another school shooting

[Izzy]

Saw this on FB today posted by a school teacher in America....

 

Next Tuesday we will have an “active shooter” / intruder drill at our school, and I will hunker down behind flimsy wooden cabinet doors with my students. 

You see, we open the cabinets and hide behind the doors so that anyone peering into the classrooms will not see us, and maybe think it is an empty room. Maybe we will be unnoticed, which just means maybe he will go to another classroom.

In preparation, I will remind my students tomorrow that our hallway doors should always be locked, so if an intruder shows up we can just pull the doors closed without fiddling with keys. I have assigned students whose job it is to check those doors every period to make sure we don’t forget.

I will try to keep the children quiet during our drill on Tuesday. It’s hard. They’re packed in tight behind those cabinet doors, and they talk and giggle. Because they’re children. They look like young adults, but they’re children.

I will try to keep them quiet, because we hope that this will give that illusion of an empty classroom. I will try to keep them quiet because even though I know it’s a drill, they do not, and they need to treat each drill like the real thing. They must have the procedure driven in by repetition.

Inevitably some children will be sure that it is real, and they will be terrified. Two years ago, one boy - a big hulking kid turning into a “tough guy” - broke down in tears when the administrator jiggled the doorknob to our room while we hid behind the cabinets.

I will sit down and process feelings of fear and panic with at least a few students. How do we process the panic we put them through? Every time we run through these drills, we violate their trust - their trust in us and their trust in a safe, secure world. We violate their trust in the name of safety.

Two years ago, a PE teacher wasn’t informed that the intruder drill was a drill. He panicked, and screamed at the kids to “Shut the **** Up!” while they were laughing and joking.

Who could blame him? He was terrified. 

Afterward, some of the children will talk a big game. How they would jump on a shooter, how they would climb out a window instead of staying in a classroom. 

How they’d be a hero.

A few of them ask if I’d do anything to save them in the event of an active shooter. I can’t answer, because although I want to reassure them I really don’t know, and I don’t know how to express all those complicated feelings.

A few will scoff and say, “Of course Mr B wouldn’t do anything. He doesn’t like us.”

And I don’t know what to say to that, either, other than to go back to my lesson plan. I strive to be honest with my students, and the honest answer is that I’d do all I can - I hope - but the human body isn’t much match for gunpowder and lead.

At home I will replay the drill. Did we get it accomplished quickly? Tightly? Efficiently? Are my children safe? Will they be safe?

Can I keep them safe?

(No.)

How would I ever live with it if I lost one?

What about seventeen of them?

Each of these kids, awful and irritating though they can be, is a magical world in and of themself. Four years and one hundred sixty kids in, and they’re still all different and wonderful and fascinating. Every day, if I am very very careful and very very patient and very very lucky, I get to unlock just a little more of one of those fantastic inner worlds. 

A chunk of lead, hurtling through the air, thrown by a little explosion triggered by one man’s finger, can destroy that entire world.

I still don’t understand why I am expected to teach my children how to survive in a violent world, but my country isn’t expected to make the world less violent.

None of these questions are academic. None of these questions are distant or political. They are meat and blood and gristle, and they are lives lived in fear for so long that my children don’t know anything that isn’t fear.

So I really don’t give a damn how important owning a gun is to you.

[FoxesDeb]

That actually brought a tear to my eye 

[Izzy]

Just now, FoxesDeb said:

That actually brought a tear to my eye 

Me too Deb. How very sad.

[leicsmac]

Yeah, I saw this too.

 

I just hope one day, the depth of feeling like this will actually lead to some meaningful change.

[FoxesDeb]

Like most of us of a similar age, I remember Dunblane very well. I really can't comprehend how a modern, progressive country allows similar events to happen so regularly, while seemingly doing nothing to prevent them. Dunblane for us must surely (and thankfully) remain one of the worst things to happen here, yet it was over 20 years ago. 

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, FoxesDeb said:

Like most of us of a similar age, I remember Dunblane very well. I really can't comprehend how a modern, progressive country allows similar events to happen so regularly, while seemingly doing nothing to prevent them. Dunblane for us must surely (and thankfully) remain one of the worst things to happen here, yet it was over 20 years ago. 

It's been discussed a fair bit in this thread - sadly, the idea of being able to defend yourself using whatever violence is necessary is inbuilt into the national psyche over here. That's why there are so many guns in circulation.

 

I'd be very, very happy to see them all amnestyfied tomorrow, but it's such a political morass because you're going right to the heart of the national identity.

[FoxesDeb]

7 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

It's been discussed a fair bit in this thread - sadly, the idea of being able to defend yourself using whatever violence is necessary is inbuilt into the national psyche over here. That's why there are so many guns in circulation.

