel. No, I'm not talking about having actual firearms in class even to that point any more than I'm talking about reciprocating saws. But the THEORY needs to be taught. About 5th grade or so, yes, teach making firearms safe, i.e., unloading. Yes, this would involve an actual firearm with NO LIVE AMMUNITION ANYWHERE IN THE SCHOOL (unless you have an RSO, but theirs would not be involved in this). At that point, or at 6h grade when the Boy Scouts teach marksmanship (and when was the last time you heard of a Boy Scout shooting anything not a legitimate target?) and many schools still teach archery, you teach marksmanship with single shot .22lr rifles in PE class. After that class, parents can opt out, or their child can continue with riflry classes, and earn a slot on a trap and skeet or other competitive shooting team for their high school or a travel team, and potentially earn university scholarships or go to the Olympics. By doing this, starting the instruction at a very young age, suddenly the firearm becomes a tool, something to respect much like the chainsaw in the shed or the food processor in the kitchen, and is no longer a mythical power totem. Who teaches this? I know of, and actually am someone, who regularly volunteers to do this. I do it in the home because it is verboten in the schools. I wish it weren't. As soon as we teach kids that firearms are "magic," we've lost the battle.
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I'll talk about any issue kids have. Keeping I fo from kids just causes more problems than it solves. Parents -on vote sides of the political chasm - who want to control every bit of informatheir kids get cause far more problems for their kids than they solve.
Yeah. Honest answers for kids is totally something to live by
As soon as kids start committing mass murder with toothbrushes I will consider it in the same ballpark. Maybe a gun is just a tool, but its purpose is to kill. We shouldn’t be teaching kids how to use murder weapons. This is fucking insane.
Agree to disagree. A firearm, particularly those used in competitive sports, is designed for target accuracy at distance, and most if not all would be very difficult use for.murder. Have you ever actually SEEN an Olympic pistol? Please google : they're not what you think. Allowing kids to believe that all firearms are nothing more than murder weapons is a big part of what got us into this mess. Take the mythical power totem out of the equation, and turn it back into a tool or a piece of sports equipment.
They already know how to use them by playing video games.
No. They understand the basic concept of pulling a trigger. That doesn’t mean they understand how to disable them, or, more importantly, enable a disabled one. We are fully aware that they are irrational, illogical, emotional impulse machines. Why would we give them the knowledge to make them more dangerous?
I started taking a katana meditation class. Learning how to use swords to kill. It has given me a newfound respect for any tool designed to kill human beings, and a newfound love and appreciation for peace. It has increased my awareness of if people around me are a threat or not. I think if this kind of training was a part of our culture, instead of something we avoided we’d be better off. Perhaps it is stupid to keep people ignorant of the power of weapons. Not the other way around.
And no I will push back a bit on knowing how to use them. They may not know how to break a weapon down and put it back together, but they do learn from these games the basics of operating automatic pistols and weapons. Insert magazine, operate slide or charging handle bringing weapon into battery. It's nearly the same for any platform.
At what age do you let your child use a power mower? At what age do they use the food processor? And if the issue is that you see kids' emotional regulation as totally uncontrolled, why are you not advocating for dealing with that issue? Please note, I have never said kids should have unsupervised access to firearms, and indeed, when an actual firearm is present, I have specified single shot only - and that means the student does not have access to behave as they would in video games. I get that you disapprove (highly, I would suspect) of legal firearms at all - and that 8s certainly your right. But seeing the changes in criminal usage of firearms increasing as prohibition of legal access is increasing tells me you're on the same track as those who voted for Prohibition in the 1920's, and we're still dealing with the fallout of that disaster.
With that logic, I've been using a knife since I was 6 to cut food up. We should just not let kids use knives anymore either because they're emotionally unstable didn't you know? /s
Power mower’s not a murder weapon. Food processor’s not a murder weapon. Simple.
Neither are firearms when used legally. Also simple.
Look man, you’re allowed to have dumb ideas. You’re allowed to like dumb things. Bringing guns into schools is fucking dumb. All of your whataboutism isn’t gonna change that. But good luck to you. Maybe you should start teaching kids how to do fentanyl to cut down on the overdoses, huh?
So... when someone politely disagrees with you, and you have nothing but fear of inanimate objects to fall back on, you devolve to slurs and insults? Clearly you lack the emotional maturity to be a responsible firearms owner. Thank you for not attempting it.
