Routine Shootings at US Schools and Universities Megathread.

[Valmy]

If there isn't, there isn't. I have this weird feeling we have been around this block before, where long celebrations of gun culture have this reaction and then swings back in the other direction for awhile.

I don't think there has been any point in US history with this kind of entrenched, politicized gun culture.

Politicized, I guess not. Though I do kind of think about the romanticization of guns right after the Civil War and the blowback that eventually created, but that certainly wasn't political in the same sense.

Just typically whenever this country goes into some kind of extreme position eventually the next generation tends to react strongly in the other direction. But I do have to admit the fundamentalist belief that owning guns is an essential human right and a guard against tyranny and injustice and all the propaganda that goes along with that is a very potent political powerhouse, so we will see.

[Oexmelin]

If there isn't, there isn't. I have this weird feeling we have been around this block before, where long celebrations of gun culture have this reaction and then swings back in the other direction for awhile.

Things don't automatically generate reaction. They need to be sustained politically, systematically, financially, institutionally. Issues need to be shaped, directed, constituted. As horrible as the situation currently is, there is not enough sustained pressure generated against the very entrenched political and cultural position that sustain the intimate association between conservative collective identity and gun ownership, use, and fetichism. Streets are empty. Shoulders are shrugged. Meanwhile, there are active shooters drill in schools, and people are debating arming teachers.

[grumbler]

Politicized, I guess not. Though I do kind of think about the romanticization of guns right after the Civil War and the blowback that eventually created, but that certainly wasn't political in the same sense.

But even the post-ACW gun culture, to the extent that it existed at all, was perfectly fine with local rules like "no guns allowed inside town limits."  Guns were only considered necessary and proper when individuals had to face potential harm away from the protections of the law.

Just typically whenever this country goes into some kind of extreme position eventually the next generation tends to react strongly in the other direction. But I do have to admit the fundamentalist belief that owning guns is an essential human right and a guard against tyranny and injustice and all the propaganda that goes along with that is a very potent political powerhouse, so we will see.

This is just an extension of the superheroes vs supervillains mindset that the American right has invented and sold to a gullible people.  And if you have a gun in order to spring into action as a superhero, you might as well use it to defend against people ringing your doorbell because they might be supervillains.

[Valmy]

Streets are empty.

Well yeah. Who wants to be an easy target?

[viper37]

Meanwhile, there are active shooters drill in schools, and people are debating arming teachers.

Debating?  I thought they were already doing it in some States?
I thought the debate was about arming students now.

[Tamas]

Saw it on Twitter, not a shooting and hopefully won't become one but it is absolutely sick, I don't know what else you need as proof for a dysfunctional society when this is allowed:
https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928

Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students.
Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he's protesting @GovWesMoore's new gun control law. You'll hear from both sides at 5+6pm.

Can you imagine having kids in your family use the school bus every day with that lunatic standing there with an assault rifle? Where is the police? Don't tell me they don't have their ways to harass him off.

What is even the solution to such a situation? Should a couple of parents accompany the bus with their AR-15s just in case the guy flips? Kids caught in the inevitable crossfire would be just "no way to stop this" collateral damage? WTF?

[Josquius]

Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students.
Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he's protesting @GovWesMoore's new gun control law. You'll hear from both sides at 5+6pm.

 
Amazing that random dude  with an assault rifle hanging around a bunch of little kids on their way to school, and parents who are a tinsy bit concerned about this, is a both sides issue..

I have to wonder. If he was just showing up without the gun would the police have stepped in already concerned about him being a paedo?

[Admiral Yi]

What is even the solution to such a situation? Should a couple of parents accompany the bus with their AR-15s just in case the guy flips? Kids caught in the inevitable crossfire would be just "no way to stop this" collateral damage? WTF?

All the kids get little bullet proof vests and the parents escort them to the stop with bullet proof riot shields.

[Jacob]

Well... if a parent feels threatened by this guy, they're within their rights to shoot him in self-defence I should think? Or if he makes a sudden movement or whatever?

[grumbler]

Well... if a parent feels threatened by this guy, they're within their rights to shoot him in self-defence I should think? Or if he makes a sudden movement or whatever?

Or if one of the elementary school students feels threatened, they can shoot him.

Stand Your Ground!

[Syt]

What is even the solution to such a situation? Should a couple of parents accompany the bus with their AR-15s just in case the guy flips? Kids caught in the inevitable crossfire would be just "no way to stop this" collateral damage? WTF?

All the kids get little bullet proof vests and the parents escort them to the stop with bullet proof riot shields.

Bullet proof backpacks.

https://tuffypacks.com/
https://tuffypacks.com/images/pdfs/TuffyPacks-Parents-Guide.pdf

[Jacob]

Shooting event at a music festival in WA. "Only" two dead (obviously not only to their friends and family). Still hits closer as one of my colleagues was attending the festival.

[Threviel]

For a while I've been thinking about the role Hollywood has played in this. Lots of 80's and 90's movies about the lone, well armed, dude being hunted by "the Government" and using violence to defend himself. "Enemy of the State" and the like.

Since a lot of people get their world view from entertainment that shit must have had an effect on peoples distrust of government and in extension their views on gun control.

[Duque de Bragança]

Thankfully, Chuck Norris' Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) was more subtle than that. 

 
There was also a future Star Trek Voyager actor in it.

[grumbler]

For a while I've been thinking about the role Hollywood has played in this. Lots of 80's and 90's movies about the lone, well armed, dude being hunted by "the Government" and using violence to defend himself. "Enemy of the State" and the like.

Corrupt government, decent man has to resort to violence in order to get justice...  You are talking about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, aren't you?