 

I'd be very, very happy to see them all amnestyfied tomorrow, but it's such a political morass because you're going right to the heart of the national identity.

Yes I've read what's been said, I don't know enough about the politics involved to make an informed or intelligent comment on the situation, but from my very simplistic view, the incredulity of it just blows my mind really 

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, FoxesDeb said:

Yes I've read what's been said, I don't know enough about the politics involved to make an informed or intelligent comment on the situation, but from my very simplistic view, the incredulity of it just blows my mind really 

Yeah, I can't get my head around it much either tbh. The whole mentality is just...well, I don't know.

[Izzy]

[Grebfromgrebland]

Unfortunately I can see the White House trying to demonize those with any mental health issues on the back of this.

 

Basically whatever sick angle you can find on a topic the American government tend to be right on it.

[somebum]

2 hours ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

Unfortunately I can see the White House trying to demonize those with any mental health issues on the back of this.

 

Basically whatever sick angle you can find on a topic the American government tend to be right on it.

Want the President to change the constitution?

[Grebfromgrebland]

The constitution isn't unchangeable where there's a will there's a way. 

 

They could rid themselves of guns over time and change the culture and make owning guns as stigmatized as it is here, it's take time probably a generation or two but it could happen. 

 

The fact is thoughts and prayers are the answer to massacres in the US rather than anything that will make an actual difference.

[Izzy]

As Jiff Jefferies says, I thought the whole point of an amendment is that you can amend it?

[Grebfromgrebland]

2 minutes ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

As Jiff Jefferies says, I thought the whole point of an amendment is that you can amend it?

Yes but any amendments must be for the sole benefit of those with the power to make said amendment.

[Izzy]

3 minutes ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

Yes but any amendments must be for the sole benefit of those with the power to make said amendment.

And here's me thinking that any amendments should be for the benefit of the nation's people.

 

Silly me...

[DJ Barry Hammond]

 

The law will change, maybe not now, but soon enough - for the simple fact that enough kids will have gone through the ordeal or know someone who has, that when that generation reach voting age the groundswell of public opinion will force it. 

[leicsmac]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43105701

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, this might lead to something meaningful...but quite frankly I'm not holding my breath.

[Mr Mister]

Sadly this is par the course in America. That is the problem you get when guns is at the heart of your national culture.

[Jon the Hat]

I’m encouraged by the response of the kids affected.  People have the power! They just need to realise it.

[Captain...]

Weirdly I think the Donald is probably more likely to do something than Obama because he is an absolute maverick and doesn't really follow convention. If the right people can get in his ear and convince him he will go down in history, he is just unpredictable enough to try and do it.

[Rincewind]

The thing is the 2nd amendment was brought in when there were no AR around. The guns you had were single ball bearing and you would be lucky to hit a target 6 ft wide. If they had AR I am sure there would have been stricter controls. But the NRA and a proportion of the people are so obsessed with 'their right to bear arms' they cannot see the stupidity of the ease that guns can be obtained. In the NRA's case it is mainly money and they have the government by the balls with their control of the politicians.

It has gone too far to ban guns altogether but why the hell would you need an AR for everyday use. It's not as if you can put it under your pillow or in your inside pocket of your coat.  After the Dunblane shooting stricter controls were brought in on the availability of guns and there has not been an mass killing as bad since. Australia banned guns and there have been no mass killings.

I realise it has gone too far to ban guns altogether but it needs stricter control of availability. It is true criminals will still get them but criminals mainly shoot other criminals if related to gangs. It is the normal guy on the street who suddenly flip because they have had a bad day that are the danger. All it needs is a certain part of the brain to malfunction. It can happen to anyone when stress becomes too much.

[Jon the Hat]

The place to start is to reform entirely political funding.  The fact that the NRA can fund their own politicians is insane, same for companies etc.  Solve this, solve guns, solve everything else.

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, Captain... said:

Weirdly I think the Donald is probably more likely to do something than Obama because he is an absolute maverick and doesn't really follow convention. If the right people can get in his ear and convince him he will go down in history, he is just unpredictable enough to try and do it.

There's something in this. He is more likely to get something completely nuts (and let's face it, as much as it needs to be done this would be nuts) done than your average president.

 

 

18 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

The place to start is to reform entirely political funding.  The fact that the NRA can fund their own politicians is insane, same for companies etc.  Solve this, solve guns, solve everything else.

This. So much money in there.

[Bellend Sebastian]

The main reason for people owning such powerful weapons seems to be the fear that the authorities will try and take your powerful weapons from you.

 

Yes, it is confusing isn't it?

[Buce]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

There's something in this. He is more likely to get something completely nuts (and let's face it, as much as it needs to be done this would be nuts) done than your average president.

 

 

That's not going to happen - the NRA funded his election campaign to the tune of $30,000,000.