How to prevent school shootings?

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It seems like school shootings are having a big impact on gun politics in the US. It seems inherently hard, however, to prevent random and isolated individuals from carrying out such acts. What are some things that you think might be done to reduce incidence of school shootings in the US?

I was kind of thinking about this today and was wondering about having all new teachers train extensively in CQB, and then issuing them weapons to carry while on the job. There could also be a small arms locker with some rifles in each teachers’ lounge where multiple teachers are likely to be congregating at any given time. What if during the programs and schools that one normally attends to become a teacher, CQB and emergency first aid is a mandatory subject? Part of the training would also, of course, include helping aspiring teachers to cultivate the appropriate combative mindset to be able to take this role. Teaching students would practice CQB and do force on force training throughout the entire teacher training program so that by the time they graduated they would have had consistent training for several years. The CQB would be standardized through the DOE so that theoretically any teacher could team up with any other teacher. You’d just need like 5 teachers who meet up during an incident to at least have the ability to form a small team.

It also might help smooth over the politics of the US. For some reason, certain political groups seem to be a bit anti-teacher. However, if teachers were also seen as first responders in some capacity, perhaps respect for teachers across the US would become more universal.

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I’m having awesome visions of tubby geography teachers breaching and clearing rooms.

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[QUOTE=Wounded Ronin;2875316]It seems like school shootings are having a big impact on gun politics in the US. It seems inherently hard, however, to prevent random and isolated individuals from carrying out such acts. What are some things that you think might be done to reduce incidence of school shootings in the US?[/QUOTE]

1st lets be clear, when we are talking about school shootings it extends to any sort of shooting at a school, not just the shootings that make national head lines.
To kind of put a point on this
In December 1, 2000 in San Diego, California a A 15-year-old student who showed off a handgun on campus and threatened to shoot a classmate […] ended up accidentally shooting himself on Friday, causing minor injuries.
Is considered a School shooting.
Hence why I am not a big fan of the term or the stats used around the term.

[QUOTE=Wounded Ronin;2875316]
I was kind of thinking about this today and was wondering about having all new teachers train extensively in CQB, and then issuing them weapons to carry while on the job. There could also be a small arms locker with some rifles in each teachers’ lounge where multiple teachers are likely to be congregating at any given time. What if during the programs and schools that one normally attends to become a teacher, CQB and emergency first aid is a mandatory subject? Part of the training would also, of course, include helping aspiring teachers to cultivate the appropriate combative mindset to be able to take this role. Teaching students would practice CQB and do force on force training throughout the entire teacher training program so that by the time they graduated they would have had consistent training for several years. The CQB would be standardized through the DOE so that theoretically any teacher could team up with any other teacher. You’d just need like 5 teachers who meet up during an incident to at least have the ability to form a small team.
[/QUOTE]
Are you fucking nuts? This is like the worse idea I have ever heard. So bad I don’t even feel like explaining to you why its so fucking bad. Think about that shit.

[QUOTE=Wounded Ronin;2875316]
It also might help smooth over the politics of the US. For some reason, certain political groups seem to be a bit anti-teacher. However, if teachers were also seen as first responders in some capacity, perhaps respect for teachers across the US would become more universal.[/QUOTE]
Teachers tend to unionized and educated, this makes teachers very liberal leaning in the US. Thus why you have certain political groups(conservative leaning) be a bit anti-teacher.
Those same groups also only pay lip service to First Respondents they tend to not actually support them when it comes time to draft up budgets.

The solution to “School Shootings” is the same solution to all shootings, as they are mostly just that a shooting that so happen to be at a school.
Oh and that solution doesn’t really exist as shootings happen for a god damn shit load of reasons that can’t be summed up in a simple little post online.

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Thanks all for the thoughts. I really appreciated the link showing violence is down in the US. It’s amazing that today, we are politically so volatile and reactive on the subject of violence within the US, when all long the problem has actually been greatly diminishing. I guess it demonstrates how the media completely distorts reality for most Americans.

