# Have mass shootings ever affected how you live or think? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 10, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464 "2019-08-10T17:51:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/81 "2019-08-13T23:37:56Z")
To answer the question of the OP, no, how I live or think hasn’t been affected. Except, on Sunday morning after Dayton and El Paso, I was in church and found myself noting where the exits from the sanctuary were. There’s four, two up front, on the east and west, one in the west wall, and the main front doors on the north. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2019, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/82 "2019-08-25T12:36:06Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Prior to this active shooter course I did note that HR had no means of escaping a would be shooter because we only had access to one of the exits which is the same one a shooter… Sounds like an ideal layout for HR if you ask me:D …too soon? > [@control-z](#): > > While mass shootings are terrible because they are intentional murders, the odds are very very low of being in a mass shooting. There are 327,000,000 people in the USA and 273 have died from mass shootings this year. I have a far greater chance of drowning (3,500 per year), dying due to a hospital error (at least 250,000 per year!), or vehicle accident (40,000 per year.) I made a point in another thread about a school being designed to prevent mass shootings that you have a far greater chance of being killed by the bus that takes you to and from school than by a shooting in one of the 100,000 schools in this country. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2019, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/83 "2019-08-25T22:35:26Z")
**Moderator Action** > [@msmith537](#): > > Sounds like an ideal layout for HR if you ask me:D …too soon? This is a very inappropriate joke considering how sensitive this topic is to most people. Confine your “jokes” to threads on significantly less serious topics. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/84 "2019-08-25T23:12:29Z")
My workplace was the scene of a mass shooting. so, yeah, it affected me. I knew three of the deceased well, and it’s had a permanent impact on me. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/85 "2019-08-25T23:19:39Z")
> [@Alpha\_Twit](#): > > In terms of how I go through my day and live my life, there’s no great effect. I go to work, pay my taxes, obey the law as best I can and mostly try to be a good, responsible, gun owning citizen. > > Every time one happens though, I get a little more convinced that my fellow Americans and I have the leadership we deserve. Amen brother. Remember how peaceful and mass shooting free we were under the previous administration? Well, except the all the ones that did happen. My apologies for not providing numbers and cites, I’m on my phone. I’m just curious if you were concerned at the many mass shootings that happened before Trump or are you only concerned with them when a Republican is in office? ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/86 "2019-08-26T03:42:45Z")
There was recently a travel advisory for Canadians, warning us that travel to the US was risky because there had been so many shootings lately. Don’t know if it’s still in effect. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/87 "2019-08-26T04:38:22Z")
Am I worried? Nah. But I do keep note of exits and enterances and tend not to keep my back to them in public places when I’m alone. It’s kind of natural to me now and I barely think about it. That started after the McDonald’s mass shooting in 1984. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/88 "2019-08-26T04:52:51Z")
When the DC snipers were running around I changed my habits enormously. I was sitting in a diner across the parking lot from one of their attacks, but I was terrified even before that. Truth be told I was only just beginning to recover from 9/11 when those two arses started up. ---
**Author:** ![GreenHell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@GreenHell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenHell)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/89 "2019-08-26T10:01:41Z")
I don’t believe the time has come to dispense with the second amendment. The people need force of arms as a bulwark against tyranny. Pistols, rifles, artillery, armour, attack helicopters . . . of course, I’m familiar with the amendment. So, I assume “well-regulated militia” refers to the National Guard. While mass shootings haven’t affected me personally and I don’t worry about the risk to myself or my family, far more likely we’ll be done in by automobiles, cancer, building fire, etc., they have had one notable effect. I really don’t have any faith at all in the direction the country is going. The government has not made any progress toward mitigating the access to weapons, neglect of mental healthcare, and/or growth of domestic terrorism that seem to always be involved in some combination. It hasn’t acted because the people haven’t pressed it hard enough to act. Collectively, America has decided that mass shootings aren’t fun, but not something we refuse to live with. Granted, America really sucks at democracy, lionizes violence, brags about how much it loves freedom while constantly grovelling at the feet of the rich elites and LEOs and military policy that victimizes the weak, the taxman gouges the middle class to give breaks to the already-wealthy. To borrow DJT’s turn of a phrase, “a shithole country” . . . just one that happens to have money (in some people’s hands, anyway). It’s the Wal-Mart of the world, at once immensely powerful and wealthy, while somehow maintaining a lowbrow, trashy culture and steadfastly refusing to wield its power in a manner consistent with compassion or responsibility regarding the vulnerable. Americans are stupid. An American can be smart, compassionate, fair-minded, but in aggregate . . . well, you see what we have. ---
**Author:** ![Gremson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Gremson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gremson)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/90 "2019-08-26T23:21:21Z")
When my time is up, that’s it. I don’t have the desire or energy to waste on panic over being shot at or killed. I try to keep alert and be aware of my surroundings, other than that it’s life as usual. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/91 "2019-08-27T20:03:04Z")
Let’s see… My office was damaged in the 9/11 attacks my first week of work. Fortunately I was out of town at “new hire training”. That truck terrorist who attacked Lower Manhattan a few years ago travelled the route I usually walk to and from work. I grew up a few minutes from Newtown, CT where the school shootings took place. A lady was killed when the PATH train I sometimes take to work crashed into the station. Sully did his “Miracle on the Hudson” landing figuratively in my “back yard”. In fact, it’s a bit eerie watching the movie “Sully” and then stepping out of my apartment in Hoboken, seeing the same NJ Transit ferryboats and whatnot. But I don’t really go through life expecting a plane to drop on my head or some other catastrophe. I guess if anything, I assume it will happen the day I decide to skip work or go out of town or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/92 "2019-09-03T19:16:08Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Let’s see… > > My office was damaged in the 9/11 attacks my first week of work. > . . . > But I don’t really go through life expecting a plane to drop on my head or some other catastrophe. I guess if anything, I assume it will happen the day I decide to skip work or go out of town or whatever. It’s like Forest Gump and Joe Btfsplk had a baby. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/93 "2019-09-03T19:50:19Z")
Only in that it made me despise US gun-fanatic culture more with every new massacre. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2019, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464/94 "2019-09-04T00:18:32Z")
Mass shootings have not changed my lifestyle or behavior. However, I submit that they are rapidly changing how certain things are being done in this country. [A new high school will have sleek classrooms — and places to hide from a mass shooter](https://beta.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/08/22/new-high-school-will-have-sleek-classrooms-places-hide-mass-shooter/) > [@](#): > > The major overhaul of an existing building was driven by the ubiquity of mass shootings in the United States, Szymoniak said, citing the El Paso killings at a Walmart this month, along with notorious school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. > > … > > The construction in Michigan is also part of a grim reality of schools methodically preparing for massacres as if they were lesson plans and quizzes. > > Jefferson County schools in Colorado have given teachers buckets and cat litter to have on hand in case children need to relieve themselves during a prolonged active-shooter lockdown. Sharpies are supplied for writing the time in which tourniquets were applied, and candy helps diabetic children with low blood sugar hiding in darkness. > > And this year, bulletproof backpacks are a hot back-to-school item. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-mass-shootings-ever-affected-how-you-live-or-think/838464.md?page=4)