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!
Blue Moon: I work with neglect and abuse cases in family court and teach anger management classes to teens on probation. I see so many kids from large families with parents making minimum wages and using drugs. Put to many rats in a cage and they get very restless. We are rats with keys. So very much casual childbearing and I don't blame the kids. I'm just glad I'm old. From nursing career I know that the velocity of bullets from weapons designed for war cause damage so far greater than bullets from handguns. There's just no reason for every Tom, Duck and Harry to carry a weapon that makes a head explode and concussed a lung to jello.
You're almost right. Handguns are relatively low energy weapons, yet they're used in the vast majority of homicides (murders, accidental deaths of others, and justified shootings) in the US. Rifles of all types (including the so-called "assault weapons" or as you term them "weapons of war") are used in a very, very small number of homicides on an annual basis. Even if you include the Mandalay Bay incident, the number of deaths from bullets fired from any kind of rifle is still a very small number. Shotguns are also considered "long guns" and they are also used in very few homicides.
Most "assault weapons/weapons of war" are of an "intermediate" power caliber and are actually less powerful than those used for hunting. In many states, the "assault weapon" is illegal to use for hunting because it's actually not powerful enough to humanely take medium and large game. Weapons such as the AR-15 (and clones) and similar rifles are actually quite good and useful in "varmint" hunting and in taking other small game.
Modern hunting rifles can be semi-automatic, bolt-action, or pump-action. All rifles in calibers that are of legal power to take medium to large game will do a lot of damage. Furthermore, the difference between an "assault weapon" and a modern legal hunting rifle is going to be entirely cosmetic in the semi-automatic rifles. Banning something because you don't like the way it looks will just make the law look stupid, "feel good" and politically motivated.
The last time we, as a nation, enacted such a law, we found the effects to be insignificant. The ban basically did nothing that people hoped that it would do.
Lastly, comparing the US to other countries is like comparing apples and grapefruit. Other countries are not like the US in many, many ways and therefore aren't actually useful models. Australia and Japan are pretty homogeneous cultures and aggressively control their borders. Japan has a much higher suicide rate than the US does, few with guns because public ownership of firearms is extremely tightly controlled there. Australia still has multiple shooting incidents but their knife crime rate is quite high. Israel has a very low rate of school shootings and arms their teachers but they also have a high percentage of people that have served in the military and a significant number of 'civilians' do carry weapons there - their usual adversaries have changed tactics to using bombs and rockets as a consequence. So, again, even Israel isn't a good model.
In the US, the "gun genie" is well out of the bottle and isn't going to be put back in any time soon. We can try to restrict purchase of weapons to known "good guys" but there's a number of guns in circulation in the black market (and can be sourced from foreign locations) so it's trivial for someone to buy a gun on the street. How do I know? I have personally asked known, convicted felons how they get their guns and it's almost invariably "street buys."
Oh, I'm all for securing guns. I don't want to make it easy for someone to steal guns and put them out on the street. I don't want to make it easy for someone "under age" to get a gun without a parent's knowledge and supervision during use of that gun. California actually has a good law about that... if I'm a gun owner and my kid gets my gun and uses it in a crime, I'm partially liable for that. If my gun is properly secured and my kid breaks into my safe and gets my gun, I'm not liable because I did my job. Now if my kid gets my gun and uses it to defend someone else (or themselves) and does it properly, they nor I will be liable for that legitimate use. That would mean that I would have to know that my kid is capable of not only knowing right from wrong, but also is not going to inappropriately use my gun if I were to give my kid the key or combo... and that's a very heavy decision for a parent to make. In short, I would have to be very certain that I have raised a good kid that is ready to take on the responsibility. It's the same decision a parent must make when deciding whether or not to allow their kid to be able to use the car without supervision.
We need to improve our mental health system, from screening to reporting to actual mental health treatment to destigmatizing those that seek such care. Most don't need to have their firearm rights removed. Better screening and care will help us determine which people should, and that should involve the courts because it involves removal of an enumerated fundamental right. We need to collectively improve our parenting. We need to actually enforce the existing laws we have and determine their effectiveness to decide if a law needs to be revised, replaced, or removed. Universal background checks will help but they won't help (or even stop) black market/street sales of guns.
Thank you all for your contributions. Excellent points and a variety of opinions!
