US School Installs 'Shooter Detection' System 698
An anonymous reader writes: A school in Methuen, Massachusetts has demonstrated the first installation of an automated detection system for active gunmen. Sensors placed throughout the building are activated by the sounds of gunfire. The sensors relay data on the shooter's real-time location directly to police, who can then track and subdue their target. The system was developed for the military to detect the location of enemy fire. It will cost school districts between $20,000 and $100,000 to equip each school with the gunfire-detecting sensors. Methuen's police chief said, "It's amazing, the short, split-second amount of time from identification of the shot to transmission of the message. It changes the whole game. Without that shot detection system, we wouldn't know what was going on in the school ... Valuable, valuable time can be lost. Unfortunately, with school crisis situations, it's about mitigating loss."
Wonderful idea. (Score:4, Funny)
Just remember, whatever you do, don't ever drop your books in the hallway.
Trust me. Don't do it.
Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:5, Insightful)
The big assumption is that the gunman is continually firing shots that will allow the system to work. Alternatively, off the shelf wi-fi enabled cameras could be purchased that would provide real-time video feeds throughout the school allowing law enforcement to not only "hear" where the gunman is but to be able to actually see the gunman and potential victims as they move (or hide). Estimated cost: $5,000 - $10,000 depending on how many cameras are installed. (The prices are retail so I bet the schools can get an additional 30% off as they would probably be considered a wholesale customer.)
Sure the technology is cool but it doesn't make it the best choice for taxpayer dollars especially given the relative rarity of school shootings. During the 2009 - 2010 school year there were 98,817 public schools. Let's say they were all equipped with this system at $50,000 / school it would cost $4,940,850,000 to retrofit all the schools. I wonder what else can be done with 5 billion dollars... Perhaps some significant development work in vaccines? Perhaps cancer? Heck, I bet more lives would be saved simply choosing random people that need medical care and making sure they get the very best treatment possible.
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is also this crazy idea about sensible gun legislation that would help to prevent stuff like this. You know, if we're talking crazy things that will never happen in the U.S.
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a completely unabashed gun control proponent, nothing billed under the term "common sense" actually addresses this kind of shooting(which also shouldn't be the main target of gun control legislation, lives lost in mass shootings aren't more important than those lost one at time).
Most mental disorders are undiagnosed, many school shooters use firearms belonging to family members who don't share their disorders, and as long as the identities of gun owners is somehow considered sacrosanct and unrecorded, purchases under false pretenses will happen.
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It would turn them into stabbings instead. And once the perpetrators read up a bit on how to stab people properly (so they have no chance of survival), death counts will be indistinguishable from your average school shooting.
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a great thought exercise for you.
2 men, both same age, same general physique, etc.
In scenario 1, man #1 has a gun, how much good will running away do man #2?
In scenario 2, man #1 has a knife, how much good will running away do man #2?
Come back when you realize how dumb your argument sounds to anyone with a functioning brain stem.
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Curtailing access to them means that some people cannot get them. That may be a problem...
People talk about keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. Great in theory, but is MUCH more problematic in practice. Mental illness is not binary -- it comes in various degrees and kinds.
Should a person who hears voices telling him to kill people be denied a gun? Probably.
Should a person who compulsively washes his hands be denied a gun? Probably not.
If a person is on anti-depressants be denied a gun? What if they stopped taking them (this could be good or bad)? What if they stopped taking them last week against their doctor's orders? What if they stopped taking them 20 years ago?
Suppose a person is dangerous enough to require having their rights to arms removed... Who makes that determination? Does it just take one psychologist? Should it take a board of 3 or 7 doctors? Should a judge be involved?
If the person gets better, how are their rights restored? Once again, who makes this determination? What are the criteria?
And suppose a person already HAS guns. Maybe they are a hunter, and love hunting. Because they are afraid of loosing their favorite recreation, they AVOID seeking mental help. Is that a great idea?
