Another day, another shooting in the US

[JBC]

I noticed a lot of headlines blaming the media are finally starting to pop up. It's not something the public is just now starting to catch on to. It's hard to believe at this point but not all Americans are entirely stupid. We know how ideas work & how the news has normalized this kind of thing. How they profit off it. It doesn't seem beyond reason to suggest that these stories have been suppressed until now. Maybe they're running out of people to blame but still need those clicks and ratings. Might generate a burst of ad revenue if they get directly involved instead of pretending to look out for our best interests. "The people deserve to know"

They've been fanning the flames of society's problems for years.

[emphatic]

I think the main reason behind school shootings is: Bullying.

I also think making schools gun free zones or not should be up to the local school board. If I lived in a country were illegal guns (meaning guns in the hands of people that have no business owning one) are as easy to get hold of as in many US states, I would prefer to put my kids in a school with armed personnel for their safety. And the folks that think good guys with a gun is a terrible idea are free to put their kids in the gun free schools.

[JBC]

I think the main reason behind school shootings is: Bullying.

It's def a huge part of it but the only way to fix that is to have some really good geneticists and for people to be willing to let them do their thing. Edit all the shittiness out of humanity.

[Durandal]

I'd sooner ban social media before guns.

[Xyga]

@emph; If bullying in school is never punished this will continue to happen even with armed personnel anyway.
The more ailing a society the more trouble kids will mean and require attention and discipline, guns won't compensate for dodging the core issues.
What would you do as social tension and therefore trouble in school increases? Arm more and more people within school grounds? Give them machine guns just to feel safer?
And what kind of personnel would be armed? teachers? monitors? janitors? can you trust them to use their guns properly or not go mad themselves and shoot the kids?
I think just having enough personnel showing kids that adults are the fucking law and the ones who deal with their problems is what counts the most. The more trouble the more adults around there should be.
Armed personnel should be only cops/military and stand at the only gates checking everyone who goes in.
But guns inside of school, carried by what should be normal people like teachers? dude when that happens it means your country is failing at civilization hard.

Also I don't believe countries in Scandinavia that certainly also have a lot of guns (we could also include Canada in a similar fashion) make for a good comparison with the US and their everyday on-your-guard, trust-no-one, at-each-others-throats mentality.

@Roo; I understand your point but I can hardly see too much guns as being the single major cause of their gun problem, no matter what if they see life as some kind of battle royale and think it's the norm, then even dissolving the NRA (in acid!) or - imagine - disarming everyone wouldn't help making their country that much safer.

I'd sooner ban social media before guns.

No fucking smartphones in school would be a good beginning.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I'd sooner ban social media before guns.

Social media is the ultimate cancer.

[BryanM]

On the kid's murder list: The girl who wouldn't fuck him, some foreign kids he didn't like, a couple teachers who apparently didn't give him a boner, and some other kids.

Not on the kid's murder list: The coach and mean kids who called him a flopping walrus or whatever.

[Bananamatic]

Edit all the shittiness out of humanity.

that's what klebold and harris wanted to do as well

[emphatic]

@emph; If bullying in school is never punished this will continue to happen even with armed personnel anyway.
The more ailing a society the more trouble kids will mean and require attention and discipline, guns won't compensate for dodging the core issues.
What would you do as social tension and therefore trouble in school increases? Arm more and more people within school grounds? Give them machine guns just to feel safer?
And what kind of personnel would be armed? teachers? monitors? janitors? can you trust them to use their guns properly or not go mad themselves and shoot the kids?
I think just having enough personnel showing kids that adults are the fucking law and the ones who deal with their problems is what counts the most. The more trouble the more adults around there should be.
Armed personnel should be only cops/military and stand at the only gates checking everyone who goes in.
But guns inside of school, carried by what should be normal people like teachers? dude when that happens it means your country is failing at civilization hard.

Well, bullying should be dealt with, but it's complicated and needs to be dealt with in a supportive and respectful manner. The worst kind of bullying I've seen isn't kids getting beat up, it's when should-be allies turn their back on them.

As for armed personnel, I think what the Trump administration suggested, like former military people sounds great. Regular teachers with no previous experience could possibly escalate a situation or shoot themselves by accident. They need to be unafraid to take out a shooter, spotty faced or not - if it comes to it. Placing armed guards outside the school will only work if they actually enter the school to actively take out a bad guy, not like what happened in Florida, where the armed people stood outside, holding their dicks. Yeah, to be fair, I probably would've too, but I'm not trained for it or taking jobs like that any time soon, so I'm just thinking out loud.

