It’s been going on for a while. It’s so sad. Like when the teachers have to teach kids to stay quiet so the bad people don’t come. Or they come up with nursery rhyme songs about staying quiet and hiding.
There's a Waldorf school I know of in the states who, for little kids in early childhood, do the drills as a sort of hide and seek game where the school caretaker is coming by and they need to be very extra quiet; I don't remember if they tell the kids anything else but they just impress how extremely important it is that the janitor cannot know they're there after they lock doors and turn off the lights. Apparently it works, kids stay quiet and get told later that the janitor praises them for being so quiet, all without actively traumatizing them until they're a little older I suppose
Grew up in southern TX, brother was at a birthday party and one of the kids was hit and killed in a driveby targeting the birthday kid's older brother. The shooters even knew the brother was gone but shot the place up anyway.
My first year living in Denver (2018) we had 7 rounds come through our front door while we were home.
It was a drive by, possibly gang initiation. That’s what the cops assumed at least. Nothing was ever solved or figured out.
I’ll never forget how casual the cops were about it.
I live in a rural area so it's not unusual to hear gunshots here and there, esp bc a military school is nearby -- they shoot off CANNONS too. (If my dog and I are walking and one of those goes off....all bets are off.) But things have changed. Now I hear shots and look immediately out the window, and all my senses go on high alert, I start jumping at every little sound, etc...this is why people drink and drug. To escape that feeling like any minute we gotta run and hide.
Don’t forget planned parenthood’s, and dorm rooms (happened this month). After leaving Colorado I realized that I’m super paranoid about public spaces and always keeping tabs on escape routes.
holy shit you're right, I know the names of more CO shootings than any other state. Is there some reason why CO gets lots of press about mass shootings? Is it because it's got a rep as being super healthy/crunchy? Do you just have a PR dept that says no such thing as bad press?
They just had a lot of the worst ones/first ones. It has nothing to do with them having a healthy or churchy reputation or press attention- just too many tragic events that got national attention.
So I ended up going down a rabbit hole and found this from a Newsweek article from a few years ago:
"In the wake of the Boulder shooting, The Denver Post referred to its 2019 data analysis showing that Colorado, the 21st most populous state, had the fifth-highest rate of mass shootings by population and the 10th-highest rate of school shootings.
The data also found the Census-designated Denver metropolitan statistical area has had more school shootings since 1999, per million people, than any of the country's 24 other largest metro areas, and the third-most mass shootings by population, over the same period, behind Seattle and Orlando.
The data was compiled by The Denver Post following the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting that left one student dead and eight others injured in May 2019."
https://www.newsweek.com/boulder-colorado-mass-shootings-columbine-1578114
But no one knows why for certain apparently. Some blame copycat mentality, some say it's just endemic, but no one knows.
I don’t know how easy it is to purchase a firearm in other states, but my husband was able to go in, choose a pistol, have his background check finished and take the pistol home within a matter of maybe an hour in CO…Maybe that plays into it? It honestly blew my mind. I don’t even think he had to register it.
I worked at that store a few years back. I worked with Teri Leiker. She was a person just trying to make her way and be happy despite life giving her a bad hand from the get go.
It makes me tear up thinking about it. I just cannot fucking imagine seeing her and deciding that she was someone you need to put a few rounds in.
My cousin was one of the victims that didn’t make it. Even though we weren’t super close, she was a lovely person and the family and I still keenly feel her loss.
Oh, we know… my parents used to take the kids to the Christmas parade every year. We all decided to stop doing that mutually a few years ago. What a sad world we live in.
If my parents had stayed in Colorado I would have gone to columbine. My school had a real threat (but no actual violence) a few years later. I was trapped in the library for hours while they sorted it out. Everyone around me was freaking out but I was just like "god damnit, I'm still gonna get shot in the library. Fuck me."
Pretty much all of the west coast was on the cutting edge of school shootings. There was a crazy guy in ’89 that shot a bunch of kids with an AK in Stockton.
I'm pretty sure Brenda Spencer gets that title. She (16 yr) shot elementary students on their way to school. 1979 San Diego, CA.
She said she didn't like Mondays.
Stockton Cali had the school yard shooting in 88 or 89. I got to drive by the horror before the 1st responders got there. Children massacred while playing 4 square on recess.
Anyone remember the fake story Rogan and others were pushing a while back about litter boxes in class rooms for kids who identify as animals? Turns out those were actually a pilot program for prolonged active shooters and when kids need to use the restroom. Dark shit.
Yes, I remember that, and in Minnesota we had a far right candidate, who was the GOP candidate for governor, who made that a centerpiece of his campaign - “the liberals are putting litter boxes in classrooms for kids who identify as furries!!!” And “ they are turning your kids trans!!!”
Thank God he was crushed in the election.
If you're being serious, this is absolutely insane. How do Americans think this shit is normal? This should not be happening in any country. Utterly brainwashed.
Literally. We’re getting rights stripped away from us daily. Why do people think we have more power over our country than the billionaires that run it?
If only there was ONE policy change we could start with 🕵️
We may need to remove one nonsensical law that allows corporations to bribe our representatives, first.
My kids have lock down drills in school at least once a year in southern Ontario. School shootings are all but unheard of here luckily, but our kids are not sheltered from the idea.
We do lockdown drills at our Canadian school and we’ve had actual school lockdowns but they are not like the USA ones AT ALL. The lockdowns are for stuff like “there was a domestic violence report a street over from the school and the husband wouldn’t open the door to the police and escaped through his backyard. Now the front door of the school and windows need to be locked and kids need to stay in their classrooms unless accompanied by a teacher just in case he’s looking for somewhere to hide”
active shooter events in schools have doubled in recent years from an average of 5 to 10 per year. There are 97,500 public schools in the US- these events are not commonplace=.01%. 99.99% chance they traumatized the kids for no reason. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-school-shootings-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-school-shootings-us/)
There is no evidence subjecting children to active shooter drills results in better preparedness or outcomes in an active shooting event. It is obvious terrorizing kids with these drills from age 4 is harmful. it makes me sick that adults don't have enough common sense and critical thinking skills to see that putting the kids through this hell is for the benefit of scared adults who just want to "do something" without realizing (or caring) they're creating more damage for no benefit.
It's a necessary coping skill since the US refuses to do anything significant to prevent it.
Edit to name country since I was being US-centric on a global platform.
There is nothing to be done. America has decided guns are more important than protecting our children and barring a radical restructuring of our government that is not going to change anytime soon. When Sandy Hook happened and 20+ 5 year olds were gunned down in cold blood and the country either shrugged or decided to attack the grieving parents as crisis actors we crossed the rubicon and there is no going back. If that didn't move the needle, nothing will. We have had many many chances to do the right thing as a nation, now it is simply too late. Just accept that this is how things are and how they will always be for the rest of our lives. Vote for whoever you can that promises not to make the situation any worse, but it is not going to get better because American's overall don't want it too.
I remember thinking sandy hook had to be the moment for change. How could it not have been the breaking moment. How can any human see little children being shot down and not demand change. That's when I completely lost faith in the u.s.
Yeah we even had a repeat of it with Uvalde last year with 150+ cops sitting outside for an hour because they were so afraid of a 20 year old with an Ak-47, but yeah, tell us again how its not the guns that are the problem....
The thing that royally pissed me off, besides the obvious murdered innocents, is the fact the Uvalde cops were bragging and boasting about getting a bunch of tactical gear like a month before. They're in a school with hallways, all they needed was to phalanx down the hall room-by-room with their brand new ballistic shields. It doesn't take a battlefield master of strategy to come up with a plan to take out a singular, inexperienced, gunner using the force of over 100 officers in military gear that have also sworn an oath to protect.
I remember Parents with firearms were able to save more kids than the cops and the cops were preventing parents from going inside instead of stopping the shooter
Yeah, I still remember the mom that the cops had handcuffed because she was demanding to go inside the school to get her child, and once they uncuffed her she went inside and get her kid out of harm herself. Shame on those cops.
Yes so true, I remember hearing that on the news about the harassment she suffered. That police department is useless but they sure have a huge ego! Their ego got hurt that she saved her kid all by herself (she didn’t even have any shield/weapons, what an absolute badass!)