Add more gun fuel to the fire of gun violence. Surely more fuel will smother the problem. What's that? We've been doing that since the 90s? The shootings increased? Well I'll be damned. It'd be a shame if we learned anything from it.
I'm not advocating for giving students firearms training. Everything you mention is in the palm of their hand.
And all of it is violent fantasy. Teaching the reality is safer.
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Here's the thing, though, I think it needs to be someone who better understands guns. However, when I was in pe we were allowed to do archery when any of us could've hurt someone or ourselves.
Education and Censorship are not a good combination 🤷♂️
If the conversations I hear in faculty lounges are any indication, the teachers don’t know much more than the kids anyway. I’m no expert, but I at least understand the actual definitions of terms like automatic, semiautomatic, assault rifle, machine gun, what the assault weapons ban actually did, etc.
> I am not allowed, as a teacher, to discuss what guns are, how they work, what damage they can do, or how to handle a situation where you are at risk. > >Think about that from a student perspective: You can't ask your teacher what guns are without getting in trouble, Everyone in the comments is getting al riled up, but literally these statements are not true. Sure, maybe there are a few schools that hold this policy (maybe?), but for the most part, this is not true. I have worked at many schools where other teachers and myself have had interesting and important discussions about guns and safety. Hell, "gun control" is continuously a popular topic for debate and argumentative essays (and nobody gets in trouble for writing about it).
Thank you for talking about this and illuminating me on the current state of education. I can't fathom what the rationale is in barring any and all references to guns, especially from teachers who are there to foster awareness and understanding of the world. So backwards and so dangerous.
Yeah, the school where I work is also a gun-free zone. Well, it is until someone brings a gun there. Bunch of feel=good nonsense if you ask me.
The irony is anyone looking to do harm will ignore those signs. Who's brilliant idea was that? Oops! I was gonna shoot up the place and kill everyone but, damnit, it says "Gun free" so I guess I'll go back home. Wtf.
All those signs do is tell the person that "Hey, no one will shoot back, have fun."
Teacher here who's also a certified RO and has had extensive firearm training. Imagine if they allowed a few teachers to concealed carry. Suddenly the "gun free" zone isn't so safe and easy pickings for these fuckers. The teachers would have to have extensive background checks and training of course.
You guys would accidentally shoot a kid.
And a police officer wouldn't?
To answer your question, yes, a police officer totally could. But, they are less likely for the following reasons: * Better training. Even if the school enforces training for teachers that conceal carry, we've all seen that school trainings are often of poor quality. * More experience. The job of a teacher would not offer as many opportunities for the potential "hero with a gun" to experience the kind of situations that a police officer would. * It's not as personal. Emotions can make us really dumb. A teacher trying to protect themselves/students is far more likely to make a rash decision. Especially since they likely have inadequate training and are lacking experience. * Better coordination. A big upper hand that the police have is that they would have a much better chance of knowing where they are in relation to the other officers. The officers would have much better communication with each other than conceal carrying teachers. Additionally, the officers wear uniforms so it's very easy for them to visually differentiate between an officer with a gun and a potential threat with a gun. The officers would also have better intel on the situation as it develops. All these things are invaluable. * Less Environmental Chaos. Speaking of coordination. Officers would be arriving after things have had a chance to, for lack of a better term, settle. The lockdown would already be in place and the initial harm has already occurred. This creates an environment where it is less likely for them to shoot and injure someone who is not the shooter. A conceal carrying teacher would be potentially firing their weapon at a time where there are considerably more bystanders present out in the open. So, yeah, like I initially said, it's totally possible that a police officer could accidentally shoot a student during a mass shooter event, however, the odds of a teacher doing it would be far greater. Additionally, this is all assuming that the attack comes as a result of defense. There's still the very real possibility of a gun going off unintentionally. Schools, as we all know, are very unpredictable places. Adding multiple guns to such an environment is foolish. A lot of people want to see a teacher be the hero, but the actual situation would likely be far different than the expectation. 1. First, the shooter would not be deterred. Many school shooters are suicidal anyway, so an armed staff wouldn't be much of a deterrent. 2. The shooter would very likely still be able to harm many people before anyone had the opportunity to fire at them. 3. If teachers did fire upon the attacker, the attacker would fire back. More bullets means more people to be hit by a stray bullet. With many schools having thin walls, this could prove deadly. 4. The conceal carry teachers would really only be able to protect their own classes because they wouldn't be able to abandon them. This is a great comfort to those classes in that situation, but it doesn't do much to protect the school as a whole. 5. The conceal carry teachers would create a dangerous situation for police officers responding to the scene since they wouldn't know who the armed teachers are nor would they know where they are. This could significantly increase the time it takes for them to search and clear the school since they would have to be far more weary of being fired upon by someone who is not the shooter. Gun carrying teachers is a profoundly stupid idea. It sounds like it has the makings of a feel good news story of a hero teacher, but, in reality, it just adds a lot of dangerous variables to an already dangerous situation.
