Breaking News - School Shooting

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/10/taft-california-shooting-high-school/1823539/

 

I saw a clip on TV last night with Pearce Morgan interviewing some monkey about the relevance of gun laws since the latest shooting. This monkey raged for a good minute, threatening to single handedly re-start the war of independence.

I shamefully admit that I used to think the majority of US citizens were in favour of their ridiculous gun laws, but apparently they're not. I just hope the US law makers come to their senses sooner rather than later, but sadly I doubt that will happen. Their arrogance never ceases to amaze me. The nation that lets people buy assault rifles from supermarkets, is now trying to tell us how we should behave.

 

Actually, much longer before that. The USA had the UK to give up parts of the Empire for their support in WWII but holds onto other foreign lands for itself. Partition Ireland also springs to mind when USA allows Israel to terrorise its neighbours - even when the United Nations says the USA is wrong. Not questioning whether all that was good or not...but stating that we've and others been bossed around by these upstarts for a while. Stones and Glasshouses is what I say to the States. (Very GC metaphor!)

 

It is the mental health system that is failing. And gun applications that are not tough enough.
There was this man that recently got out of 18 years of imprisionment for killing his grandmother with a hammer, he somehow got a gun, and killed two policemen. That is the system failure. Hey, you kill your grandmother with a hammer should not your name be red flagged as NUT . Just one example of many.

 

A friend of mine had a domestic where the police got called by the neighbours who heard the shouting.

First thing the police did was revoke his shotgun licence and take the gun away.

 

I can't believe what I've just heard on the BBC news.

Since the latest shooting, sales of semi automatic guns in the US have soared. Some schools have armed their teachers. So now in addition to the risk of armed nutters getting in from outside, there is also the risk of someone flipping out, inside the school, and wiping out a load of innocent kids.

I can't comprehend this. The advocates of this insanity are seeing nutters as simply 'bad guys'. If it was a low budget TV show it would be easy, shoot the dude with the goatee beard and dark clothing, don't shoot the clean shaven chap. Mexican bandit with a big grin full of black (or missing) teeth, shoot him, smartly dressed chap, good lad. Simples. If only real life was like that. How can the nation where 'therapy' is 'normal' possibly fail so catastrophically to realise that 'bad guys' aren't interested in shooting innocent people in a school, 'bad guys' are far too busy robbing and burgling. It is nutters that go into schools and shoot people, and unfortunately, each and every one of us has the potential to flip our lids. That includes the now armed teachers, or the pupils of those teachers, many of whom, being young lads in their prime, could easily overpower an ageing overweight lady who has not been trained in any form of combat, because she doesn't expect to need to be because she is a teacher and not a soldier.

 

Because the nutters are so protected by crazy privacy acts that a counselor can't send a message out that a person may be on the prink of crazy action. And people in general have this "non-of my busines" mentality where if you even least suspect someone of doing something nutty you look the other direction. I am not sure how "armed " the teachers are. I know many schools have privated cops/security in them now. Not sure why metal protectors can't work at doors.

 

Would those same privacy laws prevent anyone from reporting that, say for example, a particular teacher has been getting unduly stressed lately and has been seen and heard saying and doing mildly disturbing things, the kind of things that you just keep an eye on when you know the person is no threat, but that becomes infinitely more worrying if they are carrying a gun?

 

'Scuse me!! I may be one but not the other.

I think could dish out a few bruises.

Ha, you've clearly not been in a staffroom recently!

Seriously, any teacher who shows even a mild tendency to aggressive responses will have been weeded out of the profession long since, in the UK. I don't think there have been any cases of teachers being the shooters and turning aggression on those in their care - it has been outsiders with a grudge of some sort, in the main, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Teachers are still human underneath. And humans can flip. Sometimes there'll be warning signs, sometimes not. Sometimes there'll be an obvious stimuli, sometimes not.

You say teachers get weeded out if they show aggression. I guess that's only if they get caught. When I was at school (not too many years ago) our CDT teacher threw a lad face first through a reinforced glass window in a sudden burst of rage. We all saw it. None of us told because we thought the lad deserved it, having provoked the teacher over many weeks. If that teacher could snap just like that with no warning at all, a normally mild mannered likeable gentleman who'd been doing the job for many years, then how can it be said that its safe to arm teachers?

In a totally unrelated incident. I was once beat up by a teacher. He only stopped because despite the pain, I was laughing harder and harder as I was getting kicked around the corridor floor. He paused to ask what I was laughing at, fist ready to crack me one in the face. He pointed at the classroom window where several of my classmates had gathered (against the rules) and were watching the whole thing. Again nobody told on him, probably because I deserved it I guess. Another teacher that could safely be allowed to carry a gun?

 

Oh yes, we all have been subject to aggressive teachers, but I don't think incidents like this could pass unnoticed for long in today's climate. And I certainly don't think teachers should be armed in the US or anywhere.

 

So what about the number of incidents in China where people have gone into schools and stabbed children? Does not get the same media coverage as the shootings in the USA, but just as heart rending and tragic.

 

Very true, but I believe the major difference in that case is that although awful, all the kids survived.

 

No, there were fatalities in a number of cases where this has happened.

 

Yes, for teachers for postmen anyone who shows craziness. It should be acknowledged and some type of treatment offered. Even if the treatment is simply: You have not taken a vacation in 4 years, now go take one.
Some people can't give themselves "treats" if they work in a stressfull job. They begin to think they are irreplaceable, and "have to be there". It is the job of the supervisor to make sure your subordinates also take time away.
Regarding the young people who did the shooting, it seems to always come out that "people saw something "strange" about the person and no one said anythng"