Yet another tragic loss of innocent life today in Santa Fe, Texas. Yet again! As a school nurse, and one who is close to your children and my children, every day during school, these senseless losses tear at my heart...and yet again, it happened today - again.
So here is the relevance of my post to "allnurses." Nurses are, probably, the most accomplished and innovative, critical thinking, problems solving, life saving, "git-er-done," people on the planet. It appears "the experts" have contributed only to reliving the definition of insanity in regard to school shooting; doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Sometimes it takes someone from the outside looking in to find the golden key.
I am requesting your ideas, recommendations, suggestions, thoughts, etc., regarding what you think would prevent future school shootings; as you would a head to toe assessment, identification, and intervention of your patient, so to speak. Or from any other relationship you have to school age children.
I am requesting genuine input. Sarcasm and political attacks are not welcome. If you don't have a contribution you think would be helpful, please don't.
If this turns out how I'm hoping it will, I intend to print the entire thread and mail it to the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott; opinions from nurses from around the world - how to stop the insanity of school shootings!
I live 10 minutes from where this happened, have friends that has kids in this school, knew one of the teachers. A Santa Fe, Tx minister said it best...""We have created a culture that does not value life, that does not honor God, that does not respect authority. We are reaping the consequences of those actions, and that's not going to be reversed by a security guard or a metal detector."
"the long-term goal is to change hearts."
"We're allowing the culture to raise our kids," We need to get prayer back in the schools, discipline and teach respect to our kids.
While I agree with this in theory, the actuality is that this decidedly long term solution certainly can't be achieved overnight. Sadly this country has gone through a cultural shift for the worse. Kids are not raised to have respect for their elders, respect for authority, heck they don't seem to have any respect for themselves or their peers. It's too late for this generation to learn respect and I don't hold any hope that this generation will be any good at teaching something they never learned.
I live 10 minutes from where this happened, have friends that has kids in this school, knew one of the teachers. A Santa Fe, Tx minister said it best...""We have created a culture that does not value life, that does not honor God, that does not respect authority. We are reaping the consequences of those actions, and that's not going to be reversed by a security guard or a metal detector."
"the long-term goal is to change hearts."
"We're allowing the culture to raise our kids," We need to get prayer back in the schools, discipline and teach respect to our kids.
While I agree in theory in actuality this is a decidedly long term solution that won't do much to help prevent the next shooting which is sadly probably just around the corner. This nation has experienced a culture shift in the way children are raised and it certainly is for the worse. Kids have little to no respect for their elders. There is no respect for authority, quite the opposite. The attitude toward authority seems to be fear or disdain. Heck, kids don't have respect for themselves or their peers anymore.
Granted not every child is like this, but enough are to have a profound affect on society. There is no hope for this generation of youngsters, their formative years when this could have been reversed is over. I have little hope for the next generation either, it's not going to be easy for these kids to teach their kids respect when they never learned it themselves.
Sorry for what is essentially a double post. Website encountered a "fatal error" and I didn't realize the first post actually went through.
Per the OP's request I'm submitting my thoughts related to the Santa Fe shootings and from your perch it must be similar to what Gov. Richards experienced after George Hennard shot up Luby's in Killeen. Then, as now, there is a mantra for government to "do something."
I submit to you sir, that the gun free zone is as useless as California's ban on using a cellphone while driving without a hands-free device, and for the same reason: there are no teeth in either law. This is on top of the laws that were broken by shooter that were already in place at the time. My suggestion to you is to follow Andrew Pollock's (father of Meadow Pollock) idea of focusing on the security of the school. Possibilities include metal detectors, restricted entry points, the infamous see though backpack, or something else.
With all due respect sir, you'll never please the gun control crowd - ever. Never mind DC vs. Heller or McDonald vs Chicago, or the astounding murder rates in cities with the tightest gun restrictions, it just won't happen. I've read where you're convening a council to explore various options on this subject. I wouldn't recommend arming all teachers for the simple reason that there would be those who can't or won't use a firearm. But you do have some that are already trained, vetted, and licensed by the State of Texas: CHL holders. I would also submit that Texas also has another resource in veterans. There is a whole generation of our military that has/had involvement in the war on terrorism and all of them have fire arms training; many of them with various automatic weapons. Texas loves their vets and it shows with the number of vets that live there. Hire them as resource/security officers
The same article that mentioned your council also referenced somebody who stated Texas must change their gun culture. That culture produced Stephen Willeford and Johnnie Langendorff. Instead, I believe that the council should focus on what drives the shooter to shoot, i.e. bullying, etc.