Suppose a woman has some mental health issues and is denied a gun. However, her ex has a criminal record for violent offenses and has threatened death against the woman. Should the then be allowed to own a gun to protect herself? If so, who makes this decision? How long would it take for this issue to go through the courts? Would she even live that long?
Seriously. just focusing on the guns is ignorant. Just saying "don't give them to lunatics" is easy to say, but much harder to do in practice. When there IS a school shooting, what is the first thing to happen? People show up to help, with guns.
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to know you're lying.
You have to be aware that stabbing people to death isn't easy. That it's intimate, requires physical struggle, requires proximity, strength, and swiftness, a good knowledge how to deliver deadly blows. People can run away, and then you can't hurt them, unless you chase.
Honestly, how can you live with yourself, when you are so intentionally duplicitous? Are you okay with doing that? I mean... really? Do you believe the things you're saying? Honestly? Is "winning" random-ass internet gun debates so important to you that your honesty is worth it?
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Not even remotely similar to anything proposed in the US as common s
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:4, Insightful)
I certainly hope you're not implying that US police are in a position to justly determine who qualifies, considering recent history.
Seriously, I figured after the government's reaction to the Occupy and Ferguson protests, the left-wingers would have realized that maybe Big Brother isn't the trustworthy soul they always believed in.
Also, per the Constitution, self defense is a legitimate reason to own guns... hell, "I like guns" is a legitimate reason. Don't like it, move to Amend. Its your only legal avenue.
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Spoken like a either a coaster or European, who has no idea that vast amounts of the US is wilderness. Please explain "sensible gun legislation" that works equally well for New York City, and Cattle Rancher in Wyoming. The fact is, one size fits all legislation that works really well for small European Countries doesn't work so well for a country the size of all of Europe ... and then some.
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Alternatively we could spend money on mental health and outreach programs for troubled children. But spending all the money on a reactive system is probably better than a proactive approach...
I agree completely. But that doesn't go anywhere close to making sure our precious babies are safe!
We need hourly strip searches with body cavity probes of all students starting in kindergarten. There's no other way to stop the epidemic of school violence that has taken the lives of dozens of our most precious snowflakes.
No, that doesn't really go far enough. An hour is a long time, anything can happen. We need permanent body cavity probes implanted in our kids, with miniature cameras implanted on their
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Or you could take anything off the market that happened to show up in the past 20 years or so. Your logic works the same way.
Kim Kardashian, Twitter, Facebook....
On second thought, perhaps I should sign up for your newsletter.
Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score:4, Informative)
Or, even better, we could just take all the damned SSRIs off the market; because, if you look at the history, these "school shootings" were virtually unknown until SSRIs came on the scene, then there has been a steady drip, drip, drip of these incidents, and particularly in the U.S.A., where SSRIs are hideously over-prescribed.
I am so tired of hearing this.
As a doctor I once had said; "Co-relation is not causation, I'm pretty sure all those shooters also regularly drank milk yet I don't see people blaming milk for suicides or homicides."
A part of the problem is some people are just prone to violence and they're given these drugs without any real support because their councilor/parent/doctor expects the drug to do all the work but in reality it doesn't work that way; taking mood stabilizing drugs without support and encouragement is like taking diet pills and expecting to lose weight without changing your lifestyle to accommodate healthy food and exercise.
I was once on an SSRI; Sertraline Hydrochloride, for a couple years and it really helped me get stable, and at the time the county provided a not-for-profit support network, complete with doctors and councilors, for those suffering from mental anguish and with their help I learned how to deal with negative feelings and life's problems, had people to talk to, I made friends and they helped me reach the goal of being stable enough to get off my medicine. Fast forward a few years I'm happy guy no longer on SSRIs contributing to society with a well paying job and good friends. Ultimately the medicine did it's job to help my mind to heal like a splint helps a limb to heal, and I'll be ever grateful to those who supported me in my time of need.