I forgot to give my other reason for shooting happening more often, it's media putting the face and name of shooters out there inspiring copycats. Shooters should be forgotten ASAP. All the media should focus on who were innocent victims and blaming whoever made the shooter attack innocent people by not doing their jobs etc.

[Xyga]

Well I was thinking more like in airports, filtering everything at the entrance of schools should be even less of a challenge.
I still think weapons and armed personnel should remain outside of school, it's not a place for anyone to carry guns, and only intevene inside in case of emergency since they are mandated professionals of course. But with proper control of everything and everyone that goes in they shouldn't have to, or at least massively reduce the risks of guns passing the doors.
Of course making all schools practically airport-level secure would cost quite the money, but heh, as I say managing the kids more closely with more important adult presence is also crucial to maintain peace, calm shit down and spot the potential risky individuals before shit happens, in a word: prevention.

[youngmoneySWE]

As a teacher, I just want to chip in on the school situation concerning bullying.

The trend in Swedish schools (and I would assume schools around the globe) is that resources are constantly cut. Politicians will tell you that they are putting more money into schools (for a push to give all students computers or raise the salary for a few "extra competent" teachers) but in reality they are cutting back on schools as a whole, mainly giving teachers more teaching hours and bigger classes. I work full-time meaning I have six classes of 32 students every week, plus I'm in charge of a class as a mentor (making sure they are attending school, not failing courses, etc.)

When it comes to bullying - who should be responsible for this "zero tolerance" that many are talking about. The teachers? After I'm done planning, teaching, giving feedback and marking my courses, most of my hours are used for the week (35-40). The rest of the hours I need to attend meetings with colleagues, staff meetings, handle book handouts/returns, etc. Swedish teachers work 47h/w (gives us a longer summer holiday) and many of us feel that we don't have enough time to meet the demands set up by politicians ("every student in every class should be given the help they need to reach their full potential").

Reacting to bullying takes a lot of work. In a classroom, you have 80 minutes to make a good point. If you see something that looks like bullying (a laugh, a funny look, one student looking a bit sad), should you stop what you're doing and address this? With a class of 32, that's a lot of students to keep track of, while at the same time trying to teach them something. And that's not even taking into account what the students are doing to each other outside of school (both during recess but especially online).

And if one student comes knocking on your door saying that they or someone else is being bullied - you need to launch a full scale investigation. First you need to contact the school counsellor and/or the nurse and tell them what you've heard. Your closest boss needs to be aware of this as well. Then come up with a plan on who should be talked to first - the bully or the bullied. And what to ask them (rarely they'll flat out admit themselves that they are being bullied). Usually you also need to contact parents and follow up everything after some time as well. Lots of documentation goes into this too.

I wish that bullying was as simple as seeing one student hit another student in the classroom and you could say "Cut that out, kid!" and that was it, but it's way more advanced (and cruel) than that. It's easy for politicans to claim that schools should have zero tolerance for bullying but really - don't we already? No school is saying "yeah, we will allow bullying to an extent" but at the same time there is no time for the teachers running around playing anti-bullying task force.

tl;dr

If you want to get rid of bullying then you need to hire specific staff members to deal with that (which will probably mean that teahers will have more teaching hours/even bigger classes which will lower the quality of the education, and society don't want that either - whoops!). As the situation stand today, I personally don't react to potential bullying because I don't have the time to invest in any false leads. I can see why it would be beneficial to work more with preventive actions in schools and such but currently it's an impossible mission. I'm not happy about it but that's where we're at.

Oh, and I would refuse to go to school strapped.

[/rant]

[Xyga]

It's sad to hear the same story from teachers of many countries that like to call themselves civilized and developed. It's the same here in France.
Indeed managing the kid's everyday life issues (/w other kids and/or familiy matters) and maintaining peace and order at school shouldn't be a teacher's job, especially when they're asked to deal with oversized classes already.
I remember well in the 90's here non-teaching school staff was over twice as important while classes were rarely over 25.
Last year when I was hired to fill for a teach on sick leave I couldn't believe the fucking chaos, how tense the kids were in those huge classes and obviously with no directions nor limits. And that was supposed to be a nice little countryside middle school...yet I bet even there things could go very wrong in the not-so-long term.
I don't see any issues with hiring more people to manage and help the kids, it's jobs and well used funds, but since policies go in the opposite direction it just shows how little politicians and voters care for the future of their kids.

