I would have said the same thing 4 days ago.
Iâm all for more armed, well trained, police officers at schools but in conjunction with much, much stricter gun laws.
The HP shooter should never, ever have been able to purchase a weapon and his father should be charged as well. There are way, way too many stories like this one where there were plenty of warning signs and police visits. We can do better. Our children and grandchildren deserve to not be terrified of going to school, or a parade, or out to dinner.
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I agree that his earlier actions should have prohibited him from owning a firearm. His father should not have signed for his card that allowed him to purchase either. Many of these recent incidents seem to have glaring âred flagsâ that were overlooked.
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I have worked in facilities where employees have used guns to kill while on premise. (Sadly even suicides have occured).
As an educator, Iâm opposed to increased access to guns on school grounds or allowing teachers to carry guns as a solution for making our schools safer.
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True, I was particularly thinking of a couple of folks on the thread who had multiple experiences with school violence.
I understand that idea doesnât sit well with you. In my mind I would rather have someone at the school better prepared to address a threat that presents itself rather than relying on hiding and hoping.
As you say, youâve worked at facilities where employees have used guns to kill while on premises. That had to be really scary. If I were in that situation it would be nice to have a way to effectively counter the threat.
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Iâd prefer that mentally ill people never have a way to buy semiautomatic weapons of any kind in the first place. It makes it too easy to murder a lot of people. Except for police and military, there is not a person alive who needs a semiautomatic weapon. As for the âgood guy with a gunâ, that theory appears to have been soundly disproven by the tragedy at Uvalde, amongst other readily available information.
My kidâs college had a student murder on campus a few years ago. (It wasnât a shooting.) His college is big enough that it didnât create a huge shockwave, which is pretty sad, really. Itâs just indicative of how desensitized we all have become to violence in our educational institutions. When did this become a nation where we KNOW that these tragedies will continue to occur? Itâs just sickening.
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Under federal law a person that has been âadjudicated as a mental defectiveâ or âcommitted to a mental institutionâ is prohibited from purchasing any firearm.
Everyone I know, myself included, would agree that they donât want a mentally ill person to own a firearm.
A student at my sonâs college apparently took a leap off a building this past year to commit suicide. It was a tragedy but didnât get as much attention as I would have expected either. Iâm glad that at least some improvements are being looked at regarding mental health care.
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I think everyone agrees that while the vast majority of mentally ill people will not ever become violent, there should still be a safeguard that mentally ill people shouldnât own firearms. (Or many other people, but thatâs a debate for another day) The problem is that while the laws are federal, they actually donât need to be followed in many cases due to provisions put in by the NRA
"Yet for all its strengths, the system was designed nearly three decades ago to run at a fraction of its current capacity. It operates with serious built-in limitations inserted by the gun lobby, which pushed to speed up gun sales â inserting a provision that allows gun dealers to give purchasers their weapons if an investigation is not completed within three business days.
And while all 50 states participate in the system, it remains technically voluntary, so the federal government has no authority to order states to provide any records â or dictate a timetable for data to be delivered. This, many law enforcement officials believe, has contributed to persistent gaps in the system that have been associated with several high-profile mass killings and many other less-publicized crimes"
What each of you have posted is deeply impactful. Normally Iâd click on the thumbs up button to acknowledge that the post resonates. But that just seems disrespectful in some instances. Thank you, all of you.
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Yes! And what about all the mentally ill people buying AR15âs with no diagnosis yet? Thereâs nothing to stop those people. Maybe if those types of guns werenât available at Walmart, mentally ill people wouldnât be able to get them.
An AR15 is simply for killing lots of people. Thereâs no reason why an ordinary citizen needs to have one.
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DDâs first experience was a friend who was a VA Tech victim. It hit her hard. The second was a friend killed by an off duty cop shooting at a car and killing him instead. Also hit her hard. What helped her was coming together with her close peers, her choir as alumni, and they sang for them. Still on the anniversaries I make sure sheâs ok. These things never happened when I was growing up so it is so hard to parent these adults.
We have that too. Probably kept it to only a few kids being killed that day. Iâm thankful for that. But unless your school is very small, one officer wonât help much. Bullets move faster than people.
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And what about all the mentally ill people buying AR15âs with no diagnosis yet? Thereâs nothing to stop those people.
And some of those just might be the teachers people want to arm.
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Iâm all for mentally ill people not being able to purchase any firearms. I think there should definitely be improved reporting by states to the national NICS system (federal background checks) regarding mental health, domestic abuse, juvenile offenses, etc.
Many of these recent incidents blatantly show a trail of telling signs posted online, on social media and elsewhere where these individuals are broadcasting their intent. We should certainly be able to do a better job of recognizing these individuals before they act.
Just as a point of clarification, Walmart stopped selling AR-15s awhile back.
Part of the issue is how to define âmentally illâ. Does depression count? Anxiety? What if the personâs illness responds to meds? I agree with the poster who said if we arm teachers/admin, some of those people would certainly qualify as âmentally illâ, regardless where the line is.
Also, if people donât press charges when âtellingâ incidents occur, the red flag laws donât do anything (at least as currently written)âŠthis is what happened in Illinois with the HP shooter, the family didnât/wouldnât press charges when he threatened to kill them, so he was allowed to get a FOID card.
Even if we did ban the sale of assault weapons, at this point there are so many semi/automatic guns out there thereâs no way to get them off the streets (as long as 1/2 the country continues to votes for the party that supports their right to bear assault weapons). But, we can stop selling the ammunition for assault weapons.
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This thread is going way off topic. The topic is âhow have your kids reacted to tragedies in their schoolsâ, not about weaponizing facilities or stigmatizing the vast majority of people with mental health issues who are not and never will be violent. Several of the major mental health organizations and educators (see the bottom of the attached document for this particular list) came out with a strong statement after one of the recent mass shootings. While everyone agrees that mental health services in our country are underserved, underfunded and in need of significant improvement, this is NOT an issue of mental illness (26% of adults in the US have a diagnosed mental illness - Mental Health Disorder Statistics | Johns Hopkins Medicine). Three quarters of adults report stress or trauma associated with mass shootings. Please read the attached statement, and then lets please stop stigmatizing people with MH issues, please stop debating (which is not allowed on CC) about weaponizing facilities and get back to the thread topic about how our CHILDREN are responding.
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This is why I never buy into the âresponsible gun ownerâ argument people try to make. I know many responsible gun owners. However, I think if we look at any gun owner that has been involved in any incident ranging from mass murder to a child hurting themselves with an unsecured weapon, they would have self identified as a âresponsible gun ownerâ. I know most wonât agree with me, but I think someone should have to go out of their way to prove they are not only mentally fit (doctor or psych exam) to own a gun, but also be responsible for safe storage and tracking of their weapon with frequent follow up checks.
As for the âguns donât kill peopleâ argument, I always reply with, âItâs not the guns, itâs the bullets. You can keep your guns. Letâs ban the sale of ammunitionâ. While that will never happen, there is no reason that it canât be limited and tracked.
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1/3 of Americans personally own a firearm. 44% of people live in a household with a firearm. There are almost 400 million firearms in the US, 99.9998% of which are not used to harm anyone. I donât see anyone taking them away.
I think our collective energy would be better spent on ensuring those that shouldnât have firearms donât. We could do a much better job as a society in this area. Our children and us would be safer if that happened.
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But an 18 year old kid wouldnât necessarily know where to get an assault rifle. If we stop selling them retail without even buying back whatâs already out there, it would make a difference.
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