School Shootings

OldDude · Feb 16, 2018

My heart is broken as well, I used to be a correctional nurse and didn't feel as on edge as I do working as a school nurse, now that's sad. I agree with many of you that we need to enforce the laws we have in place now. I have mixed feelings about gun reforms. In my experience, making something illegal or hard to obtain legally does not have an effect on criminals. They will find a way, they will smuggle, they will market them on the black market, and not all people are going to give up their guns. We can't legally go and search every home and building and confiscate their guns. Drugs are illegal, yet how many parents do we have every day buying and selling these drugs? We have kids addicted to drugs, being trafficked, abused, and many other things that are illegal and yet they still occur in mass amounts every day in our country and other countries around the world.
On another note, I work at a very small school, our administration has not even discussed school shootings, we don't have a drill, we only lock the front doors and like a previous poster stated, they buzz and they are let in, no questions asked. our campus also has multiple buildings at Elementary and High School and no camera's We have more kids addicted to drugs and parent's not in their children's lives than I have ever seen. Yet, no one wants to talk about the what if's. I am praying for all of your safety and ours as well. I'm am glad we have this board to discuss these matters and concerns we have.

I was waiting for this , thank you rnknsn, drug laws, another epic fail, since the law can't prevent the social/mental health issues driving the drug problem.

kidzcare · Feb 16, 2018

Are you saying it's appropriate to perpetuate the idea this guy used a machine gun? Because that's what an automatic weapon is and that isn't a matter of semantics. This takes me right back to the beginning of this debate...every single semi-automatic weapon, rifle, shotgun, or handgun, has the same capacity to fire as fast as the trigger can be pulled...just like this Armalite Rifle model 15. The guns are NOT going away. It's a pipe dream to think, "or want" otherwise. President Trump isn't going to make the guns disappear just like President Obama didn't and just like Bush, and Clinton, and the old Bush, and Reagan, and Carter, and Ford, and Nixon, and Johnson, and before him didn't either.
Progress will not be made on this issue until the immediate threat is met with overwhelming and deadly force to protect the innocents and a complete revolution in the social/mental health issue is initiated and put into place. And in the meantime...I have my re-circulated email of our lockdown procedure close at hand to make everything OK.

I have to remove myself from this.

It's infuriating to think that anyone wants to think the situation cannot be helped by proven strategies. It's why children will continue to die in our schools.

There are members of congress who want to make changes that will save lives. Anyone who does not vote for those who say they want to see stricter gun laws (and prove it with their actions) is voting for the deaths of kids and innocent people everywhere.

kidzcare · Feb 16, 2018

Maybe if we start calling school "uteruses" the GOP will start to care about the kids dying inside them.

Farawyn · Feb 16, 2018

Let's not get caught up in semantics. I posted a video on FB that was taken by a student during the shooting. The video is 6 seconds long and I count 19 or 20 shots. The only purpose of a gun with that kind of rapid fire is to kill and kill fast.
When the constitution was written, a gun could fire about 2 rounds per minute. It also said we could own people. Once we know better, we do better. Time to do better, America.

George Washington and our founding fathers did not forsee this, I'm sure.

Farawyn · Feb 16, 2018

Related but unrelated: It makes me SO mad that there were kids actually videoing during this event. Really kids? Really? There is an active shooter in your building, KILLING people, and you're posting snapchat videos. A report from a student there said when it first started many kids were laughing and carrying on thinking it was "just a drill". Our youth just has no accountability. And where do they get it from: in one interview a mom was on the phone with her audibly distraught child "You're safe? You're at the Marriott? Okay, let me do this interview real fast and I'll be right there!" Mom, your child has just lived through what will arguably be the most traumatic event in their life. Screw the interview, go to them.

I see what you're saying, but honestly, there are over 2900 students attending that school and I've seen maybe 2-3 videos. I'm guessing those kids already had their phones out for something else and just kept going.

Hopefully, we will never know how we would react in such a situation. I've heard kids were saying goodbye, as well as recording.

OldDude · Feb 16, 2018

Maybe if we start calling school "uteruses" the GOP will start to care about the kids dying inside them.

I have never won an argument with Sweep Petunia...never...I told her the only inscription I want on my urn of ashes is "never won an argument with SP." And it's because she thinks up stuff like this. My mind doesn't work like that and I can't keep up!! When I first read your comment it pissed me off and I started in on some kind of response but then it hit me, "you just got hosed like SP does!" Good one, kidz. Maybe the millenials will figure it out.

OyWithThePoodles, RN · Feb 16, 2018

Hopefully, we will never know how we would react in such a situation. I've heard kids were saying goodbye, as well as recording.

I didn't think of this, and I can't bring myself to watch any of the videos. Makes sense I guess.

audreysmagic, RN · Feb 16, 2018

Last night I thought about the configuration of my office (two offices in a larger third office; there is no exit but the front door for all three. If I hunker down where my desk is I have the benefit of a second locked door but the liability of no escape. I'm gonna hide behind a filing cabinet with my stapler, my walkie, and anything else I can throw....

I was once a "patient" in an mass shooting drill for EMS...Green triage, so traumatized but not physically hurt...I was hiding under a desk in the office, armed with my stapler and refusing to stop threatening people with it until shown some ID. It's a handy weapon.

audreysmagic, RN · Feb 16, 2018

I didn't think of this, and I can't bring myself to watch any of the videos. Makes sense I guess.

There are also reports that kids who have survived school shootings were using twitter to interact with kids who were in the building and give advice for survival. Technology has downsides and benefits. Sad that there are enough survivors out there to have that kind of community, but I'm glad it was there for them.

audreysmagic, RN · Feb 16, 2018

I wonder, too, how "everyone knew and said nothing," but then I think of the couple of kids I've seen in my adolescent psych unit that have clearly stated they want to shoot their school up, and the number of people in their lives prior that claimed they're just being dramatic.

Farawyn · Feb 16, 2018

I have never won an argument with Sweep Petunia...never...I told her the only inscription I want on my urn of ashes is "never won an argument with SP." And it's because she thinks up stuff like this. My mind doesn't work like that and I can't keep up!! When I first read your comment it pissed me off and I started in on some kind of response but then it hit me, "you just got hosed like SP does!" Good one, kidz. Maybe the millenials will figure it out.

If they haven't all been shot to death merely by going to school.

Farawyn · Feb 16, 2018

I wonder, too, how "everyone knew and said nothing," but then I think of the couple of kids I've seen in my adolescent psych unit that have clearly stated they want to shoot their school up, and the number of people in their lives prior that claimed they're just being dramatic.

Those days must be over. They must be.