School shootings / Mass Shootings / Solutions Thread

Not that anyone around here will follow the script, but I am starting this thread for general discussion of this issue. There is always both specific and general discussion in the individual mass shooting threads, but interest always falls off when that specific incident starts to fade and/or when there is a new one in the news.

Today, my kids' middle school received an online threat of someone going to "shoot up the school". Apparently, it happened last night in an online math forum, and the school principal sent out an email in the middle of the night informing the parents of it. Not surprisingly, almost none of us saw the email. It informed us that local police will be at the school today, and that during their investigation last night the threat was deemed not credible. The computer of a student was "hacked" and someone posted the message from their computer.

My daughter called from school at 8:15AM to tell us about it and that she and everyone was nervous. Then my son called shortly afterward to tell us that half his class had been picked up to go home. So, dutiful dad, fearing I may have to trade in my man-card for a snowflake-card went to retrieve the kids and take them home.

Two cop cars outside with lights flashing did indeed elicit mild distress. Tons of parents at the school, folks waiting at the outside buzzer waiting to be buzzed in, instead just went in the door as other parents/kids were coming out. Though there was someone inside asking each parent what they were there for. Policeman in the middle of the atrium area chatting with an administrator, calm enough.

Lots of admin staff up front, maybe a little frazzled, but also handling things pretty well and smoothly calling each room to request the kids be sent up front. They had been advised that the threat had been deemed "not credible" and were acting accordingly. Apparently, by the time I got there at 9:15, hundreds of parents had already been there to retrieve their kids so things were "slowing down", but there were still dozens coming and going.

One thing I thought, while observing all this, was that indeed, if anyone were to show up with ill intentions, all of these people were really vulnerable. I'm not saying that I'm in favor of armed teachers in classes all across America, but the few cops on site, while reassuring, still felt inadequate...

 

The anonymity of the internet has enabled behavior that would have been difficult to get away with pre-internet. That genie is out of the bottle, so our only recourse is to figure out how to move forward. If you think about it, we accept a LOT of inconvenience in out lives due to the actions of a very small percentage of the population. Security at banks, courthouses, airports, etc is not due to the actions of the majority. The same will be true for whatever comes out of the current hysteria. Reaction is almost never the best course of action. Stepping back and evaluating cause and effect should be the plan. It probably won't be. We will take knee jerk actions and applaud ourselves for doing something until the next time when yet another shooter refuses to follow the new rules and we again do something that will not prevent the next.

 

There's a big uproar in my hometown because one of these stupid threats was made that was obviously false, but the admin played it down instead of making a big deal out of nothing. It's looking like some top people may be losing their jobs over it. Dumb.

 

Agree, Acree.

I've met many very "smart" people in my life, but relatively few who have the process-oriented and/or logical thinking to truly solve problems. And that's just at school and work! This is is a complex problem, with politics, agendas and other hidden motivations all in play.

 

Discussion I was having with a co-worker about Florida. Lots of folks likely downplayed the threat posed by Cruz. How the heck do you know when a threat is credible or not? Who gets to decide? That's probably why making threats is a felony.

Very current example - http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/37617469/dade-co-student-charged-with-felony-after-making-threat

 

IMHO, too many vociferous people are chasing Unicorns and Moonbeams. The long term goal seems to be zero risk, not reasonable risk. Aside from the fact that no risk is unattainable, it would be an existence so bland most of the personalities here would not want to participate.

 

The threats and anonymity of a threat has been around since the pay phone days. We had two bomb threats in my 4 years of HS - always treated seriously despite everyone "knowing" there was no way.

 

It was less prevalent, or at the very least less reported than today. Were there attention seekers? Sure. But there was no social media to broadcast the stupidity. I'm not saying there was not stupid, there was. I simply do not believe the stupid acted out quite as often as they do today.

 

I grew up in many different places, mostly on or near military bases. Bomb threats were actually a pretty common occurrence. They also occurred when I was a co-op student at Yamaha in Newnan, Georgia. They caught that guy after realizing the calls were always coming just-prior-to 2nd shift from the gas station across the street. Set up a camera. Lots of bomb squad evacs and dogs and lost productivity.

Thing is, no bombs ever went off...

 

My son has missed 2 days of school this year due to these type of shooting threats. These ideas are generated somewhere. Do we need a worthless blanket solution like the tsa?

 

TSA: the greatest theater troupe in all the land.

Security is just that, theater.

 

A quick internet search will show that these threats are occurring all over the country since the Florida shooting. I don't know what causes that. Is it like future serial killers learning their trade on animals first? Cruz certainly demonstrated that he was working his way up to the actual event by issuing many verbal threats in advance.

We definitely don't need a worthless solution! We need some actual solutions

 

There will always be those that thrive on notoriety. What you are seeing now is a mix of copycats that fall into two categories. Idjits that are just trying to stir things up and people that really would do something like this given the opportunity. The problem is discerning the difference. This is one of those areas where privacy and safety will clash, which is no different than it always has been.

 

It's the #metoo types and wanting to keep it in the media. There was one at my son's high school. He went to school and had a normal day, a couple extra cops sitting around is all.

 

Here’s my concern ... how many of those potential future actors will call in threats just to learn/judge the response? My daughter’s school had a bomb threat called in late last year. I was livid when seeing the response plan. She’s in kindergarten ... at a different school across town. But the admin decided it’s plan should still be to bus the K-1st kids over to the other schools to change buses like every other day, then have them all sit there on the buses and evacuate each class individually. So, the plan was to bring the safe, protected, most helpless littles from across town INTO the threat area, then leave ALL the kids as sitting ducks on the buses while evacuating the classrooms one by one. What in the actual f@ck are they thinking?!?!

If I’m legitimately looking to cause harm ... I now know the timing and how to cause the most damage. That doesn’t sit well with me.

 

Therein lies the problem in expecting bureaucrats to come up with a simple common sense solution. Government doesn't do simple.

 

Uggghhh.... the TSA is just a joke.

 

First step is registration and background checks before being given internet access.

 

Well... you cant treat every threat as if it were real, but when you look at this kids history, and how many encounters with law enforcement he had, that pattern should be easy to see for the people we pay to literally look for these kids of patterns.

 

Personally, I find this solution to be fairly simple. See the building in my picture? I found this by Googling "dystopian building", and this is what we'll need. 1 way in, 1 way out. The front entrance will have body scanners, a security presence and german shephards (just for the hell of it). This is the future. I am being deathly serious.