School in my town started last Wednesday. We have two high schools. On Wednesday, the first day of school, a kid brought a gun to school. Was apprehended mostly with minor incident.
Monday, the fourth day of school, a kid brings a BB gun to school. Apprehended without incident.
My district doesn’t currently employ school resource officers (SRO), nor do we have metal detectors.
Everyone is screaming that we need SROs and metal detectors. The above 2 incidents were resolved due to observant staff at the schools. I see these resolutions as a positive note about our district that they take school safety and security seriously. Everyone else is seeing it as a failure - I guess they assume having an SRO on campus will somehow lead to a better outcome than the above.
I actually have a background in school safety and security, working as a security consultant to districts previously. The only proven methods to increase security in schools is having hyper vigilant and hyper aware staff that are able to observe when something is amiss, as well as form the trusting bonds with their students so they know when a student is struggling, or their family is struggling.
I suppose SROs can be a benefit, if the SRO is selected and trained really well.
Metal detectors lead to additional issues creating bottle necks at the school entrance that would allow someone to have a line up of 30-40 targets to start shooting at if they desired.
The school board meeting on Thursday is going to be a shit show. I’m going to go and speak because the district is going to get hammered about failing the students on security, and I see these incidents as proof that the district is taking security seriously.
Here’s some stories on the incidents. On the first one, someone called the cops on the kid outside of the school because they saw him take something from his backpack and put it in his waistband. The cops came and chose not to do anything. From my understanding, the staff at the school were aware of issues with this kid and were on the alert for any suspicious behavior from him.
On the second incident, a teacher noticed some suspicious behavior by a group of boys and followed them into the restroom where he saw them pass a gun under the stall.
Here’s a nice Reddit thread on the most recent incident. I ended up having a pretty good conversation with our local sheriff -
https://www.reddit.com/r/olympia/comments/16g3x9g/another_gun_at_capital_high/
What is a metal detector even supposed to do? I guess give everyone a few seconds heads-up before the school shooter starts blasting? SROs seem like they could be a very helpful resource in a lot of ways like you say but I don’t know what they’re going to do in a shooting incident --surely we don’t expect them to take down an armed assailant.
A metal detector and an SRO main uses are to make parents and the community feel like the district is doing something.
Meanwhile, I’m over here trying to tell people that the only reason why your kids school didn’t get shot up today is because nobody wanted to do it. The same reason why you didn’t get shot in a grocery store, or at the gym, or a movie theater, or anywhere. It’s only because nobody felt like doing it today.
But they might tomorrow.
Gun fetishists will see anything through the lens of wanting more boom boom sticks to snuggle with.
They literally see people SHOOTING UP KIDS as justification for more of their favorite toy.
You can’t reason with nutjobs, sadly, but I appreciate you trying to do the right thing. It obviously won’t work, but respect.
You can’t reason with them, you can only forcibly take their guns away or shoot them. Obviously, I advocate the former.
I feel like schools need counselors doing one on ones with the kids to learn about them and their families. Some kids might be weekly/biweekly/monthly based on need.
I absolutely agree. Schools need more social workers and family liaisons. But, there’s usually a funding issue.
Obviously doing a lot of work here.
Even the burn bins are packing these days
legit possibility we someday see a campus shooting at a campus shooting protest event.
https://x.com/AMarch4OurLives/status/1702009105982894422?s=20
But what about the Steve Scalise shooter? That’s the real pressing problem right now.
God, the scummiest and sleaziest comments are always at the top of these tweets.
Twitter really is Parler now.
So is Nextdoor. You have no idea how many posts there are of “Look at this tweaker ringing my Ring doorbell” followed by comment after comment of “If this person ever showed up on my doorstep, I would fill them full of led with my sawed-off” as if being drunk/high/confused in public carries a fucking death sentence.
People wonder why nobody knows their neighbors anymore. Maybe I dont need to be worrying whether Ill have a glock shoved in my face if I need to borrow someones lawnmower.
Dan Spaeth of Snohomish, Wash., was outside his home with his wife on the evening of Sept. 7, trying to alert passing cars to deer that were crossing the road, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office Det. Kendra Conley wrote in an affidavit of probable cause filed in court.
He was shot once by a man driving by, who later told authorities that seeing Spaeth and his wife in the street made him afraid and he fired the shot to scare the couple, according to the affidavit.
There’s no “history or tradition” of banning high capacity magazines (which I’m pretty sure did not exist when the constitution was written). Sorry libs.
Let’s all take a moment to congratulate America on not having a mass school shooting since school started. (I was going to say for a few months but remembered summer just ended.)
