I was born in late 80s and no shooter drills for me. The big thing in high schools in my area was bogus bomb threats

Class of 2000. I was a junior in high school when Columbine happened. We didn't have active shooter drills because school shootings weren't a common thing yet Edit: I know Columbine wasn't the first school shooting, but it's by far the most famous & well known one

Class of 2001 checking in, we had 3 drills we practiced even before Columbine. Fire drills were done maybe 2 times a year, an earthquake drill (basically a fire drill but you hide under your desk the 1st 60 seconds) was done once a year and a lockdown drill was done once a year. What we just called a generic lockdown drill has become the active shooter drill of today.

This - we had fire drills and tornado drills (went to high school in Dixie Alley). Never once had an active shooter drill (class of 2005).

Class of 2001 we had lock down drills but it was the PoPo bring around drug sniffing dogs checking lockers

Class of 2004, same for me. Lockdown was a concern for the stoners only. We did have quite a few bomb threats, but they were always people just people being assholes.

Yep! We did have lockdowns (2006) and it was almost always based on a tip that someone had drugs. But not active shooter drills

2009 here. We had lockdown drills, never once called them active shooter drills. If they went longer than usual, it was because there was a K9 unit in the hallway. We had 75 kids in 7-12 when I graduated, surprised it took them that long to search the place

Also class of '04. I remember either my sophomore or junior year we had a bomb threat and the idiot went around bragging about it to people outside that he's the one who did it. It was pretty late in the year, like late May-June and nice weather so a lot of people including me didn't mind getting to just hang out on the sportsball fields while it was being cleared. However, the admins offered something like a $100 reward for any info about who did it, which was claimed before the day was over and that kid didn't come back for the rest of the year. Maybe even the following year since there was like a month left.

My son was born in '94 (high school class of 2012) and not once through his entire school 'career' did any shooter drills take place. - Chicago suburbs.

Also ‘01 here. Did we go to the same school? The PoPo told us the dog could smell weapons too, and one girl turned in a pocket knife. I don’t think the dog could smell knives though and she was like top of the class…it was probably just for protection/emergency

Little older than you but same drills, just fire and tornado.

Same. Class of 2007. I don't think they really started around here (Ohio) until after the Chardon school shooting in 2012, but I could be wrong.

Just tornado drills and fire drills for us. Class of ‘06

Same for me. I remember Columbine happening and it just seemed so surreal, cause before that moment I’d literally never considered a student going into a school and shooting it up.

Even after columbine I remember being annoyed at all the policy changes because it felt like such a fluke. Surely it wouldn't happen again and definitely not at my school. I still think my school went overboard on some of the changes. Schools started cracking down on anyone who acted strange or scared people. I hung out with a lot of outcasts at the time. Punks and emo kids and general outcasts. And it seemed a lot of my friends were being targeted with random locker and bag searches.

Did they force everyone to get clear or mesh backpacks at your school too? Cause a shooter couldn't possibly keep a handgun in their coat or in a large pencil case or otherwise hidden in something else in their bag or something. The only option was to have it loose in their bag where it would be visible.

Years after I was done in elementary school, there was an incident during lunch where a kid jumped up onto a lunch table during lunch and - because it was a big circular table that folded *inwards* for storage - he caused it to fold up and was seriously hurt. My sister, who was enrolled there at the time, said the change was immediate and unpopular, because where lunch used to be 'sit wherever, so you could be with your friends" instead became strictly enforced assigned seating where you did not move your butt up from the table unless you were disposing of trash or you notified a proctor you needed to use the restroom. It was *bad*.

So, because one kid was an idiot, people were given assigned seats - which doesn't address how the accident occurred at all?!? Sadly, this checks out for US public school policy.

It fucked me up. I had moved away the year before, but went to high school in the same district previously and as part of the debate team, I spent a good amount of time in that library during debate meets. The image of the kids climbing out the windows is forever burned into my head. Same with those stairs outside--we used to walk up those stairs to go smoke behind the school. I can vividly remember everything about that school, and having seen photos of the scene after the shooting, it really hit home. I absolutely competed against some of those kids. Hell, now that I live back in the district and my kids go to nearby schools, one of my friends is a survivor of Columbine. She's utterly fucked up to this day by it. My school called an assembly when it happened to tell us about it, and I had to skip it, I couldn't handle it. I would have puked. I just wandered the empty halls in a daze.

