What if one of the teachers had a gun? One of them had 3, and they were used to murder 20 children

[PavePusher]

96. Thank you for the rational dialog.

I do have a question and an observation:

1. What "harm" is being done by providing visible security for schools and children?

2. "But when society (or some within it) has moved so far that we require armed guards at schools can we not at least remember that there was a time when we did not feel this necessary?"
Interesting point, but I'd counter by saying that I don't believe anything has changed except for our becoming aware of the fact that providing security requires actually doing pro-active things, not passively declaring a location a "crime free zone" and then sitting back in complete detachment. We've proved, tragically, over and over, that being oblivious to reality doesn't work. Crime rates are at historical lows, but this does not mean crime doesn't exist and isn't a real and widespread problem.
On reflection, two things have changed. One is that guns used to be pretty freely available to kids at schools. You'll see repeated references to people growing up with guns, taking them to school so as to be readily available for after-school hunting or organised target shooting events (some schools still have teams for this). I had the same experiences. Now we don't do that, and shootings may have actually increased. The second item is that we now have instant access to every event world-wide via modern communication and media. Many studies have shown that this creates a quantifiable perception bias, wherein we think events are more common than they actually are, because we hear about all of them, every moment. Something to ponder.

I'm not going to "call you out", as I know I don't have all the answers either. But I do know a few things that have been empirically demonstrated to work. Yet one of them is being called, by another poster, "child abuse". Which seems to me to be indicative of a very confused person, both on the concept of security and child abuse.

Lastly, one thing we could do right now, that wouldn't cost anyone a dime: Stop glorifying these criminals. Do not report their names to the public. Do not show their pictures. Do not give them the infamy they crave as a substitute for self-affirmation. Stop enabling them through this insane public voyeur fascination (dare I say obsession/addiction) with other peoples' pain and suffering and rage.