Snipers? In MY school? It's more likely than you think.
A new Added Friend was involved in a recent school shooting scare. Luckily, no one was hurt. School officials responded promptly with a lock-down. After expressing my concern and relief that no one was threatened with violence or actually shot, merely inconvenienced, I wrote:
So one housekeeper reports a gunman and there are no security cameras or any other people who can verify he exists? I assume this is due to it happening before 7AM?
Kudos to her for reporting it, but it makes me wonder if a student who is struggling academically might not try for another lockdown in the future by reporting non-existent gunmen.
I have to assume that there are security measures in place that are not being fully commented upon, for student and faculty safety, or that erring on the side of caution was deemed the smartest response in light of prior school shooting events.
Since you were there, what do you think?
My suspicion is that he existed and knew he'd been seen, and left. However, if a suspect is never found and identified (no student has said "I know that guy!" yet?), I might start to doubt he existed. That doesn't seem to be a safe thing.
Let me give an example: students who live on campus at my school in a particular dorm are stacked in like sardines, and the smoke / fire alarms are hypersensitive. They can and do go off up to 4 times a week. There has never been a real fire.
In other words, someone overheats a bag of Jiffy-Pop in the microwave, and the entire student body is treated to a Hunky / Hawt Firefighter Parade (and the foul stink that goes along with burned popcorn).
The result is that students are being trained, like Pavlov's dog, to IGNORE fire bells. Also, the fire department suits up and races over each and every time, and students have expressed concern that this manpower (and womanpower) might be called for another false alarm while a real fire happens somewhere else, and that firefighters who were diverted for yet another false alarm will not be on hand to help fight it.
What solutions would you put into place to verify legitimate trouble while not being lax about security?
Another concern locally is that, whereas all of our dorms and classroom buildings are keycard protected (this is good), most school shootings are done by students or staff (this is bad). Anyone up to no good who was already a student or staff member would have keycards to get in. And, again, to belabor the obvious, most shootings are done by students who target their own schools.
What we do not have is anyone preventing students from holding the door open for each other (I'm guilty of this), anything to scan bags for possible weaponry (probably a good thing, given that many of us have devices that would be harmed or destroyed by careless handling), enough security cameras in all buildings to record comings and goings (unless they are very well hidden, that is, and I'm usually good at spotting sec cams), and a well-trained and armed security staff (nice but overworked and underpaid minions who are usually spotted drooling on themselves while napping at their posts).
As such, the keycards are merely an inconvenience, not a deterrent. It may keep homeless vagrants from wandering in, but, not surprisingly, this has also been proven to be ineffective. Yes. Homeless vagrants have been found sleeping inside classroom buildings and trying to knock on dorm doors. Fact is, students often dress just like hobos. You can't de-select for age in classroom buildings, either, because some students are adults in the grad program, like me. You can't racially profile, because, hello, how unconstitutional would that be? Not to mention racist. Not to mention ineffective, because there have been Asian, black, white, and probably several different shades of brown when it comes to school shooters. And the minute everyone says something like, well, there haven't been any Native Americans or albinos shooting up schools, some mentally disturbed albino Inuit will go to guns just to say "fuck you and your racial profiling." Or something.
So, what to do?
I honestly don't know, but maintaining personal vigilance and listening to your gut and instincts are probably good default plans. Mentally noting "escape routes" whenever you enter a building is also wise, but it takes a lot of energy to focus on negative possibilities, no matter how much safer you will be. Sometimes you just need to feel safe and secure and trust that you are protected somehow. Even if you are vigilant in every classroom building, and every time you walk across campus, is it reasonable to expect that you can (or should) maintain that stressful state of awareness when you are "at home" in your dorm?
Again, I am just glad that it was either a false alarm, or that it was handled well enough that a genuine threat was deterred and no one was hurt. That's the best scenario.
But, seriously, what can be done, here? The fact remains that IF you are mentally disturbed enough to think shooting other people is a fine and dandy plan, you could still potentially do a lot of damage before getting caught or becoming "an hero" by topping yourself.
