Routine Shootings at US Schools and Universities Megathread.

[DGuller]

Is it really a credit to authorities to take school bomb threats seriously?  If you're really going to bomb a school, you're actually not required to issue a bomb threat beforehand.  Responding to bullshit bomb threats must be a serious cost-benefit fail.

[dps]

Is it really a credit to authorities to take school bomb threats seriously?  If you're really going to bomb a school, you're actually not required to issue a bomb threat beforehand.  Responding to bullshit bomb threats must be a serious cost-benefit fail.

I'll stipulate that someone actually wanting to bomb a school probably isn't going to call in a bomb threat, but I'd still say that responding to a bomb threat as if there really is a bomb is the only smart thing to do.  The potential costs of assuming that such a threat is just b.s. is way too high if it turns out that there is actually a bomb.  After all, what's the cost of evacuating the school building?  The students miss a day of class where they probably wouldn't have learned anything anyway?  If that's a major concern, you can always have a make-up day.

[Eddie Teach]

The bomb in the school is just a diversion. Haven't you guys seen Die Hard 3?

[DGuller]

Is it really a credit to authorities to take school bomb threats seriously?  If you're really going to bomb a school, you're actually not required to issue a bomb threat beforehand.  Responding to bullshit bomb threats must be a serious cost-benefit fail.

I'll stipulate that someone actually wanting to bomb a school probably isn't going to call in a bomb threat, but I'd still say that responding to a bomb threat as if there really is a bomb is the only smart thing to do.  The potential costs of assuming that such a threat is just b.s. is way too high if it turns out that there is actually a bomb.  After all, what's the cost of evacuating the school building?  The students miss a day of class where they probably wouldn't have learned anything anyway?  If that's a major concern, you can always have a make-up day.

The actual cost is waste of police resources and waste of time of thousands of people, plus the cost of delayed police response to non-bullshit calls.  One of the most wrong sayings is "you can never be too safe".  Yes, you can be too safe, if the cost of that safety is counter-productive.

[dps]

Is it really a credit to authorities to take school bomb threats seriously?  If you're really going to bomb a school, you're actually not required to issue a bomb threat beforehand.  Responding to bullshit bomb threats must be a serious cost-benefit fail.

I'll stipulate that someone actually wanting to bomb a school probably isn't going to call in a bomb threat, but I'd still say that responding to a bomb threat as if there really is a bomb is the only smart thing to do.  The potential costs of assuming that such a threat is just b.s. is way too high if it turns out that there is actually a bomb.  After all, what's the cost of evacuating the school building?  The students miss a day of class where they probably wouldn't have learned anything anyway?  If that's a major concern, you can always have a make-up day.

The actual cost is waste of police resources and waste of time of thousands of people, plus the cost of delayed police response to non-bullshit calls.  One of the most wrong sayings is "you can never be too safe".  Yes, you can be too safe, if the cost of that safety is counter-productive.

So are you seriously arguing that if a bomb threat is called in to a school, the authorities should treat it as a prank or hoax and not evacuate the building, and then if a bomb does go off and kill a bunch of people, the authorities can legitimately state that they made the right call because taking the threat seriously wouldn't have been cost-effective?

[DGuller]

Is it really a credit to authorities to take school bomb threats seriously?  If you're really going to bomb a school, you're actually not required to issue a bomb threat beforehand.  Responding to bullshit bomb threats must be a serious cost-benefit fail.

I'll stipulate that someone actually wanting to bomb a school probably isn't going to call in a bomb threat, but I'd still say that responding to a bomb threat as if there really is a bomb is the only smart thing to do.  The potential costs of assuming that such a threat is just b.s. is way too high if it turns out that there is actually a bomb.  After all, what's the cost of evacuating the school building?  The students miss a day of class where they probably wouldn't have learned anything anyway?  If that's a major concern, you can always have a make-up day.

The actual cost is waste of police resources and waste of time of thousands of people, plus the cost of delayed police response to non-bullshit calls.  One of the most wrong sayings is "you can never be too safe".  Yes, you can be too safe, if the cost of that safety is counter-productive.

So are you seriously arguing that if a bomb threat is called in to a school, the authorities should treat it as a prank or hoax and not evacuate the building, and then if a bomb does go off and kill a bunch of people, the authorities can legitimately state that they made the right call because taking the threat seriously wouldn't have been cost-effective?

Yes, I am seriously arguing that, unless they have reasons to believe that the threat is unusually legitimate.  Authorities should have some room to excercise common sense, they should not be straight-jacketed into stupidly wasteful actions on the assumption that the public is too stupid to understand balanced decision-making.

[Razgovory]

We got a bomb threat when I was in school.  Pro-life rally got a bit out of control at the capital and one of the more excitable participants decided to call the police and tell them that if the governor didn't care about the unborn she would take it out on the living children.  I forgot how that was suppose to work exactly.  This was before 911 and so many people in the community were sympathetic to the woman's cause no charges were filed.

