The school shooting industry is worth billions – and it keeps growing | Hacker News Reader

The school shooting industry is worth billions – and it keeps growing

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18 pointsspeckx23 comments

Anything, anything to avoid the elephant in the room...

Indeed. Anti-depressants, SSRI's, Anti-Psychotics used off-label, extremely unhealthy addictive foods, social media via cell phones, left vs right media wars for attention and clicks, not teaching kids how to deal with bullies and not fully supporting kids defending themselves, experimenting on kids with hormones and now AI. The kids have a massive burden on their shoulders and a monkey on their back.

Not supporting bullied kids is huge. I'm almost surprised the shootings don't happen more often, since a child being bullied and not receiving any help from the people entrusted to protect them must feel utterly helpless.

must feel utterly helpless

Absolutely. Damned if they defend themselves and damned if they do not. More parents need to take legal action against schools, school boards, counties, states, insurance companies that cover schools and individual administrative staff. Where that fails, they should pull their kids out of the school and move to places with better statistics on violent crime in the schools if that is an option. Voting with tax moneys and rewarding the states / counties that are not failing to empower and protect kids.

That's still a lot of words without mentioning the actual elephant.

Here are some more words. If you are referring to the tools used to commit vicious acts, they are just that ... tools. Knives, guns, poisons, bombs, arrows, baseball bats, brass knuckles, shanks, broken bottles, scissors, ice picks, automatic crossbows, number 2 pencils.

Just recently a Ukranian refugee was slashed to death on a transit system. [1] The person committing this horific act had been recently arrested and released many times and was well known to have serious mental health issues and had attacked many others including their sister. Mentally unhealthy people will do harm. This individual should have been in an asylum or a SHU. The tool they use is just the method but the harm still happens. Give a crazy person a spoon they can take out several people on a subway. If anyone defends themselves or others we know that the defender in some states will be arrested and jailed which is disgusting.

I can have a firearm on a bus, in a bank, grocery store, gas station and nobody bats an eye because they know I am stable and most people here are armed. If anything people around me will feel more confortable knowing there will not be any soft targets. The only two places I am not allowed to carry my firearm are schools there are exceptions around this and bars. I don't go into bars anyway. This varies by state. [2] People should leave and defund those dangerous states that disallow protecting ones self, their family and others. If I was unstable and acting out whatever is left of me would be put away or down for good and I support this.

This is the elephant that many will not talk about or even admit. John Stewart had a pretty good take on this. [3]

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgknxyl77x6o

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_carry

[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6KZY4msgUY [video][8 mins]

I've never heard of a mass spooning.

I've never heard of a mass spooning.

That's how babies are made. But seriously, the definition of mass shooting is moot at this point. When a person is murdered by an unstable every day I count that as "mass" even if the murderer is by themselves. There are just so many of them the end result are masses even if the actors are distributed. It's more like a mass invasion of unstables at this point. One never knows if the person next to them is going to pop off. There are now so many incidents of kids taking out one or two other kids that it is endemic at this point even if that is not big enough number to technically count as "mass" shooting, stabbing, slashing, etc... The real question is when are we going to address all the mental health issues. When are we going to start enforcing laws on people with a history of domestic abuse...

What's the elephant in the room?

I'm sure there's multiple depending on what angle you want to take. Historically, it's been "USA is not the only developed country that has had this problem, but it is the only one that hasn't solved it." Maybe with a dash of "Guns are the number one cause of death for children."

Gun control.

Obviously this would help immensely, but this wasn't happening in the 90s when kids would bring guns to school for show and tell. Whatever changed, the better solution is to reverse that. What do you think?

How do you reverse the Columbine massacre?

I must point out that Columbine was in 1999 - almost exactly midway through the 1994 "assault weapons ban".

Every shooting creates more terrified people wanting more security.

Obviously I'm talking about reversing shootings, that's not possible. I'm talking about the culture that's developed, that has led to more angry kids. Angry enough to shoot their classmates. Wouldn't reversing that culture be the ultimate solution? Banning guns only delays the symptoms of this anger.

I don’t think anyone will argue against doing both. Okay now break the modern American culture. Something something loneliness epidemic.

I was personally referencing gun control (and mental health interventions), but there are surely lots of others too when it comes to this particular problem.

Irrational ideological purity is "more important" than reasonable regulation.

In the US, there are private individuals with pre-ban 40 mm L/60 Bofors antiaircraft autocannons and towed artillery. And there are many thousands of people with title II firearms.

I live in hill country where about 5-8% of residents are DVs, and my immediate neighbor has TBI/CTE from IED injury and believes in batshit wonky things without evidence / whatever Joe Rogan believes in.

I worked in a rural school. I talked to teachers during a school shooter drill, and more than half admitted to having a weapon in their car in the parking lot. It would take the nearest sheriff's deputy around half an hour to get there in an actual shooting. By that time it would be resolved for about 25 minutes.

What good is the gun doing in their car?

Are they going to leave, get their gun, and come back? That is almost certainly illegal, and stands a very good chance of shooting the wrong person. That's why the gun is in the car -- it's not allowed into the school.

Their top priority is the children in the room, which usually means sheltering in place. If it were easy to get the children out we wouldn't have mass shootings in the first place. Are they going to leave the kids alone while they fetch their gun?

They may like the idea of playing the hero, but there is basically zero chance of that. There is no opportunity to get their gun and a billion problems with using it if they had it. It's a comfort blanket, not a tool of protection.

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