Some people have suggested that the media is the bad guy, because they focus so much coverage on every incident and thus imprint the idea into the mentally unsound's peanut brains that that would be a great plan. I don't agree with that, really. Not reporting on an incident won't make it "unhappen", though, yes, the media get far too excited about anything with a whiff of violence and tragedy that can be discussed and moaned about at length to fill up empty news air time. Better that than another expose on a pet squirrel who can surf or the local hot dog eating contest or the first azaleas of spring.
Some people suggest that these shootings are solely because America has a gun-loving culture. I tend to think that there is some truth to this, but that it is not so simple. I suspect that what we have is a culture that focuses more on its collective right to own firepower than the responsibility to be cautious and well-trained and serious about the potential lethality of weaponry. It's like people who squawk about their "first Amendment rights" or "censorship" when they are shut down or moderated online: their understanding of the first amendment is flawed, and they can't figure out just how flawed it is. Their only concern is that they think they have a right to say anything they want anywhere they want and in fashion they choose, but that is not what the first Amendment is really about.
So it is with the second Amendment. Yes, we have a right to bear arms, but the context of that right has been perverted or misunderstood. State laws concerning guns are no less schizophrenic. Some states practically guarantee that if someone you don't invite is found inside your house, you can shoot that no good varmint dead on the spot. Texas has "Castle Laws" like these. Other states don't look as kindly at homeowners, right or wrong, who immediately plug intruders in the head. In Georgia, I believe the law is more like Texas', with the added caveat that IF you shoot a home invader, you better damn well kill the sumbitch, or else he and his family will sue your buttcheeks off. There is even a county or township that tried to make owning a gun mandatory here in Georgia: every household had to have a firearm. I haven't been following the progress of that lately, so that may be old news and no longer relevant. It would be interesting to see if there was a drop in crime, or an increase in gun-related accidents and so on. But that is a research project for another day.
Laws don't help in school shooting cases. First of all, anyone disturbed enough to consider shooting up a school is clearly not too worried about the law. Merely saying to someone in that state that it's illegal or bad will not register one bit. Laws don't prevent, in this case, they merely guide authorities should the miscreant survive his little spree and thus help them know what to charge the jerk with.
"No tolerance" systems are also Major Phail. Kindergardeners getting expelled for having nail clippers or middle schoolers suspended for having decorative wallet chains, children expelled for making paper guns or suspended for merely pointing their index finger and thumb to resemble guns, it is all over-reactive and stupid. One might say the same about the restrictions put in place at airports. Recently a friend, not being a devious terrorist, was distressed that her toothpaste, hair conditioner and expensive prescription face cream were confiscated because she had thrown them into her carry-on at the last minute instead of putting them into her suitcase (which may or may not arrive at the same destination at the same time as she does). Duty-free shops and airport gift shops must be making a freaking mint selling people toothpaste and other unlikely weaponry vectors. I suppose airport security personnel will never have to go to a drugstore again (surely they don't throw OUT brand new toiletries, amirite?) and the rest of us will be standing there, mostly naked, with our shoes in our hands, hoping the metal detectors don't freak out over our fillings or earrings or medical screws, letting tired and grumpy airport workers take our bottled water and shampoo, all just in case a determined son of a bitch wants to blow up another plane.
You know what? The truth is thus: a bad guy will think "outside of the box" and come up with new and more devious ways to hurt people or blow shit up. There won't be Evian bombs or more shoe bombs or Listerine bombs, it will be something entirely different. Plastique shaped like jewelry, or whatever. Hollowed-out hardback books. The bad guys will not politely play by the rules and let their crap get confiscated. The only people being hurt and inconvenienced are travelers, who are mostly allowing this inconvenience out of fear. What IF they kick up a fuss? To the interrogation room with you, STAT.