Something else to take into consideration is that a drug that works 100% of the time in all cases is a fantasy because everyone's body chemistry is different so any drug can have adverse effects including but not limited to behavior, so healthcare workers and the patient alike need to work together to find a drug that works.
Long story short; SSRIs are the product of half a century of careful research and not the evil scapegoat you and your preferred cable news channel ignorantly make them out to be.
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At which point you're saying your kids have zero right to privacy, and are expected to be monitored the entire time they're in school.
Awesome idea, get them used to it while they're young! That way they'll be nice and compliant when they'
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Another assumption is that there is a cost benefit analysis that shows how ridiculous this actually is. The cost associated, per school, when School Shootings are very rare events is huge. While horrible, there is almost no cost that is reasonable to try to "identify" school shootings via technology. It would be much better, much more efficient to have something like this ... http://www.actionnewsnow.com/n... [actionnewsnow.com]
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Or they could even spend that 5 billion on the schools themselves, given how many schools have had their budgets cut lately. Textbooks, computers, etc. :P
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Lets even imagine the system works perfectly. No false positives, no false negatives. Every time it goes off there is a shooting in progress.
Average timespan of a school shooting: 12.5 minutes.
Average emergency response time: 10 minutes.
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Why would they calibrate the system that carefully?
Not all firearms make the same sounds, and excessive elimination of false positives is a bad idea for any sensor system.
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Unless it's a subsonic bullet.
The muzzle blast from a gun does create a sound that loud.
Unless your shooter brings a .22 lr, which does an adequate job when shooting helpless victims.
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22 lr is ~145 db.
It's sharp enough to stand out from other noise, including dropping a book.
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there are setups that can bring the muzzle report to a mere whisper. Sometimes you wouldn't hear it if it went off next to your ear.
(disclosure: I stalk small mammals for food, silence truly is golden. My loudest rifle reports at about the same volume as someone cracking a can of soda).
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Heavy hardback books dropped on it's flat side from 2ish meters will absolutely either have or nearly have those characteristics. Believe it or not, the total kinetic energy levels involved are quite similar.
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Hey, fun fact: kinetic energy isn't always the most relevant measure for deadliness.
Re:Wonderful idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that "various gunshots" sound a lot more like one another than "a gunshot" and "a book hitting the floor" sound like one another:
For instance:
- dropping a book doesn't cause a supersonic snap as it passes by the sensor - a bullet does.
- a book hitting the floor is not going to create a sound that is 120 dB to 160 dB - noise levels equivalent to "somewhere between a pnemuatic riveter and a jet engine." The muzzle blast from a gun does create a sound that loud.
So there's two fairly easy to discriminate characteristics that are pretty unlikely in a school setting. If the system detects and reports on those, it should be pretty easy to eliminate false positives from some douche-canoe in the library dropping a book on the floor.
I take it you've never fired any guns in your life.
The sound of a gunshot varies wildly with the type of gun, the type of ammunition, the space you're in, the direction the gun is facing relative to you, and your distance from the gun (distance doesn't just effect the loudness). A rifle shot in an open space can be heard for miles. A handgun shot in a closed room can go unnoticed by people in the adjoining room.
I can guarantee you 2 things:
1: This system simply detects and tries to locate the source of a sudden spike.
2: Students will try to trip it, and they will succeed.
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And kids totally won't abuse the system to get out of taking their finals. Why pull the fire alarm when you can make a really great prank!
Re:Wonderful idea. (Score:5, Informative)
And kids totally won't abuse the system to get out of taking their finals. Why pull the fire alarm when you can make a really great prank!
I'm not American, so maybe you do things differently, but here in the UK, if there's some disastrous event that means you have to evacuate a school/college during exam time, then we just reschedule the exams for another day.
I expect it's socialism.
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A subsonic round indicates the velocity of the projectile. This will pick up the sound of the propelant escaping the gun's muzzel and possibly measure differences in pressure of the atmosphere (which would likely only be effective in buildings). As long as there is a shot sound, it should pick it up.
