Submitted by Bmartin_ t3_125pzzj in Pennsylvania
kozynook t1_je5phhj wrote
Reply to comment by Cioger in Police swarm multiple local schools after reports of shootings, believed to be hoax by Bmartin_
I don’t agree with it, but it’s being talked about as a protest to do something about the school shootings in the US. These false calls are supposed to escalate to all schools around the country everyday. Not so much for the lols. Just a horrible mess the US is in.
i_like_my_dog_more t1_je5tf61 wrote
It could also be testing to see what responses are.
For example the email we got from our school, the police said every call will be responded to as if there is an active shooter. If you were looking to launch some kind of attack, that's good info, because it means police will commit resources.
So if someone wanted to do something really bad, they could trigger all of these calls to occupy police over a large area, and then go do the really bad thing while the police are busy responding to the fake calls.
Weird_Major2489 t1_je5zkig wrote
That’s what I was worried for. If all the police rushed to initial responses it would leave the latter calls vulnerable.
barnegatsailor t1_je8cwo9 wrote
When my mom was a kid someone called a bomb threat at the public school in her town in Jersey. While the cops were at the school, the bank was robbed.
quietreasoning t1_je7eopy wrote
Sounds like something the white terror Republican extremists will do when they want to go bigger than shooting up the power grid.
JayDogg49ers t1_je7j97o wrote
🤡 comment
heili t1_je5wbf6 wrote
These calls that incite terror for a political reason are terrorism. They're not a protest.
Kabloosh75 t1_je668ee wrote
It's one thing to block the road.
It's another to call the police and say the school is being shot up.
This isn't protesting. This is using fear to get people to break. Aka, terrorism.
heili t1_je66njz wrote
Glad someone else sees this for what it is.
SeptasLate t1_je7aony wrote
Agree with it or not, when people don't care about the other forms of protest, or actual school shootings, this protest seems to be gaining people's attention.
gslavik t1_je8urtj wrote
WikiSummarizerBot t1_je8utc9 wrote
>Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants (mostly civilians and neutral military personnel). The terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century but became widely used internationally and gained worldwide attention in the 1970s during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Basque conflict, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
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SeptasLate t1_je9uqgu wrote
Yup, people can apply that definition. But that does not negate the possibility of it being a form protest.
split_oak t1_jeea86b wrote
Yes it does. There is no protest here. None. It's theft of services, it's public endangerment... but it's anonymous and has 0 message.
It simply isn't protest.
"I sent the fire department to a place where there's no fire.... to protest fires."
SeptasLate t1_jeep28n wrote
It has a message if you look for it. It could be a message to the politically obstinate that it could happen in their community in an attempt to motivate people to take reforms seriously.
I don't know if wer even put forward new legislation after mass shootings anymore.
paultimate14 t1_je5x21u wrote
If you say you're afraid of any sort of protest, all protesters now become terrorists! Quite convenient.
heili t1_je5xtgd wrote
There are many, many ways to protest that do not literally terrorize children in their own schools.
CrazyOkie t1_je61wam wrote
Considering the absolute terror for the kids and their parents, I hope the instigators are caught and prosecuted, put away for a long long time.
I suspect if the goal is calling attention to school shootings and wanting gun control, this will have the opposite effect.
psychcaptain t1_je63hpt wrote
Will it though? I mean, there are a lot people that simple don't care about kids dying right now. I doubt their minds will be changed one way or another because inconvenience trumps child safety.
CrazyOkie t1_je66ss6 wrote
Are there people who don't care? Possibly. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about parents with kids who are in school - whatever age level. They care - a great deal. Doesn't mean they agree about the solution. For those affected by today's stunt, they're angry.
I'm fairly sure it will have the opposite effect if the intent is to make people want gun control.
When I was young, back in the late 1970s, the state of Oklahoma was considering the equal rights amendment for the U.S. constitution. They were one of the last statest to vote on it, and if Oklahoma passed it, it only needed one more state to be approved. Polling the state legislators, it seemed likely to pass. Oklahoma at that time was run by the Democratic party. The National Organization for Women (NOW) decided that wasn't good enough and unleashed a campaign, having people from around the country mail postcards to all of the Oklahoma state legislators urging them to vote for the amendment. The legislature's post office was flooded with these things. There was so much, it was crazy. I was a Senate page at the time and we were tasked with helping sort through the mail because the regular mail room crew couldn't handle it. We were asked to sort out what had come from Oklahoma residents and what was out of state (the postmark told us). All of it was from out of state, none of it was personally addressed or written - just the postcards. The legislators were so mad at the attempt to influence them from people who didn't live in Oklahoma, the amendment didn't pass. The people of Oklahoma overwhelmingly agreed with their legislators. And to this day, there is no equal rights amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
So yeah, stunts and games to try and influence public or lawmakers opinions can have the opposite effect of what was intended.
wagsman t1_je69ihs wrote
I find it hard to believe that postcards made them change their minds a full 180 degrees. They surely had their reservations(whatever those may have been) to begin with, and the postcards were what ultimately tipped the scales in the state senate.
Hell, the state house refused to vote on it, so even if the Senate had passed it, ratification wasn't going to happen.
SunOutrageous6098 t1_je6b2n5 wrote
How is it any different than the active shooter drills kids have been doing monthly or quarterly since Columbine? What was that- 1998 or 1999?
Do the police practice responding to school shootings? If Uvalde is any indication, I’m gonna go with “no”.