I guess I forgot to say it in my original post but it would go without saying that there would be mandatory refresher training every summer so it wouldn’t be like the last training someone had was 20 years ago. There would need to be physical fitness standards too.

Another political side affect could be normalization of firearms. If people grow up seeing armed teachers in areas that otherwise don’t have firearms culture, maybe they wouldn’t get so weird about firearms later in life in the political arena, pursuing such knee jerk measures as gun control, due to cultural unfamiliarity and lack of comfort with firearms.

Goodlun, I appreciate your frank criticism. (And of course your incisive comments.) I thought that people might think the proposal is really out there. That being said, some workplaces are already conducting Hail Mary type training on trying to tackle an active shooter: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/active-shooter-training-for-office-workers-not-about-hiding-anymore/ar-BBnJW7Z?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=mailsignout

Stuff like that seems pretty questionable, but on the other hand, if someone’s going to kill you or a lot of people anyway, some people might want to go for a Hail Mary. Better to die on your feet than on your knees, right?

So having teachers be armed is just doubling down on that kind of thing, which already is out there, by adding weapons and a degree of training, and trying to add the ability to achieve a combative mindset in training years in advance.

This is just sort of a brainstorm, too. Maybe having teachers with sidearms on them all the time could have some unintended consequences, but maybe the focus could be figuring out how to have a couple of secure small arms lockers that teachers could access in an emergency, or some other way of having weapons be available when they’re needed. The principle is figuring out a way to have the ability to have responders who have trained in that school building (during the summer, say) on the scene almost immediately because they’re already there and just need to access their equipment.

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The first step is to convince the general public that the sky is not falling.
Good luck!

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[QUOTE=ChenPengFi;2875343]The first step is to convince the general public that the sky is not falling.
Good luck![/QUOTE]

I shit you not I spent a good amount of time having to be 100% sure that every workstation at work had access to this

//youtu.be/5VcSwejU2D0

and this site
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cirg/active-shooter-and-mass-casualty-incidents/run-hide-fight-video

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[QUOTE=Wounded Ronin;2875334]Thanks all for the thoughts. I really appreciated the link showing violence is down in the US. It’s amazing that today, we are politically so volatile and reactive on the subject of violence within the US, when all long the problem has actually been greatly diminishing. I guess it demonstrates how the media completely distorts reality for most Americans.

I guess I forgot to say it in my original post but it would go without saying that there would be mandatory refresher training every summer so it wouldn’t be like the last training someone had was 20 years ago. There would need to be physical fitness standards too.

Another political side affect could be normalization of firearms. If people grow up seeing armed teachers in areas that otherwise don’t have firearms culture, maybe they wouldn’t get so weird about firearms later in life in the political arena, pursuing such knee jerk measures as gun control, due to cultural unfamiliarity and lack of comfort with firearms.

Goodlun, I appreciate your frank criticism. (And of course your incisive comments.) I thought that people might think the proposal is really out there. That being said, some workplaces are already conducting Hail Mary type training on trying to tackle an active shooter: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/active-shooter-training-for-office-workers-not-about-hiding-anymore/ar-BBnJW7Z?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=mailsignout

Stuff like that seems pretty questionable, but on the other hand, if someone’s going to kill you or a lot of people anyway, some people might want to go for a Hail Mary. Better to die on your feet than on your knees, right?

So having teachers be armed is just doubling down on that kind of thing, which already is out there, by adding weapons and a degree of training, and trying to add the ability to achieve a combative mindset in training years in advance.

This is just sort of a brainstorm, too. Maybe having teachers with sidearms on them all the time could have some unintended consequences, but maybe the focus could be figuring out how to have a couple of secure small arms lockers that teachers could access in an emergency, or some other way of having weapons be available when they’re needed. The principle is figuring out a way to have the ability to have responders who have trained in that school building (during the summer, say) on the scene almost immediately because they’re already there and just need to access their equipment.[/QUOTE]

Armed security guards would be a better option. A lot of schools have “school resource officers” that are uniformed police officers or deputies stationed at schools.