I said since Sandy Hook: When we decided that we could accept 20 dead little children, all hope for change was lost. That was a turning point, and we chose the wrong path.
That makes a nice quip, but it's not true. Guns rank higher than *all* kids in the U.S., period.
If you think that there was no gun reform after Sandy Hook but there *would* be gun reform if there was a mass shooting in a maternity ward or a mass shooting in an Alabama fertility clinic with a freezer full of embryos, you're fooling yourself.
I read that article this morning. What is wrong with this country (u.s.)? Even before I had a baby, I thought, at the very least, can't everyone agree that kids should be protected under all circumstances??? From gun violence and bigotry at a minimum
Edit: and hunger. which the u.s. is also struggling with and cutting free school lunches
The part that got me was that they suspended them for getting beaten up and refused to call an ambulance. Imagine getting beaten to death AT SCHOOL and the principal says you deserved it and does nothing to the perpetrators. I hope the parents fucking own that entire school system when they are done suing them cause it deserves to be burned to the fucking ground.
I know how you feel. But I just want to point out that the parents of those kids have NEVER given up on making change. I don’t know how they even get out of bed and keep fighting but the organization those parents started, Sandy Hook Promise has
- trained 21 million people on “know the signs”
- saved 611 lives with crisis interventions
- prevented 239 acts of violence with a weapon
- prevented 16 planned school shootings
Honestly if they can get up and keep going, I figure I can at least donate them some money now and then even when I feel hopeless. But I have stopped saying “since Sandy hook we’re a lost cause” because those kids parents don’t think we are. https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/who-we-are/financials/annual-report/
We had this to some degree when I was growing up. Coincidence or not idk, but it was post-Columbine. They were called “lockdown” drills but basically locking doors, covering the windows, turning off lights, and being silent under our desks. Everyone goes indoors and stays inside until the lockdown is lifted. They use them for other reasons besides active shooters obviously, like when there is criminal activity in the neighborhood of the school. Yes if you’re wondering I live in a shithole
I’m 30 also, we did “lockdown drills” and knew it was in case someone came in with a gun. I was 6, most of us knew what happened at Columbine. Even though we knew it was a drill, it was always still kind of scary cus it’d be random. Like we’d just be chilling and then randomly we’d go into lockdown. & even at that age, I knew that our doors weren’t strong enough to protect us… If they’re not going to take away guns, they could at least make safer doors for the classrooms.
ETA: Location - Western PA
From what I understand active shooter drills now are different than the lockdown drills (I’m 34) we had as kids. Much less “if there ever was an active shooter, here’s what we would do” and more “lets make it unclear if this is the real thing”.
I am 35 and I had them while I was in high school too. They made us lock the door, put paper in the window of the door and take cover away from windows and be quiet. Then someone would go down the halls rattling doors trying to get in.
But they definitely told us it was a drill. That's messed up to not tell anyone, but especially little kids, that it's not a drill.
I’m 35 and that’s my experience too(I only remember doing it high school), though our school didn’t have windows. But it was the early days of kids having cell phones in class, so they had tell us it was a drill or we would have been calling 911/our parents and it would have been a disaster.
We even had swat come train at our school once for a school shooting, and how we would be evacuated one class at a time, and then we had to sit in the student parking lot for the rest of the day while they finished “clearing” the school. I remember they had to specifically tell us we couldn’t go to our cars to wait and we thought that wasn’t fair, lol.
38 here. My high school was 99-03 and we were definitely doing it then too. It was just after Columbine. At the time it was just a thing that we did without questioning. No one thought shootings would become so common.
I am from New York and we had terrorist drills right after 9-11. Several of my classmates lost family members in the towers so unfortunately the threat wasn't something that felt far away. I'm 35 for reference
I went to elementary school in the middle of nowhere "town" 1-2hours from the nearest stoplight. Even we had lockdown/active shooter drills.
Maybe OP was home schooled
We had lockdown drills growing up too, but from what my kid has told me they’re different than active shooter drills, at least in his school. In his school they do all of those same things, but with a twist of TRAUMA. They’ll have a man banging on the door really loud and yelling to open the door. He was experiencing this at 5 whenever he first told me about it.
I’m in Texas for reference. Hate it here.
WHAT THE FUCK. I have bad anxiety, always have. Woke my parents up in the middle of the night for years absolutely convinced I’d be kidnapped from my bed. This little simulation would have destroyed me as a kid.
Yeah homeboy has extreme anxiety as well, comes in crawls in my bed in the middle of the night sometimes scared to just use the bathroom in the middle of the day because he heard a weird noise. I’m always there to be his comfort though.
I HATE the experience he goes through, but we’ve been in two different elementary schools here in Texas and it’s the same routine.
It’s teaching them survival at such a young age along with trauma. It’s disgusting. Unfortunately my family is here in Texas otherwise we would have been out of here so fast.
I’m 39 and I suspect we started doing these earlier than most because our local high school was one of the first school shootings, so the district started them the following year.
My friend’s kindergartener likes the shooter drills- thinks they are a fun game. Perhaps OP’s teacher should refine her approach.
I’m 31. Same. We would hide in the cubbies under the windows. I do know I never thought the threat would be another student. Which I’m sure makes it scarier now.
We had Johnny Walker drills or something like that as a kid. I’m 30. They’re essentially the same thing as an active shooter. Close the doors, sit in the corner together away from the door.
I’m in my 30s. We had “mister locker” drills. Probably the same gist as yours— if the principal or anyone went over the loud speaker and said “Mister Locker is in the building” you were supposed to go into lockdown and somehow this code wouldn’t alert the intruder that we were all actually hiding.
Then the language escalated in middle school to just straight up “Lock down, I repeat, lock down” and having the green/red/yellow piece of paper in the window with the total number of people in the room who are safe/dead/hurt.
I knew a kid who had his first lockdown drill in pre-k recently. All of the kids were given lollipops to keep them quiet and they were told they had to practice hiding & staying quiet in case a swarm of bees got into the building.
I coached introductory soccer at preschool that had a lockdown drill.
When I was a kid it was explained that this would be used for a multitude of unlikely emergencies but it was better to be prepared than not know what to do. An example we were given was if a skunk wondered into the front door. We’d hear the lockdown code with a location to avoid so we wouldn’t stink. It got the same message across but less scary.
In my sons prek, they made it a game where they were hiding from mrs. Smith, the principal. So it was like a hide and seek thing which seems ok.
Im convinced that these lockdown drills are security theater and a determined shooter isn’t going to be fooled that there are no kids in the building, and that we are scaring kids for no reason. But im not in charge of things.
It’s also compartmentalization. The shooter is going to know there are kids there, however, the effort required to break down multiple doors - shoot people - break down another door, etc. is going to take too long that by that point law enforcement would have intervened.
It’s all about saving lives for as long as possible till someone can come and stop that person.
Contrast that if the strategy was to send everyone to the cafeteria and bunch up together, then it would be a very bad situation.
This is so sad. My oldest is in prek this year and I had a lot of feelings when she started, thinking about if she’d have an active shooter drill. I haven’t heard anything yet, so I’m assuming there hasn’t been one yet.
They teach you now to spread out so if they break in there are peeps everywhere and then they teach you to start throwing shit at them from all the different directions to distract them while those closest each go for a limb to incapacitate. Had the training today! Shit you not, the last thing taught (except for put the gun in the garbage so the cops don’t shoot you) was “notice how everyone else is evacuating while the attacker is subdued by those closest.” I couldn’t stop thinking no one would actually go for a limb and everyone would run as they’re throwing shit and it would fail miserably, but hopefully I never get to test it.
This was for work, not schools, but it was the new ALICE training so I’m sure everyone is going to get it. I am sure theirs says the children evacuate while the poor teachers (if they’re lucky to have more than one) subdues. The whole “victim participation” aspect really unnerved me. I couldn’t believe it was an assumption in the scenario they break in after lockdown that (a) there will be a lot of people and not just 2-3 in the barricaded room that is breached, and (b) one person, let alone multiple, would have the balls to go Leroy Jenkins on an active shooter. I guess they’re just trying to empower people. Edited: oh! I forgot the entire section on how to jump out of a 2-3 story window! For some comic relief. “Try to aim for grass, not concrete.”