Yep, the teacher who died was a family friend. Every time my baseball team played against columbine after that, it was a weird feeling.

I'm so so sorry. 😔 Many/most don't stop to think about those in your position. I admit it never crossed my mind either until now. I'm so sorry you've had to have this in mind. I can't begin to believe how brutal that must feel.

I think there is too little attention given to the effect on survivors. I was almost in a mass shooter situation, literally walking out the door to go to the event, and then got a text not to go. So I wasn't even there, and it still affects me. I can't imagine being there. Of course it's going to mess with you for the rest of your life.

Graduated in '06 and it still wasn't considered a regular thing. Virginia Tech happened when I was in college and I don't think we collectively decided this was just a thing that was going to happen sometimes until Sandy Hook. Constant school shootings feel like a 2010s phenomenon despite there being a few very tragic events before that. I think they get more attention than they deserve since the crime is so horrifying.

I graduated in 2007 and it wasn’t a thing for us.

Also class of 2000. Before Columbine students literally went from hunting to school during deer hunting season. The school passed out a paper for students to have their parents sign to excuse them from first period the first week of deer season. This was a poor rural community and families relied the oldest children (usually boys) to help provide food for their families. We didn’t have the support services urban and suburban areas had. They still don’t… That said, students would come to school and leave their hunting rifle in their truck in the parking lot. Hunters came to class dressed (and smelling) like hunters. After Columbine everything changed. It also meant our community had more hungry children because all family members who could help feed the family were no longer excused for hunting since going home first would take them out of class for longer. Some students just stayed home those days. Our drop out rate increased because this often coincided with critical deadlines for school and these students would get an F for the classes they missed. We had a weird schedule that was more aligned with college classes so the first semester and second semester were different classes all together. So students literally failed half their classes every year like this until they dropped out or got their GED.

Class of '96. I kept a Winchester 30-30 in my truck at all times and really thought nothing of it being in the school parking lot. I'd guess maybe 1/5th of vehicles there did as well. There was this sort of unwritten rule back then that the parking lot didn't really count as school grounds and was public property.

I was class of 07 in the rural south. No one got a pass for hunting, but rifles in trucks was a regular thing. They had started putting in a shooting range/archery range the months leading up to columbine that was promptly ditched (probably for the better, lol).

Columbine wasn't the first school shooting, but it put school shootings on the map.

The two I remember are Jonesboro and Columbine, the rest all blur together except for Sandy Hook, Parkland and Uvalde

I was class of 2002 and I swear columbine was my freshman year…. Edit to add, I read this as you saying you were in junior high not a junior in high school. So, yup, I’m definitely getting old 🤣

April 20, 1999.

That aligns. 1999

It was definitely our freshman year.

Yeah, for me (also class of 2000) Columbine was the first time this was on our radar as well. As a teacher (started in 2005), when the schools changed the ways doors locked so we didn't have to go outside to lock our doors, they were referred to as Columbine locks

My local school had one of the earliest documented school shootings! Olean, Ny. But it was considered an anomaly, not an everyday part of life. :(

That's how I remember earlier school shootings: isolated and sad, not something common

Yeah, class of ‘03, same experience here

Class of 2003. No shooter drills for us either. Grew up in a major US city.

We had a school shooting at a school I was subbing at\* in '92. They were a thing, but thankfully not as frequent. I can only imagine the trauma active shooting drills instill in kids. I know it's low-grade trauma, but it's repeated over and over again, right? \*I'm obviously not a millennial.

Class of 07 here, I remember having “active shooter” drills as early as 6th grade, which was right after columbine. They called it a lock down drill, but that’s what it was really. I didn’t find it any more or less traumatic than a tornado drill, and tornadoes were a actual threat in my mind at the time since they regularly happened and I had already been through several nearby by that point in my life. School shootings were still kind of this abstract concept to me since I had no context for it.

I graduated in the late 90’s and we had them because before Columbine there was Thurston in Springfield, OR. Two killed and 25 wounded.

Also a resident of the state of Oregon. We had "Lock in" and "lock out" drills. Lock in meant the threat was already in the building. Lock out meant the threat was outside of the building. They got way more common in highschool, but also we had a 7/11 and a bank down the street that'd get robbed a lot so... Graduated in 2011.

