Mass Shooting at San Antonio Elementary School

[Belsnickel]

(05-25-2022, 10:02 PM)samhain Wrote: A lot of people won't like it, and I get why, but public schools need more intensive security personnel. I don't mean teachers with guns. I mean legit, trained, armed officers that are there to address exactly these kinds of situations. This is done in Israel, though the size and expense of such and undertaking is obviously less financially demanding than one would be in the US.

I'm not numb to it, but I feel like this is our reality on the US. Kids are going to die for no reason at school. All ages of kids. Nobody is changing gun laws. People aren't changing for the better in terms of mental health. Some people cope with mental illness and adversity by buying ARs and shooting second graders. There are more people like this out there.

I'd put military reservists and cops on duty at every school in the nation. Have people profiling high-risk behavior in students. Take things that seem out of place seriously. It should be something that taxpayers would be willing to fund. Keep gun rights, but schools become fortresses with dodgeball.

There's no more strange feeling to me than the one I get when I pull up to my son's elementary school and I can't get in the door to pick him up. I feel like he's in jail and I can't get him out because someone else says so. I totally get why people would have a problem with this. I don't like it. I do feel that it's needed, though.

What we really need is an effort to improve mental health care. We need to reduce the coverage these events have and stop making these shooters famous. We need to work on reducing our country's infatuation with violence that is due in part to the stranglehold the military industrial complex has on us.

What you propose solves nothing. It is just as bad as people clamoring for gun control in the wake of these shootings as it doesn't focus on the actual problems. The problem isn't security, the problem isn't access to firearms. The problem is that we have people that feel disconnected to society, feel they have nowhere else to turn, and feel like this is a valid solution to those feelings.

Since this shooting I have had a lot of folks my age talking about coming of age during the era of Columbine and the years following. How school shootings have increased in those years. They have, it isn't just the result of media coverage blowing it out of proportion or anything. But connect it to other things in this country. We talk about our political divisions. Also social groups have been on a huge decline since then. Our society is becoming disconnected from each other.

We all know I am involved in the Boy Scouts of America. I'm also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and am currently working on joining the local Freemasons. I also chat with a lot of BPOE members as we use the local Elks lodge for Scout meetings. All of these organizations are dying because people don't value that in-person connection anymore. Houses of worship are in the same boat. Volunteerism is way down. All of these things are connected. We are losing a sense of community and that is increasing a mental health crisis because people feel more isolated. People in that situation are more likely to do this sort of thing. They don't have that sense of community. Would it stop them altogether? No, we had these before the decline of our communities. But they certainly weren't as frequent.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox.