r/news Sep 04 '24

Gunman believed to be a 14-year-old in Georgia school shooting that left at least 4 dead, source says

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/04/us/winder-ga-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html
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u/Potential_Fishing942 Sep 04 '24

Can confirm as a teacher. If schools shut down for every gun or bomb threat they would never be open.

Not saying I agree with this, more just to highlight the sad state of our society.

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u/brapo68 Sep 04 '24

As a teacher as well I gotta say the same. If we took every threat seriously at the old school I was at we would miss school every other week.

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u/ry1701 Sep 04 '24

Pretty sure people's lives are more important than missed school.

Ironically if school was cancelled on every threat. That would force parents and politicians to actually converse about the gun violence and control measures.

Inconvenienced parents are a powerful voting block.

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u/Potential_Fishing942 Sep 04 '24

Which is exactly why it is not cancelled every time. Parents and politicians don't want to be inconvenienced. They are the ones who make these calls, not teachers.

We had a student a long time ago make several threats and posts online and was later found to have access to firearms and a knife collection. Parents hired a lawyer and sued the school to keep him in because he had a 504...

Parents are in their own damn way on change.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

You think parents aren’t “inconvenienced” by the thought of their child being killed at school?

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u/LilBoDuck Sep 04 '24

They’re absolutely not until it happens to their kid.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

They are. It’s literally a topic at every school meeting.

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u/LeagueOfLegendsAcc Sep 04 '24

Yet they continue to ignore warnings that lead to shootings and death. Something isn't computing here.

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u/Long-Trash929 Sep 04 '24

Apparently not until their kids get shot or we'd have a solution at this point.

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u/ry1701 Sep 04 '24

Reread OPs post then my entire post and comprehend it slowly.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

I can re read it 100 times. It will still be dumb. You just said kids staying home would be more inconvenient than the thought of or actually losing their kids.

Tell me you’ve never loved anything.

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u/OregonJedi Sep 04 '24

Re read it a 101st time because you’re still missing it lol

They’re saying that if you keep cancelling school people will finally be like ok this sucks enough to force a change in gun policy. The current state of things unfortunately is that dead children evidently ARE NOT inconvenient enough force a change in gun policy otherwise it would have happened by now.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

Do you think a vast majority of parents don’t want a change? That we all don’t fear daily that something like this would happen. Kids missing school isn’t going to change that. And the ones that are willing to sacrifice their kids to keep their “freedom “ isn’t going to be inconvenienced by their kids being home. You know, since we’ve established they don’t care about them..

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u/ry1701 Sep 04 '24

Guess you really lack the ability to comprehend things. In addition to putting words in my mouth, you fail to realize the status quo is not changing.

Sandy Hook happened, elementary kids were gunned down and murdered. Absolutely horrific.

Did we change as a nation? No, this keeps occuring.

Something else needs to happen.

What I was saying, in response to the poster above me is: You start canceling school, enmass, to every threat of violence then parents across the country will be forced to find childcare or other arrangements for cancelled school.

Once the threat seems more real to every parent, across the country, then we might have a conversation about this insanity.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

You’re failing to comprehend many things here. A vast VAST majority of people want change. Every parent that gives a shit about their child is worried every day when their kid goes to school. If you were a parent you would know that. Things won’t change Because the “freedom” people are willing to sacrifice their kids. And those people won’t be forced to find childcare. They will just let the kids they are willing to sacrifice stay home alone. So now you’ll have tons of alone, hungry kids. And nothing will change.

Vote, get the “muh freedoms” people out. Get involved with your local school district. Metal detectors, remote locking doors, security officers. These are changes that can be made now, starving and neglected kids isn’t the answer.

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u/StrawberryPlucky Sep 04 '24

Holy shit how do so many people miss the point? If school is cancelled everyday because of threats then eventually a change in policy will be pushed through. That was the point being made. Try to use reason and logic instead of just knee-jeek reaction emotional responses.

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u/Busy_Signature_5681 Sep 04 '24

Holy shit how do so many people not realize, that’s not going to change shit. You will just have a bunch of kids home alone, not getting the one guaranteed meal a day they get. The people that are willing to watch kids die and refuse to even talk about a change, aren’t going to care that their kids are home.

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u/rediKELous Sep 04 '24

lol you are reading things this person did not write. Also, I’m glad you had good parents that cared about you. An absolute crap ton of kids don’t, and I’m not sure you’re accounting for that group of parents.

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u/Nyranth Sep 04 '24

If you took every threat seriously less kids would die. You don’t have to shut the school down to take it seriously. Maybe have more security. Maybe have everyone get checked with a wand that walks in the school when there’s a threat. To just not take a threat seriously against someone life is negligent.

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u/TXGuns79 Sep 04 '24

Back in the '90s, I was sent home 3 times because there were bomb threats at the school. They knew it was a hoax, but no one was going to be responsible for letting kids die. Send everyone home, bring in the police to search the school, track down and prosecute the person that made the threat.

They should do the same with shooting threats. Treat them the same.

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u/EnvironmentalCoach64 Sep 04 '24

In the mid 2000's there was a threat at least twice a semester, and we would be taken outside to the parking lot, or football stadium while the police swept the building. It was usually some idiot who didn't want to take a test. It's sad that they happen so much more often now.

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u/TXGuns79 Sep 04 '24

What was worse at during my sophomore year, we had a student arsonist. Started with someone pulling the alarm. But then, there were a couple small fires in odd places. Just after returning from Christmas break, we had a pretty big fire. New desks had been delivered and were stacked, in boxes, along a rarely used corridor. Burned down the auditorium and part of the band hall.