[youngmoneySWE]

Very sad indeed. There gap between demands and resources is growing for every year. Politicians are always saying that schools WILL improve their results in the near future, yet they keep cutting back because people obviously don't want to pay for it via taxes (and, mind you, Sweden already has high taxes as it is). Welfare is going down they drain overall - people want more cash to spend but they also demand a high level of welfare. Can't have both I'm afraid.

And what you're left with are teachers who are super stressed or on sick leave (teacher is the line of work that has gotten most people on sick leave in Sweden I believe, mostly due to stress/poor work environment reasons). Most teachers in Sweden (highest % in the world last i checked) don't even work full time because they want a life outside of work. In 10-15 years there will be a shortage of 75 000 or so teachers here. I'm not going to cover for them, sadly, as just managing a full school year as it is right now is more than enough work for me.

I'm not going to derail the thread further since it's about school shootings but I do agree that school would be a great place to work more with including every student in meaningful activities and relationship. But just looking at the numbers and doing the math the school's are not going to be able to solve any major bullying. There just isn't enough people or hours in the day to make it work.

[MintyTheCat]

It's an identity thing. The pro-gun people are so bankrupt that they cling to it as if it were their very selves. If they had something else to go to by which they could define themselves, they might. But they've embraced it, for all of its fatal flaws.

Only things like education about a plethora of subject matter, time-intensive hobbies, and a richer culture that could stand in for jingoistic breast-beating could unseat guns. If it isn't about power, it's about their nifty mechanisms and such. But you can find mechanical marvel in other things that aren't murder machines.

I agree: education - and I mean actual education and not the crap that they dole out to the kids these days that teaches them to tow the line.

[MintyTheCat]

Yes, I understand that there's no way to adopt such laws in America, but just like that Titanic analogy, eventually people would come to their senses and realize that keeping schools safe should have been an upmost priority.

But there is: England had the fire arms law and eventually abolished it. As America inherited British law as I understand it, they inherited that facet of the law and they just kept it. There are few laws that cannot be changed and removed when all is said and done and it can take longer or shorter amounts of time. What fuels these changes is public sentiment.

[MintyTheCat]

What's the deal with schools in the US anyway, so horrific that they turn kids into killers? are these places like irl 4chan or what?

Our culture has to contribute to some degree. We simply don't care about one another here - reading anything about Europe is like upside down land. Norway... tries to reform people in prison and reintegrate them into society? What? Everyone knows you're supposed to charge prisoners money for room and board to sit in a cage, and then make sure they can't get a job when they get out. Italy has a large number of co-operatives, a company where the workers have elections on who the supervisors are? ..What? You.. can do that?

America is just more corporate and has weaker social institutions when compared to many wester european countries. It is true, they do attempt reform in Germany, Sweden and one or two others but not so much in the UK. I don't think that we should allow private companies to essentially take the role of the state and profit from having people in prison personally because the emphasis changes to profit.

[neorichieb1971]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkXeMoBPSDk

Surprised nobody posted this already.

The song in the middle had me in tears I had to walk out of the room. I'm sure this new show "Who is America?" is going to be a big hit.

[evil_ash_xero]

Anyone have some firm statistics on where most shootings take place? Or like, how they are spread throughout the U.S.? These kind of shooting make the news and all, but I think the vast majority take place in the inner city, and are gang related.
I live in the sticks, and even though I have known people that have been killed....it's like nothing compared to what you see on the news (it's actually quite shocking when it does happen, it's so rare). And everyone here probably has 10 guns a piece or something.

[Ed Oscuro]

I don't think that we should allow private companies to essentially take the role of the state and profit from having people in prison personally because the emphasis changes to profit.

Where would we offload all our maggoty hamburg then?

Anyone have some firm statistics on where most shootings take place?

Where people have guns

[MintyTheCat]

I don't think that we should allow private companies to essentially take the role of the state and profit from having people in prison personally because the emphasis changes to profit.

Where would we offload all our maggoty hamburg then?

America is just more corporate and has weaker social institutions when compared to many wester european countries. It is true, they do attempt reform in Germany, Sweden and one or two others but not so much in the UK. I don't think that we should allow private companies to essentially take the role of the state and profit from having people in prison personally because the emphasis changes to profit.

