As I mentioned upthread, I think there are too many weaknesses to ‘build our way’ out of this issue.
I’m reminded – in a brutally macabre way – of this scene from Blazing Saddles:
And then there are the parks.
And then there are the malls.
And then there are a nearly infinite number of places where large numbers of people congregate.
I know its not the real problem. I am with you there. The easy availability of guns is the problem. But that doesn’t seem to change in the USA. Weak people crave artificial power to feel strong. You can’t change that.
I hate to use the term “hardened schools”. I’m sorry for doing that. What about better designed schools. New schools are being built all the time. The school I have been talking about is square with a large courtyard in the middle. If there was a fire, I can’t see how evacuating to the courtyard would be problematic? Depends on the smoke and heat levels I guess, but get some engineers in to work it out.
The first thing the engineers would say is - evacuate them outside.
Fear of actual fires should be greater than fear of potential shooters. Having a bunch of kids in the middle of the structure puts them at greater risk and makes the job of the firefighters unnecessarily more difficult. There’s no engineering solution that will ever change that. You can design to make it somewhat safer but there can never be a safer solution from fire other than “get people as far away from the fire as possible”.
Sure, you can improve school design, but that doesn’t solve any real problems. All it does is give a false sense of both security and a false sense that something effective is being done. That time and money is better spent elsewhere. It’s a case where literally doing nothing (and putting those resources elsewhere) actually is better than doing something that has no chance of accomplishing anything and that also wouldn’t work from a cultural perspective - this kind of design would only work in areas of high population density and where there is money to build new rather than keep old structures around for several more decades.
OK I’m off to Pluto.
Seriously, I’ve lived through two house fires in the middle of the night. I know what it can be. The smoke is the main problem. Build with safer materials.
Anyway, if better schools isn’t the solution what do you propose?
With regards to schools, one reason I think they’re targeted is that many kids have a very tough time emotionally in school and the administration is not supportive of them. The troubled kids want to destroy the thing that makes them feel so bad. The school bends over backwards for the smart and confident kids, but the kids who are introverts, socially awkward, and struggle to learn are made to feel marginalized. We can’t expect kids to embrace struggling kids, but the school itself could do much more to make them feel safe, secure and happy at school even if they are awkward, friendless introverts who can’t learn math or whatever. Make every kid feel confident in school no matter who they are and there will be a lot few people wanting to destroy schools.
Maybe. I’m not a psychologist. But they aren’t destroying the school, just the kids. I think they want to cause the maximum grief to others that they can, it’s similar to your theory.
That could be it, too. Kids can be cruel to outsiders. Even if teasing/bullying isn’t a factor, just feeling like a loner, loser, outsider watching the other kids all have fun and play together can create a lot of resentment towards the other students. We can’t really count on kids to bring outsiders to the inside, but the teachers and administration can and should make those kids feel like they belong.
For example, make the lunchroom have accommodations to kids who don’t have friends so they feel comfortable eating alone. Perhaps have some individual study cubbies so the lone student can eat and do homework without feeling awkward by sitting alone at the end of a long table. Or maybe have gaming tables where a nerdy teacher facilitates geeky games that introverts often enjoy playing. Those kinds of things will help make an awkward student feel less awkward and feel more comfortable at school. They will feel more a part of the school community. They’ll they won’t think of themselves as much as an outsider and won’t think of the students as ‘others’.
The solutions above in the thread.
Enhanced background checks, licensing, etc of firearms.
Of course, this is difficult to impossible in this country, but also considering how poorly we fund schools in this country, more realistic than redesigning/rebuilding school buildings.
Even if you could get those things done. They wouldn’t help. Almost everyone is a non risk according to a background check until they go on a rampage.
In an interview with CNN the day of the shooting, Murphy focused on the young age of the shooters in Uvalde and a May 14 mass shooting in Buffalo.