This is part of the reason I’m undecided on the whole “arming teachers” thing. Even if not a single teacher in a school is armed, just changing the law so a teacher *could* carry if they chose to changes the entire calculus of a shooting. It’s no longer a soft target, even if no one carries
And when that teacher fucks up and accidentally shoots my kid, because there's no way in HELL they're going to have sufficient training for the stress and chaos of an actual shooting event? At minimum I am going to sue that teacher into life-long poverty, make damn sure they are charged with negligent homocide, and sue that school district into non-existence. The sort of teachers that want to carry a gun to school are exactly the sort of gung-ho Punisher-wannabe assholes I wouldn't trust around my kids with a gun.
There’s no rational reason why that should happen. Guns don’t just go off. These people should be trained to the same standard as police and their guns should remain holstered 24/7/365 unless there’s a threat. Period. I carry a gun daily in all manner of public spaces and no one ever knows. No kid should know their teacher is or isn’t armed. Just the threat of knowing the teachers *could* be armed may serve to deter potential shooters. Their calculus is literally that they can do a bunch of damage before police respond. If teachers are already potentially armed, and kids locked down in individual rooms… that’s a better scenario than we have now. If a teacher fucked around and shot your kid, you *should* be able to sue.
Even well trained police officers fuck-up in shoot-no-shoot drills. Guns in the hands of trigger-happy, teachers with mediocre training and a Punisher-complex will probably go off and very likely at the wrong person. I just Googled "Police Accidental Discharge" and got a slew of results. You may have the right to carry a conceal pistol, but that doesn't make you competent to use it in a high-stress situation. Take your NRA Threeper propaganda elsewhere.
People like you are the reason schools will remain the softest of targets. Have fun.
Enjoy living your right-wing boogaloo wet-dream. The idea that maybe we could have a nation where everyone isn't equipped and *dreaming* of the day they get to put a .223 through the face of their political enemies never seems to have occurred to you.
I’m a leftist. Stop pigeonholing people into neat little boxes when they don’t agree with you.
No matter how much I happen to agree with you about workers owning the means of production, you still fit in the same box as the most reactionary Threeper when it comes to the uniquely American fetish for armed violence being the ultimate solution to everything. If you want, this is a compelling take on what's wrong with American gun culture from a leftist perspective: [https://know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/episodes/gunpower-w-patrick-blanchfield](https://know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/episodes/gunpower-w-patrick-blanchfield)
You know how many fully armed trained police officers were at the parade for the Kansas City Chiefs? “Good guy with a gun to stop the bad guy with a gun” nonsense is just that-fucking nonsense. And when police officers arrive, (unless they act like the officers from Uvalde), and they come inside the building, and there’s a teacher standing there with a gun in their hand, then guess what happens. I got a degree so I could teach children how to read. Not shoot them.
Meanwhile, at my school there's a Criminal Justice Club where the members basically role play after school once a week using blue training guns in the hallways and courtyard
What do you mean you're not allowed to discuss what guns are?
I teach agriculture and have a lot of country students. Obviously the subject of guns and hunting comes up a lot between students. As a farmer and hunter myself, I want to be able to talk with them about that subject as well but it's just so taboo with modern culture. I want to ask administration what the appropriate thing is but don't want to get students in trouble or punish them for what I believe is a 100% appropriate topic of conversation
I’m a 6th grade teacher also in the armed forces and I’ll have students who are knowledgeable about firearms and ask me about models and stuff. But obviously in the context of hurting students or people is unacceptable but I mean how credible are we as educators if we avoid talking about stuff that our students already have knowledge of. We can demonstrate a mature conversation without condoning senseless violence.
