18 School shootings this year

[LesBaker]

2018 isn't even 7 weeks old and we have 18 of these horrible events.

I don't blame "guns" or "gun laws" because they haven't really changed all that much over the years. If anything, they are slightly more restrictive. So it's not the law.

What the fuck is causing these to occur at an ever increasing rate???

Gun culture?

Violence in modern music?

Video games?

A sense of despair among young people?

I would bet that the US has more school shooting than the rest of the world combined.

 

[OldSchool]

Medication and kids aren’t taught to take responsibility for their actions and there are consequences to their actions.

 

[Angry Ram]

Gun culture?

No.

Violence in modern music?

No.

Video games?

Hell no.

A sense of despair among young people?

No.

Medication

No.

kids aren’t taught to take responsibility

Partly. I also think it's a broad-based negative view of school and teachers in the US.

The main answer is evil. Plain and simple.

 

[-X-]

I used to drop my sister-in-law off at that high school every morning. We lived about 2 miles from there when I was back in FLA. Pretty fucked up, but it's not even shocking anymore. I'd really rather not expand on this, or open a debate about it, but *IMO*, the cultural war on peaceful religion - coupled with a destruction of the "nuclear family" - is the reason the world has been steadily going to shit. That's just my opinion ...

 

[Farr Be It]

.... *IMO*, the cultural war on peaceful religion - coupled with a destruction of the "nuclear family" - is the reason the world has been steadily going to crap. That's just my opinion ...

It’s weird. Another member and I were just DMing about Columbine the last couple days and the common thread with most of these shootings: kids engaged in the occult and taking psychotropic drugs.

I won’t dive much deeper here either. My prayers go out to the families. Sad. And maddening.

 

[LesBaker]

I used to drop my sister-in-law off at that high school every morning. We lived about 2 miles from there when I was back in FLA. Pretty freaked up, but it's not even shocking anymore. I'd really rather not expand on this, or open a debate about it, but *IMO*, the cultural war on peaceful religion - coupled with a destruction of the "nuclear family" - is the reason the world has been steadily going to crap. That's just my opinion ...

I know how that kind of closeness resonates.........it's fucking tragic.

 

[LesBaker]

kids engaged in the occult and taking psychotropic drugs.

There is no evidence of that, and that kind of speculation and supposition isn't fair.

In other words..........that's just bullshit.

 

[Angry Ram]

Guy was apparently an expelled student with problems last year and before.

Seems pretty self-explanatory as to why.

 

[Farr Be It]

There is no evidence of that, and that kind of speculation and supposition isn't fair.

In other words..........that's just bullcrap.

Sadly Les. Too much evidence of this.

 

[fearsomefour]

Meds for sure. In terms of there being a tie in.
The vast majority of these kids are on psych meds of some sort. The whole correlation and causation thing applies of course.
The reality is statistically school is still by far the safest place kids are during their day. This is true by a large margin. The most dangerous is their home. Again, the most dangerous by a large margin.
The worst mistake that was made post Columbine is zero tolerance policies and how those policies are implemented.
The reality is this is where we are as a society. There are multiple causations and nonsimple answers. It's bizarre to think this is a thing now when a generation ago it was not even a consideration.
As someone with some experience with this I feel a deep ache for the parents and students involved.
The scary part of this stuff is that there is not one answer. These are individuals acting this way in a free society. We can look at generalities and try to act accordingly. There are some things I would personally like to see happen. Would it "fix" this sort of thing? No.
The truely scary thing to me is to look at the picture of the shooter. He is just a young guy. Go to a mall or school and you would walk past 100 kids that look like him. There is this urge to explain it away in a sense....to point the finger at things we or our kids aren't involved in (guns, music, video games etc). Finding an explaination that we can distance ourselves from is a way to make ourselves feel insulated. The truth is this is a part of who we are now.
I would suggest (not that anyone asked, because no one did haha) if it really makes you pissed that this is going on, get involved.
Get in the trenches.
The one thing that is hard to measure is effective prevention.
Find a kid that needs help and help them.
Will it prevent a shooting? Who knows.
Will it make a difference? Yes.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Monkey see, monkey do.

It's cheap, easy, and the more it happens the more others will want to do the same.

Motivations behind it will vary from person to person, and there's no one answer for how to prevent it, you have to use a combination of it all. The notion that there's not much we can do and it's just because the people are "that way" is bullshit plain and simple, given that every country has young people that have issues and we're the only ones who have this problem as much as we do.

But regardless, the more it happens the more it will continue to happen, because the more it reminds people on that fence that they to can do the same for not much money.

 

[fearsomefour]

Monkey see, monkey do.

It's cheap, easy, and the more it happens the more others will want to do the same.

Motivations behind it will vary from person to person, and there's no one answer for how to prevent it, you have to use a combination of it all. The notion that there's not much we can do and it's just because the people are "that way" is bullcrap plain and simple, given that every country has young people that have issues and we're the only ones who have this problem as much as we do.

