School shootings continue despite safety emphasis

[Janelle2002 3,865]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite increased security put in place after the massacre at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, there's been no real reduction in the number of U.S. school shootings.

An Associated Press analysis finds that there have been at least 11 school shootings this academic year alone, in addition to other cases of gun violence, in school parking lots and elsewhere on campus, when classes were not in session. Experts say the rate of school shootings is statistically unchanged since the mid- to late-1990s, yet still remains troubling.

"Lockdown" is now part of the school vocabulary.

In Pennsylvania and New Mexico, Colorado and Tennessee, and elsewhere, gunfire has echoed through school hallways, and killed students or their teachers in some cases.

Last August, a gun discharged in a 5-year-old's backpack while students were waiting for the opening bell in the cafeteria at Westside Elementary School in Memphis. No one was hurt.

Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, said there have been about 500 school-associated violent deaths in the past 20 years.

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The numbers don't include a string of recent shootings at colleges and universities. Just last week, a man was shot and critically wounded at the Palm Bay Campus of Eastern Florida State College, according to police.

Finding factors to blame, rightfully or not, is almost the easy part: bad parenting, easy access to guns, less value for the sanctity of life, violent video games, a broken mental health system.

Stopping the violence isn't.

"I think that's one of the major problems. There are not easy answers," Stephens said. "A line I often use is do everything you can, knowing you can't do everything."

Bill Bond, who was principal at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., in 1997 when a 14-year-old freshman fired on a prayer group, killing three female students and wounding five, sees few differences in today's shootings. The one consistency, he said, is that the shooters are males confronting hopelessness.

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"You see troubled young men who are desperate and they strike out and they don't see that they have any hope," Bond said.

Schools generally are safer than they were five, 10 or 15 years ago, Stephens said. While a single death is one too many, Stephens noted that perspective is important. In Chicago there were 500 homicides in 2012, about the same number in the nation's 132,000-plus K-12 schools over two decades.

The recent budget deal in Congress provides $140 million to support safe school environments, and is a $29 million increase, according to the office of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

About 90 percent of districts have tightened security since the Newtown shootings, estimates Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Many schools now have elaborate school safety plans and more metal detectors, surveillance cameras and fences. They've taken other steps, too, such as requiring ID badges and dress codes. Similar to fire drills, some schools practice locking down classrooms, among their responses to potential violence.

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Attention also has focused on hiring school resource officers, sworn law enforcement officers who are trained to work in a school environment, said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. He said his organization estimates there are about 10,000 of them in the U.S.

Since the shootings at Colorado's Columbine High School in 1999, in which two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others before killing themselves, police nationwide have adopted "active shooter" policies where officers are trained to confront a shooter immediately.

"The goal is to stop it, from the law enforcement side, stop it as quickly as you can because we know with an active shooter if you don't stop it, more lives will be lost," Canady said.

Confronting a shooter certainly carries risks.

In Sparks, Nev., math teacher Michael Landsberry was killed in November after calmly approaching a 12-year-old with a gun and asked him to put the weapon down, witnesses said. The boy, who had wounded two classmates, killed himself.

Weingarten said more emphasis needs to be placed on improving school cultures by ensuring schools have resources for counselors, social workers and after-care programs. Many of these kinds of programs were scaled back during budget cuts of recent years.

Experts have said a healthy school culture can prevent such incidents and even lead students to tell adults about classmates who display warning signs that they could commit such violence.

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Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta, Sheila Burke in Nashville, Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pa., and Jim Anderson and Dan Elliott in Denver contributed to this report.

Could this be fixed if parents would be allowed a little corporal punishment to their kids instead of none at all?

Edited February 3, 2014 by Janelle2002

[slim 1,514]

Arming teachers would work too.

$140 million buys a lot of training.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Glorify the shooters and it will continue. Next question how to handle the situation when a person decides to bring a bomb and do the same damage. Most of the school shooters have been white ... A bit racist to post this.....from what we have been reading on this board.Everyone will be on the lookout for every white male at school.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Glorify the shooters and it will continue. Next question how to handle the situation when a person decides to bring a bomb and do the same damage. Most of the school shooters have been white ... A bit racist to post this.....from what we have been reading on this board.Everyone will be on the lookout for every white male at school.

When, in the entire history of this United States have white people been targeted as a whole? News flash Lost, you're the majority. This why you'll never be profiled. This is why SAF doesn't apply to you in places like New York and California. When you've had a taste of oppression, please get back with me and we can compare notes.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

When, in the entire history of this United States have white people been targeted as a whole? News flash Lost, you're the majority. This why you'll never be profiled. This is why SAF doesn't apply to you in places like New York and California. When you've had a taste of oppression, please get back with me and we can compare notes.

How are you oppressed Marvin

[spookyturtle 9,465]

Columbine shooters had lots of homemade explosive devices with them too. If the two propane bombs had gone off in the cafeteria the death toll could have been even higher. And at that time I don't think that anyone had used a pressure cooker to make a bomb.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Arming teachers would work too.

$140 million buys a lot of training.

Is this sarcasm or are you being for real? Even if so, can we really pay $140 million to train teachers to carry weapons while we cut budgets for educating the children of America?

