I've been through these drills many times (as a teacher). They are a little unnerving, even when you know it's a drill. The scariest part is when someone tries the handle on your classroom door. It is locked, and they move on.

If cops came in with guns out, we would all be terrified. And for what? For the miniscule chance that something exactly like this would happen someday in our school? (And I say 'exactly' because practicing this one scenario doesn't really help if you are in the cafeteria, for example, or returning from an outdoor field trip, or passing in the hallways, when suddenly someone starts shooting).

There is no reason children should have to be scared at school. It is supposed to be a safe place. And cops with guns are not safe to be around.

If the police department wants to play war games, they should do it with an empty school building.

Just use a broom for the weapons instead of a gun. I would imagine Columbine would have loved these drills prior to the tragedy. Not at my school does not cut it. It can happen anywhere.

So why not have drills at banks and shopping malls? We should all just spend our entire lives living in fear because we've decided that the right to bear arms is the most important right of all.

But there is no need for any guns or any simulated guns. The drills can be done without that.

I said the chance is miniscule. Take the number of school attacks and divide by the number of public schools in the nation.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't practice; it means we shouldn't practice in a way that causes the kids to panic.

I did say use brooms or something non gun.

All they need to think about is that when there is a call for a lockdown, they need to follow certain procedures (hide in a corner of the room where nobody can see them and be very quiet). They don't need to have simulations of bad guys entering the classroom - whether actually armed or not - in order to be prepared for a lockdown. Even if they know it is a drill, it is terrifying. Children just don't need that on their shoulders. It's psychologically harmful.

We don't do random "drills" on convenience stores or banks or private homes or movie theaters or malls. All of these places (and many more) could be the target of armed gunmen. These kids should not be used as props for police training. This kind of thing is scary for kids to even think about even after just seeing news coverage much less if they have to live through a drill where someone comes in with guns drawn.

How about instead we make guns harder for unstable people to obtain? I know that's a crazy notion.

"And, of course, no one gets shot, so we had to wing a couple of them to drive the point home. We were just on the verge of gunning one of them down in the street when some rat fink called off the exercise. How are these exercises to be taken seriously?"

because one corporate front group can hold its breath and get what it wants, we're subjecting 12-year-olds to the exact level of terror that an actual shooting that everyone manages to recover from in the hospital

because we can't do what 80-90% of Americans (and 70-80% of NRA members) have been asking for nearly 2 years now, our only other alternative seems to be to teach the next generation that we're completely prostrate before the gun, that someone can just pick one up one morning and kill four or forty or zero, that the gun is our master and must not be hindered in any way, that it must be obeyed, that everyone must be shown firsthand the different styles and what it can do, that at any moment they could be shot like birds in a canned hunt, in the cafeteria like a brace of quail or just piled up like a truckful of sheep with bad scrapie

a gun on every corner doesn't block a police state, it just privatizes it

So I am not sure what your point is.

What the hell is in the water down there???

Yelling "boo" at kids won't make them safer, it will make them more anxious. n/t