General Discussion

MisterP

(23,730 posts) Sat Dec 5, 2015, 07:50 PM Dec 2015

Mass Shootings Are Changing Us-Children have never known a time without lockdowns and mass shootings

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate

Can you even call it Groundhog Day when we are beginning to approach two mass shootings a day? Have we come to the place where it’s become Groundhog Morning and Groundhog Afternoon? It seems we used to have weeks or months to recover from a Columbine or an Aurora. More and more we have days or hours, and whether we are coping or going slowly numb is still open to debate.

They happen so fast now that there isn’t even time to have the gun control argument in full; we have it in a barrage of angry tweets and then brace for the next one. It all plays out like a familiar haiku:
...
Publications recycle the same “enough is enough” article they published last October, and last February, and also the December before. Many of those articles posit, hopefully, that perhaps this time things will change because Sandy Hook, or Aurora, or Colorado Springs, or Oregon.
...
But really it isn’t Groundhog Hour. It’s not really the same thing over and over again because with each shooting more and more guns are purchased. And our gun laws are weaker than ever.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/12/mass_shootings_are_changing_us_lockdowns_guns_and_fear.html

6 replies

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Mass Shootings Are Changing Us-Children have never known a time without lockdowns and mass shootings (Original Post) MisterP Dec 2015 OP

My high school had metal detectors and armed security guards in the early 1980s REP Dec 2015 #1

"A small price to pay for freedumb." - Gun Humpers hifiguy Dec 2015 #2

Think how often they get to recycle their malign, blood-soaked talking points now. Cut-and-paste villager Dec 2015 #3

Well, todays kids don't practice "duck and cover" for nuke attacks HereSince1628 Dec 2015 #4

I'm 55. We had bomb drills. Under desks, lining up in hallways. lindysalsagal Dec 2015 #5

I only remember two drills at school, Snobblevitch Dec 2015 #6

REP

(21,691 posts)

1. My high school had metal detectors and armed security guards in the early 1980s

Reply to MisterP (Original post)

Sat Dec 5, 2015, 08:04 PM

Dec 2015

It was the "best" public high school in a large city.

The first shooting I remember is Brenda Ann Spencer in 1979 and then James Huberty in 1984.

hifiguy

(33,688 posts)

2. "A small price to pay for freedumb." - Gun Humpers

Reply to MisterP (Original post)

Sat Dec 5, 2015, 08:04 PM

Dec 2015

villager

(26,001 posts)

3. Think how often they get to recycle their malign, blood-soaked talking points now. Cut-and-paste

Reply to hifiguy (Reply #2)

Sat Dec 5, 2015, 08:21 PM

Dec 2015

...each day, really, with each new shooting.

HereSince1628

(36,063 posts)

4. Well, todays kids don't practice "duck and cover" for nuke attacks

Reply to MisterP (Original post)

Sat Dec 5, 2015, 08:33 PM

Dec 2015

When I was a kid I refused to go on school trips to Chicago because all the adults around me talked about it being an important target.

Then along came the Cuban missle crisis...

Childhood leaves marks.

lindysalsagal

(20,692 posts)

5. I'm 55. We had bomb drills. Under desks, lining up in hallways.

Reply to MisterP (Original post)

Sat Dec 5, 2015, 10:45 PM

Dec 2015

We choose to put our children through this instead of giving up our prescious shooting toys.

Snobblevitch

(1,958 posts)

6. I only remember two drills at school,

Reply to MisterP (Original post)

Sat Dec 5, 2015, 11:08 PM

Dec 2015

fire drills, where we all went outside onto the sidewalk or playground, and tornado drills where we we t into interior hallways. The 'duck and cover' drills were not done anymore.

In fact, in the 8th grade, I brought an unloaded, cased shotgun to school to give a demonstration speech on how to clean a gun. I had it on the school bus and in my locker. I had both a shotgun and a rifle in my dorm room at college during hunting seasons. Now, some of the colleges have a 'gun room' in which the guns are locked up when the student is not hunting. (The same schools have fish cleaning rooms.)

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