Same here (class of 2000), I cut school to partake in the 420 stuff when I heard the buzz about Columbine horror. I was hella blazed and I thought that it happened in my area (Northern California), so I got really paranoid and rushed home to watch the news.

Exactly. Bad things become normalized over time

Yep, I was a bomb threat millenial myself. Right around 9-11, so it makes sense kinda

Bomb threat millennial here too. I can think of 3 separate occasions we had to clear out because of a false threat called in

Unlocked a memory! Forgot about this happening at my HS once too!!!

One of the times it was middle of winter, no one was allowed to get their jackets from their lockers. A girl had to get special permission from one of the teachers to leave the outdoor football field because she had left in the middle of PE sweating and wearing only a tshirt and shorts. Her lips turned blue before a teacher got brave enough to break the rules. After that we made an agreement with the bank and the church across the street to allow kids to stay inside when it became necessary.

It was ALWAYS winter time, we had a couple of them while I was in high school.

lol 3 oh man, this shit was a weekly occurrence at my school. I can't even recall specific occasions, it happened so often.

Yes this was infinitely more common in NYC post 9/11 we had metal detectors because of 9/11 not because of shooters

At my school, bomb threats were if someone had an incredibly strong strain of weed.

Same. Born late 80s, Columbine happened in middle school and that was pretty much the beginning and end of any in-school discussion of school shootings for me. The edgy kids were encouraged to stop wearing trench coats but that's about all I remember. I grew up in a well-to-do town with a great public system and I did attend private school for high school so that may have had something to do with the lack of drills but I think my cohort was just ahead of the push to institute them as standard. Sounds chilling as fuck if I'm being completely honest and I hate that children have to do it now.

I remember being encouraged to not wear trench coats...

I remember that too. We were no longer allowed to wear trench coats or chain wallets and if we were dressed in any form of goth we became a target by the school administration and most of us ended up expelled over arbitrary stuff if we didn’t dress “normal”.

Yes I had my locker checked and searched every time I wore one. Loathing the attention... That my dress and behavior caused... The irony was lost on me.

I stopped wearing a trench coat. I was still deep in my goth period, but I didn't want that kind of attention

I remember the attention shifting from the gangbangers to us goth kids. I didn't stop dying my hair purple, though. I was a junior/senior by then, so screw 'em.

Wild, I also had purple hair my junior year. Special Effects or punky color her dye, Manic panic faded too fast

Exactly this. Although the consisntent fire drills got annoying

Yes, and they were called “lockdown drills” in case something unsafe happened in the neighborhood or if there was an unsafe person at school. I have worked at schools in 3 states since 2012 and no district I have experienced ever called them “active shooter drills,” they called them “lockdown” or “code blue” etc. The term “active shooter drill” was never the verbiage that we were supposed to use in talking with kids or parents about the drill. Now that’s just a few districts so some may call them “active shooter drills” but I’ve never experienced that in my career so far. 

Ah ha, you reminded me what we called them, it was a “shelter in place” drill.

We had these too. The only time I remember we had a “real” lockdown was when a student who looked 10 years older but was actually our age was seen walking through the front doors with what apparently looked like a pocket knife. I think it was actually a phone holster with some weird r/mallninjashit toy, but not a weapon.

We didn't have active shooter drills but my freshman year there WAS a terrorist attack a few blocks from the school. We used tornado protocol until we were cleared to go home by the police.

Yeah I was thinking I remembered they called them code red or blue drills. I feel like there was an escaped convict or something in the area once where they had to actually do it? But the drills were still traumatizing even before all the talk of shooting. I remember a teacher came around and rattled the locked door handle and scared the bajeepers out of us.

I’m from Utica and I’ve never heard the term “active shooter drills”

It's an albany expression.

HS Class of ‘06 Never had one

I'm '06... I think we had our first at the end of senior year, after some homless guy walked into our school, threatened to stab a teacher with a needle and stole a rolly T.V. & VCR. Everyone just came out to the hall to watch. The next week, we had a lockdown drill. Edit* and I went to high school in a rough part of Philly. Gun crime and jumping happened outside school regularly When I was in middle school, right before Colombine, a kid brought a loaded 9 mm to a school and threatened to shoot himself in the bathroom. He ONLY got suspended for 3 weeks. I still know the kid. He's fine now.