Glorify the shooters and it will continue. Next question how to handle the situation when a person decides to bring a bomb and do the same damage. Most of the school shooters have been white ... A bit racist to post this.....from what we have been reading on this board.Everyone will be on the lookout for every white male at school.

Not racist as kids of all races will suffer when someone brings a gun to school. This discussion is about protecting all children from school shootings.

This should be important to you as well being that I am sure you plan to have kids or maybe you will not and this will not be your problem.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Janelle2002

[slim 1,514]

Of course Im serious. If were going to waste tax money on schools at least make it something worthwhile like arming and training teachers.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Of course Im serious. If were going to waste tax money on schools at least make it something worthwhile like arming and training teachers.

It would be cheaper to have people in the hallways and less distracting to students. We should spend this type of money on educating the kids. If we had better educators and more money on education maybe we would not have these problems because students would know they have someone at school that cares for them.

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

How are you oppressed Marvin

Let's see:

When I'm pulled over by the police, I have the constant worry that I might be killed if I make any sudden movements. I've already got police brutality in my bucket list, so there's that

If a black man somewhere does something wrong, we all pay the price. What's the tag line? Blacks are 13 percent of the population, yet account of 30% of crime. Not to mention I'm lazy and uneducated according to some here with their "research"

I live in a country in which I can't act a fool in public without feeling the shame of making my entire race of people being drug down to that level. Loud white folks in Chili's? No big deal. Loud black folks in Chili's? Eye rolls and the ole look at them, they don't know how to act.

Every single crime committed by a black person, we are responsible for it. Racism is our fault. Can't get a job because you have a black name? It's your fault.

Now I can go on, but what's the point? Am I oppressed? Hell no, not when I look at my ancestors and what they went through. My granddad went through way worse so I can' complain. But when folks throw racism around and have never been discriminated against, or won't get within 10 feet of a black person, you don't get to talk about it.

[slim 1,514]

If, if, if.. perhaps if the federal govt stayed out of education we wouldnt need to worry about school shootings.

Isnt assuming someone, based on nothing more than their skin color, has never been discriminated against, racist?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Is this sarcasm or are you being for real? Even if so, can we really pay $140 million to train teachers to carry weapons while we cut budgets for educating the children of America?

Not racist as kids of all races will suffer when someone brings a gun to school. This discussion is about protecting all children from school shootings.

This should be important to you as well being that I am sure you plan to have kids or maybe you will not and this will not be your problem.

Young black males are killed by the thousands every year by other black males. School shootings averaged over the past 15 years come up at about an average of 21 per year and this includes intentional homicides and spree shootings.

Oddly all I hear from our black friends on this board is, how we have got to stop school shootings. A kid is way more likely to get struck by lighting that shot at school. Still it needs to be addressed.

How come i never hear you addressing the epidemic of black on black violence that is plaguing the black community.? Seems like that save a lot more lives.

Maybe our country and it's leaders and black people in General think it's an "inconvenient Truth" or maybe this is one just can't blame on white people.

A whole nation went up in Arms over TM, but how many march's and speeches did we see in DC for the many 1000's that die at the hands of other blacks.?

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Young black males are killed by the thousands every year by other black males. School shootings averaged over the past 15 years come up at about an average of 21 per year and this includes intentional homicides and spree shootings.

Oddly all I hear from our black friends on this board is, how we have got to stop school shootings. A kid is way more likely to get struck by lighting that shot at school. Still it needs to be addressed.

How come i never hear you addressing the epidemic of black on black violence that is plaguing the black community.? Seems like that save a lot more lives.

Maybe our country and it's leaders and black people in General think it's an "inconvenient Truth" or maybe this is one just can't blame on white people.

A whole nation went up in Arms over TM, but how many march's and speeches did we see in DC for the many 1000's that die at the hands of other blacks.?

School shootings and shootings period are a problem, do you not agree? School shootings are something we can fix. Sorry, for what happens outside of the school are for the police to fix.

Again, I will take the VATICAN stance that I cannot be responsible for individuals crimes, so bringing up what some black person has done, waaaayyyy on the opposite side of the U.S. where I am not does not prove anything.

School shootings are done by more than one race. Sorry you feel like this post is imposing on white people. Although white people commit the most mass shootings at school, shootings at school are still done by different races although not on a massive level.

You are the one taking offense, not me. My question still remains, which by the way you did not answer, if parents were to be allowed corporal punishment, would this make a difference? As we all know, CPS is in everyone's business and if a child has a scratch, the kids get taken away and the parents are put into jail.

Answer the question.

If, if, if.. perhaps if the federal govt stayed out of education we wouldnt need to worry about school shootings.

Isnt assuming someone, based on nothing more than their skin color, has never been discriminated against, racist?

Who are you posting this question to, me?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

It would be cheaper to have people in the hallways and less distracting to students. We should spend this type of money on educating the kids. If we had better educators and more money on education maybe we would not have these problems because students would know they have someone at school that cares for them.

How would it be cheaper. Give any teacher who wants to sign up to under go firearms and tactical training a subsidy. Carry concealed

Problem solved

[Janelle2002 3,865]

How would it be cheaper. Give any teacher who wants to sign up to under go firearms and tactical training a subsidy. Carry concealed

Problem solved

You would spend this on firearms instead of education? We are cutting education as it is but for guns you are willing to make an exception?