How do you think teenagers feel when they’re listening to a sitting politician go on the news and say “we aren’t going to fix it. Criminals don’t follow laws. My kids are homeschooled.” Like the one from Tennessee did yesterday?
Kids are more likely to die from a gunshot than from anything else these days.
They live with this terror in the back of their mind 24/7.
CrazyOkie t1_je6br9e wrote
There's a huge difference between a planned drill - which students and parents are told in advance about - and receiving a message that there is a shooter at your school.
SunOutrageous6098 t1_je6c9ck wrote
We were absolutely not told about them in advance. Remember, the Columbine shooting was done by students. Imagine the damage that could be done if a student shooter knew exactly when all the kids would be huddled in the corner behind the teachers desk.
CrazyOkie t1_je6h7hc wrote
Seems crazy and irresponsible for the school district not to warn the parents or at least put it in the alert that it's a drill.
And what would this putative student shooter learn from an announced drill that they wouldn't already know from online research?
SunOutrageous6098 t1_je6kcel wrote
Warning students or parents ahead of time would reveal the exact day and time that the drill is occurring… thus making it easier for a bad actor to act since everyone will be hiding behind the teachers desk/in the corner because 40 kids don’t exactly fit behind a desk. In most schools the classroom doors don’t lock, either.
What do you think happens during an active shooter drill in a public school?
We don’t give lunches to kids if they can’t pay- you think we have bunkers to hide in?
CrazyOkie t1_je6nfnw wrote
Still doesn't answer my question of how that's an advantage to the shooter. By that logic, they could call in saying they saw a shooter and then go in guns blazing.
No idea what schools you went to but all the schools I went to and my daughter went to there absolutely were free lunches and breakfasts for those that couldn't pay. Heck, for my daughter's schools we were required to fill out the forms even if we knew we didn't qualify because the school gets federal money regardless.
SunOutrageous6098 t1_je6s1af wrote
Knowing the exact day and time that every student in the school is going to be huddled in the corner of each classroom is an advantage if you are looking to inflict maximum damage. No one is roaming the halls, everyone in administration thinks it’s a drill, so if your goal is destruction… you’ve got sitting ducks.
And yeah, we had a free lunch program. But if you weren’t on it and just forgot your money or your lunch account didn’t have enough… tough! No lunch for you. Google “lunch debt”. It’s a real thing and schools do not care.
SunOutrageous6098 t1_je6s2w0 wrote
Knowing the exact day and time that every student in the school is going to be huddled in the corner of each classroom is an advantage if you are looking to inflict maximum damage. No one is roaming the halls, everyone in administration thinks it’s a drill, so if your goal is destruction… you’ve got sitting ducks.
And yeah, we had a free lunch program. But if you weren’t on it and just forgot your money or your lunch account didn’t have enough… tough! No lunch for you. Google “lunch debt”. It’s a real thing and schools do not care.
CrazyOkie t1_je6tdmu wrote
>we had a free lunch program
So you admit that your prior statement that we don't give lunches to kids who can't pay wasn't true? I understand the "I forgot my account number" but forgetting it one day isn't the same as not having a program for it.
And I'm sorry, but your logic makes no sense on the forewarned drill. There absolutely should be administrators & cops observing what the teachers and students are doing, to correct anything they do wrong, otherwise the drill is pointless. If that's what they did at your school, your school administrators weren't very bright.
SunOutrageous6098 t1_je6ujqu wrote
There were 3500 kids in my high school and 5 principals. Which students did you want them to watch?
It was up to the teacher to make sure we did it right. You know, the one all 25 of us were supposed to hide behind.
SunOutrageous6098 t1_jebd8p8 wrote
Here’s a relevant case of “not all schools provide free lunches” for you.
CrazyOkie t1_jebkpfv wrote
Yes, a very misleading case based on one idiot lawmaker flapping his gums. Which the media was happy to run with.
That in fact was a vote for a state program which would have supplemented the existing federal program, to cover kids in families that are between 130%-185% of federal poverty levels. Kids in families below 130% of the poverty level in North Dakota are still going to get a free lunch at school (and free breakfast as well), just like they do in every school (public or private) in the good old USA. Families that are below 200% also qualify for reduced price meals at school.
https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/03/28/nd-legislature-votes-down-free-school-lunches/
Luvs2spooge89 t1_je7hxl8 wrote
I mean, they might not send out a memo and announce it in school the day before. But the kids would 100% know they were having a drill before the drill actually happened. They weren’t left to believe that it was an active situation. That’s insane.
SunOutrageous6098 t1_je7omlo wrote
Probably? The teacher of whatever class we were in probably told us. It was in the years right after Columbine- an announcement went over the PA system saying “Mr Smith is in the building” or something and that meant we all had to go stand in the corner, behind the teachers desk.
We all knew it wasn’t going to work if there actually was a situation.
bullwinkle510 t1_je7slo5 wrote
I heard talks of a walk out or not go to school due to hostile environment.
Gothsicle t1_je627ax wrote
i have heard water cooler talk that parents are being encouraged not to send their kids to school on Friday as a "nationwide protest".
Yen-sama t1_je95usn wrote
We've had incidents of kids in my school district making bomb and shooting threats as a prank just to get out of going to school, so I'm not so sure this is it.
Besides which, this is a horrible way to protest. With how common school shootings are, this is only going to distress students, and the teachers that don't get paid enough to deal with this. Protest in a way that doesn't traumatize innocent people.
IrrumaboMalum t1_je9fy53 wrote
They should investigate every call and arrest each person who made the call. I believe something like this is a felony.
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