Yet another school shooting

[gbclarkson]

I see TFL threads pop up from time-to-time debating the policy of having defensive firearms in public schools. My response: NO!

This issue hits close to home for me now. Last week there was a shooting in the cafeteria of the high school in my home town, in the district in which I teach, the school from which I graduated and the same school my son will be attending in two years. This particular incident was mitigated to one injured student because an alert PE teacher tackled the shooter. Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community. The mental illness that brews through adolescence, and leads to the choice of violence to solve an emotional problem, is typically identified at the elementary level. But, we do not have the resources to adequately intervene for these children or to help their caregivers. School violence is a public health crisis and must to be addressed within that sphere.

Contact your elected federal representative and tell them, ask, or demand that he or she support the Mental Health in Schools Act. This act proposes to provide public schools with the funding to staff mental health professionals. It has been stalled in sub-committee since March, 2015.

[K_Mac]

What if the PE teacher had been incapacitated by the shooter, who then went on to kill or seriously injure other students? What if there were trained and skilled teachers who had multiple options of dealing with an active shooter, including lethal force if required? What if lethal force was the only way of stopping the violence? Would the students or teachers be safer without that option?

Mental health treatment in our country is much like affordable health care in general: It is often talked about, but no one is doing much to make it happen. I hope that we can come to terms with these issues. In the meantime we need to protect ourselves and our children from mentally ill people who would use violence against us. Limiting our options doesn't make sense to me.

[Mr. Hill]

how specifically would that legislation have prevented that horrible event, what is the projected annual cost, and are there anti-gun provisions contained therein?

[ShootistPRS]

If I carry a concealed weapon into school when I pick up my grandchild I want to know why it would be wrong? Why can't a qualified individual have a gun to protect those things we care most about?
The schools that presidents children attend and the children of other state officials have paid security guards who carry guns. Are their kids more important than yours? Cops can openly carry their guns into a school so why should it be banned other than to permit bad guys free reign on the targets of their choice?
Banning guns only stops good people, law abiding citizens, from having the means to protect themselves and others. Bans have never stopped criminals.

[Skadoosh]

I see TFL threads pop up from time-to-time debating the policy of having defensive firearms in public schools. My response: NO!

Virtually a drive-by post. Blanket statement with ZERO supporting evidence or logical reasoning. From a teacher who, in this instance, chose not to teach. Nice goin'. I don't see this thread lasting very long.

[5whiskey]

While it is a firearms topic, and not off limits, I'm afraid the way you proposed it is akin to opening a can of worms. For instance...

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community

Its an issue that cannot be solved by debate on mental health bills either. It is just as much a 2nd amendment debate as it is a mental health debate. Columbine would not have been stopped by one gym teacher tackling the shooters. It MIGHT have been much less catastrophic with one armed person who was well trained. Or maybe not. We will never know.

Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

Probably not. But that is one tactic used in one scenario. Most here will think its silly to try and carry a rifle out of fear of a mass shooting because there might be a scenario or 2 where it would make sense. Even if there is a chance of a situation that a pistol will be useless while a rifle might save your life, there is a remoteness of that chance and carrying a rifle everywhere is impractical. Most will opt out. Just because a blind side tackle was a better tactic in one situation doesn't mean it will be every other time.

As long as human beings are capable of deceit, then the chance that mental health professionals will pro actively identify a school shooting before it occurs is probably on par with the chance of an armed good guy stopping the shooting.

[OldMarksman]

The suggestion that conjecture about what might have happened differently in one single incident can be used to formulate a solution, or to discredit other strategies, is ludicrous.

The idea that a more attention on improved mental health would be an effective strategy for the mitigation of risk associate with violent attacks on unprotected innocents is naive.

[Green Lantern]

Anger management

[gbclarkson]

The suggestion that conjecture about what might have happened differently in one single incident can be used to formulate a solution, or to discredit other strategies, is ludicrous.

It's not just this one single incident. It's all of them. They were all mentally unstable. A gun in the school won't fix that.

The idea that a more attention on improved mental health would be an effective strategy for the mitigation of risk associate with violent attacks on unprotected innocents is naive.

Naive? You're assertion that mental services would not be beneficial is absolutely moronic. How would those services hurt?

[Eazyeach]

He didn't say those services wouldn't be beneficial or that they would hurt. He said they wouldn't prevent violent attacks on UNPROTECTED innocents. Man do you work for CNN? You can't cherry pick like that.

[K_Mac]

gbclarkson:

You used the successful intervention of the PE teacher to make your point that guns should not be allowed in schools. OldMarksman correctly points out that this isolated incident does not make your point.

I think the way we treat, or more accurately don't treat mental illness in this country is disgraceful. With that said, improved treatment of troubled adolescents and adults "will not stop violent attacks on unprotected innocents."

The issue then becomes, what are we going to do when these attacks take place? I believe having armed, trained, skilled civilians on campus to stop such an attack is a reasonable response. What would this action hurt?