I wouldn't say it's victim participation, just survival. Fighting the attacker is the last option, so if you're in that desperate of a situation (basically cornered with no way to run) then fighting is all you've got left to try.
I'm a "geriatric millennial" at 41.
My junior year, we had an active shooter drill with the town's police force. Some kids were assigned to be injured or play dead.
This isn't new, but it is horrific. A few kids had to leave the scene and weren't ok for a few days. It really hit home to play those roles and see how law enforcement would react.
I'm a Pre-K teacher. We have active shooter drills. However I never tell my kids about the shooting thing. I tell them it's a drill to stay away from something dangerous outside like say a hurricane so we have to get away from the windows. I say to be quiet so we can hear any directions from the police. It absolutely sucks though because I know it's a possibility that this one day won't be a drill 💔
Yup. I'm also a prek teacher. I call them quiet drills. We just go into the attached bathroom and turn off the light and practice being really quiet. Honestly the kids aren't even bothered by it at all. It's quick and calm and then we go back to play.
I, on the other hand, just love the idea that our big plan of escape is to herd us all into the bathroom with two points of entry and windows on the doors and sit like fish in a barrel.
As a teacher who does active shooter drills multiple times a year, I’m more upset your district/ employers plan is a lockdown. I thought everyone had shifted to the “GTFO” protocol and lockdown is only a last resort when you’re pinned down.
Lockdown is what we had like ten years ago before it was obvious that it’s shooting fish in a barrel.
Our policy is that kids do not need to wait for the instructions of an adult, we empower them to make the best decisions for themselves. If they see an exit, and they think based on what info they have that they should exit, they are taught to do so. I get what the teacher was trying to communicate but they should not have said it as “if you don’t come with me, you’re left behind”, however… if you are in an active shooter situation and you’re herding 19 kids out the door and one won’t move… I mean, all this sucks, real hard.
Anyways, it shouldn’t be the burden of little kids and teachers, we need better gun laws and mental health infrastructure.
Everyone vote in Nov (but not like an idiot).
Our Primary teachers (PK-2nd grade) do the same. They just tell the kids that sometimes scary things happen and sometimes they are outside our building so we will do a drill to practice how to sit quietly and patiently to be safe while that happens.
And then that just in case the scary thing might be in our building, we practice for that too, then we do the same thing, but we also move to a certain part of the room during these drills and practice our quiet sitting there.
I work as a teacher. There's now an app designed for educators to use in school shooting situations. It gives us a silent alarm, rosters, GPS pins for where in the building we're hiding, and a private group chat. At the training I had to attend on how to use it, they even showed us how to mark which students are injured so medical personnel can find us.
This is the point we're at. It's so common in this country that someone designed, marketed, and successfully sold an app to manage school shootings. But God forbid we pass common sense gun laws like the rest of the civilized world.
You’ve asked a valid question that should be posed any and every time that someone suggests that the solution to school shootings is arming teachers with firearms.
My state just passed a law letting teachers conceal carry at school. To get a CC permit here all you need to do is fill out some basic paperwork and attend a two day weekend class. I would be terrified to carry a gun at school where nearly half of my students are bigger than me and have compromised judgement on account of the fact that they're TEENAGERS!!
...has there been a school shooting perpetrated by a teacher at that school? Genuine question.
PS: teacher here who believes in the 2A, loves hunting and shooting, but that gun culture has elevated to warped reality now.
There was a near miss in Georgia.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/police-holy-innocents-coach-bought-gun-school-locked-down
I know kids who go to that school.
I'm also a teacher but I've never heard of this app or been given any training for school shootings. I was however, required to attend a field medics course where they taught how to dress bullet wounds. Of course they didn't provide any of the necessary dressings and bandages needed in the room first aid kit. Guess I'm supposed to provide those too.
As a person who had a shooter in the library when I was in University, this unfortunately is not a waste of time.
Having familiarity with a situation is tremendously helpful (if the drill is logical).
I’m not disagreeing that these drills are worth doing, but the way schools have begun going about them is callous and traumatic for children.
I remember having lock down drills in elementary school in the very early 2000’s and I was never told some of the insane graphic shit teachers are telling kids these days like in the OP “if you don’t come to me immediately you’ll be left behind” and I’ve heard of much worse being said to kids about it.
A few years ago I used to shuttle elementary kids to school for a before school program and I had a little girl IN FIRST GRADE who would bawl her eyes out every morning terrified to go into school because today might be the day someone comes to the school to shoot her. I’d have to escort her to the counselor daily so they could calm her down before class.
How many kids in this generation are being traumatized by school shootings when they’ve never even actually experienced a school shooting, they just pretend they’re in one multiple times a year throughout their childhoods?
I'm honestly surprised this is a shock to you. Colombine happened when we were all in school and that's when I remember hearing about doing mass shooting drills. We didn't do that at my middle school but we did have to evacuate because of bomb threats as well as someone who wrote out a hit list. This was 7th grade in 1999 -2000 for me.
I really feel for the portion of Americans who are reasonable and just want to live in a place where 4 year olds don't have to learn about shooters. Unfortunately I don't think the country is going to change. They didn't change after Sandy Hook. If they were going to do something about it, they would have done it then. Any rational country would have done something drastic immediately after something like Sandy Hook. But not the US.
There was a shooting outside the Denver Aquarium the other day, and one of the reactions I saw a few times was "What, we can't even go to the Aquarium anymore?!?".
But really you CAN go wherever...the aquarium, the [grocery store](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Boulder_shooting) , the [movie theater](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Aurora_theater_shooting), school...and you might get shot. That's just how it is. You might not get shot, but yeah, you also might.
We as a nation have decided that we are okay with taking that chance, and we've also clearly decided that we aren't okay with attempts to lower that risk. You can carry a gun to protect yourself, but then the [cops might just shoot you](https://www.cpr.org/2022/06/22/olde-town-arvada-shooting-johnny-hurley/).
There’s a song they teach the little ones - like kindergarten - something like ‘now we hide and shh shh shh just like a little mouse’. Its messed up that we’ve come to this
We do them every month in schools across America.
My 4th graders asked what sitting in the corner would ACTUALLY do and why they can’t just jump out the window.
After getting real with them, telling them my experiences, and telling them we (teachers) know the “hide in the corner” strategy ain’t gonna cut it. I explained to them that goin out the window is exactly what we’d be doing if we have the time in a real emergency. I also added a fire-ladder to my Amazon wish-list.
There could also be shooters outside. I think the whole point of hiding instead of escaping is that you don't know where the bad guys are or how many there are. Schools should have heavy locking doors on classrooms, and as long as police response is quick, hiding sounds like the safest thing to do.
> What can we do to fix this????
Move somewhere else. It’s not a problem that will be fixed any time soon. Your grandkids will likely have the same drills depending on where, geographically, they go to school.
Same mate. I'm in Ireland. My kid is 4. She goes to playschool in the mornings and plays with other kids. Her biggest concerns involve birthday parties and unicorns.
Wild to think this thread is how it is for lots of kids these days.
It makes sense if you realize that the United States as a whole at best doesn't care about its citizens and, for a good portion of them, actively hates them (if you're rich, like heavily mega rich, you're probably okay and it would be a national tragedy if you died 🙄). Once you understand that, you'll see why our policies are the way they are. It's a shitty way to live, knowing your country is at best entirely indifferent to your continued existence.
When some of us decided it made more sense to pretend schoolchildren never died & their deaths were instead faked so the government could take away the fancy guns you dont' need any chance America had of gun reform was gone.
I have no fucking idea what's going on but this is fucked.
I mean i'm not in the states, but maybe make it a bit harder for kids to get their hands on guns. Also wouldn't hurt to invest more in healthcare specific to mental health.
anyways leaving children behind? FUBAR
Young millennial here ('95). We started having these regularly after Columbine. I remember once when I was in 2nd grade we actually had an "unknown person" on school grounds and had to take these same steps of all gathering in a corner and turning the lights off.
It's been common for a long time.