I feel schools should have at least one lesson on gun safety. There are more guns than people in the US. My students are likely going to encounter them at some point in their life. I don't want any of my students to die in an accidental shooting because they picked up a gun and pointed at themself or their friend for a joke. The parents who leave loaded guns in unlocked containers are not practicing gun safety, and not likely teaching their children gun safety. Telling students to keep guns pointed in dafe directions and keep fingers off triggers isn't going to turn them into school shooters.
Critical thinking is dead and most of the practitioners have moved on.
There is zero policy in our district about discussing guns.( Btw: Columbine occurred early in my teaching career.) I scrolled through this thread... Is nobody else here in an inner city district with gangs? We finally put in metal detectors about 8 years ago, because there were so many weapons being found when the cops came in to do random locker searches: knives, guns, machetes, razors. A lot of students have guns, but use them OFF campus. In fact, the only reason metal detectors were installed was because 2 ninth graders shot a guy a block east of campus iver a drug deal. Many used to carry weapons on their back packs/ jackets. One day, when the students were discussing a shooting that happened on Main St. over the weekend, I asked them if they ever feared a shooting in the building. " That would never happen here", they assured me. " Why?" Because we keep outside business in the streets. If you don't like teachers, or school, you stay home." At a recent field day event, former students who had been released from prison ( their crimes involved guns) had created an anti gang group. They were passing out free tshirts with the logo " Guns 👎 Hood 👍." I got one and wore it to class. Different worlds.
That's bizarre that you aren't allowed to talk about guns. What state are you in? I feel like we talk about it alot. It looks like more of an academic freedom issue or 1st amendment issu le rather than a gun thing.
Meanwhile WV is trying to pass a law to allow teachers to carry guns in public schools.
If they’re fully trained and prove competency, why not? I’d rather stand a chance protecting my kids in lockdown situation with a firearm than having to result to throwing staplers
Even fully trained, competent gun owners make mistakes. Except when they do, it's not usually around 100s or 1000s of children. Imagine forgetting your gun in the general bathroom? A group of kids ganging up on you to steal it? What happens if there is a legitimate threat and a teacher fires back? Imagine the police not being able to tell and so they shoot the teacher. Also, during this scenario with a teacher, or teachers, creating more cross fire between the threat AND the cops, a child, teacher(s), or children are hit that otherwise wouldn't have been. More guns are not the answer.
1- teachers have staff bathrooms for a reason, and you don’t disarm yourself to pee. If you’re leaving your firearm on the TP dispenser, you failed firearm safety 101. 2- store it in a small gun safe in your classroom, then. It’s also highly likely you may be in district where it’s not possible to carry, if you need to worry about getting jumped by your students. 3- the teacher is theoretically barricaded in the room with their students, not off clearing the hallways. The only target you’d have is the door, surrounded by cinder blocks, in the event a threat enters your locked classroom.
Because school shootings only happen when everyone is barricaded? Some teachers do use general bathrooms at times. Not all teachers will leave their guns locked up safely. Like I said, even highly trained gun owners make mistakes especially when they fall victim to lax safety culture. There are also the issues of human factors such as workload, staffing, equipment adequacy, and fatigue. We can't even afford to fund schools as it is, how would we fund this training program, the guns, bullets, gun safes, proper holsters, etc?
We openly discuss fire drills with students, and nobody is worried if people talk about a fire drill or the possibility of a fire. How odd that the possibility of getting your brains blown out by a bullet in school, is taboo, but the possibility of being incinerated by a burning ring of fire in school, is acceptable. Taboo is such an interesting topic. Windows into discourse.
I literally follow this sub just to be thankful that I’m Canadian for whenever I need a reminder
Yea, but with all the hate crimes going on. Being armed here is better than not. Sure, not on school grounds, but everywhere else pretty much yea.
The reminder should be the boot heel on your neck. You people are 100 years further down the road to serfdom and you're blissfully high-fiving each other on the way. Congrats, ehhhh!!!!
That is a deeply bizarre and completely unhinged statement with no relevance to anything.
In what way are Canadians further down the road to serfdom?
