Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

I'm not sure if we'll ever know how close it came to an active incident, but the local high school just had a lockdown today that resulted in two guns being recovered. So I guess thankful for that outcome as opposed to others, but still.

On my first day at this school in the ‘80s, someone was shot across the street just before school let out (they survived; we were told they were “only” grazed). The idea that someone would or could be shot inside the school was utterly unfathomable.

Josh, we just received a very similar email from our school district about fifteen minutes ago. Sigh.

Apparently it went out to *at least* just about every school in Illinois.

can’t even imagine how awful it is for the parents itt (inthiscountry as well), like i start getting tetchy for my own sake when i have to join any moderate concentration of people. daily sending kids out into this psychosis — damn, i’d be digging a bunker.

wonder how much of the political inertia re: school shootings is to deliberately stoke terror in the voting parents and/or further destroy public schools. #justamericathings

So.. this was all a big hoax?

I mean, probably? Someone probably started it a "joke" on TikTok and it took on a life of its own, but it's insane how widespread it is. My 10 year-old last night brought it up before bed last night saying, "my friend said her brother saw on TikTok that there is a challenge for everyone to shoot up their school tomorrow".

That's horrible, just to have to think about that - whether it's bs or not

Yep, pretty much. Not a conversation I was ready to have last night.

fwiw neither of my teens had heard of it.

Hey, Idk if this will make anyone feel better, but those moral panic things that sweep through every few months are rarely based on anything. Just in the few years I worked in a school I think we had to prep 4-5 of them, hold staff meetings, have a "strategy" in case the Blue Whale Challenge turned out to be A Thing (it did not), panic every time a season of 13 Reasons Why came out, etc etc. It was so stupid. But schools have to do it, they have to show they made a game plan and informed people. I blame how much adults are unprepared for kids to grow up with social media; the mass anxieties create these dumb panics.

It doesn't help when school districts and/or police departments take them 100% at face value and encourage the freak out because it suits their desire to look relevant and justify their hyper-militarization.

wonder how much of the political inertia re: school shootings is to deliberately stoke terror in the voting parents and/or further destroy public schools. #justamericathings

― bitter brutal brittle (cat), Friday, December 17, 2021 7:21 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

Also kids sometimes have forbidden "weapons" in school for reasons that having nothing to do with hurting their classmates. Obviously every situation is different but we had kids bring knives because they felt their walk/commute to school wasn't safe, like if they had to cross into a different neighborhood. Then you end up with "student brought a knife to school" headlines but for very different reasons.

I carried a swiss army knife all through high school, mostly for the bottle opener and corkscrew (!). I don't think it ever came up as forbidden, and of course we had no metal detector. I vaguely remember a couple teachers asking to borrow it to cut open boxes, etc.

Hey, Idk if this will make anyone feel better, but those moral panic things that sweep through every few months are rarely based on anything.

Oh absolutely. I didn't think it was a huge risk or a real threat, I mean... we still had him go to school. But completely fabricated or not, the fear still worked its way down to the kids, which is sad regardless of the truth behind the fiction or not.

Yeah, that part really sucks. I think there's a conversation about media literacy there, though, maybe? Maybe when it's not so scary. Kids are growing up on the internet, they're savvy enough to have filters and understand memes.

Yeah, that's kinda how I framed my response, basically as trolling and memes being taken out of context and making rumors spread.

That stupid vandalism shit was real though, happened in my elementary school at the beginning of the year

Yes, which may have lent credibility to this one - though I don't think the "Punch a Staff Member" campaign really took off

Yeah probably because "punch a staff member" is far more likely to lead to direct consequences and identification, less so vandalizing an unobserved corner of the school.

Hey, Idk if this will make anyone feel better, but those moral panic things that sweep through every few months are rarely based on anything. Just in the few years I worked in a school I think we had to prep 4-5 of them, hold staff meetings, have a "strategy" in case the Blue Whale Challenge turned out to be A Thing (it did not), panic every time a season of 13 Reasons Why came out, etc etc. It was so stupid. But schools have to do it, they have to show they made a game plan and informed people. I blame how much adults are unprepared for kids to grow up with social media; the mass anxieties create these dumb panics.

It doesn't help when school districts and/or police departments take them 100% at face value and encourage the freak out because it suits their desire to look relevant and justify their hyper-militarization.

wonder how much of the political inertia re: school shootings is to deliberately stoke terror in the voting parents and/or further destroy public schools. #justamericathings

― bitter brutal brittle (cat), Friday, December 17, 2021 7:21 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Friday, December 17, 2021 5:12 PM

yeah, sounds very familiar https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge/

A little surprised that others didn't note another murder spree from a neo-nazi:

5 dead in Denver 'killing spree' by suspect with extremist views, police sources say

2. The killer, Lyndon McLeod, wrote and self-published a series of books under the pen-name "Roman McClay," according to Denver TV station KDVR. McLeod died in a shootout with police at the end of his killing spree. https://t.co/AskKy2oE3L