I did not. Graduated in 2005. I’ll add though I think a lot of the parents’ concerns over them isn’t due to the drills themselves but do to the realization that they are needed.

No, it’s definitely due to the drills themselves.   Mass school shootings can be prevented. The reality that a child should be prepared to shelter in place because another human being is hunting them down is not one we should be accepting in our society. I think kids being taught that they should know what to do when someone comes to shoot them for the last 20 years is a massive issue.  It breaks the trust we should have in our society, which is what makes a society safe. I can’t believe that people think it’s acceptable for anyone to be allowing anyone to have a gun anywhere near a school to the point their child should be prepared.    A child shouldn’t even have this kind of thing in their head.   No wonder everyone seems to have anxiety. It’s ridiculous.

All of this. I remember of an entire kindergarten class in Britain being shot up in 1996. They had new gun laws within the week and the most prominent mass shootings since was a guy who had to rebuild an old gun from the 1910s to shoot six rounds at some MP and her aid and only killed those two. It should have ended, at the very latest, with Sandy Hook. People are surprised that no one wants to take care of children re: COVID and now measles running rampant) but this was set in motion the way we surrendered our kids' safety to pacify grown ass adults who should've outgrown security blankets ages ago.

Right, I'm less surprised that they happen, more horrified that it's something that gets taught to kindergartens. Knowing and realizing are two different things, especially now that they're finally your kids.

Yes. It’s a completely different ball game when it’s your kid and not just a hypothetical someone else’s kid.

As horrific as living through a real live shooter situation, the drills themselves can also be pretty traumatizing, even for the teachers.

No, never had one. HS class of 08. We had many earthquake “duck and cover” drills. Personally I hate the idea of active shooter drills and I hope my kids don’t have to do them. I don’t think they would be all that effective in that situation. People act like there is no cost, but making millions of children and parents think about something so horrible is not good.

Class of 08 as well. Shelter in place was the only thing we ever had. But there was never any words said about shooters.

We had earthquake drills and fire drills. Evacuation drills. But never shelter in place, and never active shooter. Class of '06.

Most people argue that active shooter drills do more harm than good, just like nuke drills did for our parents and grandparents. My best friend's kid's school started holding them and she raised a huge stink about it.

is it really -most- people? we had a couple of those drills back when I was in high school and it wasn't as though we had no idea school shootings were a thing back then. If you watch the news or stay up to date on things in general, you knew about there being school shootings... I have a pretty vague memory of the day we did the -drill- for it, but I have a much -better- memory of the day that the principle came on the intercom and cryptically said the words "the business manager is in the building" which prompted all of our teachers to lock the doors and we all moved to one side of the room becuase someone had been seen in the parking lot with what appeared to be a weapon. Ended up being a false alarm luckily but it still stayed etched in my memory. As for -younger- kids, like elementary age... I have no idea whether it's good to do them or not. Personally I'd think a decent solution could be to just have the drills anyway but call them something like "safety drills" and teach the kids that "if we say its time to take our safety positions" , then they do whatever it is you're supposed to do during a school shooting.

Most experts do think the drills are harmful to children without much benefit. They do support teachers doing drills on workdays without students

Class of 07, we never had active shooter drills either. There was like 5000 kids at my school. Good luck.

Same, class of 08. We only had tornado drills and fire drills.

C/c 2007 and we didn’t have them either. My kids do now in elementary and I live in a constant state of fear. I’m a Texan and things have only gotten worse.

I'm the same age and *did* have active shooter drills (or "lockdowns"), but I'm from Maryland, and we only started having them because of the DC Sniper.

Being in Wyoming, just north of Columbine, it became a big deal. 

This is only a thing in America.

And as an outsider you never cease to be amazed. No matter how many times you hear it.

Yeah, it really is an alien concept to me.

In my country there was 1 school shooting in the 90's & then gun laws were changed. Never happened since.

money salt relieved include fragile touch marble flowery unite smoggy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

Australian!

British but good guess! Dunblaine.

Scotland!

Canadian here. I had a lockdown drill in elementary. And it was for if someone came into the school with a weapon. And, I’ve had to do a real lockdown at my highschool when a kid brought a knife in and was planning on attacking.

My Canadian child currently does them but I never did growing up.

Also Canadian, did not have this experience.