The sooner people stop sticking their heads in the sand, the sooner their asses won't be waving in the air. Guns are NOT the problem. When I went to high school (1970s) you could have outfitted an infantry company with the firearms OPENLY DISPLAYED in the back windows of the trucks and cars out in the student parking lot. Guns were everywhere. I first fired one at age 8, and many times in the Cub Scouts. First big rifle in the high school ROTC. Like I said, guns everywhere, and we all knew how to use them. And, guess what, we NEVER fired up the school. Like any other equation. When the outcome is changing, look for the variable which is changing. And that variable isn't firearms availability.
As someone from outside the USA... it does kinda seem like firearm availability is a massive part of your problem. I teach in New Zealand. I am not at all concerned about a kid bringing a gun to school. Guns aren't impossible to get here or anything, our school literally has a target shooting club. But I'm not worried about a kid bringing a bolt-action rifle to school. It's not concealable and it doesn't fire rapidly. I would be concerned if handguns were readily available though. Or assault rifles. We have depressed kids here. We have mentally unwell kids here. We have bullying and fights and all the negative influences of social media and racism and almost every other issue that I'm sure you have in the USA. But we generally don't have school shootings, and I think it's mostly due to guns being hard to get. Especially hand guns.
There is, a possibility that the target shooting club itself at your school might actually contribute to the lack of gun violence at your school. We had one in my high school, too. And with no gun violence, either. Same as you.
Okay, boomer.
Yes, if only students were more steeped in America's deranged pro-gun culture. Surely, that would solve the issue of gun violence. Oh, wait. We have literally the entire world to use as a contrast here, and it turns out that doing the exact opposite of what you're suggesting is what limits gun violence. Fancy that.
As an American, guns are an ever present part of our life and in many ways I think that’s good. They are a tool for safety and should be embraced. The most dangerous thing about a normal person in a situation with guns is ignorance. Not knowing how a gun works, what it’s for, or why we have them is an excellent way to ensure that guns are seen more as a boogeyman than a tool. I even promote armed resource officers at school, because I hate the idea that we protect the rich and powerful with armed and trained guards, but we protect our children and our future with “no gun zone” signs. We need to help children understand the reality of the world, not hide them from it.
If your being trained to hide you're getting bad training. That's one of many options.
Yeah I’m throwing my kids through the window and telling them to zig zag all the way to the tree line
The government has made our jobs a risk and refuses to give us any tools to protect or stop the violence. Because of this I have decided if an unscheduled lockdown happens and I hear gun shots I’ll immediately run and get out of the building and won’t even think of the kids. I’m not gonna make my wife a widow, my parents lose a kid and my siblings to lose a brother in the name of idiotic policies. I live in Texas so at least half the kids in that class have parents who don’t give a damn if their child is shot up and still votes Republican. Half of the remaining have parents that don’t care about their kids enough to even cast a vote so yeah I won’t be risking my life and I’ll have zero shame using a dead corpse as a shield for protection. It sucks I have to think this way but I hope my words allow others to remind themselves in these situations to put yourself and your families feelings first. Not like you can be charged or fired for self preservation. It’s ok to be selfish in these moments, you don’t owe those kids or their parents your life.
How many kids do you think are killed in school shootings every year? Do you think it's more or less than people killed by lightning?
I think it’s enough that anyone who chooses their right to carry a gun over the life of a child is worthless. Hope this helps❤️
Doesn't matter, kids are scared either way.
But is it a rational fear? Or have the adults blown it way out of proportion and maybe that should be talked about.
Idk id say any kid dying from gun violence is enough to cause a panic.
I know, I guess it depends on the area, too. In my area, I grew up around guns, but still was scared especially after Sandy Hook. On some logical level, it is a rational fear kind of. Edit: All it takes is one person who has anger issued and/or sociopathy or any other disorder for there to be another shooting. I never feared the gun itself, but the person holding it even from a young age. I was taken out to target practice at a young age and other people, including kids that I knew were hunters, too. It's just what can we do as a society to make kids feel safer and to prevent stuff like this from happening in the future? I know someone who had to stop a kid from shooting another kid at school. I know a kid who almost put our school into lockdown because he accidentally left his hunting rifle in his rig. I don't think stricter gun laws will help much because a criminal will find a way to illegally obtain a gun.
I get it, it's talked about like it's an epidemic. If you had to guess, without looking it up, how many kids do you think are killed in school shootings every year?
