Yet another school shooting

[gbclarkson]

I see TFL threads pop up from time-to-time debating the policy of having defensive firearms in public schools. My response: NO!

This issue hits close to home for me now. Last week there was a shooting in the cafeteria of the high school in my home town, in the district in which I teach, the school from which I graduated and the same school my son will be attending in two years. This particular incident was mitigated to one injured student because an alert PE teacher tackled the shooter. Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community. The mental illness that brews through adolescence, and leads to the choice of violence to solve an emotional problem, is typically identified at the elementary level. But, we do not have the resources to adequately intervene for these children or to help their caregivers. School violence is a public health crisis and must to be addressed within that sphere.

Contact your elected federal representative and tell them, ask, or demand that he or she support the Mental Health in Schools Act. This act proposes to provide public schools with the funding to staff mental health professionals. It has been stalled in sub-committee since March, 2015.

 

[K_Mac]

What if the PE teacher had been incapacitated by the shooter, who then went on to kill or seriously injure other students? What if there were trained and skilled teachers who had multiple options of dealing with an active shooter, including lethal force if required? What if lethal force was the only way of stopping the violence? Would the students or teachers be safer without that option?

Mental health treatment in our country is much like affordable health care in general: It is often talked about, but no one is doing much to make it happen. I hope that we can come to terms with these issues. In the meantime we need to protect ourselves and our children from mentally ill people who would use violence against us. Limiting our options doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Mr. Hill]

how specifically would that legislation have prevented that horrible event, what is the projected annual cost, and are there anti-gun provisions contained therein?

 

[ShootistPRS]

If I carry a concealed weapon into school when I pick up my grandchild I want to know why it would be wrong? Why can't a qualified individual have a gun to protect those things we care most about?
The schools that presidents children attend and the children of other state officials have paid security guards who carry guns. Are their kids more important than yours? Cops can openly carry their guns into a school so why should it be banned other than to permit bad guys free reign on the targets of their choice?
Banning guns only stops good people, law abiding citizens, from having the means to protect themselves and others. Bans have never stopped criminals.

 

[Skadoosh]

I see TFL threads pop up from time-to-time debating the policy of having defensive firearms in public schools. My response: NO!

Virtually a drive-by post. Blanket statement with ZERO supporting evidence or logical reasoning. From a teacher who, in this instance, chose not to teach. Nice goin'. I don't see this thread lasting very long.

 

[5whiskey]

While it is a firearms topic, and not off limits, I'm afraid the way you proposed it is akin to opening a can of worms. For instance...

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community

Its an issue that cannot be solved by debate on mental health bills either. It is just as much a 2nd amendment debate as it is a mental health debate. Columbine would not have been stopped by one gym teacher tackling the shooters. It MIGHT have been much less catastrophic with one armed person who was well trained. Or maybe not. We will never know.

Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

Probably not. But that is one tactic used in one scenario. Most here will think its silly to try and carry a rifle out of fear of a mass shooting because there might be a scenario or 2 where it would make sense. Even if there is a chance of a situation that a pistol will be useless while a rifle might save your life, there is a remoteness of that chance and carrying a rifle everywhere is impractical. Most will opt out. Just because a blind side tackle was a better tactic in one situation doesn't mean it will be every other time.

As long as human beings are capable of deceit, then the chance that mental health professionals will pro actively identify a school shooting before it occurs is probably on par with the chance of an armed good guy stopping the shooting.

 

[OldMarksman]

The suggestion that conjecture about what might have happened differently in one single incident can be used to formulate a solution, or to discredit other strategies, is ludicrous.

The idea that a more attention on improved mental health would be an effective strategy for the mitigation of risk associate with violent attacks on unprotected innocents is naive.

 

[Green Lantern]

Anger management

 

[gbclarkson]

The suggestion that conjecture about what might have happened differently in one single incident can be used to formulate a solution, or to discredit other strategies, is ludicrous.

It's not just this one single incident. It's all of them. They were all mentally unstable. A gun in the school won't fix that.

The idea that a more attention on improved mental health would be an effective strategy for the mitigation of risk associate with violent attacks on unprotected innocents is naive.

Naive? You're assertion that mental services would not be beneficial is absolutely moronic. How would those services hurt?

 

[Eazyeach]

He didn't say those services wouldn't be beneficial or that they would hurt. He said they wouldn't prevent violent attacks on UNPROTECTED innocents. Man do you work for CNN? You can't cherry pick like that.

 

[K_Mac]

gbclarkson:

You used the successful intervention of the PE teacher to make your point that guns should not be allowed in schools. OldMarksman correctly points out that this isolated incident does not make your point.

