When I Was In School, We Had Fire Drills, Not Shooting Drills.

[Rozlee]

I was reading about the school shooting in New Mexico; about how the school acted quickly and efficiently to go into lockdown when it was announced that there was a shooter in the school. It was said that the faculty and students had practiced and drilled for such contingencies and that it was a requirement in most school districts now.

What has this country come to? I remember going to public school and having fire drills. We never conceived of such a thing as school shootings. How did such a thing as a gun culture ever evolve in our country? Gun violence in the modern population used to be something you'd never see outside of the early 20th century gangsters, the Mafia and gang violence. Now, we've got a casual culture of killings and killing sprees by individuals and no major mobilization is being done to address it. Politicians and the public railed and rallied against criminals like Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, the Mafia and the Crips and Bloods. The slaughter of our children in a place where they used to be safe is not given any more consideration than practice and drilling like you'd do for a fire.

[Kaleva]

1. We had fire drills and we could take guns to school during hunting season.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. And lock-downs were something that happened in prisons, not schools.

[struggle4progress]

3. We had air raid drills

[awoke_in_2003]

17. I am old enough

to remember Duck and Cover

[Cleita]

4. We had "duck and cover" drills usually at the same time we had the

fire drills as if we could ever survive the bomb, if it fell.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

7. Beat me to it, Cleita. Duck and cover...

[Cleita]

12. I remember that film only too well.

That's why I don't believe the experts who say Fukushima is not polluting the ocean.

[onehandle]

5. Selfish Fetish > Children's Lives nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

19. What does that mean?

[tblue]

6. I teach, and requested instructions for a shooting incident

It's been a year and I haven't received that yet. But it's horrifying that it's even needed. I just cannot understand how the gun lobby became the decider of public policy. What is a government for, if not to put public health and safety first? Why don't we just admit we are not a democracy anymore? We are governed by unelected leaders who put their profits above our welfare.

[Cleita]

11. Many of us have realized that but have been at a loss as how

to get their toadies out of elected office and replaced by true representatives who have the public interests of the majority in their actions.

[FSogol]

13. At most schools, the instructions are shut and lock the door, turn off the lights,

and gather everyone along a wall that cannot be viewed from the door window. (2 school systems near me have added blinds over the door windows.) The idea is to make the room look like your class is at the cafeteria, gym, or elsewhere.

Even if your school system isn't preparing for the worst, there should be emergency planners in your community who are. I would encourage you to contact them for advice and have them talk to your school board/administration.

[B2G]

8. And our gun laws were laxer back then n/t

[The Straight Story]

14. And gun ownership is down since I was a kid

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-is-down-survey-shows.html

Folks seem to like to blame tools instead of looking for reasons why people use them in the way that they do.

Things have changed over the decades and it is not the number of guns (went down) so maybe, just maybe, the change is in people (but that is too hard to look at so folks will blame something else and try to control it).

[B2G]

15. Exactly.

[AlinPA]

9. Correct. The gun culture is taking over our society.

[SummerSnow]

10. We had fire drills and air raid drills...

we also had two ladies at a desk when you enter the school. they were the 'security". No metal detectors etc. Life was so different then. I never felt scared going to school or thought someone was coming in to shoot us.

[Bandit]

16. I believe the odds of a school shooting are at least as good or better than a fire.

It is the times we live in. More guns in society equate to more of those guns being shot toward people/children...America has gotten sick (both mentally and morally) and I see no change in sight..

[liberal_at_heart]

23. My daughter's high school had a serious threat against it her senior year. So serious that

the FBI got involved. Not only that, but during her senior year there was a young man who shot and killed himself in the school parking lot. That was a separate incident. I agree. The odds of a shooting is probably as good or better than a fire.

[intheflow]

18. We had bomb drills when I was a kid.

I remember a lot of them around the time RFK and MLK were shot. They were basically fire drills, but for the eventuality of bombs. Where and when did you grow up, anyway?

[Mojorabbit]

26. So did my school

In the early 70' s bomb threats were called in to the school frequently. When I was a nurse in the 80 s the same was true and we drilled on it as much as we did fire drills.

[MineralMan]

20. Despite all the news, school shootings are very rare.

If you counted up all of the school shootings in a given year, and then did the math to find out what percentage of schools experienced one, the percentage would be very, very low. Way less than one percent, I'm sure.

But, all sorts of emergencies can occur at a school, so preparing for a wide range of emergency situations is a must. A school shooting situation is one kind of emergency, so specific measures if that occurs should be part of the emergency planning. But, it's just one of many situations that are emergencies that might occur.

An emergency plan should cover all possible emergencies with sets of actions that must be taken. In most emergencies, a similar or the same set of actions will work just fine, and that should be the main plan. But, a school shooting should be considered, with actions predetermined. But, other emergencies are far more likely to happen, so those should be the primary concerns of any emergency plan.

Fire, flood, storm, tornado, earthquake, and other emergency situations are far more likely. A shooting incident at a school is a rare thing, indeed, and will never occur in the vast, vast majority of schools.

[MineralMan]

21. Some statistics about school shootings.

Between 1996 through 2012, there were a total of 45 school shooting incidents.
In 2012, there were a total of seven.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/school-shooting-statistics/

Total number of K-12 schools in the USA: 132,656


http://www.edreform.com/2012/04/k-12-facts/

It's easy enough to do the math to see what the odds of a shooting incident occurring at a given school are. The probability is very, very low, indeed.

Other types of emergencies are far more common.

[Skittles]

22. the NRA has been very successful

our gun humping culture is now the norm

[joeglow3]

24. It is because of the media

There were quite a few school shootings going back to 1900. However, media coverage has shot up and "if it bleeds, it leads."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States#1990s

Schools cater to the paranoia of human nature.

[Lurks Often]

25. How dare you bring those troublesome facts into this conversation!!!