I will be mailing this thread to The Honorable Greg Abbott, Governor, State of Texas...from concerned nurses world-wide via "allnurses." I guarantee you this thread would not make a difference if it isn't sent to someone in a position to influence the future so please know, for those of you who responded, YOUR input contributed to the mix and please know you DID SOMETHING! Awesome...thanks again!!
Specializes in Transition nursing and couplet care.
Honestly one thing we have got to do is to stop glamorizing guns. I am on another site called Nextdoor which is for people who live around next. Every single day there is a thread about a "potential" criminal ( basically someone who looks like they don't belong in the neighborhood) and people will talk about being locked and loaded either when approaching them or when answering their front door. What does this teach our children? It teaches them that guns can solve all of your problems. I can't stand this type of attitude even though most don't shoot, but accidents happen and situations get out of control. If you want to hunt then fine, but when you refuse to open your front door without being armed then we have an issue.
I am pretty sure that whatever else comes with immigration, mass school shootings is a domestic, home grown product.
.......This may or may not be true, but the question remains, WHY do people do this, if you only ban/limit the guns the root problem remains and people will (and do) use other deadly weapons, knives, bombs, cars etc . This country only has so many resources and like someone else pointed out, the rats will start attacking each other....
I am pessimistic about school shootings. I think the phenomenon will increase. I have heard no suggestions or ideas that I feel will meaningfully impact this situation, but I commend you on your effort to stimulate discussion. And, the even handed way you have dealt with people in this thread.
.....I am also pessimistic that violent crimes will continue because our politicians don't seem to care about really solving the problem, only arguing with each other about gun control, add to that Hollywood people etc lecturing the public about not having guns while at the same time have bodyguards to protect them with guns. I hear politicians arguing that "we need to protect the children", well how about you send the capital police to the schools to do just that instead of protecting yourselves....
This by no means provides a solution that ensures a mass shooting will never happen again, but it offers some food for thought regarding the evolution of the male and female gender and how they each interact within modern society.
Very good article, we need to start looking at all the root causes of "modern society" that could lead to these and other types of crimes! You cannot change society to the extent that we have without expecting problems.
Honestly one thing we have got to do is to stop glamorizing guns. I am on another site called Nextdoor which is for people who live around next. Every single day there is a thread about a "potential" criminal ( basically someone who looks like they don't belong in the neighborhood) and people will talk about being locked and loaded either when approaching them or when answering their front door. What does this teach our children? It teaches them that guns can solve all of your problems. I can't stand this type of attitude even though most don't shoot, but accidents happen and situations get out of control. If you want to hunt then fine, but when you refuse to open your front door without being armed then we have an issue.
I do absolutely agree that guns do have to be deglamorized. They should be returned back to what they used to be: a tool. There is also a reason why I try to get to know all my neighbors. Some I know well, some I have met, but I'm familiar with everyone that is in my neighborhood. While I'm wary of those that enter my neighborhood or knock on my door unexpectedly, I will still greet them but have a plan should the encounter go sideways. Like a good Boy Scout, I'm always prepared. Do I like having to make tactical considerations when I meet people, even a my own front door? No. It's a reflection of the fact that our society has changed sufficiently that we can't leave our doors unlocked and expect that others will respect the sanctity of someone else's home.
These shootings break my heart every time I hear about them. I'm certainly no expert in the field of mass-shootings, but here's what I've gathered from all of this:
There are many people who want tighter gun restrictions, etc. I understand this point, but I just don't see it working unless a mass amount of guns are confiscated by the government (something I don't advocate for). As a person who owns three guns, and have bought and sold several more, I can tell you that it MANY guns are sold person-to-person, without background checks. Cracking down on this is almost impossible, hence the reason I don't believe tight gun control laws will do much good.
People also cite mental illness as a cause. I generally agree with this statement, but I don't like the idea of blaming "crazy people" for all these shootings. I do, however think we all could be more supportive of people with anxiety and depression. More support, more kindness, more caring will be helpful.
Other people suggest arming teachers- I don't mind the idea of having more protection in schools, but I don't think teachers are the answer. I live in Montana, where almost everyone owns firearms- but I wouldn't trust my kindergarten teacher firing off rounds at shooter. It's not in their job description, nor are they qualified. On the other hand, hiring additional armed security could be an easier fix. Doing lockdown training, and educating students will also be helpful. (Unfortunate that this is the case)
While all these topics are possible ideas, there is one cause that I believe is the universal cause for an increase in mass shootings. I believe the breakdown of the family is the boiled-down cause. Our families in America are more stressed than ever. Poverty, increased desire for material objects, drugs, divorce, social media... they all inject more stress into our families. We have more kids living at home with abusive family members. We have more kids being raised by daycare centers, because both parents have to work just to scrape by. From what I can tell, most (not all) of these shooters came from broken, or abusive families. Some came from the Foster Care system, others were in abusive families. Just an observation, not trying to offend anyone.