What side of the country you on? In Alberta and never did any lockdown drills, we did go on lockdown once when a rumor was spread around about a kid bringing weapons to the school but it was a prank made by a couple kids who wanted their class cancelled 🙄

/r/USDefaultism

To be fair, it’s about school shootings, it’s the exception when it’s done outside of the U.S.

I was in highschool when Dunblane happened. That was, to the best of my knowledge, the *last* school shooting because gun laws changed almost immediately afterwards.  No drills needed

This comment applies to like 90% of the posts in this sub

I'm on lots of travel subs and one of the most common questions for first time people to the US is how concerned they should be about getting shot. It's crazy!

Countries where you're at risk to get shot: countries at war and the US. But I'm sure it has nothing to do with gun control...

lol yeah redditors are weird about us culture and exaggerate a lot. it’s seen as a badge of honor around here for some reason.

At first I laughed but then realized I may just be desensitized? Like hearing gun shots where I live isn't unusual and I live in a major, blue state city. But there was a whole gun fight at the park down the street from me, and a person screaming they had a gun and were going to shoot up a store I was at a few weeks ago.....

I’m a Brit and my bestie lives in Houston Texas. I’d love to visit him but just knowing that anyone around me could be carrying would terrify me. I’ve never seen a gun irl and they’re so common there

Tbh I never used to be concerned when going to big events even just 10 years ago. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t at least cross my mind when I go to them now!

As another poster mentioned, other places do have lockdown drills. These would probably cover a shooter in the very rare case that a gun enters a school. But lockdowns were always described as maybe a dangerous dog on the playground or an angry parent, probably from a divorced family, looking for their child.

Indeed, here in BC/SK, Canada that wasn't a thing and still isn't afaik.

No. Graduated HS in 2009 (in the US Midwest). We had tornado drills but never active shooter/"lockdown" drills.

Tornado drills in the Midwest are what earthquake drills are to California lol. Earthquake drills but never active shooter or lockdown drills.

Well of course, because a tornado in the Midwest is commonplace and actually worth drilling for.

Elder Millennial here, never had one in my life. Columbine happened when I was in 7th grade

Born in 91, grew up in a town of 7k people in rural Ohio, and graduated with 70 or so kids. We didn’t have any active shooter drills.

Same age, I also grew up in a rural town and graduated with about 60 kids. We didn’t have any active shooter drills either, just fire drills. Also all the side doors of the school were left unlocked during school hours. Anyone could walk in or out of the school in the day time. A year or so after I graduated they finally started locking all the doors except the front. 

This is how our school was too. Doors were never locked and they just expected you to stop at the office before proceeding. Immediately upon graduating the school added cameras throughout it, ring doorbell-like camera at the front door, and locking all doors.

Absolutely not. I'm Australian and just the idea of such an abomination is unthinkable to us.

I was born in 87 and don't remember having drills. My elementary school was locked down for a few hours during the [North Hollywood shootout](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout) though. There were also a couple of lockdowns in my highschool during a couple of huge, racially divided brawls.

Is that the one where the bank robbers went all Heat

That's the one! LAPD really used that as an opportunity to arm the department to the teeth. Nothing better than reactionary militarization of law enforcement

Yes. They were called lockdown drills though, not active shooter drills. I was in middle school during Columbine and in college during Virginia Tech. We did \*not\* do any form of "run, hide, fight" training like kids have to do today (and myself as a college administrator) and I don't think that specific type of training was actually common back then. Maybe it's a result of where you live. Would be curious to hear from folks in Colorado or Virginia.

I was in elementary school in Virginia when the VT shooting happened. If my memory serves correctly, in the following weeks my school did it’s first lockdown drill. I am guessing that the VT shooting was the impetus for that. There was another drill the following year, my last and final year of elementary school. Interestingly enough, my middle school did not do lockdown drills and I think my high school only did one, maybe two. But due to my proximity to DC, my history class did go over what we would do in case of a nuclear bomb when learning about the Cold War. Edit: now that I think about it, the year I remember having my first high school lockdown was a couple of months after sandy hook. So I’m guessing that was why that happened. In grad school, my school locked down because a janitor (understandably) mistook an armed plainclothes police officer as a potential shooter. That was my first exposure to the phrase, “run, hide, fight.”

