Everyone in the know is keenly aware as to why the parkland school shooting was not easily avoided.

No Guns
 

Teachers have an awesome task of instilling in their students the desire to learn and teaching them how to put to use the knowledge they acquire. That, in itself, is a very stressful full-time job. To burden these qualified people with the added responsibility of looking out for their students if a lock-down should occur and having the task of keeping a gun secure until they felt they needed it is enough of a stressful situation even for law enforcement officials who have been fully trained to do their job. They cannot be expected to have two full-time jobs at one time. Many teachers have helped keep children safe in a very precarious situation just by directing them properly where to hide from a deranged gunman. The responsibility is too great to be given the extra burden of training to have them using a gun in a hostile environment under such stressful circumstances. Hire more school guards and take appropriate measures to alert everyone of a hostile situation with modern tech devices that can be used instantaneously. No Guns

You have not been over for a while.
Whilst the normal bobby is unarmed, there are now a lot of armed response units.
Our nutters prefer to stab people anyway!

I suppose, unlike you, I am simply unaware as you say.

BUT, I was also under the impression this thread was not about any specific shooting but general.

But again, I am not "in the know"

Are you saying that if Nicolas Cruz, the shooter, had started in elementary school where there were lessons in empathy, resilience, conflict resolution, how to deal with bullying etc that it could not have made a difference? He was expelled, sort of like the Virginia mass shooter who was fired. Is there a common theme here?

I do not know the psychology of it all, but one common thing is they all feel "put upon" or a "victim".

A concept shared by most I think....will take adjustments to that, but seems to me, feeling a victim and needing a way to "show" everybody and blame everyone else is common.

Yes! The school broke it "promise" to the school, the community and especially the families of the dead.

Most likely nothing has changed. Parkland is just one example, one of the most obvious.

Sad.


Promises broken ...

Guidance / Promise Program

"A specific set of code of conduct violations has been identified by a cross-community collaborative workgroup, as being appropriate infractions for which participation in PROMISE [misdemeanors that do not raise to the level of serious challenges to public safety, bullying and harassment] would be an appropriate intervention."

They are begging for more shootings. Serious changes of administration is needed.

In our schools, from kindergarten on, there is a series of ways of identifying students who need special help, and these students are often placed in appropriate settings to get it. By the time they get to high school the teachers would know what to expect and what may work with these students. The teens are a very difficult time for most students. Their adult brain has not developed until age 25. The “misfits” need extra help, and guidance and direction to get through the ‘teen angst” years and beyond.

Why is this thread still going? It is clearly political. And for the record, I've played golf with many retired teachers, and they all scoff at the idea of guns in schools. We need better gun laws, universal background checks, better gun safety training, and we need to outlaw military type guns. Who really needs to own an AK-47? Require mental health professionals to report people who might be dangerous. Enforce laws that restrict gun access for people under domestic violence restraining orders. Ban large capacity ammunition magazines. And as Velvet mentioned above, give training to teachers to identify the problem kids who might have a propensity for gun violence, and work with the kids to possibly prevent a mass killing.

Maybe those same retired teachers say the opposite in a different setting.

ALL the retired and current teachers I know are in favor of guns in schools and in trained teachers hands.

Unless there are metal detectors at the doors, it is already possible that every teacher he encounters may be armed. Even then it's possible. Unless you think teachers aren't capable of breaking the law and carrying even if it is a gun-free zone?

I personally don't feel there should be any "gun-free" or "gun-allowed" zones in schools. These terms shouldn't even come up in conversation.

If the killer has reason to think the teachers might be armed, it'll just make the killer shoot the teachers first. Problem solved, and now he can proceed to killing everyone else.

If he thinks the teachers aren't armed, then it won't matter who he goes after first.

In either situation, both teachers and students are at risk of death. In the first situation though, it's pretty much a guarantee that the teachers will die first. That is the ONLY thing that arming teachers will accomplish.

Guns
 

I completely agree with this poster. Guns in the class room is a horrid idea. I taught for 13 years and many chances for a child to get to a gun arose in the classroom. Kids, particularly boys, will be drawn toward "just Holding" the gun. Even if it is put in the back waistband of the teacher they would have to stop going up and down the isles to keep a child from reaching for it. This is just too dangerous a situation for the classroom no matter how much training a teacher gets. The entrances need to be monitored more so the shooters can't get in. The kids will NOT be trained. :thumbup:

Teaching these things is a great idea. But that takes time. While you're waiting for everyone to learn what you're teaching them, SOMEONE has to protect the kids. I think people whose primary job is to protect them, should protect them. Teachers should not be those people, because their primary job is to teach.

I think you give the shooters more credit than they deserve. They are some dumb assed kids that don't know how to use a gun or prioritize targets. I do believe that there is a deterrent affect if they didn't know the school was gun free but as far as taking the teachers first or the order of targets is well beyond the scope. They are not too smart and scared spitless. Thank god they are so poor at what they do or the death tole would be much higher. I think they for the most part have some experience with weapons from video games which desensitize them but can give them some simulator skills.