Your response is naive in my opinion, OldMarksman's, and probably many others here. You are absolutely right that we can't solve this problem on this forum. We also will not stop it with aggressive government intervention in the lives of adolescents who don't play well with others. Other popular "solutions" are to make carrying a handgun a serious offense, or just making them completely illegal, 2A be damned. That kind of solution is more dangerous than a disturbed individual with a gun.

[DaleA]

I am not being sarcastic here.

1. Can mental health professionals 'fix/cure' folk who would go on a shooting rampage?

2. I guess I could go along with having a mental health professional interview/analyze each and every student before admitting them to the school but would they be able to detect which ones would be killers?

3. If the mental health screeners erred on the safe side about how many folk would be deemed dangerous, and please don't just tell me 'all the boys'?

4. What should/could we do with all the folk the mental health screeners deemed 'dangerous', even though they haven't done anything yet? I guess give them treatment, but what treatment are we talking about?

This seems to be getting away from firearms...

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by gbclarkson

I see TFL threads pop up from time-to-time debating the policy of having defensive firearms in public schools. My response: NO!

This issue hits close to home for me now. Last week there was a shooting in the cafeteria of the high school in my home town, in the district in which I teach, the school from which I graduated and the same school my son will be attending in two years. This particular incident was mitigated to one injured student because an alert PE teacher tackled the shooter. Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community. The mental illness that brews through adolescence, and leads to the choice of violence to solve an emotional problem, is typically identified at the elementary level. But, we do not have the resources to adequately intervene for these children or to help their caregivers. School violence is a public health crisis and must to be addressed within that sphere.

Respectfully, I think you have completely missed the mark. From what I've read on this incident, the shooter was a younger student who had been subjected to severe bullying since he entered the school. Apparently no action was taken against the bully (an upper class female stident), leaving the shooter feeling that he had no recourse to protect himself other than to try to take out the bully.

IMHO this was not a case of mental illness, this was an act of desperation. My daughter was bullied when she entered the local high school, to the point that she suffered a nervous breakdown and we had to remove her from the public school system. The school, of course, denied there was ever any bullying. However, I knew people on the faculty, and they privately (and VERY much off the record) confirmed that bullying was a huge problem at the local high school. The problem is well known internally, but absolutely not acknowledged or talked about. When the issue is raised, the administrators deny that the problem exists.

So the issue here wasn't that a kid with a mental condition wasn't identified and treated. The issue was that a younger student was badly bullied by an upper class student, and the school system did nothing to protect him.

Also:

Originally Posted by gbclarkson

Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

And you know this to be the case ... how, exactly? In fact, the student who was wounded was not the shooter's target. The teacher who intervened pulled the gun off target but, in the process, allowed a shot to hit another student. If she (the teacher) had had a gun and simply shot the shooter as soon as she saw his gun, isn't it possible that none of the other students might have been shot?

[turkeestalker]

The idea that a more attention on improved mental health would be an effective strategy for the mitigation of risk associate with violent attacks on unprotected innocents is naive.

..... and dangerous.

DaleA is correct.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by 5Whisley

Its an issue that cannot be solved by debate on mental health bills either. It is just as much a 2nd amendment debate as it is a mental health debate. Columbine would not have been stopped by one gym teacher tackling the shooters. It MIGHT have been much less catastrophic with one armed person who was well trained. Or maybe not. We will never know.

Always keep in mind that the primary weapon at Columbine was supposed to have been bombs. The bombs failed to detonate; the guns were the backup plan.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by DaleA

1. Can mental health professionals 'fix/cure' folk who would go on a shooting rampage?

The Sandy Hook (CT) school shooter was under mental health care. Neither his mother nor his mental health providers foresaw that he would engage in a mass shooting (beginning with killing his own mother).

[4V50 Gary]

I blame psychotropic medication.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by 4V50 Gary

I blame psychotropic medication.

For which incident?

Or for both?

[Tom Servo]

School shootings is an issue that cannot be solved by debate within pro-firearms community

Nor can it be solved solely by the psychiatric community, or by politicians, or by educators. We're still figuring out the why of school shootings.

Sure, there are some vague similarities like SSRI use and alienation, but people meeting those criteria make up a huge percentage of children, most of whom never act out violently.

While the bill under consideration (text here) could do some good, prioritizing it over other approaches to preventing or ameliorating violence just shuts down study and discussion of all possibilities.

[olddav]

gbclarkson

In regard to your request that I contact my representative and support the "Mental Health in Schools Act". Without debate or argument I respond with a simple "NO".

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

Nor can it be solved solely by the psychiatric community, or by politicians, or by educators. We're still figuring out the why of school shootings.

We'll never figure out the "why" of school shootings, because each one is different. Take just three -- compare two famous/infamous/notorious school shootings and compare them to this one. Columbine, Sandy Hook, and now this one.

