6 ms·

I think it's extremely scary that in the world's richest country, writing stuff about schools like "we don't have metal doors", "our barricade procedure" and "s

I think it's extremely scary that in the world's richest country, writing stuff about schools like "we don't have metal doors", "our barricade procedure" and "stopping power for bullets" is considered perfectly normal. I was reading your comment and I just WTF'ed 5 times in a row. As a European, it's hard to wrap my mind around how simultaneously awesome and terrible the US has become. I feel terrible for you, and I'm extremely happy my kids go to a school without guards, without metal doors, with multiple, unguarded entrances, and so on. I hope your countrymen get their shit together and that someday this stuff feels like scary shit from the past. All the best to you until then, this stuff isn't OK and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

nsriv 4y ago
I appreciate this, thank you. I have quite a few friends that went to Germany for graduate school and really cherish that lifestyle, to the point where they're hesitant to come back and are considering starting a family there.
slibhb 4y ago
Who says it's considered normal? It reads like unproductive catastrophizing to me. In the unlikely event of a school shooting, I doubt "metal doors" or "barricade procedures" will make any difference.
- nsriv 4y ago
  To be fair, part of my post was getting it off my chest. There's definitely a backlash to when these things happen that attempts to rationalize them i.e. "They don't happen that often!" and "The media seizes on these grandiose events to fear-monger!" Every school in America has devoted thought to this after Sandy Hook. Robb Elementary in Uvalde did too. Metal doors and barricading may have limited the loss of life to one or two classrooms.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  This is a thread about "how do you feel". GGP's comment started with metal doors, not with "we're freaked out about shootings". I might have been reading their tone wrong, but to me, the comment reads as if metal doors are a staple ingredient of any decent school, and not having them is a source for stress. That very much suggests that in the author's circles, such talk is commonplace. For context, I've never seen a school with metal doors in my life and my only association with metal doors (until today) is prisons.
corrral 4y ago
It's both insane that we have so many school shootings, and insane that we've spent so much money fortifying schools and traumatizing teachers and kids (find some teachers and ask them how people react even to pre-announced active shooter drills—people break down shaking and crying, have actual fight-or-flight responses kick in, et c., when those fake gunshots start, and that's the adults) in response. The former is part of a broader sickness with our country, and the latter is part of an entirely different sickness in our country (must "do something", even if it's not justifiable and is net-harmful)
- Robin_Message 4y ago
  I'm sorry, there are fake gun shots in active shooter drills? What the fucking fuck? That is insane. What possible benefit could there be to that bit of simulation that would outweigh the additional trauma that would cause? Not to mention all the survivors of school shootings who presumably have the dubious pleasure of being retraumatised on an annual basis. Fuck. You're right on "do something". But fuck. I never guessed anyone would make it deliberately more traumatic.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    I will not argue the efficacy of the drills. I don't support them, I don't know the data, etc. But, if you're going to do a drill, and it's known to be a drill, practice like you play the game; if loud gunshot sounds freeze your escapees or their teachers to the point where they're not preserving themselves, the drill was for nothing.
  - str34m 4y ago
    I worked in a public school about 10 years ago. They wouldn't tell any of us that the drills were coming. Everyone had to take cover in the classrooms and barricade the doors as the "Intruder Alert" message blared over the loudspeakers. Then someone would come through the halls and bang on every door. It's beyond insane.
  - corrral 4y ago
    Different schools do it different ways, often in cooperation with local law enforcement. Some do things like playing gunshots over a speaker somewhere in the building, others do different things. Most are the kind of activity that can mess people up in perhaps-unexpected ways—and again, that's the adults, let alone kids. There have been some cases of schools & police going way overboard with these things and doing much worse than playing some fake gunshot noises, and those have gotten some press (I think some are on YouTube?) but I don't think that's common. Regardless, even the more "normal" versions are pretty bad.
uxp100 4y ago
This is not so alien to Europe as you seem to think. Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. A European nation was in a similar situation very recently. What is maybe unique about the US is that nothing will be done, where as Germany added additional gun control laws, and probably will not ever have as deadly a decade for schools as the 2000s again. I'm not attacking you, it's just a weird side effect of the US dominating discourse on the internet, but there is a certain habit of European HN posts exaggerating differences, one of favorites being something like: "I can't imagine living in the US, it only costs a few euros for my library card, in the US they charge per book, how dystopian" which is uh, just false, but also, Japan actually has a history of fee based lending libraries, and you would never see a similar comment about Japan, it would be celebrated as twee small business.
- gunnarmorling 4y ago
  > Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. Any stats to back that up? Seems completely counter-factual.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - uxp100 4y ago
    You can see the basic methodology in sibling comments, just some counting on wikipedia, really hinging on whether you include Universities (I did not). But a less controversial way of putting it is that other countries, including European ones, have had comparable incidents, and we can compare what they did with the US.
- lawlorino 4y ago
  > Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. This is absolutely not true and can be verified by a few minutes research on Wikipedia
- andyjohnson0 4y ago
RGamma 4y ago
Current day USA is the love child of South Park and GTA. You can't even parody it properly anymore, because it's become a continuous self-parody. And best/worst of all, its inhabitants don't even notice.
throwaway6734 4y ago
The US education system is a patchwork of schools systems of wildly different quality based on the student population. >how simultaneously awesome and terrible the US has become It's still significantly better than it used to be.

