I really hate to say this but, if you have children and the ability to raise them outside of the US

[Yavin4]

Last edited Tue Mar 28, 2023, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)

then you should do it. This country will not protect your children in the classroom. Most of us don't have this choice, but if you do, you should do it.

I don't have kids, but I am doing everything that I can to live permanently in Europe. I know Europe has its problems, but some problems are far worse than others. The US is barely civilized. It's becoming unliveable for sane thinking people.


--ON EDIT--
Let me add this. I understand statistically that the odds of your child being shot in school are quite remote, but that's not really the point. The point is this. In a civilized country, the odds of your child being shot in school should be zero. Not neglible, but ZERO.

The fact that it is not ZERO is a sign that school shootings are normalized and acceptable. That alone should be the primary reason why you should raise your kids outside of the US. This country cares more about guns than it does the safety and protection of its children.

[elleng]

1. Sorry my 'kids' are so old that they have kids of their own, so

it's too late for me to take them all away.

[Hortensis]

2. There are some 150,000 public and private schools

in this country. I have no idea the average number of classrooms per school, but those 150,000 schools hold something like 80 million students.

Decreasing risk of being killed in school is not a rational reason to disrupt children's lives and take them far away from their family and friends. Parents should have not just rational and sensible reasons but good, positive goals for the children. Such as moving closer to loved ones, increasing the family social net, special schooling, etc.

[Yavin4]

3. Until it's your kid that gets shot.

The fact that we have school shootings at all is a major sign that we're uncivilized as a nation. Sooner or later, that uncivility will show up on your doorstep in some form or another.

[Hortensis]

5. It'd be less foolish to move to another country to make sure

your child isn't killed in a traffic accident while being driven around your American town. Being killed in a vehicular accident is far more likely than a school shooting, but still, mercifully, very unlikely.

Irrational fears underlie and worsen all of society's biggest political problems these days. A lot of hostile political operators have been busily creating, multiplying and spreading them among us for some years now, and then throwing matches on them.

I understand you mean well and naturally worry. But NO to running scared and being on the wrong side of what's happening. We have to be too smart, too resilient, and too responsible for the bastards to mess over.

[Yavin4]

8. The leading cause of death for children in the US is firearms

Firearms recently became the number one cause of death for children in the United States, surpassing motor vehicle deaths and those caused by other injuries.

We examine how gun violence and other types of firearm deaths among children and teens in the United States compares to rates in similarly large and wealthy countries. We select comparable large and wealthy countries by identifying Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member nations with above median GDP and above median GDP per capita in at least one year from 2010-2020. Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Wonder database and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study data, we compare fatality rates and disability estimates for people ages 1 through 19. (Since estimates were not available for children ages 1-17 alone, young adults ages 18 and 19 are grouped with children for the purposes of this brief).

https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/

[stopdiggin]

12. and the merest fraction

of that number involve school shootings - which is what the OP is addressing.

I'm thinking your argument would be more along the lines that children should be removed from the U.S. for their own safety, period. Discounting any factor that schooling or school environment might play there.

[Hope22]

15. People just don't get it.

Who actually knows how the fear of school violence affects learning overall over the course of a lifetime. It’s pretty hard to measure the total impact but looking at the actual numbers is hard to deny.

[EX500rider]

50. Calling 19yo's children is kind of a stretch to me. nt

[slightlv]

14. I don't know....

I think I've told my daughter to take note of civil service jobs in other countries so many times I've lost track. For Her sake, as well as my grandkids. Between drive-by shootings, police shooting wantonly at times inside windows, etc., and school shootings I don't think it's particularly alarmist to think of moving someplace that doesn't have such unrelenting total access to the war machines, especially when 1/4 to 1/3 of our country is invigorated by making war against the other 3/4 to 2/3 of the country. And that's not to mention the worry as a mother for a daughter if she should get pregnant in the U.S. these days. That is, if one is lucky enough to be able to afford to do such a thing. I never have been that lucky. Always just eked out a living... and now at retirement, it shows. Possibilities for me are limited by so many things... but I refuse to think my kid and grandkids -have- to subject themselves to the horror show we've become out of some sense of duty... to family or to country.

My dad used to tell me all the time "you can be just as dead right, as dead wrong. You're still dead." He wasn't talking about guns at that time, because it wasn't anything like this today. We still had some common sense. He was lecturing me on my women's protest marches, etc. and somebody taking exception to them and doing something. IOW, a dad concerned for his daughter... just as I am about mine.

