especially in light of how rapidly and effectively NZ's government has handled their horrific shootings, and not be totally disheartened.

This is just a miserable situation. Please find peace, my young friend.

Days it took New Zealand to change their gun laws: 6
Days since:
Pittsburgh Synagogue - 146
Parkland - 401
Sutherland Springs - 502
Las Vegas - 537
Pulse Nightclub - 1,013
San Bernardino - 1,206
Sandy Hook - 2,289
Aurora - 2,436
Virginia Tech - 4,358
Columbine - 7,276

Here, trolls like Alex Jones tell mass shooting victims to go fuck themselves. And now this happens.

Fuck the NRA and fuck all of the spineless politicians who kowtow to their culture of death. I am so ashamed of this government. R.I.P., precious one.

I don't know if passing better and stronger gun laws would have saved these two
from their PDST and inner demons but they would have and will had in the future
saved more people.

My heart breaks for all those "kids.*"


* In many ways they are more adult than the rest of us.

Maybe if we could figure out a way to help the MIC profit from stopping school shootings, we'd have that problem licked by now.

Are the teachers and staff going to have their guns drawn the entire day just waiting for a rogue gunman? Are they going to always be perfect with their shot and hit center mass everytime? Are they going to be forced to take proficiency exams on a regular basis? No. They are not.

More likely the gun will be in their drawer and while sure, the end result of the school shooter ending his rampage may end sooner, there is no guarantee if this outcome what so ever. The shooter will absolutely murder students and staff before it is over. He could take a hostage as a body shield and force the armed staff to stand down all the while he goes on killing. And what is the teacher to do??? Shoot the hostage and then the murderer. Oh yeah, that's a great result.

I am so fucking tired of the arming teachers argument. Anyone with two brain cells and 2 minutes of forethought would realize this is a terrible idea.

They were traumatized by the easy availability of guns, appeared to survive it at first, and then fell victim to it anyway

They destroyed the school and built another one of a completely different design somewhere else. I would go even farther, the new school would have NO memorials. Wash the kids' and teachers' memories of that awful day as much as possible, have them look forward.

The high school likely should have been closed down and another built somewhere else. But my state and that county want to save money, so they play Russian roulette with the lives of the kids, teachers and administrators who were/are associated with that school.

are under stress or feel vulnerable and lost. They don't plan anything as a group, they just do it. Sad to see this happening. The school must immediately bring in grief counsellors and also provide counsellors for kids that have graduated. The kids that plunged themselves into activism seem to be ok, but even they likely need more counseling.

setting the tone for all rw NRA radio stations in the US, defending the NRA, to ridicule those kids

i'll bet podcasts of fla blowhards ridiculing those kids can be found on florida station websites

is on the hands of traitors Wayne LaPierre and Ollie North.

We're deporting the wrong people. These domestic terrorists need to be sent to a melting glacier near Greenland.

I was afraid that might happen. And, yet, they still won't do anything about the guns.

Wait a minute!
Didn't Wyat Earp outlaw guns in Dodge City?

How many families will still be harassed even after these tragedies?

It's all money and greed all of the time.

If you’re hurting, it’s your fault. Buck up! If you’re a man, you’re invalid as a person for even thinking of seeking help - just get over it and be stoic! Combine that with an awful healthcare system that cares more about not being sued than treating suicidal people, and you have lots of fuel to start fires.

We still treat suicide like a personal failing. We treat it like that in healthcare too. No wonder nobody gets the help they need.

I’m frustrated. We care more about guns than human life. I see no effort to change at the moment.

The damage that follows from the violent and hateful trolls that follows mass shootings is rubbing salt in the wound. Alex Jones now has blood on his hands.

Most people, imo, treat social media as a game. The people they send messages to don’t feel real. That makes it easy to dehumanize and abuse. Users on a screen can be reduced to dehumanizing labels like “Liberal” and “Conservative,”

Few would tell a living, breathing person to kill themselves for having a political opinion. When they’re talking to a set of pixels that can be labeled as “the enemy,” it’s much easier.

Fuck the trolls.

plutocracy. Deaths From Alcohol, Drugs, and Suicide Hit All-Time High in 2017. Parkland survivors who must live with those horrific memories but also the fact that their country did nothing to keep this from happening again. People being forced from their homes do to predatory banksters, people choosing between eating or medication, people struggling every day just to stay alive as the rich & powerful suck everything they can from our society.

It's only good for the rich, the bankers, the pharmaceutical companies, etc. I am very sorry to hear about the second Parkland suicide. They are still more victims of our gun culture since the gun tragedy was the catalyst.

The fact that people like that exist are a sad fact of reality. What Alex Jones did to Sandy Hook and to Parkland and to every mass shooting in between is unforgivable.

A massacre with a gunman hunting children is what these kids went through.
Our Country wants to turn the page, all the time. Truth is that surviving violence actually alters the mind, changes life’s paths, makes the feeling of being scared and fearful part of the equation for the rest of the lives of survivors. But with children, violence lays its eggs inside their brain to steal joy and hope for many.
What we need is love and compassion and a lot less guns and an NRA out of business.


“According to the Center for Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation, children who experience trauma can live in a near-constant state of fight or flight, with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flowing, even with no real threat present. That means, a student may be triggered by something non-threatening (like a loud noise, or not understanding an assignment) and feel the intense emotions and fear associated with a truly frightening event.
“Experiencing traumatic events directly impairs the ability to learn, both immediately after the event and over time. Children are particularly vulnerable to these consequences as their brains are still developing,” says Dr. Elizabeth Studwell, a New York City Clinical Psychologist, whose work centers around children and young adults. “Traumatic events cause the brain to enter a heightened state of awareness, activating our limbic system and flooding the brain with the stress hormone cortisol. Excess cortisol is toxic to the brain and primarily damages the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. These areas of the brain are directly related to memory and executive functioning respectively. As a result, there becomes an overall decreased ability to process new information, objectively analyze complex data, and engage in memory consolidation.”

https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/this-is-a-students-brain-on-trauma/

I took care of a young man in his 20s who had overdosed. He was the only survivor of a multivictim car wreck. It had been several months but he could not handle the guilt. He was not the driver.

...

The suffering continues on and sometimes ends tragically like the two students who decided they could not live with the trauma any more. I only hope and pray that other students do not follow! Suicide follows survivors of traumatic events within families and communities. I am hoping that the Parkland community is working on mental health interventions for Parkland kids so this can be stopped before it becomes epidemic. The death toll continues to rise and it is a year after the event itself.

I can give empathy because at this point...I'm just giving up on society anymore and that's all I have left to give.

-1

These poor children. I can't imagine the torture they must be going through. Why couldn't anything have been done for these two kids? More counseling, support, anything! Something needs to be done before another child takes their own life. This has all been too tragic.

and the problem only gets worse over time