I think the way we treat, or more accurately don't treat mental illness in this country is disgraceful. With that said, improved treatment of troubled adolescents and adults "will not stop violent attacks on unprotected innocents."

The issue then becomes, what are we going to do when these attacks take place? I believe having armed, trained, skilled civilians on campus to stop such an attack is a reasonable response. What would this action hurt?

Your response is naive in my opinion, OldMarksman's, and probably many others here. You are absolutely right that we can't solve this problem on this forum. We also will not stop it with aggressive government intervention in the lives of adolescents who don't play well with others. Other popular "solutions" are to make carrying a handgun a serious offense, or just making them completely illegal, 2A be damned. That kind of solution is more dangerous than a disturbed individual with a gun.

 

[DaleA]

I am not being sarcastic here.

1. Can mental health professionals 'fix/cure' folk who would go on a shooting rampage?

2. I guess I could go along with having a mental health professional interview/analyze each and every student before admitting them to the school but would they be able to detect which ones would be killers?

3. If the mental health screeners erred on the safe side about how many folk would be deemed dangerous, and please don't just tell me 'all the boys'?

4. What should/could we do with all the folk the mental health screeners deemed 'dangerous', even though they haven't done anything yet? I guess give them treatment, but what treatment are we talking about?

This seems to be getting away from firearms...

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I see TFL threads pop up from time-to-time debating the policy of having defensive firearms in public schools. My response: NO!

This issue hits close to home for me now. Last week there was a shooting in the cafeteria of the high school in my home town, in the district in which I teach, the school from which I graduated and the same school my son will be attending in two years. This particular incident was mitigated to one injured student because an alert PE teacher tackled the shooter. Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community. The mental illness that brews through adolescence, and leads to the choice of violence to solve an emotional problem, is typically identified at the elementary level. But, we do not have the resources to adequately intervene for these children or to help their caregivers. School violence is a public health crisis and must to be addressed within that sphere.

Respectfully, I think you have completely missed the mark. From what I've read on this incident, the shooter was a younger student who had been subjected to severe bullying since he entered the school. Apparently no action was taken against the bully (an upper class female stident), leaving the shooter feeling that he had no recourse to protect himself other than to try to take out the bully.

IMHO this was not a case of mental illness, this was an act of desperation. My daughter was bullied when she entered the local high school, to the point that she suffered a nervous breakdown and we had to remove her from the public school system. The school, of course, denied there was ever any bullying. However, I knew people on the faculty, and they privately (and VERY much off the record) confirmed that bullying was a huge problem at the local high school. The problem is well known internally, but absolutely not acknowledged or talked about. When the issue is raised, the administrators deny that the problem exists.

So the issue here wasn't that a kid with a mental condition wasn't identified and treated. The issue was that a younger student was badly bullied by an upper class student, and the school system did nothing to protect him.

Also:

Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

And you know this to be the case ... how, exactly? In fact, the student who was wounded was not the shooter's target. The teacher who intervened pulled the gun off target but, in the process, allowed a shot to hit another student. If she (the teacher) had had a gun and simply shot the shooter as soon as she saw his gun, isn't it possible that none of the other students might have been shot?

 

[turkeestalker]

The idea that a more attention on improved mental health would be an effective strategy for the mitigation of risk associate with violent attacks on unprotected innocents is naive.

..... and dangerous.

DaleA is correct.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Its an issue that cannot be solved by debate on mental health bills either. It is just as much a 2nd amendment debate as it is a mental health debate. Columbine would not have been stopped by one gym teacher tackling the shooters. It MIGHT have been much less catastrophic with one armed person who was well trained. Or maybe not. We will never know.

Always keep in mind that the primary weapon at Columbine was supposed to have been bombs. The bombs failed to detonate; the guns were the backup plan.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

1. Can mental health professionals 'fix/cure' folk who would go on a shooting rampage?

The Sandy Hook (CT) school shooter was under mental health care. Neither his mother nor his mental health providers foresaw that he would engage in a mass shooting (beginning with killing his own mother).

 

[4V50 Gary]

I blame psychotropic medication.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I blame psychotropic medication.

For which incident?

Or for both?

 

[Tom Servo]

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community

Nor can it be solved solely by the psychiatric community, or by politicians, or by educators. We're still figuring out the why of school shootings.

Sure, there are some vague similarities like SSRI use and alienation, but people meeting those criteria make up a huge percentage of children, most of whom never act out violently.

While the bill under consideration (text here) could do some good, prioritizing it over other approaches to preventing or ameliorating violence just shuts down study and discussion of all possibilities.

 

[olddav]

gbclarkson

In regard to your request that I contact my representative and support the "Mental Health in Schools Act". Without debate or argument I respond with a simple "NO".