— Nick Martin (@nickmartin) December 29, 2021

3. The first book in the series includes an image on its cover of a skull marked with a wolfsangel, a symbol used by the original Nazis and some neo-Nazis. The back cover of the book describes the author as "96% Norse-Scot 4% Neanderthal." pic.twitter.com/VGISLbsacb

— Nick Martin (@nickmartin) December 29, 2021

FP'd you for linking those

This happened less than 5 miles away from me. Fucking tragic awful - shot his own 3 kids himself & possibly social worker or chirch mediator … the Mom was not on site, she had a restraining order on the shooter

fucked up beyond belief & happening almost daily it seems

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article258904863.html

I was just reading about this... so completely tragic, they fact that it happened at a supervised visit makes it even more tragic (if that's possible)

AR-15, of course

What the hell?

https://www.nbc11news.com/2022/03/20/shooting-arkansas-car-show-kills-least-1-wounds-20/

https://www.stereogum.com/2180267/sxsw-shooting-injury-austin/news/

my wife is stuck in traffic right there currently as cops are running around guns drawn and helicopters flying around

BREAKING: multiple people shot at Tanger outlets. I just saw a woman and man taken with gun shots wound.

POLICE TELL ME SCENE IS ACTIVE. pic.twitter.com/eaGpVjxU5z

— Nicole Grigg (@NicoleSGrigg) March 23, 2022

Marsha Blackburn just now at the Brown hearings: "in times like these, I'm just so grateful that the founding fathers had the foresight to ensure our right to bear arms in the second ammendment of the constitution." -- times like these where there are shootouts or mass shootings in public spaces nearly every single day, you mean?

Or maybe for times like these...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/20/us/south-carolina-lake-shooting-self-defense/index.html

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/582896-pregnant-florida-woman-killed-in-road-rage-incident-she-reportedly

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/florida/os-ne-florida-state-board-of-administration-official-killed-in-shooting-20220112-oymwwcbgpbej5b3lizkupfz7di-story.html

People are f'n nuts.

I don't understand how these incidents keep happening in areas with concealed carry and a lot of gun owners…
Spottie I hope your wife wasn't too shaken up by that

she was stuck there for about 25 minutes but shes all good.

sounds like some injuries but no deaths reported

#BREAKING: Glendale PD say five people were injured, three of which are juveniles, in the shooting at Tanger Outlets. Their injuries are non-life threatening. https://t.co/kkJfkHZrpT #abc15 pic.twitter.com/v8CvDyajYg

— ABC15 Arizona (@abc15) March 24, 2022

6 dead, 9 injured in Sacramento shooting

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/04/03/sacramento-downtown-shooting/7261794001/

WTF

Suspect at large after 10 shot at Brooklyn subway station

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/brooklyn-subway-shooting-nyc/index.html

"The attack is not being investigated as an act of terrorism" - I wonder what their definition of terrorism is, then. (I actually don't, it's going to be something like "they didn't look middle-eastern" isn't it)

I guess the distinction is whether it's just some lone, troubled kook (like the Texas clocktower shooter) or someone with some kind of political agenda (though they might also be a lone, troubled kook)

it's going to be something like "they didn't look middle-eastern" isn't it)

In order to be an -ism, there needs to be a political objective, not just a lot of murders. Unless the killer was shouting political messages at the scene there's nothing to indicate a motive, yet.

there are legal reasons for the distinction as well, which dont' mean so much to the general public, but does more to the prosecutors

I guess a hate crime thats designed to sow fear among people of a certain group would be considered terrorism.

good points, everybody .

"There is a hole in our lives."

https://news.yahoo.com/few-answers-police-continue-investigate-230148825.html

What a headline.

“Only in this country is someone shot and injured or killed every 17 hours in a road rage incident.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/12/us/road-rage-shootings-guns-texas.html

We've had two road rage shootings here in Maryland in the past few weeks.

"The attack is not being investigated as an act of terrorism" - I wonder what their definition of terrorism is, then.

https://wtop.com/national/2022/04/police-hunt-gunman-who-wounded-10-in-brooklyn-subway-attack/

"The man arrested Wednesday in the shooting of 10 people on a Brooklyn subway was charged with a federal terrorism offense, a day after the attack on a crowded rush-hour train."

so did the guy turn himself in like the police are saying, or are they just trying to get out of paying the $50k reward to the bodega guy who called the cops?

Huh? They were very publicly acknowledging the Crime Stoppers tip this morning during the press conference, so I don't think they're trying to get out of that

seems like the guy might just be crazy crazy and applying any sort of logical motive to what he's done would be a fool's errand

is "he hates everyone and everything" not a logical motive?

just going by his youtube videos

NYPD is saying the shooter himself filed the crimestoppers tip. Maybe the bodega guy has turned out to be a chancer

NYPD is saying the shooter himself filed the crimestoppers tip. Maybe the bodega guy has turned out to be a chancer

Can a person collect the reward on themselves? Have to read the fine print, I guess.

the most insane thing about the whole NY thing is that the cops did shit and yet the media everywhere seems to be eating up these accounts of cops working hard with citizens to catch the guy.

he turned himself in.

the amount of copaganda that people just swallow unthinking in this country is unfathomable to me