Texas GOP congressman expressed his concerns about the nature of the school shootings

The two decades since a gunman opened fire on a school building and killed three teachers, including Evelyn Dieckhaus, a substitute teacher and a student

That was more than 14 months ago – before three children and three adults were gunned down on Monday in the stately stone school connected to Covenant Presbyterian Church, atop a tree-shrouded hill just south of downtown Nashville.

When a few teachers heard the first shot of the rampage they thought it was the construction in the building.

On Wednesday, two days after the massacre, Fidler did a walk-through of the blood-stained school corridors with investigators. “It was hard, man. Law enforcement veteran of nearly two decades was struggling Saturday. Some of that blood belonged to people I know.

The country’s history of mass shootings has helped fuel a multibillion dollar school security industry in recent years – ranging from high-tech surveillance systems to weapon scanners and hand-held emergency panic devices to immediately alert law enforcement and lock down schools.

Fortified school buildings and entrance doors are now a part of daily life in places where children are supposed to feel inspired to learn.

The funeral service for Evelyn Dieckhaus, who was 9 years old, was held Friday, the last school day before Easter break for most private school students.

The head of the school, Cynthia Peak, a substitute teacher, and a former student were also shot and killed by the shooter.

Police fatally shot the 28-year-old attacker – who was armed with an AR-15 military-style rifle, a 9 mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 pistol caliber carbine, and a 9 mm Smith and Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 handgun – inside the school about 14 minutes after the shooter fired through locked glass doors to enter the building.

The shooter fired multiple rounds into several classroom doors but did not hit any students, because the teachers knew what to do and where to place their children, according to Fidler.

It has been two decades since there was a mass shooting at a high school. And more than a decade since a gunman shot his way through glass at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed six adults and 20 children.

People don’t know what the same mistakes are which is why we keep repeating them. “School resource officers are a great part of the solution. The part of the solution that is security laminate. It’s a great part of the solution. But if the people in the building don’t know what to do, none of that other stuff means anything.”

You should assume that there isn’t a good picture of what happened. Be very skeptical about claims that this saves lives or people died because of that. In Tennessee no one will have a really accurate picture of what happened there for months.”

The National School Safety and Security Services President said that he was going to speak about school security at the National School Boards Association’s annual conference in Florida this weekend, but that the message was simple. It is one of the most difficult times to make knee jerk policy and administrative actions when you are in a highly emotional state.

Experts said school officials should not give in to political pressures to take steps that are likely to be ineffective and wasteful of limited resources.

What is Happening in Schools? The Case of Koonce, the Victim, a School Gun Safety Officer and the Murder of a Student

“We’ve been in schools where almost every staff member has a two-way walkie talkie, which is good.” The principal says we have them in other schools where they are sitting in a charging station. but I prefer to not use them.’ You can say that.

He has been bombarded with offers of technology they say will heighten security in schools.

The 2016 school safety technology report from the university found there was not enough evidence to prove that devices like weapons detector and high- tech alarms helped curb mass shootings.

Referring to training and preparation for catastrophic school events like a mass shooting, Fidler said: “As a society we suck at this – which is terrible, but we do.”

He said that the difference was their ability to execute effectively while someone was trying to kill them and their children.

Fidler said that when she was shot,Katherine went to find out what was happening. I could have lassoed her around her waist and dragged her down the hall. She was going to go find out what’s going on and try and figure out what’s best for her students… She went right to it.”

John Drake, the Metro Nashville Police Chief, said he knows Koonce was alone in the hallway when she died. There was a confrontation, I’m sure. She is lying in the hallway.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/01/us/school-gun-safety-nashville-shooting/index.html

How do children get out and shoot themselves? The Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw on Sunday lamented the “difficult” nature of school shootings

“The fact that they had the wherewithal to do that. ‘Ok, I’ve got my kids secure. I locked the door and barricaded it. As a teacher, I want to be able to remember the last part of the medical, because we can potentially save a lot of people. They crushed it. The amount of stress they were under made them perform well. They were able to recall all this information and put it into practice.”

How many teachers in America would walk into their classroom, throw a tourniquet on the table, and put it on? How many of them could do it?”

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw on Sunday lamented the “difficult” nature of predicting American school shootings given their often “random and unexpected” nature.

They are hard to build a pattern behind. Law enforcement can target and prevent criminal activity, which is not the case with it. This is harder than before, the Texas congressman told Dana Bash on CNN.

I believe we should have a real discussion about what’s happening here. What I have long called this is sort of social contagion that’s occurred ever since Columbine,” Crenshaw said Sunday, asserting that, “This never happened before Columbine, but then Columbine happened and it was very famous and it sort of opened the door for very, very disturbed people, whoever they might be, to go in and commit these kind of dramatic, randomized shootings as their outlet for their own evil and crazy.”

Two students killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999 in one of the worst mass shootings in US history.

Pressed by Bash on prioritizing solutions for the issue, Crenshaw called for “a minimum of two armed guards at every school in America from here on out.”

I am not going to say that people can defend themselves with guns, but you are not going to get rid of guns, and I’m not going to call for any federal restrictions on firearms, either,” she said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database shows that firearms accounted for 18% of childhood deaths in 2011. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States. Firearms are among the top four causes of mortality for children in the country, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.