The truth is also that keeping people afraid is very much on the agenda of any politician who benefits directly or indirectly from it. If you are afraid and let that fear permit your government to slowly erode your personal liberties, freedoms and rights--if you trade a sense of false security for personal autonomy and personal freedom--you deserve what you get. And what you get is a smaller cage to scamper around in, and the likelihood that you will run afoul of some rule, in innocence, and be punished for it, while the folks the cages were constructed for are busily undermining the system in new and previously unconsidered ways.
How DO you control what a handful of bad people do, or might want to try to do, without harming or inconveniencing the innocent? When does being proactive verge into controlling fascism? Does it make us more safe to be videotaped every single second we are in public, or does it violate our right to pick our noses or adjust our underwear subtly in peace (or whatever you might do that you'd really rather not have a video record of)?
Every solution I've heard either is too naive, or it is too rigid and black and white to be effective, or it erodes too many personal freedoms, or it punishes the law-abiding with inconvenience and aggravation more than it actually succeeds in thwarting guilty or potentially guilty parties.
Some of us are old farts, or just older than most, and we can remember childhoods that were far less complicated. What, precisely, has changed about the world today that makes violence so prevalent, and governmental attempts to curb it so ineffective and annoying? I don't believe it is video games or television or music, so let me stop folks right in their tracks before that particular old chestnut gets hauled out. I could dig up a multitude of examples (albeit not many video games) that were equally or MORE violent, especially considering the bowdlerization of source in so many cases of remade movies, or the dumbing down of source in other entertainment, Wal*Mart censorship ("Waif Me"? Puhleeeez.) or whatever. I saw, read, listened to and otherwise absorbed equally (or more than equivalent) violent imagery and lyrics as a child. I have never been tempted to shoot up a school or workplace. We can't thank organized religion for that, either, because I was an agnostic long before I knew the word existed or applied to my personal beliefs.
Has the governmental mothering encouraged parents to give up parenting directly? Could that be a cause? Is it that it is less common for a parent to be at home when the child comes home from school, or that parents just don't know as much about what their kids are up to anymore? Has the trend away from "neighborliness" and towards "leave me alone, this is my fortress when I am home" led to more unwatched and unsupervised childhoods?
Having said that, what do you do when the parents supposedly do everything "right"? Apparently Jeffrey Dahmer's parents were lovely, attentive, and caring people. How much blame for what he did can be assigned to them?
Not only do we not have a firm answer on why school shootings are becoming so common, we don't have one single source of blame to focus on, and any prevention ideas we might come up with prove to be flawed and more trouble than they are worth. I think that while none of the usual suspects are the one true cause, it is possible that ease of gun acquisition, a pro-gun climate in most areas of the US, becoming desensitized to violence, a sense of entitlement (spoiling) accompanied with benign neglect, busy or overworked or mostly absent parents, less neighborhood bonding and communication between neighbors, poor value systems, and a hundred other things all contributed to, but do not excuse or cause (on their own) school shooters to do what they do.
After all, one of the earliest and most famous school shooters was a girl who did it because she was "bored", and because she "didn't like Mondays." How do you fight that sort of thing?
It makes me glad that I'm mostly a hermit and don't have time to deal with new strangers, unbalanced or groovy or somewhere in between as they may be. Still, one can't stay "in the basement" forever. There are groceries to fetch, and classes or work to go to, and who knows when some jerkwad might decide that what's yours should be his (or hers) and thereby break into your home and try to liberate you of your goods, or try to invade your personal space or sexually harass you, or whatever. Total isolation comes at a price most normal folks can't afford to pay. Sure, I could live on top of a mountain somewhere and live off the land, but, sorry, I like my Internet access too much.
Life IS calculated risk.
In the meantime, if someone comes up with a brilliant plan to thwart school shootings (or terrorists on planes), I just hope it doesn't involve taking away more of my personal autonomy or freedom or rights. Because as good as that brilliant plan may be, the second it is put into play, the bad guys will have figured out a loophole.
That's how the abnormal mind works, guys.
So. What DO we do?
I have to say, when confronted with big questions like that, well, my reaction is to throw my hands up and go look for an Aero Bar to eat, nom nom. I might be a super genius, but I have no super genius foolproof plans. It makes me tired to try and out-think crazy people. I just know that I can't live in fear. I'm too damn busy for that crap.