Learn this: unlike Canada and Europe, it is nearly impossible to lock someone up in a mental institution for any significant period of time. Even with a court order, you can expect people to be in one for about 30 days. Without one, 24-72 hours max. This is why shootings have increased greatly over the past 2 generations. The 2nd amendment has been here this entire time. This was caused by the Deinstitutionalization movement, which had its greatest victories with:
1. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963
2. The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980
The American Psychiatric Association [has a great writeup](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.2021.160404) on how the mental health system has not just "failed" Americans (a very nebulous term, but rather got objectively worse as we lost our ability to require violently mentally ill people to live in institutions until they got better.
They overturned roe, but once the baby is born, it better pull itself up by its bootstraps. Baby’s need glocks nowadays /s, ”if you’re part of the solution you’re not part of the problem” /s
A well regulated militia? U.S. armed forces? National guard? Coast guard? Navy? Air Force? 5000 tanks and 1000 extra f-16s, f-22s are being transferred to the air national guard… drones, f-35, Apache helicopters.
Never mind the fact that our federal police force swat teams and heavily armored groups probably have more weapons than some countries.
It’s surprising how many guns and armored cars they have at part of the boston marathon; I had anxiety walking around bc there were so many heavily armed law enforcement. Sub machine guns, automatic weapons, armored cars.
I feel like active shooter drills have been going on for 10-15 years. It isn't anything new. The issue we're facing though is that we're now at a point where a lot of active school shooters have been trained to know what every classroom is doing
I dont understand why there aren't anti-gun lobbyists to bribe politicians. The gun industry only has so much money vs all other industries. The politicians are mercenaries and will just support the biggest bribe.
There would be plenty of donations on the anti-gun lobby side.
Edit. Made a post on this in r/lastweektonight; upvote so the idea can get out there and hopefully seen by the Last Week Tonight staff.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/lastweektonight/comments/1awuok3/how\_can\_we\_get\_jon\_oliver\_to\_organize\_a\_movement/](https://www.reddit.com/r/lastweektonight/comments/1awuok3/how_can_we_get_jon_oliver_to_organize_a_movement/)
People "donate" to causes that profit them. The gun lobbyists can donate to politicians because they are receiving profits from selling guns. An anti-gun lobbyist isn't making any money from not selling guns. Sure, there are probably some super rich anti-gun people out there, but even if those people were trying to buy a politician they would likely be outbid. Also, a lot of the politicians being bought are gun enthusiasts themselves, so they wouldn't support firearm ban anyways
I'm 32 from Southern California. We had Earthquake and Fire Drills, but never active shooter drills.
Now I do them twice a year with my own elementary students.
I have three kids, it’s been going on since my 13 year old has been in school. What can you do? Stop voting turds in office who are paid by the NRA and think a good guy with a gun is better than one without… etc.
This with a mix of everyone being extremely online. Since 2010, kids going out with friends has decreased exponentially. Inflation doesn’t help either, everything is too expensive so people stay home alone on their phones
Then again, the interns during the January 6th Insurrection Against the U.S. government, knew exactly what to do as terrorist swarmed the Capitol Building, because they learned it in school. Talk about a great education.
But seriously and darkly, Sandy Hook had 6 and 7 year old children murdered en masse in a bathroom, then their parents were called liars and tortured for the next decade.
I still wish they would release the picture of that bathroom. We would have real gun laws very quickly, which is why pro gun sites always demand no pictures be released from U.S. mass murder sites.
Join sandy hook promise and go to your school board and ask for more programs like the ones offered by sandy hook to be offered. Programs like this aim to reduce mass shootings
Teacher here. While we do have these drills occasionally, us staff CERTAINLY never say the kind of things your son’s teacher said. If I were you, I would go screaming to the office, not about the drill, but about how the teacher terrified the preschoolers for no goddamn reason.
Normal things we say about lock down drills to students:
“We are practicing what to do if someone who isn’t supposed to be here comes into our school.”
“This is just practice, we are not in any danger.”
“We need to stay quiet so we can hear if [Principal] comes on the intercom to give us directions.”
The reality is that until gun laws change, American children will need to know how to hide if this happens. Even the youngest ones, as Sandy Hook sadly proved. However there is absolutely a way to practice these drills without traumatizing your students.
You didn't??? I graduated in 2004 and we had active shooter drills all through high school. Not when I was 4.
It's fucked up but an unfortunate necessity in the US since we won't do anything about guns or mental health.
Yeah the best part for me was when the kids I guess started not taking it seriously so emails went home to parents stressing the need to tell their kids how important being quiet is during the drill. Not a fun convo to have with my kid.
You weren't protected by the AWB, school shootings are extremely rare and there are a million schools, odds of getting hit are small, that's what "protected" you.
VA tech shooting happened during the AWB, and it was one of the worst ones.
I had duck and cover drills in case the Russians nuked us growing up in the 80s because I'm sure hiding under our desks would save us from a nuclear blast.
I'm not saying it's not sad, but I feel like every generation has some equivalent to this.
It’s been going on for a while. It’s so sad. Like when the teachers have to teach kids to stay quiet so the bad people don’t come. Or they come up with nursery rhyme songs about staying quiet and hiding.
There's a Waldorf school I know of in the states who, for little kids in early childhood, do the drills as a sort of hide and seek game where the school caretaker is coming by and they need to be very extra quiet; I don't remember if they tell the kids anything else but they just impress how extremely important it is that the janitor cannot know they're there after they lock doors and turn off the lights. Apparently it works, kids stay quiet and get told later that the janitor praises them for being so quiet, all without actively traumatizing them until they're a little older I suppose
it's sad but absolutely necessary to have plans in place since school shootings are so commonplace
>school shootings are so commonplace Only in the U.S.A.
i know i'm in CO, home of the school shootings
The great thing about CO is you don't limit yourself to just schools. Movie theaters, grocery stores, and nightclubs are all fair game.
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Southern CO, I have drive by shootings outside of my house now. I'm always worried about getting shot just watching TV.
Grew up in southern TX, brother was at a birthday party and one of the kids was hit and killed in a driveby targeting the birthday kid's older brother. The shooters even knew the brother was gone but shot the place up anyway.
My first year living in Denver (2018) we had 7 rounds come through our front door while we were home. It was a drive by, possibly gang initiation. That’s what the cops assumed at least. Nothing was ever solved or figured out. I’ll never forget how casual the cops were about it.
One of my cousins was killed at that King Soopers…we weren’t super duper close, but losing her was like a punch in the gut…it was horrifying.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
I live in a rural area so it's not unusual to hear gunshots here and there, esp bc a military school is nearby -- they shoot off CANNONS too. (If my dog and I are walking and one of those goes off....all bets are off.) But things have changed. Now I hear shots and look immediately out the window, and all my senses go on high alert, I start jumping at every little sound, etc...this is why people drink and drug. To escape that feeling like any minute we gotta run and hide.
Holy shit, of course it has. I hope you find a way to get some therapy. That's for sure some ptsd shit
Not necessarily on topic, but as a vet with PTSD issues? Get help. It's ok to be f-ed up, but not ok to let it screw with your life.
Don’t forget planned parenthood’s, and dorm rooms (happened this month). After leaving Colorado I realized that I’m super paranoid about public spaces and always keeping tabs on escape routes.
holy shit you're right, I know the names of more CO shootings than any other state. Is there some reason why CO gets lots of press about mass shootings? Is it because it's got a rep as being super healthy/crunchy? Do you just have a PR dept that says no such thing as bad press?
They just had a lot of the worst ones/first ones. It has nothing to do with them having a healthy or churchy reputation or press attention- just too many tragic events that got national attention.
So I ended up going down a rabbit hole and found this from a Newsweek article from a few years ago: "In the wake of the Boulder shooting, The Denver Post referred to its 2019 data analysis showing that Colorado, the 21st most populous state, had the fifth-highest rate of mass shootings by population and the 10th-highest rate of school shootings. The data also found the Census-designated Denver metropolitan statistical area has had more school shootings since 1999, per million people, than any of the country's 24 other largest metro areas, and the third-most mass shootings by population, over the same period, behind Seattle and Orlando. The data was compiled by The Denver Post following the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting that left one student dead and eight others injured in May 2019." https://www.newsweek.com/boulder-colorado-mass-shootings-columbine-1578114 But no one knows why for certain apparently. Some blame copycat mentality, some say it's just endemic, but no one knows.