A silencer could possibly escape detection and none firearm type weapons too. For instance a modified potato cannon that shoots .17 cal projectiles may have a completely different sound profile.
Lol. (Score:3, Funny)
3 - 2 - 1 .. Some kid brings a speaker plugged in to a cellphone/whatever plays gunfire gets school shut down for the day...
It'll be the new pulling the fire alarm/calling in bomb threat (taken way too seriously these days) =)
Re:Lol. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking the same thing. When I was a kid, setting off blackcats (firecrackers) in the bathroom
was not unheard of. This makes that even more appealing.
My biggest problem with these type of systems is that the cost/reward is so lopsided. There is
so much more effective ways of saving lives than trying to protect yourself from a 1 in a million event.
Children are way way more likely to be injured by their parents at home than they are by a school shooting.
A tornado or a fire is probably also way more likely to injure a kid at school than a school shooting.
There have to be better things to spend money on than expensive equipment that based on probabilities
will likely never be used.
Re:Lol. (Score:5, Insightful)
You could even buy them new books, computers, teacher's salaries, decent heating systems, lunch.
Why the number of things a student could more likely benefit from is just amazing!
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You are correct.
Every school shooting is a tragedy. It is a terrible, awful, awful thing. As a parent, I can't even imagine...don't want to. But it's really, really rare. Since 2000 there have been an average of 2 incidents per year of gunfire with injury at a K-12 school. Most of these only involve one victim, sometimes the shooter himself. There are 100,000 public schools in the US (and another 30,000 private schools). There's an average of 180 school days to a year. So at US public schools, 18,999,998 ti
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3 - 2 - 1 .. Some kid brings a speaker plugged in to a cellphone/whatever plays gunfire gets school shut down for the day...
Then punish that kid for setting off a false alarm, just like you would someone messing with the fire alarm system with fake cues.
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Has anyone studied how to spoof this thing? Firecracker in a piece of iron pipe?
You know the kids are going to try. I know I would have.
New way getting out of tests (Score:2)
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How on earth are FPS games relevant? Can you use a PlayStation in the hallway?
As others have pointed out, it's unlikely that a cell-phone could make a loud enough sound. A firecracker would be more realistic.
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Enough to create something at the volume of an actual gunshot?
Somehow I doubt that.
Your laptop would have to have one incredible set of built in speakers to be able to do that. My best guess, the speakers would be considerably larger than your laptop, and driven by an external power source.
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Dude might have a pair of Flips headphones, or better yet, Beats headphones! He's going to bring schoolhouse rock back. /end sarcasm
One problem solved, now the other... (Score:4, Insightful)
One problem was solved. Now the other problem needs to be solved. Namely, what causes students to snap and to do that in the first place.
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One problem was solved. Now the other problem needs to be solved. Namely, what causes students to snap and to do that in the first place.
^ This... As I said in my longer post, the mental healthcare system in this county is terrible, we don't offer support and help to those in trouble early enough, we wait until they snap and do something stupid...
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People aren't deterministic. If you haven't undergone substantial emotional strain sometime in middle or high school, you're still in elementary school. Combine that strain with a personality disorder(like psychopathy or borderline) and easy access to firearms, and in at least a few of those cases, a kid is going to make a terrible decision.
People like to simplify down to just the firearms or just the mental disorders can explain it, but it really has to do with people who see no control over their lives,
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Namely, what causes students to snap and to do that in the first place.
Hormone-addled teens 'snap' all the time, all over the world.
The difference is that the USA they have ready access to guns. In the rest of world, not so much.
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Drugs. And by drugs, I mean the legal Pharmaceutical ones. Almost all cases of Children shooting children involve Pharmaceuticals. Though chances are, the public is more likely to blame guns than the drugs.
I have seen the future... (Score:2)
Ahhh, the wonderful future were societal problems are solved with technology. Fast forward ten years and the system is being enhanced to immobilize the shooter or tranq them in some fashion – works so well it gets rolled out to every store and fast food joint. Pretty soon everyone everywhere is constantly monitored for signs of aberrant behavior and an automated response ready to be applied. The future will be wonderful.