I would hope you find these suggestions useful sir, and wish you and the people of Texas every success in this endeavor.
Americans are the only western country that has school shootings, the only one with gun nuts, but its always the mental health, lack of God or bad parents, because other countries do not have that...
There were armed guards at both the last major school shootings, they did nothing.
People who defend gun rights are bad people.
People who use god in any discussion around gun control are bad people.
I think physical security of the schools has been covered plenty in this thread. I will say I don't know that adding armed teachers and TSA style security will be a very effective method. Frankly the amount of training required to respond appropriately in such a situation is crazy. If you think that you can respond under fire to an active shooting situation with only basic training, your crazy. The DEPUTY, a trained officer, didn't appropriately enter the building and address the shooter in the parkland shooting. Physical security, with radical redesign for new schools and retrofitting of existing schools. A press of a button should be able to immediately lock down the facility, and notify law enforcement. Full cctv coverage with a human who is monitoring the system, directly able to communicate to law enforcement who are responding.
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Like this but with automatic doors, segment off the building restrict movement of the shooter and wait for help.
As for guns. The solution is the free market with harsh enforcement of laws existing and new. All gun owners who are purchasing or transferring ownership of a gun must demonstrate training from an approved instructor, these instructor should have some degree of mental health training and wide latitude to require further screening. They shou also prove that they possess GUN INSURANCE!!! That's right here's where the market comes. Your gun must be insured. Your insurance company will decide how to provide coverage. Your insurance lapses you have to surrender your guns. I'm sure insurance would be cheaper if you prove a higher level of training, can prove proper storage, and use of safety locks that restrict use to only the intended owner. You don't want to do any of that your insurance is higher. So you want an AR 15 with 300 round drum mag bump stock, and no restrictions on storage or anything else, cool you pay a bunch for insurance. You demonstrate proper training and storage your policy should be very low cost. If your gun is stolen, used by another unauthorized user, or god forbid involved in a shooting the insurance company must pay restitution and fines. All fins go to fund schools and training.
A goal to have all new firearms biometricly locked. The technology is very close that you could install fingerprint/facial identification on firearms that make them little more than clubs when not in the hand of their intended user. Almost all of these attacks are carried out with firearms not in the hands of their registers owners. Let's fix that. This is good for everyone frankly. Your chance of getting shot with your own gun is astonishing high in close quarters, where everyone thinks they are Rambo but really have no clue how fast those situations move.
I agree these systems may net be ready for prime time. But with the right regulatory motivation they could be. There's a reason you're so safe in a car now, but you weren't 30 years ago. We studied, recognized, and regulated the issue. Then we applied technology to it.
Next we need to develop a screening and threat prediction tool for this type of crime. Such tools are already in use for the FBI and secret service to assess death threats. There's enough data now, we need to make it and put it in wide use. There should be a scientific way to help distinguish threats from noise.
Mental health has to be increased obviously l, but I don't personally buy that bullying is to blame for this situation. Bullying was wild in the past and completely un regulated back in the day, so we're guns, we need actual research on what the X factor is here. We cannot treat the disease without understanding the mechanism at work.
There are many people who had/have no parents, and/or who were/are abused/bullied (on a daily basis), but they didn't become mass murderers. Instead, they grew up functional adults. The problem with many of those mass murderers is that they aren't worried about their basic needs. If they were busy to fend for themselves, they wouldn't be able to think about guns. Yes, they would probably commit petty crimes. This is a complex broad topic; nevertheless, there were/are people who were worried what to eat next. I know what was like to be hungry and afraid; I was homeless, too.--Foraging for my own food and looking out for my safety kept me out of trouble. I bet, we should start limiting people's access to foods at a certain age unless they have special circumstances that limit them from fending for themselves. Allow them to find them for themselves. Without a purpose in life, people go crazy.
Also, many people today are selfish. They think that the government gives them happiness. How about being friendly? Kind? Polite? Practice gratitude? Practice generosity? Afterall, we're all connected. Maybe engage in a conversation with your neighbors or strangers. Have a community, don't exclude people just because...Have some faith in people. Well, the larger the population, the higher the crime rate is.
How about the social media has to be very very careful what to feed its audience, especially to our youngsters? Some people are easily manipulated--they believe anything that feeds and confirms their belief and value systems. Lies shouldn't be part of our journalism, even if it's dead boring. It's easy to radicalize those kinds of people who are mentally weak. Then again, deaths in the past were due to poor or lack of medical knowledge. Today, mental illness and mass murder are probably the new evolutionary methods of controlling or decreasing population.