I think the best things we can do are to strengthen the family unit. More parks, and access to nature. More affordable, family-friendly attractions in cities. Less social media, less drugs, less poverty. If we start chipping away at these things, we may create a better society- a safer society.
Why make a thread asking for ideas without criticism?
Making about a hot topic and then telling people you just want people to agree with you says something.
With that being said, these shootings are outliers. So let's treat them as such.
Second, I truly believe we can tighten up the security and have parents opt in and vote per the school.
Meaning, have a law passed saying there will be things like making a budget for security, time blocks rational blocks where students go in at a certain time to avoid congestion.
Allowing each city to vote on what they want or don't want should be a type of solution. This would allow citizens to vote in without having to wait for the slow process of legislation to take action.
I know I sound redundant, but I can give more details if anyone actually cared to ask or was serious.
Funds would have to be allocated from somewhere, which is important for each community to vote for wanting better security at schools.
We must adapt to the times WITHOUT cedeing our rights to the government. Install metal detectors and train & arm at least half if not the majority of the faculty there (those who are willing to be trained of course). You have them shoot any & every cowardly son of a ***** that has the intention to take Innocent lives. Gun free zones are today's killing fields, gun control will only expand them.
I did not read the comments before this post, so forgive me if I rehash anything already covered.
I am a JR II student in a BSN program, so I am not yet a RN, and I do not have years of experience. But, responding to the original post with what I have learned so far, I think we need to approach this as 2 separate issues. Acute and Chronic.
Acutely, how do we address the immediate life threatening condition. I've thought about this a lot, and the best immediate solution I can devise is to treat the entrances of a school like a TSA check point. Walk through metal detectors and bag x-rays. I feel this would be highly successful in the short run to physically keep weapons (including bombs, as we just saw) off of campuses.
Chronically we have a much deeper pathology in our society. Many people turn quickly to gun control suggesting that it is the problem. I don't intend to open that political debate, but there are two thoughts I can not reconcile to this idea. First, is that gun violence in schools is greatly out pacing gun ownership. I would expect a correlation between the exponential increase in gun incidents and total number of guns if this is the problem and I simply don't see that. Secondly, there was a time where a gun rack in a truck in the parking lot, or a marksmanship club was not terribly uncommon at school, at least in rural areas. The US has had a lot of guns for decades, but the recent increase in incidents makes me ask what is changing. I was reviewing some information from the recent incident in Santa Fe. The shooter expressed he did not shoot students he liked, because he wanted his story told. He was trying to narrate his own biography by removing those with a negative view of him and leaving people he felt would describe him positively. I think much of this comes from the media attention. Students who are ostracized, outcast and bullied see an incident like this and realize that the shooter's name and photo are on every media outlet there is for a solid week, and less front page for months following. I feel if news outlets would focus the attention of a tragedy on the victims and the recovery and withhold ALL attention of the shooter, we would see a decrease. There would no longer be an opportunity for potential shooters to "have their story told". It's not uncommon for young people to act out for attention, even if it is negative, and this is just an extreme expression of that behavior.
Beyond that, my ideas may become a bit more polar, so I will throw a thought out just for though, but do not desire to spark debate. I believe our society has a deep rooted stripping of our moral fiber that starts in the home. As a society we have made nearly everything "relative" so that an absolute right or wrong is becoming increasingly difficult to define. I fear that atrocities in our society will only increase in all areas unless we regain a willingness to call wrong, wrong.
We have metal detectors at the court houses and airports. Why not have only 1 to 2 doors where you can enter the school and go through metal detectors
and where everyone has to go through the front door. No exceptions. My grandchild goes to a high school that the doors on the side of the building are left unlocked where student come and go during the day. I have seen this and have notified the Sheriff's office in our county. Not sure what the answer is but having more counselors available and actually looking and listening to the students would help. Getting the parents involved with teaching their children how to handle disappointment. A lot of bullying goes on by students sending pictures and texts to groups of people in class. Make each student keep their phone in their book bag. Those that refuse or have it out, notify the Principal and let him handle it.