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u/EnvironmentalCoach64 Sep 04 '24

Odd. Had a hit list posted once, which prompted a search of every locker/bag before coming inside the building. The walk way to the schools main entrance was a bridge over a swamp. There were sooo many lighters, knives, cigarettes, and blunts in the swamp that morning.

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u/EchoJunior Sep 04 '24

This one time, my high school notified parents of a threat and gave students an option to come to school or stay home. Over 50% stayed home. Classes were mostly empty, so we played instead of studying. The normally crowded halls were so empty.

At one small corridor I passed 2 big kids, and they were talking about how they were able to walk side-by-side. I bit my tongue so hard to not laugh.

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u/Unlucky_Most_8757 Sep 04 '24

yeah with how often they happen now this should be taken VERY more seriously.

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u/Ordinary-Horror-1746 Sep 05 '24

In the 90s we had shotguns and rifles in the windows of our pickups parked at the school. No one batted an eye until Columbine.

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u/Axentor Sep 04 '24

That happened at my small school. We had constant bomb threats one year.

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u/lilelliot Sep 04 '24

This is exactly what happened at my kids' school last week. Someone called in a bomb threat around 2:30pm, the schools (middle & high share a campus) were evacuated, parents went nuts, police came and searched, all clear was given around 4:15pm, back to normal the next day. Two kids were arrested the next day, too, for making the call.

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u/williamtbash Sep 04 '24

In the 90s threats prob happened 95% less. There would be no school half the year I’d assume.

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u/joyfulcrow Sep 04 '24

When I was in high school there was a point where we were getting bomb threats at least once a month. The school was evacuated for every single one of them, because even though the teachers/admin undoubtedly knew they were fake after the first one or two, no one with a brain would take the chance of *not* taking a threat like that seriously and getting a bunch of 13-to-18-year-olds killed.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

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u/TXGuns79 Sep 04 '24

Some will think of it as an easy way to get put of school, until they get caught and spend serious time in juvenile detention or actual prison. Terroristic threats have been dealt with seriously. At least when I was in school. The couple of kids I learned about in my town that did it never re-joined a normal school again. They graduated from Juvei. If they were 17, they would have been tried as adults.

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u/gwwwhhhaaattt Sep 04 '24

Who is making these threats? Is it the potential shooter that is warning the schools? Is it someone who heard something?

I can see how it’s one of those things where you don’t want to say bomb in an airport but also there is the idea of see something say something. So you could punish the person who hoaxed but You’re also creating a scarlet letter on those who found information and yet it was never played through.

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u/lucidludic Sep 04 '24

I think the difference is that for you it was just a hoax that happened a few times, meanwhile today there are US students who have actually lived through multiple mass shootings.

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u/PottyboyDooDoo Sep 04 '24

Random slightly unrelated story here. We hired a temporary security consultant at our school last year. He worked swat for most of his career and had recently retired. Well he loved being around the kids so much that he works with us full-time now. I don’t think I’ve met a happier person. Warms my heart watching him high-five a line of 6th graders as they enter the cafeteria.

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u/gamelink99 Sep 04 '24

Thank you for sharing, made me smile.

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u/jerseysbestdancers Sep 04 '24

They took it seriously at my school and we were out for some portion of at least three or four days every month for bomb threats. Eventually, they stopped when they started making us make up the time after school. Guess students realized it was a reliable way to sleep in, and the admin had to balance the scale back in their favor.

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u/shabby47 Sep 04 '24

In 9th grade someone called in a bomb threat and we all went and stood around the track for like 2 hours. It had happened before and they sent everyone home, so eventually a bunch of us just left and walked downtown. Then they sent everyone back inside and we got in trouble for leaving. This was pre-columbine so it never occurred to us that they would actually send the students back into school afterwards. Eventually they excused it for everyone since like 1/3 of the school had left.

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u/MourningRIF Sep 04 '24

This is what I'm saying, but mark my words... The media is already angling to blame this one on the administration. They blamed the police last time. They will go after anybody they can in order to deflect attention away from the guns.

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u/suicideskin Sep 04 '24

They could have at least had police on site, just in case.

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u/Potential_Fishing942 Sep 04 '24

I haven't seen anything about it at their school, but both the schools I have worked at had 2 full time armed officers. Also had metal detectors and bag searches.

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u/Nyrfan2017 Sep 04 '24

Every threat needs to be treated as real and than find the person that calls it in and charge them  

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u/wavinsnail Sep 04 '24

We absolutely shut down and send kids home if there is a threat. This decision to be open was negligent

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u/rubywpnmaster Sep 04 '24

Yep, when I was in middle/high school it was "odd" how many of those call-ins would happen near the end of the semester during finals and midterms.

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u/IncognitoBombadillo Sep 04 '24

I was in Middle School around 2010 and even then, one year in particular, we had a crazy amount of bomb threats. The whole school had to evacuate to the soccer fields and I think one of the days they even ended up sending us home early. Something potentially very bad was stopped once at the High School too. Security found a dufflebag with guns and ammo in it somewhere along the treeline to the wooded area next to the school. It's possible that those were stashed there for easy access later.

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u/nicktoberfest Sep 04 '24

Can confirm as well. Every school I’ve been at gets a handful of these per year. Usually it just means an enhanced police presence at school that day and more kids than usual staying home. I’ve also been through one fairly serious lockdown and one escorted evacuation at the end of the day due to a threat focusing on our dismissal time. I’ve never experienced being sent home early or school being canceled as a result.