Same goes for the military and anything that should be 'state actors only'. The matter of accountability cannot be understated and you never want a large firm to wash its hands, walk away and not be accountable. A good example: Volkswagen over the 'data manipulation' - 100% not acceptable.

[BIL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkXeMoBPSDk

Surprised nobody posted this already.

The song in the middle had me in tears I had to walk out of the room. I'm sure this new show "Who is America?" is going to be a big hit.

What the fuck, he looks like a Bo Selecta character.



Anyone caught out really deserves it this time. Then again, irresponsible cosmetic surgeons have produced some real nightmares.

Looks like jaw-dropping horror all the same, judging by the stuff lined up in that clip. I didn't know Trent Lott was still alive, let alone advocating the arming of small children.

[evil_ash_xero]

Anyone have some firm statistics on where most shootings take place?

Where people have guns

Very amusing. I mean like cities. As I said, everyone here has like 10 guns a piece, and we have nothing going on like the places you here on the news. I would imagine most rural areas don't. Anyone got one of those fancy maps sites like to make? And maybe one that marks out the suicides?

EDIT: I think I found one that's decent. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 359395002/

And I was looking into the racial divide, as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... 7686d105ba

Just some research. I'm not saying anything particular here.
Just as a white-ish man, in a little rural state, I was wondering where all these massive gun deaths were happening, and who were most affected by them.

[Ed Oscuro]

A big problem with what you're asking for is that, last I checked, there still wasn't any comprehensive firearms use reporting, so it's been difficult for researchers to come up with reliable answers to these questions.

Beyond that I think you're asking a pretty broad question, so a broad answer seemed appropriate.

[BulletMagnet]

Now that folks can legally 3D print the things it's kind of a moot point anyway, or soon will be.

[Mischief Maker]

Very amusing. I mean like cities. As I said, everyone here has like 10 guns a piece, and we have nothing going on like the places you here on the news. I would imagine most rural areas don't.

If you want to know where mass school shootings are most likely to occur, look no farther than small-town and suburban America.

[...]

Experts say the phenomenon is due to a variety of factors that include easy access to guns and the copycat effect of disturbed suburban and small-town teenagers emulating each other. It's also blamed on the pressures of living in small towns that make it harder for disgruntled teenagers to adjust.

[...]

Parkland, Florida, where authorities say a former student in February gunned down 17 people, had just recently been voted the safest town in Florida. Newtown, Connecticut, where a shooting in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School took the lives of 20 children and six adults, is a classic New England town, seemingly a world away from the crime and problems of nearby Bridgeport, one of that state's largest cities.

The site of the Columbine High School tragedy was a Denver suburb, the Virginia Tech massacre happened in a college town of about 40,000 people. The shooting last week took place in a town of 13,000 people about 40 minutes southeast of Houston.

The prevalence of the mass shootings in smaller cities stands in contrast to the situation in big cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. They have strict gun laws and their own problems with street gun violence, but it's rare that a mass shooting has been carried out in one of their schools.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... tory.html#

[neorichieb1971]

If bullying is the cause and it needs to be dealt with the best COA is to not let them join other kids in recess or play time. Mind you, if American movies are any indication of what happens in schools in the USA then i'm not surprised these things happen. No uniform, no respect for teachers, never being asked to be dismissed at class (When the bell rings 32 kids head for the door). The play ground seems to be full bullies and canteens are sectorized by how much money your parents earn. In contrast in the UK rich kids would sit with people who get free meals and bullies would be able to take things so far, but a good samaritan with big muscles would eventually step in.

Schools in the USA are supposed to fabricate the makeup of the future of the USA through education where guns are commonplace, if this is undermined by bullies who a) stop people from educating themselves through fear or b) overwrite that makeup with a hate agenda that's your problem right there.

It simply means that schools are not capable of bringing up 100% of kids in a gun ridden society effectively enough. So you either provide a better education system or you take guns away.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Another day, yet another shooting at university in North Carolina in the United States of "we definitely don't have a gun problem" America.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/01/us/unive ... index.html

[quash]

One in ten Americans is on a prescribed antidepressant, but sure, it's the guns that are the problem. Not to mention the unprecedented immigration of people who are prone to joining gangs... nope! The guns are the problem.

[GaijinPunch]

The guns are the problem.

[quash]

Yeah fuck the founding fathers, what did they know? They didn't even start their day with Prozac or have those delicious tacos down the street for lunch.