Clearly they have too much Tax Money (Score:2)
Great idea (Score:2)
100k per school? (Score:2)
School shootings are bad. They are also rare on a per-school basis. Chicago for example has about 613 elementary and high schools - is it a wise use of resources to spend up to 61 million dollars for this type of system? I bet we would save more lives by hiring an extra crossing guard per school, or putting in traffic speed bumps around the school.
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Is it worth it? (Score:5, Insightful)
That equates to something like $2B to $10B to equip all the public schools in the US to stop a very small number of deaths. Such a system would have done nothing for the kids in the school in Washington State a few weeks back. I think very few of these school shootings last long enough for a system like this to make a real difference. But it makes people feel safer to think their kids are protected. I just wonder how much more effective that money could be at helping the potential perpetrators and preventing the shootings in the first place. It's amazing to me how stupid we are in this country that $20K+ per school to react faster to a catastrophe is so much more palatable than helping distressed kids and preventing the catastrophe in the first place.
narrow focus as usual (Score:2)
it hasn't come up yet, but im pretty sure if someone (including the voices in my head) said 'kill a bunch of people in this room without using guns or knives' i'd figure out an effective way to do it pretty quickly.
that's ignoring the fact that this gun detector is circumvented by maximum rounds fired per however long it takes the cops to get there. i realize they know this too, but since you can kill a hell of a lot of people with automatic weapons in a few minutes, someone truly dedicated to shooting up
population control through fear mogering and intim (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
Yes, we're at a point where the level of violent crime is at its lowest in 40 years [time.com] but apparently a crazy response is needed regardless.
Needless to say, there's no discussion in this article. Simply a visit to the school for the demonstration, a quick chat with the cops, and a thoughtless quote from the neighbor.
I have a kid in school and frankly I think all this pseudo "security" is more dangerous for shaping future civic involvement than the anhistorical gibberish in the history books.
Hmmm ... what next (Score:2)
Should they install barriers in case of Zombie attacks?
Should they install anti-aircraft artillery in case of air attack?
Should everyone wear hazmat suits in case of anthrax attacks?
What, exactly, is the threshold for buying things to cover a hypothetical situation? Should all schools have gunfire detection systems installed?
Maybe all schools need an assigned SWAT team so there's no transportation delay if this ever happens?
I understand the source of the fear, but the idea that some company is going to mak
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Yes. They should probably do nothing about the school shooting scenario and focus on education.
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Honest question ... have they done anything? Or given themselves the illusion of doing something?
This is like buying a rock which keeps tigers away. If in 5 years you've seen no tiger, you can declare it a success.
If every school installed one of these systems, the company which makes them would make a crap ton of money.
And easily 90% of all installations will be a complete waste of time and money.
But, really, what's the response time of your police, and how many people can be killed in that time?
20-100 computers worth of cost. (Score:3, Insightful)
Amazing how much the pro-gun lobby wants to waste on expensive crap like this, rather than simply allowing for effective laws. Hell, for most of what we need, we don't even need to create new laws, just start enforcing the current ones - in part by firing idiotic state government employees that refuse to comply with with federal reporting requirments
Sensitivity and specificity. (Score:2)
What percentage of gunshots will it detect? What is the rate of false detections? Can you trigger the detection by slapping the flat side of a ruler against the table?
And they will only have to fire 5 teachers (Score:2)
Wouldn't know what's going on? (Score:2)
Without that shot detection system, we wouldn't know what was going on in the school
I would think that the loud bangs, screaming, and fleeing people would be a dead giveaway.
Expensive and will be unused (Score:3)
Out on a limb (Score:2)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that students injured by slipping in the hallways far surpasses those injured by gunfire. Why are they not putting in advanced anti-slip floors and mandating that shoes have Velcro closures rather than laces?
