# Trigger warning My school shooting experience

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [March 28, 2023, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801 "2023-03-28T18:39:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801/21 "2023-03-28T23:12:20Z")

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> The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of school children.

Tomas Jeferson (no relation)

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**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801/22 "2023-03-28T23:13:42Z")

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@SunnyDaze, were you by any chance in the Chicago suburbs in the late 1980s?

There was a shooting at my junior high in 1972, and even though I went there just a few years later, I never knew about it until some people started talking about it on that school’s Facebook page. In short, a boy who was being bullied brought a rifle to school, and fired at least one bullet into the wall before a teacher tackled him. The only injuries were from some kids who jumped out a first-floor window.

Unfortunately, I was at the University of Iowa when this happened in 1991. I had taken physics the previous semester and recognized all the professors who died; none of them were mine, or thank heavens the wonderful graduate student who taught our lab. There’s a book about it called “Deadly Scholarship” but it isn’t very good MHO.

> **[University of Iowa shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Iowa_shooting)**
>
> The University of Iowa shooting was a mass shooting that occurred in Iowa City, Iowa, on November 1, 1991. Gang Lu, a 28-year-old former graduate student at the University of Iowa, killed three members of the Physics and Astronomy Department faculty, an Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and a fellow student, then seriously injured another student working at the university's campus, before committing suicide.
> Gang Lu (Chinese: 卢刚; pinyin: Lú Gāng; c. 1962 – November 1, 1991), was a 2...

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**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801/23 "2023-03-28T23:20:16Z")

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So sad for you @Sunny_Daze ,  
I hope you feel better.💗

I don’t know how any of us can tho’

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**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2023, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801/24 "2023-03-28T23:23:06Z")

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Every time this happens I feel guilty about feeling better.

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**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2023, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801/25 "2023-03-29T02:15:04Z")

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> [@enipla](#):
>
> I shouldn’t have worried about my story. But you just don’t forget something’s. I guess it’s my way to say I understand, to at least a very, very small degree.

I understood, and I appreciate hearing from others. Truly.

> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> {snip} makes me wish someone could have been held accountable for it.

Thank you.

> [@nearwildheaven](#):
>
> @SunnyDaze, were you by any chance in the Chicago suburbs in the late 1980s?

No, this was LA.

> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Every time this happens I feel guilty about feeling better.

Please explain?

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**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2023, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801/26 "2023-03-29T03:11:34Z")

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> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> (

I work in a local school, and I see the looks on the teachers and parent’s faces after almost every shooting incident. They are afraid for the lives of their children. They are just one bullet away from losing it all…and they know it, and they show it. I am afraid that I will just get used to the current status quo, and that is a “feeling better” that seems false to me. If I don’t feel as awful about the children that were killed yesterday as I did about the children that were murdered at Columbine, then I have lost.  
I am the one that lowered the school flag today, and I have done that duty a disgusting number of times the last couple of years.

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**Author:** ![Ranch\_Dip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranch_dip/32/5238_2.png) [@Ranch\_Dip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranch_Dip)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2023, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trigger-warning-my-school-shooting-experience/981801/27 "2023-03-29T23:49:25Z")

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Someone I knew fairly well was gunned down in the grocery store I use. He died, and I’m still sad. It took me several months to be able to go back to that store, and I think of him every time. I can’t imagine how awful it is for kids having to go to school these days. How do you go back after something like this?

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