So one housekeeper reports a gunman and there are no security cameras or any other people who can verify he exists? I assume this is due to it happening before 7AM?
Kudos to her for reporting it, but it makes me wonder if a student who is struggling academically might not try for another lockdown in the future by reporting non-existent gunmen.
I have to assume that there are security measures in place that are not being fully commented upon, for student and faculty safety, or that erring on the side of caution was deemed the smartest response in light of prior school shooting events.
Since you were there, what do you think?
My suspicion is that he existed and knew he'd been seen, and left. However, if a suspect is never found and identified (no student has said "I know that guy!" yet?), I might start to doubt he existed. That doesn't seem to be a safe thing.
Let me give an example: students who live on campus at my school in a particular dorm are stacked in like sardines, and the smoke / fire alarms are hypersensitive. They can and do go off up to 4 times a week. There has never been a real fire.
In other words, someone overheats a bag of Jiffy-Pop in the microwave, and the entire student body is treated to a Hunky / Hawt Firefighter Parade (and the foul stink that goes along with burned popcorn).
The result is that students are being trained, like Pavlov's dog, to IGNORE fire bells. Also, the fire department suits up and races over each and every time, and students have expressed concern that this manpower (and womanpower) might be called for another false alarm while a real fire happens somewhere else, and that firefighters who were diverted for yet another false alarm will not be on hand to help fight it.
What solutions would you put into place to verify legitimate trouble while not being lax about security?
Another concern locally is that, whereas all of our dorms and classroom buildings are keycard protected (this is good), most school shootings are done by students or staff (this is bad). Anyone up to no good who was already a student or staff member would have keycards to get in. And, again, to belabor the obvious, most shootings are done by students who target their own schools.
What we do not have is anyone preventing students from holding the door open for each other (I'm guilty of this), anything to scan bags for possible weaponry (probably a good thing, given that many of us have devices that would be harmed or destroyed by careless handling), enough security cameras in all buildings to record comings and goings (unless they are very well hidden, that is, and I'm usually good at spotting sec cams), and a well-trained and armed security staff (nice but overworked and underpaid minions who are usually spotted drooling on themselves while napping at their posts).
As such, the keycards are merely an inconvenience, not a deterrent. It may keep homeless vagrants from wandering in, but, not surprisingly, this has also been proven to be ineffective. Yes. Homeless vagrants have been found sleeping inside classroom buildings and trying to knock on dorm doors. Fact is, students often dress just like hobos. You can't de-select for age in classroom buildings, either, because some students are adults in the grad program, like me. You can't racially profile, because, hello, how unconstitutional would that be? Not to mention racist. Not to mention ineffective, because there have been Asian, black, white, and probably several different shades of brown when it comes to school shooters. And the minute everyone says something like, well, there haven't been any Native Americans or albinos shooting up schools, some mentally disturbed albino Inuit will go to guns just to say "fuck you and your racial profiling." Or something.
So, what to do?
I honestly don't know, but maintaining personal vigilance and listening to your gut and instincts are probably good default plans. Mentally noting "escape routes" whenever you enter a building is also wise, but it takes a lot of energy to focus on negative possibilities, no matter how much safer you will be. Sometimes you just need to feel safe and secure and trust that you are protected somehow. Even if you are vigilant in every classroom building, and every time you walk across campus, is it reasonable to expect that you can (or should) maintain that stressful state of awareness when you are "at home" in your dorm?
Again, I am just glad that it was either a false alarm, or that it was handled well enough that a genuine threat was deterred and no one was hurt. That's the best scenario.
But, seriously, what can be done, here? The fact remains that IF you are mentally disturbed enough to think shooting other people is a fine and dandy plan, you could still potentially do a lot of damage before getting caught or becoming "an hero" by topping yourself.
