18 children, 3 adults killed in Texas elementary school shooting

[yuna628 9,547]

22 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

Yep.  I am also 100% behind training and arming teachers in every school.  These "gun free zone" signs are just insane.  Since when, do criminals and crazies read and obey signs.  

If he started out in a shootout with the cops outside of the school and still managed to get inside of the school, I'm not sure a teacher with a gun would do much. Also what happens when that teacher decides to be the one to pull the trigger, misses and kills a child? What happens when the teacher is having a mental problems and shoots the kids? What happens when the teacher doesn't secure the firearm properly and someone gains access?

 

I'm not opposed to having some very responsible and trained parties being armed in school, but teachers are there to focus on teaching imo. It is clear there are some big security issues in this case:

 

1) individual was not stopped by officers outside the school.

2) school was not secure and he gained easy access. there is even a video showing him entering with ease. typically the individual ends up smuggling guns inside a backpack, this case proves any old idiot with a gun could get access inside without being stopped.

3) shooter still managed to get access inside a classroom. in other shooting cases, gunmen could not get access to some students because the rooms were barricaded. was this classroom properly barricaded? 

 

I have been thinking about if it is possible for classrooms to have a 'safe room'... of course there will be pushback about this. Heck, B'more city schools can't even get air conditioning or heat. Probably very expensive. My dad would often say he'd notice a lot of vulnerable access points in the back of schools, near the kitchens - where the doors would be left wide open for ventilation. 

[Crazy Cat 39,806]

46 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

If he started out in a shootout with the cops outside of the school and still managed to get inside of the school, I'm not sure a teacher with a gun would do much.

He could have been stopped/neutralized as soon as he gained entry by an armed teacher inside the school.  You can "what if" any situation into a million possibilities......but  arming  teachers would be a logical step in securing schools.  These sick people don't just randomly pick schools to mass murder.  They know these "gun free zones" are easy targets. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Crazy Cat

[yuna628 9,547]

3 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

He could have been stopped/neutralized as soon as he gained entry by an armed teacher inside the school.  You can "what if" any situation into a million possibilities......but  arming  teachers would be a logical step in securing schools.  These people don't just randomly pick schools to mass murder.  They know these "gun free zones" are easy targets. 

Armed and trained cops, and that included the school resource officer did not stop him before he entered and they did not stop him until he had seemingly somehow gained access to a classroom that should have been barricaded. I'm not confident a teacher could have done it either.

[Crazy Cat 39,806]

Just now, yuna628 said:

Armed and trained cops, and that included the school resource officer did not stop him before he entered and they did not stop him until he had seemingly somehow gained access to a classroom that should have been barricaded. I'm not confident a teacher could have done it either.

Seems to be all the more reason to arm teachers.  Two lines of defense are better than one.  

[MarJhi 925]

54 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

What photos are they? Do you mean the real photographs which I have seen which were on his page? There's only two that existed, the rest were all of guns. It's not clear that those photos are actually of him either, but if they are, they are not suggestive of anything. The only other photo that exists is the one that police have provided.

 

However there are other photos which have been shared widely online without any sort of checking whatsoever. Those photos are of a very real and alive transgender person that is now being harassed. They are pretty understandably angry about this.

 

There is no evidence to suggest the shooter was transgender. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this is yet another very hateful (a long record of 'issues') and mentally ill individual that managed to legally purchase firearms, and modified one of them.

Who said anything about transgender? Identity doesn't necessarily mean sexual orientation. When the shooter is of a certain "identity" the media loves to show you the shooter, and let you know that it is his race and his built in racism that caused him to kill. When the person is not of that particular "identity", they will show you the guns instead. 

Edited May 25, 2022 by MarJhi

[Crazy Cat 39,806]

How about a dose of reality.

1.  No additional laws will remedy the situation.

2.  Guns cannot be eliminated from US soil.

The logical step toward better school security is right in front of our eyes.......TRAIN & ARM THE TEACHERS. Unfortunately, a certain faction in this country are too unwilling to accept reality.  Their "feel good" actions such as posting "gun free zone" signs are all emotion and no logic. In fact, an argument could be made that they have endangered the lives of children.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Crazy Cat

[MarJhi 925]

9 hours ago, seekingthetruth said:

I'll be that he was on some kind of psychiatric drug or stopped taking one.  U.S. is a mental health mess now.

