Someone mentioned earlier that an individual's mental health issues before the age of 18 are confidential and can not be considered as part of a background check by law. It is time to change this rule. If an individual has mental health issues prior to age 18 then they should not be able to purchase a gun when they turn 18. It should be noted that the majority of school mass shootings involve the shooter(s) being under 21. Requiring and individual to be 21 to purchase guns would solve the problem of these shooters being able to directly acquire the guns. It does not however solve the problem where they simply take guns the parents have purchased.
Not just their mental health issues, but criminal records. That, too, should be available. If politicians (both sides of the aisle) truly wanted to solve these issues, they could. But they don't. Like abortion and a whole host of issues, they prefer to keep us divided and fighting amongst each other and off their own backs.
In a report that should surprise nobody... the police response to the Texas shooting was actually less than stellar. To the point where parents were going to storm the school themselves. Parents begged police for upward of 40 minutes to stop Texas school shooter: Report https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...0-minutes-to-stop-texas-school-shooter-report The Police Timeline of the Texas School Shooting Has a Lot of Holes Texas law enforcement officials are being strangely opaque about what actually happened during the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkp7gm/police-timeline-texas-school-shooting
Wait, this can't be. I thought Usualname told us that the police intercepted the shooter and weren't able to stop him entering the school! Now I don't know what to believe.
Then there is the reality that the police could not enter the classroom with the shooter for over 40 minutes because the door was locked. It took them over 40 minutes to think of asking another teacher or administrator for a key to the classroom so they could unlock the door and enter it (as outlined the articles I posted).
If we are going to be committed to unregulated guns then arm the kids! It’s the only responsible thing to do. Yes. Our level of gun violence in America is exceptional.
Be careful here, you’re conflating. All reports are and were the resource officer “engaged” the shooter before the shooter entered the school. Mind you now you claimed the resource officer was not at the school. However, what engaged means is now under question and even did the good guy with a gun not use force. And again this goes back to you if true, someone with a gun is not guaranteed to stop a shooter so… arm the kids. Edit for additional info: the person is described as security officer in this account, not resource officer could make a difference and could not. And they are describing it as an “encounter” before the shooter entered the school. Accounts are police staged outside of the school after the encounter and did not enter the school until back up arrived. If this account is correct they all need to be fired and charged with cowardice in the line of duty. I am told if school shooting you engage 1 to 1, as opposed to waiting for backup or 4 to 1 as standard, no question about it and the aim is to at least distract the shooter from his targets. https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683
Some part of the numerous school shootings in the U.S. needs to be tied back to personal and parental responsibility. I grew up in suburban Long Island near the NYC line. Our public high school -- back in the 70s/80s -- had both a archery and riflery team. Every day (during the season) students would bring their guns and bows into school for practices & competitions against other schools. Our school also had a Junior RTOC program. The NRA every year also sponsored programs from elementary school & up about gun safety. We never had a problem with students shooting up schools with guns during this time -- even though the 1970s was a fairly active period of civil & racial strife in the U.S. What has changed? What causes students (or recent students) to suddenly start showing up and shooting up schools in the past couple of decades?