Is there a rock solid common denominator? I submit that there isn't. The Sandy Hook shooter didn't even attend the school he shot up. Therefore we can't expect any one-size-fits-all "solution" to solve anything.

The one thing that's abundantly clear is that making guns illegal in schools has been an abject failure as a "solution."

Mental health professionals? My daughter was under the care of a psychiatrist and a psychologist. They cared her right through (or into) five suicide attempts (after the one that got her started on "therapy"). She has since realized what I knew all along -- the only person who can cure her of depression is herself.

[Double Naught Spy]

It's not just this one single incident. It's all of them. They were all mentally unstable. A gun in the school won't fix that.

I guess any time somebody acts outside of the norm of society that they may be deemed as mentally unstable, but ironically the mentally unstable people who act with the norms of society are overlooked. With that said, it isn't that a gun in school will fix mental instability, no more than cops will fix crimes. The problem exists well beyond the level of the actual incident, yet it is at the level of the actual incident where folks need the most defensive help.

This issue hits close to home for me now. Last week there was a shooting in the cafeteria of the high school in my home town, in the district in which I teach, the school from which I graduated and the same school my son will be attending in two years. This particular incident was mitigated to one injured student because an alert PE teacher tackled the shooter. Would the damage have been even less if she chose to return fire instead? Again: NO!

While probably the most common non-LEO method for stopping or attempting to stop such shooting is physical confrontation by students or faculty against the shooter, it is still a fairly uncommon tactic in the scope of all the shootings that occur in schools. By and large, people fear the shooter and attempt to flee, perceiving that they have no defense against a firearm. A better defense would be that of another firearm.

Personally, I am a huge proponent of people making do with the options that they have before them and to NOT believe that being unarmed means being defenseless, but I would much rather prefer to not be unarmed if dealing with an active shooter.

While the mental health in schools act seems like a really good idea, I would like to point out that the vast majority of such shooters are NOT students with undiagnosed mental health issues that had gone untreated. I would be willing to bet that in this case, the teen in question has known issues, has seen doctor(s), and was likely supposed to have been on medication. Maybe he was undiagnosed, but that would make him more of the exception than the rule. We can't keep coming up with laws and government programs to cover every unique individual issue that materializes.

[OldMarksman]

It's not just this one single incident. It's all of them.

Tthe issue is trying to use one single incident to evaluate potential mitigation strategies.

They were all mentally unstable.

Alrighty then!

A gun in the school won't fix that.

Of course not, but preventing those responsible for the protection innocent person from having the lawful means to do so is the issue--not how many of the students might fall onto or near one end or the other of the distributions for any of several dozen dfferent psychological testing measurements.

Violent incidents will occur. The question is how to deal with them when they do.

Naive? You're assertion that mental services would not be beneficial is absolutely moronic. How would those services hurt?

I have asserted no such thing, but since you have raised the issue, there are numerous ways in which at the very predictable misuse of such programs can hurt.

What I said was that the idea that a more attention on improved mental health would be an effective strategy for the mitigation of risk associated with violent attacks on unprotected innocents, which was the issue raised here, is naive.

What I should have said was incredibly naive.

[TrueBlue711]

...demand that he or she support the Mental Health in Schools Act

This whole post is definitely a touchy subject for those on both sides of the fence. I agree with most of the people on here and feel that conceal carry should be allowed in schools by teachers if they choose to do so and train to do so. There is no harm in it and if they conceal carry properly, nobody around them should even know they have it.
I also agree that our mental health program could use some help, but it will not stop these things from happening. I'm VERY cautious of mental health bills/laws being proposed when the word "gun" is in the same bill/law. That can be easily abused and 2A be damned. Lets say a teacher notices a student is off and sends him/her to mental health and they deem him/her dangerous. How far would the mental health bill go to "prevent violence" by said individual? Would they go to the parents' house and take THEIR guns away since this kid lives there? I'm not saying the Mental Health in Schools Act would do that. I don't know, I haven't even read it yet. Just saying I would read it very carefully and if there is any hint of gun confiscation buried in it, I would email my rep and say don't do it.
Random related thought that's kind of in the middle ground. What's everybody's thought if teachers could/would carry non-lethal like tasers? The good ones that shoot the prongs and are fairly accurate at a distance, not the crappy ones carried in women's purses in '90s movies.

[Pond, James Pond]

I don't see why an Act designed to tackle mental health issues in schools before they get out of hand (assuming that is what it is designed to do and not a token gesture) and having armed members of staff have to mutually exclusive.

Mental health provisions may help reduce the incidence of such horrific events, but armed staff can be an added barrier against tragedy when those mental health provisions fail, which they inevitably will at some point.

If my child were in a school that was attacked and a member of staff put themselves in harm's way to protect my child, I would owe that person an immeasurable debt of gratitude.

One way of showing that gratitude is demanding they not be deprived of a means of bestowing that protection... i.e. be allowed to be armed (but also trained) if they so wish.