This is the common  denominator in nearly all of these events. In this country we medicate the kids first and bury other kids later.

[MarJhi 925]

41 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

Seems to be all the more reason to arm teachers.  Two lines of defense are better than one.  

Those who are against the idea usually go on the assumption that you mean arming every teacher. They will always point out a "what if" about someone with no firearms experience or training did this or that. I am 100% for arming teachers who are willing to carry that responsibility and have the knowledge, training and experience with those weapons. Thinking back to my days in school, I remember many teachers in every school I attended who would have been more than capable of handling that responsibility and plenty of teachers who would not want anything to do with it. 

[B_J 2,752]

Right now, in almost every school in the US, the active shooter plan is:

Step 1: hope you can get the kids in the room before the shooter gets you

Step 2: lock the door, turn off the lights, cover the windows and hope the shooter passes you by

Step 3:  hope the cops get the shooter before the shooter gets you.

 

I'm not real happy with that plan.  I have a colleague who teaches down the hall that is about as far left as possible and even he is open to the idea of arming teachers.  Granted, there needs to be extensive training but he realized that after this happened in Uvalde, it could happen anywhere.  And hope really isn't much of a plan.

[MarJhi 925]

1 hour ago, yuna628 said:

Heck, B'more city schools can't even get air conditioning or heat.

Well we know money isn't the issue in Baltimore.

 

Top 10 Largest School Districts Per Pupil Current Spending (census.gov)

[Crazy Cat 39,806]

4 minutes ago, B_J said:

Granted, there needs to be extensive training

Absolutely.  There are plenty of great training resources.....I am shocked that these teacher unions haven't screaming for this.....I think they are, as a whole, part of the faction who refuse to accept reality.  

[MarJhi 925]

1 minute ago, Crazy Cat said:

Absolutely.  There are plenty of great training resources.....I am shocked that these teacher unions haven't screaming for this.....I think they are, as a whole, part of the faction who refuse to accept reality.  

Gun training acknowledges that there is a place in the US for guns, which the teacher's unions will never do because of their political leanings. 

[Crazy Cat 39,806]

3 minutes ago, MarJhi said:

Gun training acknowledges that there is a place in the US for guns, which the teacher's unions will never do because of their political leanings. 

True.  and they would never accept training from one the best resources in the country (imo), the...............................NRA.

[LIBrty4all 3,749]

4 hours ago, B_J said:

Full disclosure: I have family in Uvalde. We've been there many times. My niece's daughter goes to that school. She is okay. Her husband has a nephew who did not survive.

 

This will be very difficult for a town like Uvalde to get over. It's a small town and relatively isolated. It's the type of small town where you're either related to someone or you know someone who is related to them. That's going to make this harder to deal with, if that's possible. 

 

Everyone I know from there is asking for, and appreciates, prayers at this time. I'm sure that disingenuous politicians will try to use this to score points for "their side", but the real people of that community are going to be too busy dealing with their grief to waste time on that.

 

I just wish I could make sense of it all. I know that wouldn't make it better but I just want to understand. What makes an 18 year old go shoot up an elementary school? They didn't bully him, they did nothing, they're just kids. 

 

I really don't have much else to add to this conversation.  

Without being able to see inside the head of the sick individual that does it, there is no way, buddy.  Nothing to do except pick up the broken pieces and move on.  Sorry that this tragedy has reached so far as to touch the lives of our extended VJ family, and sorry that your family is suffering from what this psycho did.  Thoughts and prayers to you & yours...

[Crazy Cat 39,806]

1 minute ago, LIBrty4all said:

Without being able to see inside the head of the sick individual that does it, there is no way, buddy.

As a retired Registered Nurse with experience in Adolescent Psych and Adult Psych, I can tell you that it is an inexact science.....for the very reason you stated.  There is a lot of subjectivity in that area of medicine.