nsriv 4y ago

I appreciate this, thank you. I have quite a few friends that went to Germany for graduate school and really cherish that lifestyle, to the point where they're hesitant to come back and are considering starting a family there.

slibhb 4y ago

Who says it's considered normal? It reads like unproductive catastrophizing to me. In the unlikely event of a school shooting, I doubt "metal doors" or "barricade procedures" will make any difference.

nsriv 4y ago
To be fair, part of my post was getting it off my chest. There's definitely a backlash to when these things happen that attempts to rationalize them i.e. "They don't happen that often!" and "The media seizes on these grandiose events to fear-monger!" Every school in America has devoted thought to this after Sandy Hook. Robb Elementary in Uvalde did too. Metal doors and barricading may have limited the loss of life to one or two classrooms.
skrebbel 4y ago
This is a thread about "how do you feel". GGP's comment started with metal doors, not with "we're freaked out about shootings". I might have been reading their tone wrong, but to me, the comment reads as if metal doors are a staple ingredient of any decent school, and not having them is a source for stress. That very much suggests that in the author's circles, such talk is commonplace. For context, I've never seen a school with metal doors in my life and my only association with metal doors (until today) is prisons.

corrral 4y ago

It's both insane that we have so many school shootings, and insane that we've spent so much money fortifying schools and traumatizing teachers and kids (find some teachers and ask them how people react even to pre-announced active shooter drills—people break down shaking and crying, have actual fight-or-flight responses kick in, et c., when those fake gunshots start, and that's the adults) in response. The former is part of a broader sickness with our country, and the latter is part of an entirely different sickness in our country (must "do something", even if it's not justifiable and is net-harmful)

Robin_Message 4y ago
I'm sorry, there are fake gun shots in active shooter drills? What the fucking fuck? That is insane. What possible benefit could there be to that bit of simulation that would outweigh the additional trauma that would cause? Not to mention all the survivors of school shootings who presumably have the dubious pleasure of being retraumatised on an annual basis. Fuck. You're right on "do something". But fuck. I never guessed anyone would make it deliberately more traumatic.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  I will not argue the efficacy of the drills. I don't support them, I don't know the data, etc. But, if you're going to do a drill, and it's known to be a drill, practice like you play the game; if loud gunshot sounds freeze your escapees or their teachers to the point where they're not preserving themselves, the drill was for nothing.
- str34m 4y ago
  I worked in a public school about 10 years ago. They wouldn't tell any of us that the drills were coming. Everyone had to take cover in the classrooms and barricade the doors as the "Intruder Alert" message blared over the loudspeakers. Then someone would come through the halls and bang on every door. It's beyond insane.
- corrral 4y ago
  Different schools do it different ways, often in cooperation with local law enforcement. Some do things like playing gunshots over a speaker somewhere in the building, others do different things. Most are the kind of activity that can mess people up in perhaps-unexpected ways—and again, that's the adults, let alone kids. There have been some cases of schools & police going way overboard with these things and doing much worse than playing some fake gunshot noises, and those have gotten some press (I think some are on YouTube?) but I don't think that's common. Regardless, even the more "normal" versions are pretty bad.

uxp100 4y ago

This is not so alien to Europe as you seem to think. Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. A European nation was in a similar situation very recently. What is maybe unique about the US is that nothing will be done, where as Germany added additional gun control laws, and probably will not ever have as deadly a decade for schools as the 2000s again. I'm not attacking you, it's just a weird side effect of the US dominating discourse on the internet, but there is a certain habit of European HN posts exaggerating differences, one of favorites being something like: "I can't imagine living in the US, it only costs a few euros for my library card, in the US they charge per book, how dystopian" which is uh, just false, but also, Japan actually has a history of fee based lending libraries, and you would never see a similar comment about Japan, it would be celebrated as twee small business.

gunnarmorling 4y ago
> Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. Any stats to back that up? Seems completely counter-factual.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- uxp100 4y ago
  You can see the basic methodology in sibling comments, just some counting on wikipedia, really hinging on whether you include Universities (I did not). But a less controversial way of putting it is that other countries, including European ones, have had comparable incidents, and we can compare what they did with the US.
lawlorino 4y ago
> Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. This is absolutely not true and can be verified by a few minutes research on Wikipedia
andyjohnson0 4y ago

RGamma 4y ago

Current day USA is the love child of South Park and GTA. You can't even parody it properly anymore, because it's become a continuous self-parody. And best/worst of all, its inhabitants don't even notice.

throwaway6734 4y ago

The US education system is a patchwork of schools systems of wildly different quality based on the student population. >how simultaneously awesome and terrible the US has become It's still significantly better than it used to be.