Omni Consumer Products (OCP) to the rescue (Score:2)
Not impressed (Score:2)
As a previous poster said, close the doors (like the fire system did back in the '80s in my school). It shouldn't be too hard to tie the detectors into the fire alarm system, just basic electronics.
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no, cell phone can't produce 150 dB and up sound level. A stout firework might. but anyone setting those off indoors should get special attention from police and fire dept
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I think you grossly underestimate the difference between the maximum volume of a cell phone (or laptop or even most desktop speakers) and the volume of even a relatively small firearm going off.
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Band. Percussion section. Rimshot.
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It will still be easier to pull the fire alarm, and yet, that doesn't even happen terribly often. Every year some kids here and there get the bright idea... but seldom has it been a real issue, and dealing with it is hardly going to take anything new.
A kid could do the same thing right now with some fireworks and some creativity. Explosions or gunshots will be reported to the police as is, they will cause panic as is..... this system really does nothing new except reduce the time to report to the police.
So
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Yep, when is the last time the police actually confronted and stopped the shooter?
Yea, it happens... but just as often, if not more often, some teacher tackles the kid, or as you say, he runs out of bullets, or he shoots himself so he doesn't have to live with what he just did...
Something worth considering... When is the last time a school shooter was a girl? Why is that? No one wants to talk about gender roles anymore, we're all the "same".
That is silly, we CLEARLY aren't the same, yet we keep saying,
Columbine was a big exception (Score:2)
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When I went to school, it was a large district, my high school had over 3,000 kids in a three grade school (about 1,100 kids per grade).
We had a off-duty police officer at the school, he even had his own office and he was armed. We had a gang problem in school and fights were not that uncommon. After school on a Friday, just before the football game, it came to blows in the parking lot, one rival gang drove through the parking lot and gunned down another with shotguns. But that was at 6pm well after scho
Re:Benefits, but still misses the point... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, the REAL issue isn't even guns, it is mental health. We have kids who are unstable, unbalanced, and unloved, and the system does nothing for them. There is no way to identify problem or challenged kids and get them some help before they go off the deep end.
This isn't limited to kids, we have the same problem with adults. The mental health care system in this county is sad, we don't offer help early enough to those who need it and as a result, we have people who go crazy and do stupid stuff.
Because indeed we are dealing with a mental health issue. In particular we are dealing with two mental health issues that are widespread in our country:
Until we address those issues we will still have these problems. It doesn't matter where you put guns, detectors, or anything else. All you can do is move the problem around. To make matters worse the 2010 health care bill was more about rewarding terrible insurance companies than it was actually about helping people get access to care that they need.
Re:Benefits, but still misses the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
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It doesn't matter where you put guns, detectors, or anything else. All you can do is move the problem around.
Actually, I do agree with you, either arming teachers or putting police at schools might well move the shooters somewhere else, but you're right, it doesn't solve the problem.
Other than to stop school shootings. :) That was my point, was to make it an unattractive target. Actually fixing the core issue was the mental health park.
People who seek mental health treatment are still stigmatized for doing so
This is a wise point, no one looks down on you if you get cancer and need treatment, you get cards and flowers and balloons and everyone "understands".
If you need to talk to someo
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Heck, armed teenagers would solve this problem.
So, arm the kids [telegraph.co.uk].
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This does not address the vulnerability of drop off and pickup times where I think the local police should provide a presence - its a couple of officers per school, for an hour or two a day - and most large school districts already have some liaison officers - this is just a few more to supplement the liaisons. I agree with your comments on Mental Healthcare - our nation
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Arming more people is not necessarily the answer
To the overall problem of shooters? No, it isn't...
But the idea is to make the location an unattractive target so they don't try.
If they know that 5 to 10 teachers are armed, they may not get very far. Thus they might not try.
I do NOT want a shootout at school, I have kids in school, that isn't a good idea either. The idea is to make them think twice.