[MrsCoffee]

33. You are wrong about vehicles. Guns are the leading cause of death for children in the USA.

It's fucking sick.

Plain and simple.

I don't blame anyone for RUNNING SCARED.

[Jack the Greater]

35. Hortensis did not claim that more children were killed in car accidents than by firearms

Hortensis claimed that more children were killed in car accidents than by firearms ***in a school shooting***

And she is correct.

[MrsCoffee]

37. Does not change the fact that kids are more at risk of dying from a firearm in the US than

a motor vehicle.

The problem is the guns and the US policy on guns.

[Jack the Greater]

38. I did not claim that it did.

I only pointed out that Hortensis did not make the claim that you disputed.

[Hortensis]

39. Guns as the leading cause of death is horribly shocking in itself,

multiplied many times over by almost all these children's deaths being preventable.

The gun-death rate has risen to almost 5 in every 100,000 children.

We all know we have to stop it and how: by controlling guns. Tearing children away from their homes, families and friends JUST to make sure they're not among the five in 100,000 each year is not the way.

We ARE in this dreadful situation because some people who should have did not vote responsibly Democratic. That's a reality that all the ignoring in the world by those who failed in the past will change.

Our duties now all lie in the future: VOTE every election for gun control. NO to failing our children.

[stopdiggin]

9. 100%

School shootings are heart wrenching and deplorable (along with a a shared societal ill, and illness). But that does not translate into anything like a substantial or eminent risk to your child - using any rational measure or yardstick for evaluating such things.

Quite apart from the many potential harms there are in pulling children from schools - which we have recently had amply demonstrated, and certainly deserve factoring in such decisions - the fact is that shootings simply don't represent any level of 'risk' that deserves calculation in those determinations. At least not in reasonable or rational terms.

Your child is far more likely to be victimized by bullying, or toxic belief and ideology (sad as that picture is) - than they are by some whack job throwing lead.

[Zilli]

20. From my perspective, I would not only be moving my children to a safer place,

but a place where the culture has not been warped into believing that a high powered weapon is a resolution tool. A culture where guns are NOT more important and more valuable than lives. There are still weapons around the world but here the protection provided to the gun industry outweighs any real or effective protections for the victims or potential victims.

[chowder66]

4. Actually the parents need to rise up and protest, call their officials and never stop.

[Yavin4]

7. That won't work.

Simply won't work.

[kelly1mm]

6. Or just home school if they are really in fear of their child's safety at school. nt

[Yavin4]

10. No.

Children need to be socialized with other children.

[kelly1mm]

11. Home school does not necessarily mean that children are not socialized. There

are many religious and non religious homeschool groups that have group socialization activities. My wife is a 7th Grade public school math teacher and I (at the time) was a Deputy States Attorney (ie prosecutor) and we chose to homeschool our niece that we had custody of. She is now a nurse and is doing well on her own.

Just at my wife's middle school there are 6 teachers that home school their children.

[Wingus Dingus]

18. Pushing home schooling as the only safe way to educate

America's children heralds the eventual collapse of the American free public education system, and our populace will fall SO far behind other countries who have solid and safe schooling for their citizens, it won't be funny. This is a nonstarter for parents or guardians who have to work outside the home full-time, for parents who maybe themselves didn't do so hot in school or who possess below-average intelligence, have other issues, etc. I absolutely cringe with the home school suggestion because that's the right wing solution: solve school shootings by hollowing out schools, not restricting gun ownership.

[MichMan]

19. How would public schools survive if parents took the OP suggestion to leave the country?

[Wingus Dingus]

23. Nobody's going anywhere, for the most part, except

a privileged few who can afford to leave or can afford exclusive private schools with better security. Encouraging everyone to pull their kids out of school and teach them at home--that's not a feasible solution for most parents. Look at how education suffered during covid distance-learning, for example--and that was only a few months to a year for most districts. I don't know what can be done at this point about gun ownership and crazy people, but schools have to be equipped with better security in the short term. At least courthouse-level security, metal detectors, searches, limited door access, armed guards, etc. I'd pay more in taxes for that.

[kelly1mm]

21. And leaving the country with your children doesn't? My wife is a 7th grade public

school teacher. We chose to home school our niece that we had custody of as the school she teaches in (and the entire district for that matter) is and was failing its students - at least to the extent that she and I could do better. Our niece is now a nurse and doing well on her own.

[Wingus Dingus]

24. But...you just said your wife is a trained and experienced

teacher by profession. Most other parents/guardians...are not teachers. Some barely passed high school. Some dropped out. Some have to be somewhere else all day to earn money. Some have no aptitude or patience, even if they have the intelligence. It's only workable for a relative few, to cloister kids at home to avoid gun violence. Most kids have to congregate in public to learn properly from trained teachers. This is a fact.