“I want to get rid of these assault weapons,” Murphy said. “But maybe we can find common ground on just limiting who can get access to them, maybe say you have to be 21 instead of 18, seeing that most of these killers tend to be 18, 19 years old.”
This fact-check will focus on whether “most of these killers tend to be 18, 19 years old.”
When we checked with Murphy’s office, they pointed to a database project undertaken by the Washington Post that tracks every act of gunfire at a primary or secondary school during school hours since the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. The Post found more than 200 incidents that met the project’s criteria.
When the Post analyzed these shootings, it found that more than two-thirds were committed by shooters under the age of 18. The analysis found that the median age for school shooters was 16
Right, and that’s just licensing, which is just one of the suggestions. There’s also the wait time, training (particularly for certain weapons) etc.
I also think insurance will make a difference ultimately – because corporate interests will start to be aligned with making it difficult for high risk people to own weapons of war, rather than right now where the only interest is selling as much as possible.
Also of course, “this specific suggestion won’t stop this specific shooting” is a flawed argument. It only needs to be beneficial some of the time to be beneficial, and there is no reason why we can only implement one thing.
Completely agree, and this is why I’m ultimately in favor of repealing the Second Amendment, although I know that’s not a realistic goal any time in the near future. It’s not because I hate guns or want to ban guns or have a problem with responsible law-abiding people using guns. It’s because during the last few decades the gun industry and the conservative movement have built up a really toxic “gun-rights culture” in the US, where millions of people erroneously believe that the mere fact of owning or carrying a gun makes them some kind of patriotic hero fundamentally defending the rights and safety of their fellow-countrymen by their very existence.
This is delusional. Private gun ownership, even widespread private gun ownership, isn’t doing anything in reality to prevent government tyranny in these days of modern armies and law enforcement. But the people who believe that it does are understandably very resistant to any proposed measure that restricts their gun ownership rights in any way at all. (And of course, it’s also a very useful belief in that it rationalizes maximizing the gun owner’s own convenience and enjoyment while dismissing any negative consequences for other people.)
I don’t think we’re really going to significantly change that culture without uprooting this outdated and heavily fetishized constitutional enshrinement of a right to gun ownership. I know that for a couple hundred years the US managed to balance our interpretation of Second Amendment rights with common-sense approaches to limiting the risks of firearms, but I think that horse has left the barn.
I don’t think the gun industry is ever going to be satisfied again with anything less than uncompromising allegiance to the principle of unrestricted gun rights, let the chips (and corpses) fall where they may. That culture will not really change until the constitutional status of gun ownership as an inalienable right changes.
Understood, and nope, although IANAL I’m pretty sure that gender-specific gun bans would not pass constitutional muster. AIUI, even without an Equal Rights Amendment the 14th Amendment is routinely invoked to disallow various forms of discrimination on the basis of sex.
Too bad. I’d look forward to millions of women telling their men they’re not fronting them any more guns until they fix the damn garage roof already.
Not trying to de-buzz your joke, but oh lordy, it’s a bit depressing to realize that many people are indeed un-ironically going straight to the ubiquitous default assumption that it is the responsibility of women to monitor and control the bad behavior of men.
(In a less self-evidently ridiculous fashion such as “the mothers of these shooters failed in their basic duty” rather than “it’s up to women to decide whether and when their men can have guns”, of course.)
Yeah, Aristophanes should be ashamed of himself. 
But I really shouldn’t even joke about it. The most irresponsible gun owner i know is a woman.
I’m calling it: We will find out some of the kids were shot by the police.
TIL that there is federal grant money available to rebuild schools like Robb Elementary School that were the site of incidents like this one – allegedly up to $45,000,000+:
So … as I’m fond of saying … America: we privatize obscene profits and socialize the losses.
More powerful guns and ammunition?
I am not a gun person but I doubt a gun in 1950 is less powerful than a gun today.
Maybe there were some improvements in weight and accuracy but I suspect those are minor improvements.