[11B4V]

 

[Oexmelin]

Two survivors from Parkland commit suicide.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/24/us/parkland-suicide-marjory-stoneman-douglas.html

[Razgovory]

Two survivors from Parkland commit suicide.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/24/us/parkland-suicide-marjory-stoneman-douglas.html

Well, all those people who cried "Crisis actor" are happy.

[mongers]

Colorado shooting: Teenager killed in high school attack
8 May 2019 

A teenager has been killed and seven others injured after two pupils allegedly opened fire in a US school.

The attack at the STEM School Highlands Ranch, near Denver, Colorado, took place on Tuesday, police said. Both attackers have now been arrested.

Highlands Ranch is just 8km (5 miles) from Columbine High School - the site of one of the US's worst school shootings 20 years ago.

This is believed to be the 115th mass shooting in the US in 2019.

Full item here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48196487

The thought, 'they got of lightly' crossed my mind, forgetting for a moment that someone's child was killed and others likely maimed for life. 

[Razgovory]

Looks like Marty was right.

This time he appears to have been less right.

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/09/florida-armed-teachers-school-districts

Florida schools reject law allowing teachers to carry guns

Florida's new law allowing teachers to carry guns in their classrooms is largely impotent, research by the Guardian has found, with dozens of school districts across the state rejecting the controversial measure.

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, signed the bill into law on Wednesday that expands a campus "armed guardian" program established in the wake of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school massacre to include trained teacher volunteers.

According to the Republican lawmakers who pushed through the bill last week despite criticism from teachers, gun safety groups and several law enforcement agencies, the move was designed to improve the security of students, especially in rural counties where a police response to any incident could be slower.

But after leaving Florida's 67 counties to make their own decision about allowing teachers to participate, the scale of opposition quickly became apparent. Following the bill's passage, the Guardian canvassed the 25 largest school districts by size, covering more than 2.3 million of the state's 2.8 million school-age children, and established from interviews, a study of public statements and resolutions passed by school board members, that none were planning to allow their teachers to be armed.

Additionally, several district superintendents have spoken out strongly against the law, including those in Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough and Orange counties, the four most populated districts with a combined student count of more than 1 million.

"The school board voted on a resolution against arming teachers more than a year ago," Robert Runcie, the superintendent of the Broward school district that includes Stoneman Douglas (MSD), said in a statement also sent to parents.

"We did that because we want our schools to be safe places for teaching and for learning. We do not want to create a psychological impact on our children knowing their teachers have guns, nor create stress on our teachers as they deal with more non-instructional duties. Arming teachers will create an unsafe environment."

Tony Gregory, the Broward county sheriff recently appointed by DeSantis, backed Runcie's comments in a strongly-worded letter in which he said Florida legislators "missed the mark by proposing to arm teachers".

"Having untrained personnel carrying firearms is more likely to create a tragic scenario where innocent people can get injured or killed," he warned. "Having more firearms in an active shooter situation would make it more difficult for police officers to identify the shooter."

Broward was among 25 counties that signed up for the Aaron Feis guardian program, named for the MSD football coach who was one of the 17 victims of last year's Valentine's Day shooting. Initially, the program, created by last year's MSD High School Public Safety Act and run in conjunction with local police and sheriff's agencies, allowed non-teaching volunteers to train to act as armed campus monitors to supplement or in some cases take the place of law enforcement personnel.

...

It was not until Florida's 27th-most populated school district, Bay county with only 28,000 students, that the Guardian found school leaders publicly supportive. "We're excited about it," the schools safety and security chief Mike Jones told reporters in March. "I'm 100% in favor. It's a chance to put more armed people on our campuses to combat these guys."

Opponents of the law, however, take little comfort that so many school districts have come out against it.

"I would love to say it's encouraging that the majority of our students won't be in harm's way, however it will be the rural school districts that will suffer the most," said Gay Valimont, the volunteer leader of the Florida chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. "We're here to save the most lives and even if it's putting [just] a fraction of our children in danger then it's an ill-conceived bill.

The sponsor of the bill, the Florida senate president, Bill Galvano, insisted the aim was only to offer school districts another option to meet the MSD Public Safety Act's requirement of at least one armed "safe-school officer" on campus, and not to place teachers with guns into classrooms.
...

[mongers]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/09/florida-armed-teachers-school-districts

...

Is this happening anywhere else in the world?

Or is this a rare example of 'Only in America' actually being appropriate?

[Monoriu]

I don't think it is a good idea to place guns in a school environment.  The risks involved cannot be underestimated.  Students can steal them.  The guns can go off accidentally.  It is unreasonable to expect teachers to handle deadly weapons.