[kelly1mm]

26. We chose to home school not because we thought the public schools were unsafe but rather

that they were incompetent. I took on primary home school duties in high school but I am not a teacher. I was a Deputy States Attorney (aka prosecutor) at the time. At my wife's middle school there are currently 6 teachers that home school their own children.

All I am saying is there are many reasons that parents have to home school their children and physical safety can be one legitimate reason. I mean the OP suggested moving OUTSIDE THE USA to do so but apparently staying in the USA and home schooling is a bridge too far for some .....

[Lancero]

28. Gotta love that irony. Public school teachers, choosing home schooling...

...because they consider public school teachers to be incompetent.

Talk about a lack of pride in your work.

[kelly1mm]

30. The schools were incompetent not the teachers. Please

Read my post again. The main problem was a complete lack of follow through from the administration with discipline. The students and their parents knew there were no consequences for their actions so the learning environment was compromised.

I don’t find it sad that public school teachers feel the need to homeschool, I find it sad.

[appalachiablue]

22. ++

[AllyCat]

13. I'm begging my kids to find a way to study in Canada

Or anywhere sane. Minnesota is close, but even they have had their issues. Our country does not care about children. The drag Queen issue is a smokescreen for the death they wish on us all.

[Sky Jewels]

25. One of mine went to university in Canada and

is on the way to getting permanent residency status there.

Highly recommended if you can swing it!

Also, this is an example of brain drain from the US. My kid is bloody brilliant, no exaggeration.

[JCMach1]

16. I actually took a job (kids came along outside the country 2002-2012) and I can say its a mixed bag

You have to deal with living in a different country, differing school curricula... And even away from the US unexpected issues.

My youngest, for example, almost got killed by a metal swing seat on the playground. Fortunately she only had a bad concussion and a couple of dozen stitches, but a child the week previous went into a coma from the same school. The school did nothing about the equipment until my daughter was almost killed.

My point is there are dangers and threats to kids seen and unseen around the world.

We moved back to the US for high school because the British curriculum did not offer the same preparation for college that American schools provided.

[AZLD4Candidate]

17. My wife and I live in Asia. That's what we are doing.

[brooklynite]

27. By your logic, people with kids should move to a country without cars...

…since some kids get hit by them.

The number of school shootings is still vanishingly small compared to the population of students, teachers and staff.

[AllyCat]

31. More still get shot on the streets.

Guns are more important than life in the US. It isn’t safe for anyone here.

[brooklynite]

32. And almost none are, in proportion to the population.

It’s not something I spend time worrying about when I go out in the big city.

[AllyCat]

34. My kids doing active shooter drills tells me we have a problem

Every kid at our local school who went into lockdown because yet another lunatic with gun ran through the school grounds would agree with me. We aren’t going to do anything about the guns in the US. We love them. We love them more than life.

[Kaleva]

52. I do safe room drills with my grandchildren. Do you with your kids?

And I talk to them about gun safety. Such as not to touch a gun if they come across one and to immediately get an adult. I also tell them if a friend has a gun, to leave and to inform sn adult.


I also do fire drills with them.

[AllyCat]

53. Yup. We shouldn't have to do this. Too many dead people

from gun violence. Too many injuries and lives changed forever.

[Kaleva]

58. The master bedroom is the designated safe room

The door is reinforced and is equipped with a deadbolt.

I'm glad to hear you are doing training. We hope we never have to do it for real but it's far better to be prepared then to not have a clue what to do in case of an rmergency.

[Yavin4]

40. Absolutely. I would recommend people raise their kids is non-car dependent cities.

100%.

[AllyCat]

48. And we work, educate, and pass laws to protect youth

and everyone else from vehicle injuries and deaths. And yet we allow the gun thing to get worse with every passing year.

[spinbaby]

29. My kids are grown, thank goodness

But I find myself worried sick about my grandson. He’s autistic and attends a special-needs school where the students are autistic, in wheelchairs, or otherwise impaired. Those kids are sitting ducks if a shooter gets in.

Moving to Europe is not really an option, though, for those of us with extended family ties here.

[Kaleva]

36. The odds of me being shot are just above zilch

One needs to look at the statistics to determine if they are at risk.

One can start here:

https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2020

Then do some searching for more local and more precise information that pertains to the demographic one is in

[Just A Box Of Rain]

41. We are going to stay and fight for the soul of our country and our party.

Much work to be done pushing back against worldwide rise of populism.