Some people have suggested that the media is the bad guy, because they focus so much coverage on every incident and thus imprint the idea into the mentally unsound's peanut brains that that would be a great plan. I don't agree with that, really. Not reporting on an incident won't make it "unhappen", though, yes, the media get far too excited about anything with a whiff of violence and tragedy that can be discussed and moaned about at length to fill up empty news air time. Better that than another expose on a pet squirrel who can surf or the local hot dog eating contest or the first azaleas of spring.
Some people suggest that these shootings are solely because America has a gun-loving culture. I tend to think that there is some truth to this, but that it is not so simple. I suspect that what we have is a culture that focuses more on its collective right to own firepower than the responsibility to be cautious and well-trained and serious about the potential lethality of weaponry. It's like people who squawk about their "first Amendment rights" or "censorship" when they are shut down or moderated online: their understanding of the first amendment is flawed, and they can't figure out just how flawed it is. Their only concern is that they think they have a right to say anything they want anywhere they want and in fashion they choose, but that is not what the first Amendment is really about.
So it is with the second Amendment. Yes, we have a right to bear arms, but the context of that right has been perverted or misunderstood. State laws concerning guns are no less schizophrenic. Some states practically guarantee that if someone you don't invite is found inside your house, you can shoot that no good varmint dead on the spot. Texas has "Castle Laws" like these. Other states don't look as kindly at homeowners, right or wrong, who immediately plug intruders in the head. In Georgia, I believe the law is more like Texas', with the added caveat that IF you shoot a home invader, you better damn well kill the sumbitch, or else he and his family will sue your buttcheeks off. There is even a county or township that tried to make owning a gun mandatory here in Georgia: every household had to have a firearm. I haven't been following the progress of that lately, so that may be old news and no longer relevant. It would be interesting to see if there was a drop in crime, or an increase in gun-related accidents and so on. But that is a research project for another day.
Laws don't help in school shooting cases. First of all, anyone disturbed enough to consider shooting up a school is clearly not too worried about the law. Merely saying to someone in that state that it's illegal or bad will not register one bit. Laws don't prevent, in this case, they merely guide authorities should the miscreant survive his little spree and thus help them know what to charge the jerk with.
"No tolerance" systems are also Major Phail. Kindergardeners getting expelled for having nail clippers or middle schoolers suspended for having decorative wallet chains, children expelled for making paper guns or suspended for merely pointing their index finger and thumb to resemble guns, it is all over-reactive and stupid. One might say the same about the restrictions put in place at airports. Recently a friend, not being a devious terrorist, was distressed that her toothpaste, hair conditioner and expensive prescription face cream were confiscated because she had thrown them into her carry-on at the last minute instead of putting them into her suitcase (which may or may not arrive at the same destination at the same time as she does). Duty-free shops and airport gift shops must be making a freaking mint selling people toothpaste and other unlikely weaponry vectors. I suppose airport security personnel will never have to go to a drugstore again (surely they don't throw OUT brand new toiletries, amirite?) and the rest of us will be standing there, mostly naked, with our shoes in our hands, hoping the metal detectors don't freak out over our fillings or earrings or medical screws, letting tired and grumpy airport workers take our bottled water and shampoo, all just in case a determined son of a bitch wants to blow up another plane.
You know what? The truth is thus: a bad guy will think "outside of the box" and come up with new and more devious ways to hurt people or blow shit up. There won't be Evian bombs or more shoe bombs or Listerine bombs, it will be something entirely different. Plastique shaped like jewelry, or whatever. Hollowed-out hardback books. The bad guys will not politely play by the rules and let their crap get confiscated. The only people being hurt and inconvenienced are travelers, who are mostly allowing this inconvenience out of fear. What IF they kick up a fuss? To the interrogation room with you, STAT.
The truth is also that keeping people afraid is very much on the agenda of any politician who benefits directly or indirectly from it. If you are afraid and let that fear permit your government to slowly erode your personal liberties, freedoms and rights--if you trade a sense of false security for personal autonomy and personal freedom--you deserve what you get. And what you get is a smaller cage to scamper around in, and the likelihood that you will run afoul of some rule, in innocence, and be punished for it, while the folks the cages were constructed for are busily undermining the system in new and previously unconsidered ways.