I don’t know how many of the latest school attacks had either armed security guards or resource officers on campus. I suspect none or very few of them.

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How much money does gun violence research, or really violence research in general, get compared to breast cancer or depression? Not enough, apparently (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/basic-gun-violence-research-is-seriously-underfunded_561aa218e4b0dbb8000ef5f0). And what about just basic firearms education in the public at large? How many people understand why expanding ammunition is used or what makes a gun a sniper rifle? To the best of my ability to tell, the answers to these questions are and will ostensibly remain mysterious to all but those who make a deliberate effort to educate themselves.

It isn’t like this with motor vehicles, or medications, or any other of the multitudinous risk-laden materials we accept in our daily lives. Firearm politics have snowballed such that with every generation the public is increasingly ignorant on a topic that forcefully invites opinionated expression. If this goes unchanged, the momentum will continue to sway against firearm ownership and an increasingly marginalised segment of every population will continue to be the whipping boy whenever a tragedy strikes.

I want to believe it’s possible to reverse the trend, balance the discourse, and actually actively create laws that make places better to live in, but as long as the discussion about firearms ownership centres around issues like what an “assault weapon” is and why you would ever “need” one, we’re standing on quicksand.

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In terms of training teachers. Good idea but I doubt it would work. Given the nature of parents and their wonky personal opinions I would be doubtful they’d appreciate knowing teachers can fuck people up. And what if a teacher is a rapist? I’m not American so I have no idea how they hire school teachers there but here there aren’t very stringent guidelines. A bachelors, teacher college, and a criminal background checks all they get.

In terms of preventing school shootings. It wouldn’t be wrong to suggest having some form of security officer inside the building. As it takes time for police and swat to show up at the school. Plus they have to wait before going in and such, having someone on deck who is trained for this type of thing is a good idea. However maybe not cost effective. There are so many different possible solutions. For example I believe some schools implemented the bullet blanket things. That’s cool n all but how hard is it for a shooter to yank it out of children’s hands and open fire? Having an officer on hand would be the best solution in my opinion as so many schools (highschools at least) have them on hand or nearby.

Lowkey if you really want to prevent school shootings just teach everyone not to be crazy and maybe it’d be okay.

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Actually I agree with you. The single most important thing that could be done to assure firearms ownership in the future would be to de-mystify and normalize firearms by exposing a lot more people to the simple and pro-social aspects of marksmanship, hunting, and so on. Let people see firearms as a way to pass on family tradition, discipline, teach focus, and so on.

If I were the NRA I would be doing everything possible to just introduce shooting as a positive activity especially in “blue states”.

[QUOTE=DARPAChief;2875449]How much money does gun violence research, or really violence research in general, get compared to breast cancer or depression? Not enough, apparently (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/basic-gun-violence-research-is-seriously-underfunded_561aa218e4b0dbb8000ef5f0). And what about just basic firearms education in the public at large? How many people understand why expanding ammunition is used or what makes a gun a sniper rifle? To the best of my ability to tell, the answers to these questions are and will ostensibly remain mysterious to all but those who make a deliberate effort to educate themselves.

It isn’t like this with motor vehicles, or medications, or any other of the multitudinous risk-laden materials we accept in our daily lives. Firearm politics have snowballed such that with every generation the public is increasingly ignorant on a topic that forcefully invites opinionated expression. If this goes unchanged, the momentum will continue to sway against firearm ownership and an increasingly marginalised segment of every population will continue to be the whipping boy whenever a tragedy strikes.

I want to believe it’s possible to reverse the trend, balance the discourse, and actually actively create laws that make places better to live in, but as long as the discussion about firearms ownership centres around issues like what an “assault weapon” is and why you would ever “need” one, we’re standing on quicksand.[/QUOTE]

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WHAT A BEAUTIFUL OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE JOBS! Place an armed security guard (apart from an SRO) at every public school with an AR and full body armor.