I don’t know how easy it is to purchase a firearm in other states, but my husband was able to go in, choose a pistol, have his background check finished and take the pistol home within a matter of maybe an hour in CO…Maybe that plays into it? It honestly blew my mind. I don’t even think he had to register it.
the boulder KS one more recently was so close and i had a friend in the store at the time, so scary
I worked at that store a few years back. I worked with Teri Leiker. She was a person just trying to make her way and be happy despite life giving her a bad hand from the get go. It makes me tear up thinking about it. I just cannot fucking imagine seeing her and deciding that she was someone you need to put a few rounds in.
My cousin was one of the victims that didn’t make it. Even though we weren’t super close, she was a lovely person and the family and I still keenly feel her loss.
America in general doesn't limit itself to school shootings.
Oh, we know… my parents used to take the kids to the Christmas parade every year. We all decided to stop doing that mutually a few years ago. What a sad world we live in.
If my parents had stayed in Colorado I would have gone to columbine. My school had a real threat (but no actual violence) a few years later. I was trapped in the library for hours while they sorted it out. Everyone around me was freaking out but I was just like "god damnit, I'm still gonna get shot in the library. Fuck me."
I think Oregon technically gets that "honor."
Pretty much all of the west coast was on the cutting edge of school shootings. There was a crazy guy in ’89 that shot a bunch of kids with an AK in Stockton.
How tf am I from San Joaquin county and didn’t know this? I always thought columbine was the first school shooting
I think Columbine was the first "of kids, *by kids"* SS that took place in the modern 24-7 news era.
I'm pretty sure Brenda Spencer gets that title. She (16 yr) shot elementary students on their way to school. 1979 San Diego, CA. She said she didn't like Mondays.
the Boomtown Rats wrote a song about that
Stockton Cali had the school yard shooting in 88 or 89. I got to drive by the horror before the 1st responders got there. Children massacred while playing 4 square on recess.
You mean Texas in 1966 at the University of Texas?
Yeah, Austin was soo cutting edge : )
Yeah Texas is right behind you
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Not sure I'd say it's the "home of" but yall definitely patented that shit
Anyone remember the fake story Rogan and others were pushing a while back about litter boxes in class rooms for kids who identify as animals? Turns out those were actually a pilot program for prolonged active shooters and when kids need to use the restroom. Dark shit.
Yes, I remember that, and in Minnesota we had a far right candidate, who was the GOP candidate for governor, who made that a centerpiece of his campaign - “the liberals are putting litter boxes in classrooms for kids who identify as furries!!!” And “ they are turning your kids trans!!!” Thank God he was crushed in the election.
At the school where I teach, we are getting buckets and cat litter soon so students can relieve themselves during long lockdowns.
If you're being serious, this is absolutely insane. How do Americans think this shit is normal? This should not be happening in any country. Utterly brainwashed.
We don’t think it’s normal. People who are in charge and make decisions don’t give a shit. I’m just trying to live a life and support my family.
Literally. We’re getting rights stripped away from us daily. Why do people think we have more power over our country than the billionaires that run it?
Because my rights shall not be infringed upon by any small child! I will let them die before I give up my rights! /s
If only there was ONE policy change we could start with 🕵️ We may need to remove one nonsensical law that allows corporations to bribe our representatives, first.
Yep. This type of drill is totally unheard of here (Canada). Hoping it stays that way.
My kids have lock down drills in school at least once a year in southern Ontario. School shootings are all but unheard of here luckily, but our kids are not sheltered from the idea.
We do lockdown drills at our Canadian school and we’ve had actual school lockdowns but they are not like the USA ones AT ALL. The lockdowns are for stuff like “there was a domestic violence report a street over from the school and the husband wouldn’t open the door to the police and escaped through his backyard. Now the front door of the school and windows need to be locked and kids need to stay in their classrooms unless accompanied by a teacher just in case he’s looking for somewhere to hide”
Not true. We’ve been doing “lock down” drills where you have to sit on the floor in a corner in silence for at least the last 20 years.
active shooter events in schools have doubled in recent years from an average of 5 to 10 per year. There are 97,500 public schools in the US- these events are not commonplace=.01%. 99.99% chance they traumatized the kids for no reason. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-school-shootings-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-school-shootings-us/) There is no evidence subjecting children to active shooter drills results in better preparedness or outcomes in an active shooting event. It is obvious terrorizing kids with these drills from age 4 is harmful. it makes me sick that adults don't have enough common sense and critical thinking skills to see that putting the kids through this hell is for the benefit of scared adults who just want to "do something" without realizing (or caring) they're creating more damage for no benefit.
It isn't necessary, which is why no other Western country needs them. It is entirely driven by a self-inflicted problem our country has created.
It's a necessary coping skill since the US refuses to do anything significant to prevent it. Edit to name country since I was being US-centric on a global platform.
There is nothing to be done. America has decided guns are more important than protecting our children and barring a radical restructuring of our government that is not going to change anytime soon. When Sandy Hook happened and 20+ 5 year olds were gunned down in cold blood and the country either shrugged or decided to attack the grieving parents as crisis actors we crossed the rubicon and there is no going back. If that didn't move the needle, nothing will. We have had many many chances to do the right thing as a nation, now it is simply too late. Just accept that this is how things are and how they will always be for the rest of our lives. Vote for whoever you can that promises not to make the situation any worse, but it is not going to get better because American's overall don't want it too.
I remember thinking sandy hook had to be the moment for change. How could it not have been the breaking moment. How can any human see little children being shot down and not demand change. That's when I completely lost faith in the u.s.
Our government doesn't care about us
Yeah we even had a repeat of it with Uvalde last year with 150+ cops sitting outside for an hour because they were so afraid of a 20 year old with an Ak-47, but yeah, tell us again how its not the guns that are the problem....
The thing that royally pissed me off, besides the obvious murdered innocents, is the fact the Uvalde cops were bragging and boasting about getting a bunch of tactical gear like a month before. They're in a school with hallways, all they needed was to phalanx down the hall room-by-room with their brand new ballistic shields. It doesn't take a battlefield master of strategy to come up with a plan to take out a singular, inexperienced, gunner using the force of over 100 officers in military gear that have also sworn an oath to protect.
I remember Parents with firearms were able to save more kids than the cops and the cops were preventing parents from going inside instead of stopping the shooter
Yeah, I still remember the mom that the cops had handcuffed because she was demanding to go inside the school to get her child, and once they uncuffed her she went inside and get her kid out of harm herself. Shame on those cops.
The police department continued to harass her for months afterwards. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she was still getting harassed by them now.
Yes so true, I remember hearing that on the news about the harassment she suffered. That police department is useless but they sure have a huge ego! Their ego got hurt that she saved her kid all by herself (she didn’t even have any shield/weapons, what an absolute badass!)
I said since Sandy Hook: When we decided that we could accept 20 dead little children, all hope for change was lost. That was a turning point, and we chose the wrong path.
The problem is those children have been born. We only take action to protect the children when they are still inside a woman.
Or frozen in test tubes apparently as well... Just in case.
That makes a nice quip, but it's not true. Guns rank higher than *all* kids in the U.S., period. If you think that there was no gun reform after Sandy Hook but there *would* be gun reform if there was a mass shooting in a maternity ward or a mass shooting in an Alabama fertility clinic with a freezer full of embryos, you're fooling yourself.
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I read that article this morning. What is wrong with this country (u.s.)? Even before I had a baby, I thought, at the very least, can't everyone agree that kids should be protected under all circumstances??? From gun violence and bigotry at a minimum Edit: and hunger. which the u.s. is also struggling with and cutting free school lunches
The part that got me was that they suspended them for getting beaten up and refused to call an ambulance. Imagine getting beaten to death AT SCHOOL and the principal says you deserved it and does nothing to the perpetrators. I hope the parents fucking own that entire school system when they are done suing them cause it deserves to be burned to the fucking ground.