Wait, you want to starve children? How did you remix gun control into child starvation? Please do not have children. That's child abuse!
Y'all need to stop with the "put prayer back in school" rhetoric. It was never about prayer, or video games, or music, or TV, etc. It's about how a child is raised by the people in their lives. Religion has no place in school and it's not the end all be all fix. You have so-called religious leaders upholding and cosigning bigotry daily. Many are doing inappropriate things like drugs, rape, abuse, cheating on their spouse, etc on a regular basis. The same things they speak against in church they're doing outside of church. There are many religions and prayer will only create further conflict. There's this thing of separation between church and state but far too many seem to pretend it doesn't exist. What if children in the school are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, etc? You want to force Christianity-based prayer on them? You would be livid if any of those religions were forced onto your child in school and it would stop nothing.
Than I read someone say children today are biologically different. Maybe so but that has no bearing on these school shootings. Children are nurtured to be certain people and are molded by what/how they were taught, life circumstances, and experiences. Use of guns is not nature. Gun use is not the same as genetic disposition to having asthma. I'm not trying to belittle that poster but using biology is not relative to guns, unless there's a genetic mental health issue but all of these shootings are not the result of mental health as many want them to be. Mental health isn't the cause of these shootings, it's the scapegoat.
The shooter in TX was hurt cause he was rejected. People get rejected every day, what made him so special that he had to murder people? Answer: He wasn't taught how to deal with his emotions. Far too many of these children today have a sense of entitlement. They're being raised in an era of instant gratification and everyone gets recognition just for participating and not having to actually earn something.
There's also the respect factor. People who didn't have children or raised their children a certain way decided they wanted to demand parents treat all children one way, despite not knowing a damn thing about them. Every child is different, every household functions differently, everyone's circumstances are different, there is no cookie cutter parenting rules. Nevertheless, they took away paddling in schools, created laws to jail parents for the most minute forms of discipline while at the same time also jailing parents for their children's behavior. Children have learned these rules and I have witnessed them telling parents they'll call the police if they touch them. There is a difference between spankings and abuse but laws were created to punish parents for anything and children have learned to use them to their advantage. They don't have any fear. Parents place their children on punishment and they're accused of abuse. I have seen it first hand. Take away little Johnny's playstation and he's at school telling them his mother abuses him, the school calls child protective services, and then mom is distraught and traumatized cause she loves her child and has not abused him in any way. But now that she has a pending investigation she does nothing and little Johnny runs amok. Mom doesn't dare punish him again cause she doesn't want to go through all the hassle and little Johnny grows up lawless. At the same time, when he's in high school cutting class they want to jail mom for his truancy. Really? She was set up to fail by not being allowed to punish little Johnny and now she's a bad parent cause it's too late to punish him, he's damn near grown. Other parents see what is happening and they ease up on their children so they don't have to go through what little Johnny's mom is going through. And the cycle continues.
Add in the economy and parents are struggling to make ends meet. More families require two incomes, and with drugs and lawlessness there are more single parent households which often result in the lone parent working multiple jobs to keep the family afloat. Enter children raising themselves without guidance and rule enforcement because the parent is often too stressed and tired to render punishment or enforce the rules of the household.
Moral of the story, there are many factors contributing to the decline of control in these children's lives. Instead of prescribing mental health issues to all of them, seek the root cause and deal with it. Also, start programs in early grade school so you can identify the same potential problems before they get older. The key is early identification and intervention. Similar to nursing, there is a sentinel event, we create a team to review the issue and identify the root cause and devise a plan to avoid making the same mistake. When one facility creates a system that works, they share it and others adopt those methods. We need to do the same in and out of school with our children.
Americans are the only western country that has school shootings, the only one with gun nuts, but its always the mental health, lack of God or bad parents, because other countries do not have that...
There were armed guards at both the last major school shootings, they did nothing.
People who defend gun rights are bad people.
People who use god in any discussion around gun control are bad people.
Way to simplistic of thought here, not to mention backwards...among other things you are stereotyping anyone who either defends the 2nd amendment or who brings God into the discussion as a "bad person"...I think that the one who choses to murder other people is the "bad person", not the who choses to have a discussion about how to prevent it....