How DO you control what a handful of bad people do, or might want to try to do, without harming or inconveniencing the innocent? When does being proactive verge into controlling fascism? Does it make us more safe to be videotaped every single second we are in public, or does it violate our right to pick our noses or adjust our underwear subtly in peace (or whatever you might do that you'd really rather not have a video record of)?
Every solution I've heard either is too naive, or it is too rigid and black and white to be effective, or it erodes too many personal freedoms, or it punishes the law-abiding with inconvenience and aggravation more than it actually succeeds in thwarting guilty or potentially guilty parties.
Some of us are old farts, or just older than most, and we can remember childhoods that were far less complicated. What, precisely, has changed about the world today that makes violence so prevalent, and governmental attempts to curb it so ineffective and annoying? I don't believe it is video games or television or music, so let me stop folks right in their tracks before that particular old chestnut gets hauled out. I could dig up a multitude of examples (albeit not many video games) that were equally or MORE violent, especially considering the bowdlerization of source in so many cases of remade movies, or the dumbing down of source in other entertainment, Wal*Mart censorship ("Waif Me"? Puhleeeez.) or whatever. I saw, read, listened to and otherwise absorbed equally (or more than equivalent) violent imagery and lyrics as a child. I have never been tempted to shoot up a school or workplace. We can't thank organized religion for that, either, because I was an agnostic long before I knew the word existed or applied to my personal beliefs.
Has the governmental mothering encouraged parents to give up parenting directly? Could that be a cause? Is it that it is less common for a parent to be at home when the child comes home from school, or that parents just don't know as much about what their kids are up to anymore? Has the trend away from "neighborliness" and towards "leave me alone, this is my fortress when I am home" led to more unwatched and unsupervised childhoods?
Having said that, what do you do when the parents supposedly do everything "right"? Apparently Jeffrey Dahmer's parents were lovely, attentive, and caring people. How much blame for what he did can be assigned to them?
Not only do we not have a firm answer on why school shootings are becoming so common, we don't have one single source of blame to focus on, and any prevention ideas we might come up with prove to be flawed and more trouble than they are worth. I think that while none of the usual suspects are the one true cause, it is possible that ease of gun acquisition, a pro-gun climate in most areas of the US, becoming desensitized to violence, a sense of entitlement (spoiling) accompanied with benign neglect, busy or overworked or mostly absent parents, less neighborhood bonding and communication between neighbors, poor value systems, and a hundred other things all contributed to, but do not excuse or cause (on their own) school shooters to do what they do.
After all, one of the earliest and most famous school shooters was a girl who did it because she was "bored", and because she "didn't like Mondays." How do you fight that sort of thing?
It makes me glad that I'm mostly a hermit and don't have time to deal with new strangers, unbalanced or groovy or somewhere in between as they may be. Still, one can't stay "in the basement" forever. There are groceries to fetch, and classes or work to go to, and who knows when some jerkwad might decide that what's yours should be his (or hers) and thereby break into your home and try to liberate you of your goods, or try to invade your personal space or sexually harass you, or whatever. Total isolation comes at a price most normal folks can't afford to pay. Sure, I could live on top of a mountain somewhere and live off the land, but, sorry, I like my Internet access too much.
Life IS calculated risk.
In the meantime, if someone comes up with a brilliant plan to thwart school shootings (or terrorists on planes), I just hope it doesn't involve taking away more of my personal autonomy or freedom or rights. Because as good as that brilliant plan may be, the second it is put into play, the bad guys will have figured out a loophole.
That's how the abnormal mind works, guys.
So. What DO we do?
I have to say, when confronted with big questions like that, well, my reaction is to throw my hands up and go look for an Aero Bar to eat, nom nom. I might be a super genius, but I have no super genius foolproof plans. It makes me tired to try and out-think crazy people. I just know that I can't live in fear. I'm too damn busy for that crap.