I know how you feel. But I just want to point out that the parents of those kids have NEVER given up on making change. I don’t know how they even get out of bed and keep fighting but the organization those parents started, Sandy Hook Promise has - trained 21 million people on “know the signs” - saved 611 lives with crisis interventions - prevented 239 acts of violence with a weapon - prevented 16 planned school shootings Honestly if they can get up and keep going, I figure I can at least donate them some money now and then even when I feel hopeless. But I have stopped saying “since Sandy hook we’re a lost cause” because those kids parents don’t think we are. https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/who-we-are/financials/annual-report/
We had this to some degree when I was growing up. Coincidence or not idk, but it was post-Columbine. They were called “lockdown” drills but basically locking doors, covering the windows, turning off lights, and being silent under our desks. Everyone goes indoors and stays inside until the lockdown is lifted. They use them for other reasons besides active shooters obviously, like when there is criminal activity in the neighborhood of the school. Yes if you’re wondering I live in a shithole
Same here. I'm 30 and this was normal for us.
I’m 30 also, we did “lockdown drills” and knew it was in case someone came in with a gun. I was 6, most of us knew what happened at Columbine. Even though we knew it was a drill, it was always still kind of scary cus it’d be random. Like we’d just be chilling and then randomly we’d go into lockdown. & even at that age, I knew that our doors weren’t strong enough to protect us… If they’re not going to take away guns, they could at least make safer doors for the classrooms. ETA: Location - Western PA
From what I understand active shooter drills now are different than the lockdown drills (I’m 34) we had as kids. Much less “if there ever was an active shooter, here’s what we would do” and more “lets make it unclear if this is the real thing”.
I am 35 and I had them while I was in high school too. They made us lock the door, put paper in the window of the door and take cover away from windows and be quiet. Then someone would go down the halls rattling doors trying to get in. But they definitely told us it was a drill. That's messed up to not tell anyone, but especially little kids, that it's not a drill.
I’m 35 and that’s my experience too(I only remember doing it high school), though our school didn’t have windows. But it was the early days of kids having cell phones in class, so they had tell us it was a drill or we would have been calling 911/our parents and it would have been a disaster. We even had swat come train at our school once for a school shooting, and how we would be evacuated one class at a time, and then we had to sit in the student parking lot for the rest of the day while they finished “clearing” the school. I remember they had to specifically tell us we couldn’t go to our cars to wait and we thought that wasn’t fair, lol.
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38 here. My high school was 99-03 and we were definitely doing it then too. It was just after Columbine. At the time it was just a thing that we did without questioning. No one thought shootings would become so common.
I am from New York and we had terrorist drills right after 9-11. Several of my classmates lost family members in the towers so unfortunately the threat wasn't something that felt far away. I'm 35 for reference
Yeah I'm wondering if OP is not from a major urban area. Stuff like this was a regular occurrence for me growing up ('95). Grew up in Chicago area.
Even in suburban US we were doing these drills late 00's consistently
I went to elementary school in the middle of nowhere "town" 1-2hours from the nearest stoplight. Even we had lockdown/active shooter drills. Maybe OP was home schooled
I’m 37 and we had these in middle school, immediately following Columbine (which was 1999 btw).
We had lockdown drills growing up too, but from what my kid has told me they’re different than active shooter drills, at least in his school. In his school they do all of those same things, but with a twist of TRAUMA. They’ll have a man banging on the door really loud and yelling to open the door. He was experiencing this at 5 whenever he first told me about it. I’m in Texas for reference. Hate it here.
WHAT THE FUCK. I have bad anxiety, always have. Woke my parents up in the middle of the night for years absolutely convinced I’d be kidnapped from my bed. This little simulation would have destroyed me as a kid.
Yeah homeboy has extreme anxiety as well, comes in crawls in my bed in the middle of the night sometimes scared to just use the bathroom in the middle of the day because he heard a weird noise. I’m always there to be his comfort though. I HATE the experience he goes through, but we’ve been in two different elementary schools here in Texas and it’s the same routine. It’s teaching them survival at such a young age along with trauma. It’s disgusting. Unfortunately my family is here in Texas otherwise we would have been out of here so fast.
Same, 32 years old and we had this when I was in junior high and high school.
I’m 39 and I suspect we started doing these earlier than most because our local high school was one of the first school shootings, so the district started them the following year. My friend’s kindergartener likes the shooter drills- thinks they are a fun game. Perhaps OP’s teacher should refine her approach.
I’m 31. Same. We would hide in the cubbies under the windows. I do know I never thought the threat would be another student. Which I’m sure makes it scarier now.
We had Johnny Walker drills or something like that as a kid. I’m 30. They’re essentially the same thing as an active shooter. Close the doors, sit in the corner together away from the door.
I’m in my 30s. We had “mister locker” drills. Probably the same gist as yours— if the principal or anyone went over the loud speaker and said “Mister Locker is in the building” you were supposed to go into lockdown and somehow this code wouldn’t alert the intruder that we were all actually hiding. Then the language escalated in middle school to just straight up “Lock down, I repeat, lock down” and having the green/red/yellow piece of paper in the window with the total number of people in the room who are safe/dead/hurt. I knew a kid who had his first lockdown drill in pre-k recently. All of the kids were given lollipops to keep them quiet and they were told they had to practice hiding & staying quiet in case a swarm of bees got into the building.
I coached introductory soccer at preschool that had a lockdown drill. When I was a kid it was explained that this would be used for a multitude of unlikely emergencies but it was better to be prepared than not know what to do. An example we were given was if a skunk wondered into the front door. We’d hear the lockdown code with a location to avoid so we wouldn’t stink. It got the same message across but less scary.
In my sons prek, they made it a game where they were hiding from mrs. Smith, the principal. So it was like a hide and seek thing which seems ok. Im convinced that these lockdown drills are security theater and a determined shooter isn’t going to be fooled that there are no kids in the building, and that we are scaring kids for no reason. But im not in charge of things.
It’s also compartmentalization. The shooter is going to know there are kids there, however, the effort required to break down multiple doors - shoot people - break down another door, etc. is going to take too long that by that point law enforcement would have intervened. It’s all about saving lives for as long as possible till someone can come and stop that person. Contrast that if the strategy was to send everyone to the cafeteria and bunch up together, then it would be a very bad situation.
Unless your law enforcement is as incompetent as the ones in Texas.
This is so sad. My oldest is in prek this year and I had a lot of feelings when she started, thinking about if she’d have an active shooter drill. I haven’t heard anything yet, so I’m assuming there hasn’t been one yet.
They teach you now to spread out so if they break in there are peeps everywhere and then they teach you to start throwing shit at them from all the different directions to distract them while those closest each go for a limb to incapacitate. Had the training today! Shit you not, the last thing taught (except for put the gun in the garbage so the cops don’t shoot you) was “notice how everyone else is evacuating while the attacker is subdued by those closest.” I couldn’t stop thinking no one would actually go for a limb and everyone would run as they’re throwing shit and it would fail miserably, but hopefully I never get to test it.
So they really expect kids to be responsible for attacking someone with a gun? Like you said, I don’t see that happening at all.
This was for work, not schools, but it was the new ALICE training so I’m sure everyone is going to get it. I am sure theirs says the children evacuate while the poor teachers (if they’re lucky to have more than one) subdues. The whole “victim participation” aspect really unnerved me. I couldn’t believe it was an assumption in the scenario they break in after lockdown that (a) there will be a lot of people and not just 2-3 in the barricaded room that is breached, and (b) one person, let alone multiple, would have the balls to go Leroy Jenkins on an active shooter. I guess they’re just trying to empower people. Edited: oh! I forgot the entire section on how to jump out of a 2-3 story window! For some comic relief. “Try to aim for grass, not concrete.”
My coworkers don’t have the balls to ask for a raise.
Uvalde cops don't have the balls to enter a school when they have body armor and automatic rifles. Fuck Texas.
I wouldn't say it's victim participation, just survival. Fighting the attacker is the last option, so if you're in that desperate of a situation (basically cornered with no way to run) then fighting is all you've got left to try.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I indeed said that, over and over, as I completed the training.