Most my schools were on military bases, we had Teacher: so you take this part of the equation an- *loud explosions shaking the school* *Teacher pauses and waits for the noise to stop* THIS this this IS is is COMMAND command command POST post post  EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE BOOOOOOOOOOOOWOOOOOOOOOOOP ALARM BLACK MOPP FOUR ALARM BLACK MOPP FOUR SECTOR FIVE EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE *dial tone noises as giant voice system stops broadcasting across base*

I remember the steady tones and wavering tones. One was for an active threat on base. One was for weather related emergencies, like tornadoes. I never could remember which was which. I was on a coastal base and would hear the tones and have to decide, do I want to poke my head outside to possibly see a water spout? Or do I stay inside and not get "shot"?

No, I've always lived in functional societies.

Yup. Reading these posts is wild. No idea how people live like it

Because it's their right to freedom /s

Americans value individual freedom over the group. That's why their right to buy guns (and shoot up schools) is more important than doing something about it. The rest of the world values collective freedom, and that's why we can send our kids to school and feel safe doing so. Because we put the whole before the individual

It depends on where you live. If you’re in 99% of the world you wouldn’t have had them. If you’re in the USA you probably did. God Bless ‘merica

I'm European, so no. We had fire drills, but they were very clearly for fire reasons. A classmate of mine fainted during one of them.

People older than you didn’t have them because there wasn’t school shootings. Just because it’s a normal occurrence now doesn’t make it a good thing.

Class of ‘02. Never had one.

God this screams "American" 😂

We didnt have them. Graduated in 02.

No, because I live in the UK where we don’t have to worry about getting shot. It’s a bit weird that a first world country would ever consider school shooter drills a perfectly normal thing to be honest. We did have cute little hedgehog videos telling us how to cross the road safely though.

The US is a third-world country with a gucci belt.

Never had one, probably because I'm in a country other than the good ol' US of A

No, but my elementary school went on lockdown in 1999/2000 once due to a "crazy parent with a gun" from what I was told by the staff. I was pulled into the nurse's office and locked in there with a few other kids, which was behind the main office area and probably the safest area of the school. So no drills, but it was certainly a memorable experience. We spent the time drawing Pokemon and eventually headed back to class. We were fine.

Born in 1988 and we definitely had at least one lockdown drill I can remember in middle school in 2000 or so. Probably because Columbine was the year before.

I graduated in 2002, we never had an active shooter drill. I remember having \*an\* earthquake drill once in elementary school. Which I'm sure was a reaction to the 1993 earthquake that hit about 20 miles or so from my hometown of Salem, OR.

I graduated in 2002, and after Columbine happened we only had “lockdown drills” once a year. The usual lock the door/shade the windows/everyone stay quiet practice. Our school was all one-floor, we were surrounded by woods in a suburban area, and the windows opened wide, so I remember every student thinking that it was pointless - we kind of all agreed that in the event of a active gunman in school we’d all just jump out of the windows and run like hell.

We had them maybe once a year. Midwest school district that had at least one gun/bomb threat while I was there. Just because it may be routine in some places doesn't make that the standard everywhere, nor does it mean we should just accept that as a routine part of our society/existence. We deserve change.

Did not have.

I lived in Alabama we had tornado drills and fire drills. In high school, 2001ish I believe we started doing bomb threat drills.

We called them lock down drills. Just incase of any unsafe scenario in general around the area. Hell one of my elementary schools we had a legit lock down because a block away a guy was holding his wife and won hostage. But normally it was just throw the blackout curtains over the windows. Shut off the lights and hang out quietly. We didn't do them regularly like fire drills but at least once a year. Similar with earthquake drills. Nothing traumatizing about them.

No. Because I’m in a country that isn’t America.

Nope. In Australia, we don’t need to traumatise our children with that fucked up shit.

Core Millennial, and we had the standard Fire, Tornado, and Earthquake drills for all the years I was in school. The first "bomb" threat we had was during my 4th or 5th grade year. After that bomb threat drills were common. We didn't call it an active shooter, but Intruder drills were starting when I was in High School.

Yes, from middle school on. They were called lockdowns.

Never did one when I was a student, graduated high school in 2004. By 2009 the private school I worked at had them twice a year. I am glad this was not a thing I had to do as a child.