As a middle school health clerk, I see so many kids coming into our office asking for help. I see many of them struggling to get through school because of bullying and a constant feeling that they are not doing or achieving enough. I have to say that our counselors are amazing along with the principal. But they are not enough. I have seen our front office staff make fun of students with anxiety and mock their fears. I think a step to understanding how to prevent these students who feel that they need to take matters into their own hands, is to arm every school employee with a in depth education on mental health, not just a 1 hour long training session that is the norm for school districts. What people need to realize is that getting rid of guns will not solve our problems. We need to tackle mental health and provide students with every single resource we can. There are so many students who fall though the cracks and it is up to us to figure a way to help them.
akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P
3,533 Posts
You're almost right. Handguns are relatively low energy weapons, yet they're used in the vast majority of homicides (murders, accidental deaths of others, and justified shootings) in the US. Rifles of all types (including the so-called "assault weapons" or as you term them "weapons of war") are used in a very, very small number of homicides on an annual basis. Even if you include the Mandalay Bay incident, the number of deaths from bullets fired from any kind of rifle is still a very small number. Shotguns are also considered "long guns" and they are also used in very few homicides.
Most "assault weapons/weapons of war" are of an "intermediate" power caliber and are actually less powerful than those used for hunting. In many states, the "assault weapon" is illegal to use for hunting because it's actually not powerful enough to humanely take medium and large game. Weapons such as the AR-15 (and clones) and similar rifles are actually quite good and useful in "varmint" hunting and in taking other small game.
Modern hunting rifles can be semi-automatic, bolt-action, or pump-action. All rifles in calibers that are of legal power to take medium to large game will do a lot of damage. Furthermore, the difference between an "assault weapon" and a modern legal hunting rifle is going to be entirely cosmetic in the semi-automatic rifles. Banning something because you don't like the way it looks will just make the law look stupid, "feel good" and politically motivated.
The last time we, as a nation, enacted such a law, we found the effects to be insignificant. The ban basically did nothing that people hoped that it would do.
Lastly, comparing the US to other countries is like comparing apples and grapefruit. Other countries are not like the US in many, many ways and therefore aren't actually useful models. Australia and Japan are pretty homogeneous cultures and aggressively control their borders. Japan has a much higher suicide rate than the US does, few with guns because public ownership of firearms is extremely tightly controlled there. Australia still has multiple shooting incidents but their knife crime rate is quite high. Israel has a very low rate of school shootings and arms their teachers but they also have a high percentage of people that have served in the military and a significant number of 'civilians' do carry weapons there - their usual adversaries have changed tactics to using bombs and rockets as a consequence. So, again, even Israel isn't a good model.
In the US, the "gun genie" is well out of the bottle and isn't going to be put back in any time soon. We can try to restrict purchase of weapons to known "good guys" but there's a number of guns in circulation in the black market (and can be sourced from foreign locations) so it's trivial for someone to buy a gun on the street. How do I know? I have personally asked known, convicted felons how they get their guns and it's almost invariably "street buys."
Oh, I'm all for securing guns. I don't want to make it easy for someone to steal guns and put them out on the street. I don't want to make it easy for someone "under age" to get a gun without a parent's knowledge and supervision during use of that gun. California actually has a good law about that... if I'm a gun owner and my kid gets my gun and uses it in a crime, I'm partially liable for that. If my gun is properly secured and my kid breaks into my safe and gets my gun, I'm not liable because I did my job. Now if my kid gets my gun and uses it to defend someone else (or themselves) and does it properly, they nor I will be liable for that legitimate use. That would mean that I would have to know that my kid is capable of not only knowing right from wrong, but also is not going to inappropriately use my gun if I were to give my kid the key or combo... and that's a very heavy decision for a parent to make. In short, I would have to be very certain that I have raised a good kid that is ready to take on the responsibility. It's the same decision a parent must make when deciding whether or not to allow their kid to be able to use the car without supervision.
We need to improve our mental health system, from screening to reporting to actual mental health treatment to destigmatizing those that seek such care. Most don't need to have their firearm rights removed. Better screening and care will help us determine which people should, and that should involve the courts because it involves removal of an enumerated fundamental right. We need to collectively improve our parenting. We need to actually enforce the existing laws we have and determine their effectiveness to decide if a law needs to be revised, replaced, or removed. Universal background checks will help but they won't help (or even stop) black market/street sales of guns.