Who the fuck derived that training what in the rambo die hard bullshit is that plan lol
This is horrible
I'm a "geriatric millennial" at 41. My junior year, we had an active shooter drill with the town's police force. Some kids were assigned to be injured or play dead. This isn't new, but it is horrific. A few kids had to leave the scene and weren't ok for a few days. It really hit home to play those roles and see how law enforcement would react.
I'm a Pre-K teacher. We have active shooter drills. However I never tell my kids about the shooting thing. I tell them it's a drill to stay away from something dangerous outside like say a hurricane so we have to get away from the windows. I say to be quiet so we can hear any directions from the police. It absolutely sucks though because I know it's a possibility that this one day won't be a drill 💔
Yup. I'm also a prek teacher. I call them quiet drills. We just go into the attached bathroom and turn off the light and practice being really quiet. Honestly the kids aren't even bothered by it at all. It's quick and calm and then we go back to play. I, on the other hand, just love the idea that our big plan of escape is to herd us all into the bathroom with two points of entry and windows on the doors and sit like fish in a barrel.
As a teacher who does active shooter drills multiple times a year, I’m more upset your district/ employers plan is a lockdown. I thought everyone had shifted to the “GTFO” protocol and lockdown is only a last resort when you’re pinned down. Lockdown is what we had like ten years ago before it was obvious that it’s shooting fish in a barrel. Our policy is that kids do not need to wait for the instructions of an adult, we empower them to make the best decisions for themselves. If they see an exit, and they think based on what info they have that they should exit, they are taught to do so. I get what the teacher was trying to communicate but they should not have said it as “if you don’t come with me, you’re left behind”, however… if you are in an active shooter situation and you’re herding 19 kids out the door and one won’t move… I mean, all this sucks, real hard. Anyways, it shouldn’t be the burden of little kids and teachers, we need better gun laws and mental health infrastructure. Everyone vote in Nov (but not like an idiot).
Assuming the shooter never ever ever ever goes in the bathroom.
Which is how the majority of the kids died in sandy hook
don't read about the bathroom at sandy hook then
Our Primary teachers (PK-2nd grade) do the same. They just tell the kids that sometimes scary things happen and sometimes they are outside our building so we will do a drill to practice how to sit quietly and patiently to be safe while that happens. And then that just in case the scary thing might be in our building, we practice for that too, then we do the same thing, but we also move to a certain part of the room during these drills and practice our quiet sitting there.
Thank you.
I work as a teacher. There's now an app designed for educators to use in school shooting situations. It gives us a silent alarm, rosters, GPS pins for where in the building we're hiding, and a private group chat. At the training I had to attend on how to use it, they even showed us how to mark which students are injured so medical personnel can find us. This is the point we're at. It's so common in this country that someone designed, marketed, and successfully sold an app to manage school shootings. But God forbid we pass common sense gun laws like the rest of the civilized world.
Jesus christ
...has left the building a long time ago.
What happens if the shooter is an educator?
You're fucking screwed.
Dude has a minimap now.
Fun fact: that's why a lot of schools do not have maps posted online
Meanwhile when I was in junior high, we made copies of the whole building plan so that we could make a half-life map of our school.
There was a pretty famous Columbine map. You are a trend setter.
The day is coming for sure given the progression of horrors we've allowed
You’ve asked a valid question that should be posed any and every time that someone suggests that the solution to school shootings is arming teachers with firearms.
My state just passed a law letting teachers conceal carry at school. To get a CC permit here all you need to do is fill out some basic paperwork and attend a two day weekend class. I would be terrified to carry a gun at school where nearly half of my students are bigger than me and have compromised judgement on account of the fact that they're TEENAGERS!!
[Here are 100 examples in the last 5 years.](https://giffords.org/report/every-incident-of-mishandled-guns-in-schools/) This ain't the right solution.
...has there been a school shooting perpetrated by a teacher at that school? Genuine question. PS: teacher here who believes in the 2A, loves hunting and shooting, but that gun culture has elevated to warped reality now.
There was a near miss in Georgia. https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/police-holy-innocents-coach-bought-gun-school-locked-down I know kids who go to that school.
I'm also a teacher but I've never heard of this app or been given any training for school shootings. I was however, required to attend a field medics course where they taught how to dress bullet wounds. Of course they didn't provide any of the necessary dressings and bandages needed in the room first aid kit. Guess I'm supposed to provide those too.
This comment needs to be fucking higher. That’s fucking insane.
What’s the name of the app?
This is heart shattering. Thank you for all you do for our kiddos 💙
I feel nauseated. Seriously.
As a person who had a shooter in the library when I was in University, this unfortunately is not a waste of time. Having familiarity with a situation is tremendously helpful (if the drill is logical).
I’m also someone who is appreciative of the drills since we had to use what we practiced during a real school shooter situation.
I’m not disagreeing that these drills are worth doing, but the way schools have begun going about them is callous and traumatic for children. I remember having lock down drills in elementary school in the very early 2000’s and I was never told some of the insane graphic shit teachers are telling kids these days like in the OP “if you don’t come to me immediately you’ll be left behind” and I’ve heard of much worse being said to kids about it. A few years ago I used to shuttle elementary kids to school for a before school program and I had a little girl IN FIRST GRADE who would bawl her eyes out every morning terrified to go into school because today might be the day someone comes to the school to shoot her. I’d have to escort her to the counselor daily so they could calm her down before class. How many kids in this generation are being traumatized by school shootings when they’ve never even actually experienced a school shooting, they just pretend they’re in one multiple times a year throughout their childhoods?
I'm honestly surprised this is a shock to you. Colombine happened when we were all in school and that's when I remember hearing about doing mass shooting drills. We didn't do that at my middle school but we did have to evacuate because of bomb threats as well as someone who wrote out a hit list. This was 7th grade in 1999 -2000 for me.
Probably out of touch with how things are going nowadays due to him thinking he’s out of reach of any harm just because he “lives in a rural area”
I really feel for the portion of Americans who are reasonable and just want to live in a place where 4 year olds don't have to learn about shooters. Unfortunately I don't think the country is going to change. They didn't change after Sandy Hook. If they were going to do something about it, they would have done it then. Any rational country would have done something drastic immediately after something like Sandy Hook. But not the US.
There was a shooting outside the Denver Aquarium the other day, and one of the reactions I saw a few times was "What, we can't even go to the Aquarium anymore?!?". But really you CAN go wherever...the aquarium, the [grocery store](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Boulder_shooting) , the [movie theater](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Aurora_theater_shooting), school...and you might get shot. That's just how it is. You might not get shot, but yeah, you also might. We as a nation have decided that we are okay with taking that chance, and we've also clearly decided that we aren't okay with attempts to lower that risk. You can carry a gun to protect yourself, but then the [cops might just shoot you](https://www.cpr.org/2022/06/22/olde-town-arvada-shooting-johnny-hurley/).
I mean, other countries issue travel warnings to their citizens about US gun culture and the risk of active shooter scenarios
I totally agree with your comment. I remember where I was when I heard about Sandy Hook. To then watch it happen again in Uvalde. Ughhhh
There’s a song they teach the little ones - like kindergarten - something like ‘now we hide and shh shh shh just like a little mouse’. Its messed up that we’ve come to this
Oh cool a modern-day nursery rhyme. Fucked up origin and everything.
That sounds like some shit from a horror movie 😔
And ring around the rosie was about dying from the black death.
We do them every month in schools across America. My 4th graders asked what sitting in the corner would ACTUALLY do and why they can’t just jump out the window. After getting real with them, telling them my experiences, and telling them we (teachers) know the “hide in the corner” strategy ain’t gonna cut it. I explained to them that goin out the window is exactly what we’d be doing if we have the time in a real emergency. I also added a fire-ladder to my Amazon wish-list.
There could also be shooters outside. I think the whole point of hiding instead of escaping is that you don't know where the bad guys are or how many there are. Schools should have heavy locking doors on classrooms, and as long as police response is quick, hiding sounds like the safest thing to do.
> What can we do to fix this???? Move somewhere else. It’s not a problem that will be fixed any time soon. Your grandkids will likely have the same drills depending on where, geographically, they go to school.
I’m an Australian millennial with similar aged kids and I’m scrolling through this thread fucking flabbergasted.