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No... people take guns into schools because those people are Crazy.
Stop trying to make political points by citing the actions of the mentally deranged. They are nuts... there is no rationale to their actions. They are impossible to prevent or prepare for. Until we cure mental illness, there will always be crazy people doing crazy things that upset us. Laws only restrict the rational. The irrational will continue with whatever they were doing irrelevant of weather there is a sign or not.
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There is some. The shooters usually want posthumous publicity. And the media are usually all too happy to oblige.
The school shooting from 5 years ago is still in the news around here. The shooter probably got more than he wished for.
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Of course, the REAL issue isn't even guns, it is mental health. We have kids who are unstable, unbalanced, and unloved, and the system does nothing for them. There is no way to identify problem or challenged kids and get them some help before they go off the deep end.
This isn't limited to kids, we have the same problem with adults. The mental health care system in this county is sad, we don't offer help early enough to those who need it and as a result, we have people who go crazy and do stupid stuff.
I think your thoughts on the use of firearms by the general public are likely to create so strong of a gut-level response (both in support of and against) that your point about mental health issues is likely to be missed. Approaching these problems from the point of view of mental health rather than an exercise in policing tactics response times seems more likley to result in longer term improvements. Regarless of one's position on public use of firearms, I suspect that most people would like to see a socie
Re:Benefits, but still misses the point... (Score:4, Informative)
You are so right - it is LACK OF WEAPONS that is causing all these shootings. So, instead of installing security systems, let's install automatic rocket launchers in all schools, and while we're at it, why not put something like VX gas or anthrax in the little perfume dispensers in the toilets?
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Heck, armed teenagers would solve this problem.
Maybe, but it almost certainly would create a much bigger problem. Teenagers as a group are somewhat less than stable emotionally. Some good studies have shown that simply having access to guns escalates aggression among adults. We don't really need petty squabbles that might result in hallway fights turning into shootings instead.
Without engaging in a gun rights debate, I'd certainly much rather my kids attend a gun-free school than one where anyone is allo
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No, you didn't get to take your gun INTO the school. You left it in the truck or it was locked up. Even in Texas, we weren't allowed to bring guns inside the building without supervision (bringing them into metal shop for example). Besides, what you are talking about is teenagers with pistols of various flavors wandering around a building full of teenaged angst and hormones. It might work in place like Israel where kids aged 14 start getting military training (firearm control, discipline, discipline, di
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A gun in a desk drawer is useless, it is either on you, or it is useless.
The Texas Concealed Handgun Law was passed because of a shooting at a restaurant. The woman who was there had a gun, 50 feet away in the glovebox in her truck. She watched both her parents executed by the gunman who then passed her by and shot others.
A gun is not useful if you're not wearing it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
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The front office at Newtowne elementary school did have a pistol in their desk, but they were gunned down before they had a chance to use it. And when you allow staff to have guns, now you have a problem of securing the guns so kids don't break in and take them. Just the kind of stunt that would give the "bad boys" some stature within his crowd.
You know your assertion would carry more weight if you could spell the place right.
Also, citation needed. That little tidbit would have been used by the anti-gunners and the pro-gunners alike. So, nobody is going to believe you without some reputable sources to link to.
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spree shooters are also rare. this is an over reaction to a small problem
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What if it is teacher, or someone known to teacher that goes postal?
>>>If you're not meant to be here
Why would anyone want to send kids to a place where potential for mistaken judgment call, no matter how unlikely, will result in getting shot? Consider this, on a national scale incidences of school shooting are rather low, but incidences of bone-headed decisions by stuff and teachers are not.
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fuck this high tech solution bullshit, just fucking arm the teachers with a "If you're not meant to be here you WILL GET SHOT" policy.
Have we suddenly switched to discussing prisons or we are still talking about schools - you know, place full of kids who will happily do whatever you are forbidding them to do.
Re:Lock-em down (Score:4, Insightful)
Call me when a system like that is allowed by the local fire safety code.