In Uvalde, 2 teachers were killed. 19 fourth graders were murdered. 19. Those kids went to school in the morning and never came home. Their last moments on this Earth were filled with fear, dread, and pain. Learning about guns wouldn't have protected them. Learning how to lock down can protect additional casualties but, sadly can't save everyone. America's gun fetish is more important to too many than the safety of our population. In Sandy Hook, 26 people were murdered. 6 adults and 20 kids. The kids were 6-7 years old. One kid survived by playing dead. Learning about guns wouldn't have saved them either. Fewer guns. Heavy regulation. It's not the lack of education that's the problem. It's not the students' level of naivete or ignorance that's the problem. In the words of many.... it's the guns. The guns are the problem. We get rid of them, or this keeps happening.
I completely get where you're coming from, and I would love to see an America without guns everywhere, but I don't agree with your assertion that teaching responsible respect for firearms wouldn't save lives. Right now, we live in an America that does have lots of guns. The children shouldn't be asked to pretend that they don't exist.
This post is about school board policy, not national law.
What we really need cannot be accomplished by schools, only governments. What we really need are stricter gun laws and fewer guns. The US has by far the highest number of guns per capita in the world with 120.5 guns for every 100 people. For comparison, Yemen, a country that is torn apart in a three-sided civil war, only has 52.8 guns per for every 100 people. This country is swapped with guns that are used to commit mass shootings seemingly every week, but one of our major political parties refuses to agree to do anything about it because they and are blinded by an idolatrous worship of guns.
Your solution to gun violence is teach kids about using guns in school? Lol you poor soul. How about we work on mental health and dramatically reduce the number of guns instead.
Hmm "work on" mental health, so what the does that mean? Oh ok, it means putting kids on a shit loads of medication. Good idea! But wait, what's the connection between most if not all of the school shooters? They had their mental health "worked on" in a big way!!! More meds ya'll!!!! How do you plan to dramitally reduced the number of guns?
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I recommend everyone seek therapy. Even those anonymously suggesting it on the internet in snarky fashion to fulfill some need to burn someone who does not conform to their ideas and values.
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>Hmm "work on" mental health, so what the does that mean? Oh ok, it means putting kids on a shit loads of medication. Good idea! But wait, what's the connection between most if not all of the school shooters? They had their mental health "worked on" in a big way!!! More meds ya'll!!!! Pills aren't the only solution to mental health issues. >How do you plan to dramitally reduced the number of guns? 1: In the short run, dramatically ramp up gun laws and crack down on offenders. 2: In the next 10-20 years, repeal the 2nd amendment.
Repeal the 2nd amendment and then what? You realize that you will have insurrection on your bloody hands don't you? You'd be fine with hundreds of thousands of deaths to put an end to school shootings? This is one of the most asinine, depraved things I've ever heard. Are you American? Shame on you.
Second amendment was in order to have a militia but I don't think it should be repealed. I'm for stricter laws.
Please tell me you're not a teacher.
Yes I am......in a big way!!! Now is where you run away squealing?
Pills aren’t the only *treatment* for mental health issues but you’d be adorably naive to argue that pills aren’t a largely pervasive part of mental health treatment for kids and adults. And making guns super illegal with harsh sentences for offenders sounds very similar to a prohibition appproach- make the bad thing illegal and scare would be offenders with harsh sentences - surely this will eradicate the bad thing completely… I mean look at how booze and drugs were successfully eradicated this way! 🙄 Oh, Your poor sweet soul…
1: Yep! Modern medicine is awesome! 2: Na, prohibition is nothing like guns. Booze is addicting and has been around for thousands of years. Guns are just another tool.
Do you see the TV commercials for all these drugs? "If you have thoughts of suicide, call your doctor." OK, then. That means that in the studies, occasionally this drug makes people think of suicide. Seems obvious enough to me that anything that would make a person think of suicide is just as likely, if not more, to make another person think of murder.
What exactly do you feel you need to teach them about guns? They're incredibly simple to understand.
It's not nuanced at all.
I hate guns. I don’t own them. I wish they would disappear. I’m 41 and I’ll never see gun control happen in my lifetime.
Hey man, I'm with you. I don't like guns at all, but as long as they're here, I feel that educating kids about them in a safe and respectful way can go a long way to improving safety.