More food for thought.... Our great country was founded by Christians with applied Christian principles, we have been slowly removing God and those principles from every aspect of society, society morals and values have been declining....coincidence? (I think not)
Wait, you want to starve children? How did you remix gun control into child starvation? Please do not have children. That's child abuse!
I don't think anyone wants to "starve children", I think the point is that too many people become dependent on the government (ie taxpayers) because they get too comfortable and don't keep trying to fend for themselves, this causes societal problems for both the one receiving the gov. assistance and also the people who are actually paying for them (ie everyone who actually pays taxes)
A) Because its EASIER to kill lots of people very quickly with a gun than chasing them a round with a knife. Which is why most mass "stabbings" have far fewer mortalities, if any at all. Strange how these tools designed to kill things are really efficient at....killing things?
B) There is this thing called statistics, where you can evaluate and compare information between different population sizes based on the "per capita" rate. We use it in health care as well. Its what allows us to compare the US to Australia or any other country. Its why instead of laughing you should take a refresher course in stats.
C) You are wrong. Anger is the most common cause of murder and its not a diagnosable mental illness.
Again....its like some people live in another world.
I'm going to put on a bit of a different hat, one from the "bad guy" side. If you take guns away from the regular folks, that would make criminal life much easier. I could still get any gun I want. I won't have to worry about getting shot by regular folks because few, if any, would be armed, it's only the police that I'd have to worry about and they have to follow rules and because I know those rules, I can kill lots of people and still not worry about getting shot by the police... as long as I follow their rules when they show up. If, by some miracle, all guns were take out of the hands of the public and only police/military have them, and I'm so inclined to kill lots of people, ever consider that several times a day, in most communities, there are places where a few hundred people gather in one place at discrete times? Those places are called movie theaters. They even publish the times... and all it takes is a few, relatively small devices, left inside each theater, or even a couple of really powerful devices left outside certain buildings, timed to go off within seconds of each other, and suddenly you have a massive spectacle where hundreds of people are killed and injured. Done right, (and the knowledge to build such devices is very readily available) a person could very easily make the Boston Marathon bombing look like small potatoes.
Back to my usual self: It actually amazes me that bombs aren't used more frequently in the US. They're cheap, relatively easy to build, can cause lots of death/injuries, and because they can be hidden very well, can cause the public to have lots of anxiety about going anywhere... that's causing terror. The one downside of bombs is that they're indiscriminate. Sure, you can kill lots of people but if you only "care" about self-defense or you only "care" about getting back at someone specific because you got disrespected somehow, a bomb isn't going to guarantee that you're going to get the right person.
As I've said (probably here and elsewhere), the gun genie is very well out of the bottle and it's not going to be stuffed back inside anytime soon. While using statistics can be useful, it's also a very easy way to massage numbers to show nearly any outcome you want. When dealing with real cultures and people, it's not as easy to compare different groups as one would think, because people from different parts of the world have very different cultural beliefs and norms. This alone makes it difficult to have a true "apples to apples" comparison of those cultures around a specific point, such as gun control or female driving or nearly any other singular point. There are countries around the world where firearms are very commonplace, and the level of violent crime is either far greater or far less than what the US experiences.
It's not the gun... there's something deeper in the US culture that is driving the violence we see, and we see more than we used to, even though the overall rate of violent crime is decreasing over time. On the one hand, we really are seeing an overall decrease in violent crime over the past 40 years (or more) and there are more guns available in circulation than in the past, and on the other hand, there's far easier access to information than ever before, even to the point where basically everyone can be an on-the-spot, real-time reporter of events and therefore easy and instant access to instant notoriety and fame (good or bad). I'm just thankful that the US hasn't degenerated into conditions similar to Venezuela, Columbia, parts of Mexico, or other similar places because then we'd be dealing with a whole different set of problems.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
More food for thought.... Our great country was founded by Christians with applied Christian principles, we have been slowly removing God and those principles from every aspect of society, society morals and values have been declining....coincidence? (I think not)
Oh puleeze. A belief in a fictional deity is not needed for someone to be a good person, to have morals and values. What a disgustingly narrow-minded opinion.
kbrn2002, ADN, RN
3,969 Posts
While I agree with this in theory, the actuality is that this decidedly long term solution certainly can't be achieved overnight. Sadly this country has gone through a cultural shift for the worse. Kids are not raised to have respect for their elders, respect for authority, heck they don't seem to have any respect for themselves or their peers. It's too late for this generation to learn respect and I don't hold any hope that this generation will be any good at teaching something they never learned.