Today's Texas high school shooting.....

[gimmethesimplelife]

Yet another shooting taking place at an American high school. This makes me grateful that I don't have children and never will for reasons the regulars here already know. This also makes me worry for all the kids I run across while running errands or while I am out and about in the 85006 or on the bus to work while school is in session. I most especially worry for some of my neighbor's kids - decent fairly studious young people with their lives ahead of them.

I'm hoping one of the side effects of these recurring nightmares is that more parents pull their kids out of public schools and get them online for their education.....it's getting to the point where this is becoming something parents need to look at for the safety of their children as the system seem to refuse to address this and continues to make it clear that the Second Amendment remains more important than human life and even the lives of America's future - today's kids.

On the one hand, I understand that daily life is riskier say in Venezuela or Iraq or Syria......kids are at much more risk to loss of life in these countries than in the US. Granted. OTOH....you'all knew this coming, lol, no? If one were to focus on developed countries - the US is at the bottom of the barrel with no real competition as to how dangerous life here is for those under 18.....google is your friend here. Please don't believe me and comparison shop safety for youths in developed countries and see for yourself. At this point, I am wondering if we are going to start losing some educated and bright folks due to fear for their children and the system making it clear that young lives don't matter either.

I can honestly say at this point were I a parent I would not want my children in the US, provided I had a way out to one of the better countries permanently. For a developed country this level of risk to young people is completely unacceptable - so much so that I'd say it's not at all out there or radical to wonder why the US government isn't paying parents money to stay here in exchange for tolerating the risk of loss of life of both themselves and their children due to Second Amendment. Of course this will never happen in real life unless the people at the top were living in terror of the majority of the population (I believe this will happen in my lifetime)..........as more lives are lost due to the Second Amendment, watch more people go public with thinking along my lines.

Interesting but yet very scary times we live in. Try to stay safe (realistically in America this is like rolling the dice in Vegas or Reno these days) and let's hope for more of a Human Rights uprising against the Second Amendment.....and more multi-million dollar settlements due to loss of life for no real reason. Ay carumba, another day in America........Rob

[Ultralight]

Rob:

Keep 'em flyin'!

-UL

[Yppej]

Adults are at risk too. I avoid big gatherings like Fourth of July fireworks, do not like going into Boston, and have only flown once in the past decade and a half. Watch out at your protests Rob. Charlottesville proved deadly.

[Ultralight]

Predictions about how all this pans out politically?

I would think that metal detector and other security and prison-construction companies would be lobbying the GOP and lining their pockets to turn the schools into police states. Think of the money to be made to retrofit all the schools with metal detectors and all sorts of security checkpoints, devices, and personnel!

Cha-ching! Big money!

This way the gun nuts keep their guns, the gun grabbers get another defeat, and the students are kept safe by totalitarian surveillance at every juncture.

[LDAHL]

Virtually all these incidents seem to occur at public schools. I'm curious as to what the difference is for the 8-10% of students at the various types of private school.

[Yppej]

Virtually all these incidents seem to occur at public schools. I'm curious as to what the difference is for the 8-10% of students at the various types of private school.

Selective admissions, and the ability to easily expel problem students.

[LDAHL]

Selective admissions, and the ability to easily expel problem students.

If that's the case, maybe we should study how they do so well in identifying the potential murderous psychopaths in advance. I have trouble believing that's the whole story, however.

It's interesting that private schools with worldviews as different as St. Dogbert's Parish School or Privilege Preservation Preparatory or the Waldorfs and Christian Academies all seem to have avoided these incidents. Is it higher levels of parental involvement? Smaller, more close-knit school communities? A different class of student or teacher? Better, enforceable discipline both at home and at school? We've always had plenty of guns in circulation, and no shortage of screwed-up kids. What is it that has changed in our mainstream, middle class culture over the last twenty years or so that the educational outliers seem to have avoided?

[Yppej]

Murderous psychopaths often have earlier behavioral issues - e.g., the Parkland shooter, the church shooter in Texas.

[LDAHL]

But urban high schools are constrained as to expelling students, and they don’t seem to have these incidents.

[Yppej]

As a former resident of Coral Springs I would describe Parkland as an urban school. It is part of the densely populated Fort Lauderdale metro area.

[pinkytoe]

What is it that has changed in our mainstream, middle class culture over the last twenty years or so that the educational outliers seem to have avoided?
Perhaps the public school education system is partially to blame. All the testing and avoidance of dealing with bullying. Even the buildings themselves often look like prisons. I sometimes look at the police blotter news for my hood and was shocked to see that three suicides have occurred at the nearby middle school in the past six months. Yet it was never mentioned in the news as a cluster event. Makes me wonder though why a young person would want to kill themselves at their school? Or kill others there?

[razz]

What is the ratio of private to public schools? Are potential incidents kept quiet at private schools so as to not give the school a bad name? Do private schools have the option of limiting those allowed to attend and limit the number per class? I have no idea, just questions. Canadian public schools don't have the problems that US schools have, it seems. We are not immune but why do the US public schools have so many incidents compared to other public schools in developed nations around the world?

There are so many ways one could phrase the same question and so many comparables is the point that I am raising.

Virtually all these incidents seem to occur at public schools. I'm curious as to what the difference is for the 8-10% of students at the various types of private school.

[Yppej]

We've always had plenty of guns in circulation, and no shortage of screwed-up kids. What is it that has changed in our mainstream, middle class culture over the last twenty years or so that the educational outliers seem to have avoided?

The explosion of social media and its accompanying cyberbullying. The reduction of attention spans and the expectation of instant gratification. I see other people online showcasing their relationships and I am not going to wait for one. The girl I like keeps turning me down so I am going to shoot up my school in the case of Santa Fe, Texas.

I also wonder how many kids are on ADHD or other drugs with dangerous side effects to get them to fit into the outdated conventional model of education. I don't remember any of these shootings at voc tech schools.

[Zoe Girl]

I am rather chilled (but not surprised) at the part of the story where a girl turned him down and she was killed. Especially while my daughter is in the process of leaving a relationship. We could do a lot to work with youth and teens so they can emotionally manage these types of things,

[pinkytoe]

I also wonder if there is a lot of non-parenting going on. I have mentioned it before, but I can pick out the future misfits even in kindergarten where I volunteer.