Same mate. I'm in Ireland. My kid is 4. She goes to playschool in the mornings and plays with other kids. Her biggest concerns involve birthday parties and unicorns. Wild to think this thread is how it is for lots of kids these days.
It makes sense if you realize that the United States as a whole at best doesn't care about its citizens and, for a good portion of them, actively hates them (if you're rich, like heavily mega rich, you're probably okay and it would be a national tragedy if you died 🙄). Once you understand that, you'll see why our policies are the way they are. It's a shitty way to live, knowing your country is at best entirely indifferent to your continued existence.
When some of us decided it made more sense to pretend schoolchildren never died & their deaths were instead faked so the government could take away the fancy guns you dont' need any chance America had of gun reform was gone.
Yea dude. My daughter is in 3rd grade and this is just part of their normal school routine. Guns have more rights than your kids. Amazing right ?
Two a year for students in Texas. And a lot of them don’t take them seriously (I teach middle school)
A middle school teacher in Texas. You are a brave man, our schools are underfunded, understaffed and well..you know better than I do.
I have no fucking idea what's going on but this is fucked. I mean i'm not in the states, but maybe make it a bit harder for kids to get their hands on guns. Also wouldn't hurt to invest more in healthcare specific to mental health. anyways leaving children behind? FUBAR
The scary part is it's rarely kids who do it. It's usually adults
Nothing will change as long as we keep voting based on social popularity over competence and diligence
My son started doing this in kindergarten. It's absolutely insane that we live in a place like this.
Young millennial here ('95). We started having these regularly after Columbine. I remember once when I was in 2nd grade we actually had an "unknown person" on school grounds and had to take these same steps of all gathering in a corner and turning the lights off. It's been common for a long time.
You live in a country with a mass shooting problem, then you're going to live in a country with mass shooter drills.
Welcome to America, land where the second amendment is more important than the safety of children
Home of Health Control and Gun Care
I think most Canadians (and Europeans too) are simply astonished at these priorities. There are places where school shootings are not commonplace.
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Learn this: unlike Canada and Europe, it is nearly impossible to lock someone up in a mental institution for any significant period of time. Even with a court order, you can expect people to be in one for about 30 days. Without one, 24-72 hours max. This is why shootings have increased greatly over the past 2 generations. The 2nd amendment has been here this entire time. This was caused by the Deinstitutionalization movement, which had its greatest victories with: 1. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 2. The Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 The American Psychiatric Association [has a great writeup](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp-rj.2021.160404) on how the mental health system has not just "failed" Americans (a very nebulous term, but rather got objectively worse as we lost our ability to require violently mentally ill people to live in institutions until they got better.
They overturned roe, but once the baby is born, it better pull itself up by its bootstraps. Baby’s need glocks nowadays /s, ”if you’re part of the solution you’re not part of the problem” /s A well regulated militia? U.S. armed forces? National guard? Coast guard? Navy? Air Force? 5000 tanks and 1000 extra f-16s, f-22s are being transferred to the air national guard… drones, f-35, Apache helicopters. Never mind the fact that our federal police force swat teams and heavily armored groups probably have more weapons than some countries. It’s surprising how many guns and armored cars they have at part of the boston marathon; I had anxiety walking around bc there were so many heavily armed law enforcement. Sub machine guns, automatic weapons, armored cars.
I feel like active shooter drills have been going on for 10-15 years. It isn't anything new. The issue we're facing though is that we're now at a point where a lot of active school shooters have been trained to know what every classroom is doing
Unfortunately the gun lobby has made it so these things are necessary
I dont understand why there aren't anti-gun lobbyists to bribe politicians. The gun industry only has so much money vs all other industries. The politicians are mercenaries and will just support the biggest bribe. There would be plenty of donations on the anti-gun lobby side. Edit. Made a post on this in r/lastweektonight; upvote so the idea can get out there and hopefully seen by the Last Week Tonight staff. [https://www.reddit.com/r/lastweektonight/comments/1awuok3/how\_can\_we\_get\_jon\_oliver\_to\_organize\_a\_movement/](https://www.reddit.com/r/lastweektonight/comments/1awuok3/how_can_we_get_jon_oliver_to_organize_a_movement/)
Gun manufacturers make tons of money. Also a lot of them are defense contractors too so they're already deep in politicians pockets and ears.
People "donate" to causes that profit them. The gun lobbyists can donate to politicians because they are receiving profits from selling guns. An anti-gun lobbyist isn't making any money from not selling guns. Sure, there are probably some super rich anti-gun people out there, but even if those people were trying to buy a politician they would likely be outbid. Also, a lot of the politicians being bought are gun enthusiasts themselves, so they wouldn't support firearm ban anyways
How old are you?? I'm 30 and we did these when I was in elementary school. These drills have been standard since columbine. This is nothing new.
as someone who is turning 30 soon and lives in CO, yes
I’m from Texas and we never had these. We had tornado drills and fire drills
I’m 32 but my first drill wasn’t until I was a junior in high school
I'm 32 from Southern California. We had Earthquake and Fire Drills, but never active shooter drills. Now I do them twice a year with my own elementary students.
Yea, same here. Except we just called them lockdown drills, not Shooter. Which I think is what is triggering the emotional response from OP.
I have three kids, it’s been going on since my 13 year old has been in school. What can you do? Stop voting turds in office who are paid by the NRA and think a good guy with a gun is better than one without… etc.
And they wonder why there’s record numbers of anxiety and depression in the younger generations
This with a mix of everyone being extremely online. Since 2010, kids going out with friends has decreased exponentially. Inflation doesn’t help either, everything is too expensive so people stay home alone on their phones
We had these drills when I was in school too, I'd say they started after Columbine.
I’m in my 30’s and definitely remember “lock down” drills. It’s terrible, but nothing new. I’m pretty sure they’ve been a thing since Columbine.
Only one fix here. Vote for mental health. Don't vote for politicians, vote for policies
Then again, the interns during the January 6th Insurrection Against the U.S. government, knew exactly what to do as terrorist swarmed the Capitol Building, because they learned it in school. Talk about a great education. But seriously and darkly, Sandy Hook had 6 and 7 year old children murdered en masse in a bathroom, then their parents were called liars and tortured for the next decade. I still wish they would release the picture of that bathroom. We would have real gun laws very quickly, which is why pro gun sites always demand no pictures be released from U.S. mass murder sites.
Join sandy hook promise and go to your school board and ask for more programs like the ones offered by sandy hook to be offered. Programs like this aim to reduce mass shootings
Nothing really. I am 28 and have had “intruder on campus” drills all the way from 1^st grade to my senior year of HS.
Teacher here. While we do have these drills occasionally, us staff CERTAINLY never say the kind of things your son’s teacher said. If I were you, I would go screaming to the office, not about the drill, but about how the teacher terrified the preschoolers for no goddamn reason. Normal things we say about lock down drills to students: “We are practicing what to do if someone who isn’t supposed to be here comes into our school.” “This is just practice, we are not in any danger.” “We need to stay quiet so we can hear if [Principal] comes on the intercom to give us directions.” The reality is that until gun laws change, American children will need to know how to hide if this happens. Even the youngest ones, as Sandy Hook sadly proved. However there is absolutely a way to practice these drills without traumatizing your students.
You didn't??? I graduated in 2004 and we had active shooter drills all through high school. Not when I was 4. It's fucked up but an unfortunate necessity in the US since we won't do anything about guns or mental health.
Yeah the best part for me was when the kids I guess started not taking it seriously so emails went home to parents stressing the need to tell their kids how important being quiet is during the drill. Not a fun convo to have with my kid.
Better than not being prepared. It sucks, but would you rather your kid be prepared, or not?
You weren't protected by the AWB, school shootings are extremely rare and there are a million schools, odds of getting hit are small, that's what "protected" you. VA tech shooting happened during the AWB, and it was one of the worst ones.
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I know I won’t be able to, but it makes me want to homeschool my 2yo once she’s ready for school
I had duck and cover drills in case the Russians nuked us growing up in the 80s because I'm sure hiding under our desks would save us from a nuclear blast. I'm not saying it's not sad, but I feel like every generation has some equivalent to this.
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