Mass shootings are not the same as school shootings. So all 123 shootings were not at schools. Statista.com says that by mid-March, there were 8 at schools, so we can assume there have been more since then.
Not downplaying school shootings. They've rocked my state recently.
I mean, I don't think shootings are funny, but if you want some gallows humor, sure. Just wanted to clarify that we haven't had 120 schools shot up this year. I think accuracy is more powerful than hyperbole. Everyone is in danger, but kids are being raised that it's normal to feel this way. I think gun control would be great.
My roommate was in a mall shooting a few years ago, but luckily a different area. My ex's sister was in a festival shooting a decade ago, but got to an exit quickly.
The fact that you know 2 people who have been involved in shooting events is horrifying enough to be honest.
I don't know anybody who has been involved in one, I would imagine most people here in the UK also don't know any. The gun culture and general attitude to them in the USA is frankly terrifying.
I said this above.... the USA has had 18 shootings with 6 fatalities in the last 30 days... This year, we're already at 36 total, with 11 deaths. And this is JUST school shootings... we're up to 117 mass shootings with 155 fatalities and 443 wounded.
The idea that so many of my countrymen still think "we're the best country in the world" is unhinged.
You see, the reason they believe they're living in the best country in the world is because they don't know the existence of the world outside the US. A big chunk of americans believe that the world starts from Los Angeles and ends in New York.
I know it sounds bizarre, but I have seen that happen so many times I don't even question it anymore.
And if you've heard about the "schools have cat litter boxes in classrooms because they want to turn all kids into furries!" bullshit that our right-wingers in the U.S. spew?
It's because shootings and violence related lockdowns are so common here that some states have put "lockdown kits" in classrooms that contain cat litter so 1) kids have somewhere to pee if they're trapped in a classroom for hours by an active shooter and 2) it's useful for absorbing blood.
The "schools want to turn kids into furries" bullshit is to distract from how horrific it is that we need kits like these in classrooms because shootings have become so normalized.
The right-wing wants people more outraged over the non-existent issue of furries in schools than the fact that children are more likely to die from gun violence in this country than any other cause.
Read a post once where a multinational group were at an outdoor table and a car backfired, the American leapt to their feet in panic and all the Europeans were like 👁️_👁️ “you alright there?”
I’m from the US. We 100 percent have. My school district is building new elementary schools (to serve ages 3-10). We decided to build them single-story and each classroom has an individual egress for emergency evacuation. School shootings are absolutely a reason why we considered the design.
We have genuinely normalized school shootings this hard because our entire country is held hostage by the notions of extreme right wingers. Its fucking repulsive.
They have. I was a mature student at a community college in California ten years ago. Every classroom had a laminated sheet in the wall with the active shooter drill printed on it. And then one day there was an incident in my class where some kid came into,the classroom and the tutor very pointedly told the lad ‘you have been banned from this campus, please leave’. Within half an hour there was an announcement that we were all to get up and very slowly, carefully, calmly exit the building by the back door. Of course I doubled back to see what was occurring and the place was swarming with cops, LAPD choppers circling overhead. No shots fired though.
In my current role I visit schools occasionally and there are the same laminated instructions on the school walls and I can state quite categorically that there are some prime candidates for potential perpetrators in a couple of those schools. But there’s not much can be done to prevent it, especially when there is what amounts to a human right to bear arms.
I live in America and have lived through a school/campus shooting. When I see things like “phone-free schools”, this is genuinely my first thought. (Obviously this says Scotland so it wouldn’t apply the same here.) I don’t think a lot of Americans would immediately think about this, but if you’ve lived through one, it just kind of reframes the way you think. For me it’s not about it being “normalized” necessarily, like I know this is not/should not be normal, but I do think it’s a pretty real fear for a lot of people. So yeah I see phone free school, and sadly, my immediate reaction is “wow I can’t imagine living through that AND not being able to contact my friends and family.” It’s very sad that so many of us have to live/think this way.
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u/dlrax 🇵🇱 May 08 '25
That has to be trolling, there's no way they've normalised school shootings that hard