Problem fixed.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

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There’s a few things you can do to reduce the frequency of school shootings, but there is a lot you can do to reduce casualties when one occurs.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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[QUOTE=whitebeltfury;2876279]WHAT A BEAUTIFUL OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE JOBS! Place an armed security guard (apart from an SRO) at every public school with an AR and full body armor.

Problem fixed.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk[/QUOTE]

New problem: school shootings by armed security guards.

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First off, what we are actually talking about is mass killings at schools. Firearms may be the current preferred method, but we would be kidding ourselves by pretending people wouldn’t switch to knives or explosives if the firearm option were taken away. Second, I don’t think they can be prevented. I think you can minimize them with a combination of identifying violence prone individuals early and getting them help, creating a culture of support vs division within student bodies, increasing police presence, and arming teachers and administrators. It blows my mind that people trust teachers with the intellectual development of their children, but don’t trust them to carry a firearm to protect the lives of their children. Realistically, which one of those things is the more dangerous?

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I found an article on this issue: http://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/arming-teachers-and-school-staff/

Lots of things were said, but this was one of the most interesting for discussion:

He said it is short-sighted for those supporting the idea to believe that educators who enter a profession to teach and serve a supportive, nuturing role with children could abruptly kick into the mindset to kill someone in a second’s notice. Police officers train their entire careeer and enter each traffic stop and individual encounter with a preparedness and life-safety mindset that is different from the professional training and mindset of educators.

Do you think that the mindset necessary for teaching somehow hampers or precludes the mindset needed to engage a mass shooter?

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There’s no real way of actually knowing if someone is capable of engaging and then killing another person until it actually happens.

I’d agree that generally teachers wouldn’t be up for that role as academia doesn’t lend itself as a trait for winning gun battles, however that doesn’t stop a teacher from having a Leo or military background, also personal preservation and a natural instinct to protect the kids may kick in and they’d get through it.

It all boils down to the individual and what happens on the day.

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Home schooling, the perfect solution !

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[QUOTE=BKR;2882036]Home schooling, the perfect solution ![/QUOTE]

That’s also the solution to the poor state of the public schools in the US. Your kid might actually get an education, imagine that!

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[QUOTE=Wounded Ronin;2882061]That’s also the solution to the poor state of the public schools in the US. Your kid might actually get an education, imagine that![/QUOTE]

I think that depends on the particular state, and in fact within a state the particular school district and even school, and down to parental involvement too.

My kids are getting a decent education. I see home schooled kids that do OK, some suffer from lack of social contact. Home schooling is VERY popular around here. Lots of factors involved.

However, if there were no schools, would be no mass killings at schools, that 's for sure !

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What really would reduce school shootings

Per Secret Service report, almost all school shootings by juveniles are pre-planned. Most attackers communicated grievances to others prior to the attack. Prior to the incident in 75% of the cases, the attackers told someone about their interest in mounting an attack. In more than 50%, they told more than one person about the ideas or plans. BUT - In only 2 cases did peers, in formed of the intent, notify an adult of the threat.

There is no particular psychological profile associated with juvenile school shooters.

BUT:
In nearly 66% of the incidents with juvenile active shooters, the guns came from their home or that of a relative.

So, from this, we can derive the following:

  1. Even with all the encouragement in the world, youth are generally not going to inform adults that their peer intends to shoot up the school.
  2. Mental health professionals/mental health treatment probably won’t help, as we cannot mandate treatment for what we don’t see (and there are millions of kids already in treatment - if that was the answer, we are either treating the wrong kids, or it’s not the answer at all).
  3. If kids have to go outside the home to get a firearm, that means they’ll be stealing it, borrowing it or buying it (illegally). In all three cases, they are far more likely to be found out. Just like a person can have a drug addiction stealing meds from grandma’s hospice care and no one knows, but if they have to go on the street, they’ll soon be noticed.

In short, not ‘gun control’ rather 'control of the guns in the family’s possession.