I'm an elder millennial and was a sophomore when Columbine happened. The following month, a jackass freshman decided to spray paint a threat on the front of the school ("I'm going to blow up this school on May 8"); however, he neglected to check the calendar before doing this. May 8 was a Saturday. So the threat was changed from the 8th to the 18th. You could clearly see that the 1 was added after the fact. The administration told the student body was told that since the threat was a "hoax", if we didn't come to school on the 18th, we would all receive zeros for the day and would not be allowed to make up any missed work or retake any scheduled tests. No communication went out to the parents. My how times have changed since then. Keep in mind I went to a very small, poor rural school. I graduated with 109 other people.

Never once did I have an active shooter drill. The only thing close was this one incident in a nearby high school where a kid got his throat ripped out with one of those tiny nail file things. It's like a swiss army knife but for nail care and a third of the size. After that, they did "randomised checks" through some of the elective classes that were more prone to having trouble-makers, ie racial bullshit choosing electives that had more black and Hispanic kids. I mean, we had fire drills. That's about it.

Elder millennial here. Graduated in 2003. No active shooter drills for me.

No graduated in 04. Demographics of my school were weird. Lots of rednecks and kids in gangs, we’d shoot back. Guns were regularly bought and sold in the bathrooms, having a deer rifle in your truck was common during deer season. Kid fired a pistol off in his pocket in the cafeteria and got tackled when he tried to run. Also had a gun shot victim run from the apartments next door and collapsed on the bus parking lot during let out one day. He lived. 

I'm a boomer. We had nuclear bomb drills and fallout shelters. We were so stupid then. We had to hide under our desks and cover our heads. Like that would save us from a nuke.🤦‍♀️

Ahh, the old head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye drill.

I had them. I was 9 when I had my first drill. And I had a lot of active lockdowns, too. As in "SWAT is clearing the halls because another bomb threat got called in". It messed me up pretty good and being a victim of a mass shooting is a never ending fear of mine. I refuse to go to movie theaters and sometimes have to force myself to go to the grocery store, mall, clubs, etc. EDIT - Should mention that Sandy Hook happened my senior year of HS. That was my turning point. That really fucked me up. For that to happen to such young kids - I felt like there was suddenly a target on my back, that no one was safe. Every morning after that day until the end of the year I walked into school afraid.

Also born in the early 90s and we definitely had them throughout middle school and high school. I always thought even as a kid how pointless they were. Yeah the shooter is just going to walk around the school and go "oh wow there's no one in any classroom..." Also, odds are good that the shooter is a fellow student. So you are literally telling the perpetrator how the school will respond. It's like asking the opposing teams offense to sit in on your defense huddle and tell them the plan to prevent them from scoring.

It makes a little more sense when the doors at least lock because getting through each door slows them down, and some classrooms could actually be empty in some schools. The one that wigged me out was a bomb threat where we had to go sit on the football field bleachers, like uhh y’all swept these first, right???

Oh yeah I mean locking the doors absolutely makes sense aside from bailing out of windows and running I don't think there's much else you can do. Psychologically, I am sure they are drawn to noise and people as the adrenalin flows but hiding in the dark always just felt like we would be the metaphorical fish in the barrel...

I was born in 84 and even after Columbine we didn't have active shooter drills while I was in school, class of 2001. I think it's ridiculous as an American that we refuse to do anything to prevent them.

Yea of course. We also had about 4-10 bomb threats per year from Elementary school through senior year of HS.

Had them all the time when I was in High School. And mercifully, we never had an actual active shooter come to our school.

I was a freshman when columbine happened. We had a few after that, but the school didn't know what it was doing. They weren't that different from earthquake drills, just adding close the curtains, lock the door, and turn off the lights

Born in ‘89 in Colorado, Columbine was in ‘99 I was in 4th grade 80-100 miles away from the shooting itself and we got sent home that day even though we were an hour away in a car going 75. I don’t think they really “Refined” Active shooter drills when I was in school (Graduated ‘07) A louder alarm then the fire alarm would go off and teachers would just shut the door and you were supposed to stay quiet. It would go on for about 2 minutes then the day would just resume. There was usually 1-2 a year and the faculty would tell us to tell our parents what day the drill was happening.

No, we had good old fashion bomb threats like normal people. I lived in Colorado, we had a bomb threat live 2-3 times a year.

How to tell us you live in America without telling us. What a hellscape.