But regardless, the more it happens the more it will continue to happen, because the more it reminds people on that fence that they to can do the same for not much money.

Sort of contradicting yourself.
But this is one of those issues that will always lead to contradiction.
Some things that need to be done....forcing clearly mentally ill people to get mental health care would require the funding and infrastructure to provide that care. It would also require a politically active judiciary to leave it alone. Neither, sadly, is likely to happen. Hell, in Ca mental hospitals for the criminally insane the staff cannot force prisoners to take their meds.
A lot of fascits to it.

 

[fearsomefour]

Classless

 

[Selassie I]

From reading various reports...

The killer has emotional problems and is on medications for it.

He was expelled from school for a disciplinary issue.

His math teacher from last year said "We were told last year that he wasn't allowed on campus with a backpack on him... "There were problems with him last year threatening students... then he was finally told to leave campus."

The killer... despite all of the above... was allowed to purchase an assault rifle (AR-15) and a shit ton of clips. Apparently this was fine because "The family made him keep it in a locked gun cabinet in the house... a cabinet that the killer had the key for."

The killer was posting very very disturbing things on social media.


Hmmmmmmm... what could have gone wrong here I wonder.

 

[Merlin]

I think there's a need for metal detectors, and an entry control point nowadays in schools. And you arm the entry control point.

And re: guns, what sucks is even if you passed sweeping gun laws the kids would still be able to get them via illegal means. Only difference is that for the next forty years or whatever the only people who would have guns would be the criminals, and it would radicalize many law-abiding Americans.

So just my opinion, but if I were a governor of a state my answer would be to create funding for the schools to provide for armed sentries and entry control points. That would severely limit most of these cowards from being able to make their statements on school grounds.

 

[Rmfnlt]

Guy was apparently an expelled student with problems last year and before.

Seems pretty self-explanatory as to why.

Yeah... many in the school said they figured he might do something like that...

That's the only way to stop this IMO.

People have to speak out. They have to let authorities know when it appears someone is liable to commit a violent crime. But so many things wrong with that:
1] "Dead leads"
2] Even if authorities are alerted... what if the person has committed no crime. Can't arrest someone on "suspicion to commit an act of violence", can you?
3] Resources - how many law enforcement people would it take to keep an eye on all the potential nutjobs.

But, it's the only way, IMO. Have to speak out when we know we have a nutjob in our midst. Maybe police just stop by their house once... act like they got the wrong address... but let them know they (police) are always looking out for the citizens.

Maybe that would deter the really bad nutjobs like this guy.

There were warning signs on this one..

 

[fearsomefour]

I think there's a need for metal detectors, and an entry control point nowadays in schools. And you arm the entry control point.

And re: guns, what sucks is even if you passed sweeping gun laws the kids would still be able to get them via illegal means. Only difference is that for the next forty years or whatever the only people who would have guns would be the criminals, and it would radicalize many law-abiding Americans.

So just my opinion, but if I were a governor of a state my answer would be to create funding for the schools to provide for armed sentries and entry control points. That would severely limit most of these cowards from being able to make their statements on school grounds.

The high school and middle schools where I live have armed school police.
Good by me.
Usually one officer will be at each school. Some high schools may have two on duty.
So a school like my sons with 2,000 students and (ball parking) 5 or 6 entry areas and one to two police. The name of the game is offering a deterrent and if someone does go off limiting casualties.
There have been two incidents locally here in the last 4 or so years. One recently a kid brought two knives to school and was attempting to slash students etc. A school police officer on duty at the school shot the kid. He arrived where the kid was in under 2 minutes and after the kid would not put down his knives shot him and wounded him. It worked well in that case.
The older case a middle school brought a gun from home and shot and killed a student and teacher and himself. That middle school had an armed officer assigned to the school. Thing is, the kid showed up a half hour before the officer was scheduled to arrive.

 

[LesBaker]

The truely scary thing to me is to look at the picture of the shooter. He is just a young guy

He was still a child essentially. It truly is a scary thing when we look at it that way.

The killer was posting very very disturbing things on social media.

Yes and one of the things he said was that he wanted to be a school shooter. The FBI was notified about that post and didn't seem to take action. Or didn't take enough action.

People have to speak out. They have to let authorities know when it appears someone is liable to commit a violent crime. But so many things wrong with that:

It's not an easy thing to figure out, but as I said the FBI was alerted so someone did speak out.

This is such a sad thing on so many levels. A lot of families are suffering because of this piece of shit.

 

[LesBaker]

The high school and middle schools where I live have armed school police.
Good by me.
Usually one officer will be at each school. Some high schools may have two on duty.

I graduated from HS in 1978, my school had two armed plainclothes police. We called them Butch and Sundance after the characters Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

They were put in place a couple of years before I got there in a response to a girl bringing a gun into the school and shooting her boyfriend for breaking up with her and the girl he was currently dating.

Some of the inner city schools back home have put in metal detectors to keep weapons out and it works well.

I would have no problem if every school went to two entry points with detectors. The issue would be getting out in case of a fire or if someone got a gun inside.