So my son's high school just had a gun scare and lockdown

[Duer 157099]

He and I are both amazingly calm and nonchalant about it, I wonder if there's a delayed reaction, or if we're both just so inured to such things (not personally, but from the media etc) that it's just something we take in stride these days.

I guess these things must be fairly common, since I only see it being reported in our local news.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090318/ARTICLES/903180278/1349?Title=Update-Students-head-home-after-gun-scare

The scary thing is that my immediate reaction was that it is a false alarm, and only within the past hour or so have I come to consider that maybe there really is/was a student bringing a firearm into school? I still need to process this...

[tangent90]

1. I guess pulling the fire alarm to get out of class went out of style since I left school.

:D

Don't worry though...the school is a gun-free zone so it would be impossible for anyone to get shot in there.

[gratuitous]

11. Bwahahahaha!

Yeah, don't worry about your son getting shot and killed at school, where he'd be safe in anything approaching a sane society! See, because the NRA likes to make fun of gun-free zones. See, it's really funny.

See?

Okay, maybe not so much. Unless you're a complete dickhead. Then it's hilarious.

[tangent90]

13. How strange, the NRA said something I agree with.

Stopped clock syndrome, I suppose. Thanks for the gratuitous comment.

[Reader Rabbit]

2. I taught in California for seven years, and...

...there wasn't a single year where we didn't expel a kid from school for having a gun or a knife on campus. One year it was a kid who had been kicked out of another district for the same offense!

[derby378]

3. The only gun episode when I attended high school...

...was that I heard of some kid trying to smuggle in a shotgun so he could sell it to a fellow student. He hid it in his trouser leg and didn't even have the sense to unload it first. The gun went off and hit him in the leg, so he was immediately rushed off for medical treatment - and expelled from school.

That's the only incident I know of from my school days, back in the mid-80s.

[Mojorabbit]

4. In the 70's

we had at least one bomb scare a week. Kids calling to get out of class. We would be evacuated to the lawn. I don't remember ever taking it seriously.

[renate]

8. I remember that too--barely

I suppose the reason the bomb "scares" weren't really scary was that the odds were a gazillion to one that they were fake. These days, a student or students with guns is an all-too-real possibility.

If there were a lockdown at my kid's school I'd wet my pants in terror. Back when I was a kid, bomb scares were nothing more or less than a break in a monotonous school day.

[Kat45]

10. I remember that too.

One time, my cousin and her friends called one in to my school so we could get out of class for a while. :D

[Duer 157099]

5. Yeah, today was a big test day there

the 2nd of a two day test, which is why I immediately thought it had to be related to that.

But... what if not? That's what I'm worrying about now.

[Saphire]

6. My kids high school had the same thing happen, turns out it was

one of the ROTC kids with a wooden rifle. Still, ya never know.

[Lost in CT]

7. My school made you keep guns in your car... nt

[benEzra]

9. Perhaps the media are being a bit less hysterical these days...

while still being duly cautious, due to the embarassment of things like this:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7683168 /

School mistakes huge burrito for weapon, goes into lockdown

CLOVIS, N.M. - A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito.

Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High.

The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapeños and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.

[krispos42]

12. *snort*

:rofl:

[Squatch]

14. I never understood the lockdown thing

if there's a gunman inside the school, wouldn't you want to get everybody else out? :shrug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. It's actually safer to keep the kids in classrooms with their teachers

It's easier for one adult to watch a smaller group of kids than for several adults to monitor a large group.

Also chances are good that if they have issued a lockdown alert they already have the gun and the student who brought it in the building. They lockdown so they can do security checks and make sure there are no more guns, etc