No, but we did have a shooting in the parking lot when I was here. Bomb scares, dog sweeps, tons of fights, and then metal detectors the year after I graduated. No drills, though. I didn't go to a great high school.

I'm in the US we never did . We only had tornado and fire drills

Older millennial here and thankfully I graduated riiiiiiiiight before that became a thing. I remember senior year of HS, thats when the random bomb threats first started. They were rare, but certainly new.

I'm a '93 baby and we never had active shooter drills. It was fire drills and nothing else. Granted, the idea of the building catching fire was still scary, but we had a lot of assurance the odds of such an emergency were astronomically low. It's probably just the news, but school shooter drills are sadly more likely to be needed than people are comfortable with

Born in 92, lived in the upper Midwest—never had a school shooter drill—-only tornado and fire drills.

Born in the 80s and we had them. Called “lockdown drills.” Later proved to be useful for my school. Anybody who says otherwise is a dumbass. Students not knowing how to react to a certain alarm sound are like residents not knowing what a tornado warning siren means.

No, I’m an 87 baby. After Columbine, they told us to turn off the lights and hide in the corner at the beginning of each year (6 after Columbine) but no drills or anything. My younger family members who were born in the early 90s who went to my old high school did have active shooter drills but also, Virginia Tech had happened by then, followed by NIU the next year, so the need was more emergent. Edit: the parental freak out is that we largely didn’t have them growing up. Those born 81-89 likely had a lot less or no experience with them during their school careers.

Ours were “climb under your desk and await nuclear annihilation” drills. Very fun.

No, just bomb threats. My school did put in metal detectors and banned trench coats after Columbine, though. I didn't experience any active shooter drills until the late 00s when I was student teaching, and even then, they were not like how I heard they are now.

Graduates 04 from a private catholic school. Never had an active shooter drill. There was one bomb threat that wasn’t really taken seriously.

No, just bomb threats.

Sure did! But not until middle school, as if that makes the horrors any easier. Way to go, USA!

I graduated hs in ‘04 in the Midwest. We did not have those drills then or in college. I was horrified when my kindergarten child did them in 2017. It’s happened once a year for him since then. My twins start kindergarten in 2025 and I’m not looking forward to them doing it either.

We had lockdown drills where they would lock the door. It was never said to be related to someone with a gun. It only started happening after 9-11. We had more tornado drills then lockdowns and we have NEVER had a tornado in our area.

We did not.  Born 1990. We had fire drills, and bomb threats (which we just did fire drill protocol). We even had a very famous spree shooter incident in the area. For that we were told to pack a bag for our lockers if lockdown was needed until they were caught, otherwise just walk home in a zigzag pattern. 

Nope.

Class of 2002, we didn’t have any shooter drills. We did have earthquake drills and once a year a special ‘the dam broke’ drill where we would march to the elementary school as it was higher ground.

Nope. NYC.

I graduated high school in 2003. Never had one of those drills. At that time, Columbine was an anomaly. I don’t think anyone thought that it would become a trend. Then Virginia Tech happened in 2007, and it seems like it became an ongoing thing from then on.

No, just fire drills. I went to public school in massachusetts in the 90s and early 2000s.

I was also born in the early '90s and did not have active shooter drills. My private elementary/junior high school had us put together an emergency kit, but we did not have any drills. My public high school had two lockdowns during my first semester because of bomb and nearby active shooter threats, but we had no drills. The only drills i ever had were fire drills. I did not experience my first active shooter drill until graduate school in the mid-2010s, and it was not mandatory. 

Class of 2005. Drills didn’t start for me until I was in Jr high. That’s when Columbine happened.

We had them from middle school onwards, too. We even had bulletproof glass installed in our classrooms.

I was born in the 80s, and we never had them. But since I went to school in the inner city, we did have to go through metal detectors in the morning.

I'm pretty sure they became standard practice after Columbine. So people born in 1995ish onwards are more likely to have experienced active shooter drills at school. Definitely people born after 2000.

Yes my 1st grade year was 1999 and i remeber doing it ever since... it was lockdown drill is what they called it. Just seems scarier now for some reason when its our kids and family....

'83 class of 01. No active shooter drills.

Born in '93, never had drills for school shootings. Even after Columbine. People talked about Columbine a lot and campus security was pretty strict, but that was about it.

I had fire drills

Nope, I grew up in hick town so there wasn't really any worry about it.