Running isn't an answer.

[Yavin4]

42. Good luck with that.

Good luck.

[Hortensis]

45. :) Those who act IN GOOD FAITH by voting Democratic

will make sure this will not be resolved by "luck." We will eventually prevail.

remember, everything good the human race ever accomplishes is done by those who act, and both the screaming knuckledraggers and nonactives always get dragged forward by relatively few. Just the way it always has to be.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

47. Won't take "luck," but vigilance and unbending determination.

[sarisataka]

43. What country has a ZERO chance of a school shooting?

Because with that standard, there isn't a civilized country in the world.

I am unaware of any country that does not have guns in it or the impossibility for a person to smuggle one in. The smallest, and arguably easiest to control, country is Vatican City. They have guns and several decades ago the head of state was shot in public.

[Elessar Zappa]

44. Every country has issues.

The chances of being victim of a school shooting are still vanishingly small. Plus to move to many countries you either need a specialized skill or tons of money socked away. It’s not easy.

[Hortensis]

46. Child gun-death rate: Nearly 5 in 100,000. LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH.

Though school shootings have recently risen to the highest level on record, ... these shootings account for less than 1 percent of the total gun deaths suffered by American children.

Last year, suicides made up nearly 30 percent of child gun deaths — 1,078.

The share of gun suicides for Black and Hispanic children has been growing, too. Still, in America, among children who die by gunfire, Black and Hispanic children are more likely to be killed by others, and white children are more likely to kill themselves.

Gun accidents that kill children have also ticked up in the last decade, though they are relatively uncommon, totaling fewer than 150 in most years.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-violence-children-data-statistics.html

Two last things: America's leading cause of death in children is not only less than 5 in 100,000, it's almost entirely preventable. That's not just horrible, it's cause for great hope and energy. It's mostly curable.

Second, civil unrest is used by fascists, terrorists, and other extremists to PANIC and STAMPEDE people into taking actions they want. That requires immense ignorance among their victims, and yes, the more people think they're not safe under our current government, the better for those seeking to destroy it.

[AllyCat]

51. And yet, folks here think we should accept that as minimal risk.

For the hundreds of kids and the families that love/loved them, it’s way too much.

[Hortensis]

54. NO ONE thinks we should accept that for anything. NO ONE!

End of THAT huge insult to our principles! Even ONE dead child is too many.

My message is: Ignorance is a HUGE weakness that enemies weaponize to smash their adversaries. It also leads people to make absolutely terrible personal decisions.

INSTILLING FEAR IS A MAJOR TACTIC TO SUPPRESS THE VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS.

How does "Flee the county if you can!" encourage more people to vote Democratic in the next election? Or any of the similar messages, like "good luck" to that in response to a promise to stay and fight? It doesn't, of course. How many who believed it was hopeless would even bother to vote Democratic?

It gets worse: INTILLING IRRATIONAL FEAR IS A MAJOR AUTHORITARIAN GOTV TACTIC.

While vulnerable LWers are supposedly discouraged from voting by fear and despairing contempt for Democratic abilities, conservative and other authoritarian leaners increasingly long anxiously for an authoritarian strongman leader who'll promise to impose order and safety. That's the plan because it's proven many times over to work.

tRump's the #1 strongman available right now, of course. Who doubts his promise to put troops on our streets to impose "safety?" How many cluelessly feel comfortable that police state tactics would be suffered by "others" in inner cities (where they are needed) because there's actually no significant violence in their area?

How many already feel democracy and the protections of, you know, their civil rights! are sacrifices we should make to keep our children alive? We know many RWers are ready, some eager, to end them right now; after all, they say, what do they have now but a nation crumbling under liberal socialist depravity? (I saw several people yesterday insisting we're already slaves anyway.)

But that doesn't work on people too informed to run off their cliff.

[AllyCat]

56. If you check the thread, there are several saying this is minimal

Call me a “not democrat” then as I am encouraging my kids to not stay here. It isn’t safe for anyone, let alone them.

[Hortensis]

57. Running off a cliff in a crowd

doesn’t exactly make it a wise move.

Please reread and rethink to see if you still feel the same way. Everyone should. We all agree the. topic is terribly important and deserves our best. And it deserves a lot more examination than just social media input

[maxsolomon]

49. Even in Europe, the odds are non-zero. Utoya, Norway, 2011.

Japan, non-Zero.

0% chance is impossible in a world with a billion firearms.

[raccoon]

55. I totally agree.