During secondary school do you imagine shooters walking in like they do in US?

30 comments

1. No, because the likelihood of this happening is absolutely tiny.

2. What a weird thing to say.

3. Never even crossed my mind. Isn’t it great that as a child I never had to consider that possibility.

4. Not in the slightest.

   My daydreams would often be something more realistic but equally fucked happening like the ceiling collapsing or some shit because of the underfunded school system making use of buildings that are no longer fit for purpose

5. Look up the Dunblane shooting and the firearms regulation that followed.

   That’s why the UK doesn’t have active shooter drills.

6. No, it never occurred to me.

   During that period when there were quite a few terrorist attacks a few years ago, when walking through a big shopping mall or somewhere like that I’d sometimes think about it – where would I go, what would I do. But never when I was at school.

7. Not at all. Once there was dog on the school grounds and we all had to stay in because it could potentially bite someone

8. Yes i did. Bored in class and my mind drifts away “what if a meteor hit the school” or “what if terrorists attack the town”

9. No. Thankfully, when we had one school shooting in the UK, we went for tougher gun laws. Now, there are no school shootings in the UK.

10. No we don’t. We don’t have active shooter drills and we haven’t had a scenario like that since Dunblane in 1996. 27 years ago.

11. No. I was very aware of how easily I could do myself harm, if I just ran into oncoming traffic. But the idea of someone else doing it didn’t really cross my mind.

12. Not even once.

    Even after the Dunblane shooting in 1996, which I was very aware of because it was pupils my age that got shot, and I’m not a million miles from Dunblane. I don’t think the idea of a shooter coming to my school even crossed my mind once, we all just knew (were probably told by parents and teachers) that it was an isolated incident and wouldn’t be repeated. Thankfully we were right.

13. Found the US American.

    We’ve had two school shootings in the UK, one in January 1988 (0 dead, four injured), and one in March 1996, (18 dead, 15 injured). After that, the government said “we’re tightening the gun control laws” and most people went “yeah, fair enough”, and we seem to be running at an average of [four mass shootings a decade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_Kingdom), not four a week, because while we may be insane in many things in this country, we aren’t insane about the right to shoot people in Walmart.

    We did have an escaped dog in the playground in secondary school once and we had to stay inside, in case it bit someone. It did bite the caretaker who was trying to catch it, so fair enough there.

14. This has never crossed my mind.

    There isn’t serious problem when parents have to ban kids from having light up shoes in case a shooter spots them when they are hiding.

    Or installing Kevlar sheets in their backpack (incidentally this is also benefiting the arms industry. $ for bullets and $ for the protection)

15. No. There hasn’t been a school shooting here in my lifetime, so the thought of it as a realistic threat didn’t really cross my mind, in much the same way that I wasn’t worried about natural disasters which don’t happen in my area affecting me.

    There were times when I was scared other students would hurt me – but never worried that they’d have a gun.

    After there’d been several terrorist attacks, that risk was something in the back of my mind (and the brief thought of what I’d do if something did happen) when visiting bigger cities, but it never worried me enough to put me off from going somewhere.

    It really shocked me to find out how common shootings are in the US, or the steps teachers and students have to go through to prepare for one. I took the lack of that threat here for for granted.

16. Not really, but a kid went into my sons school with a knife last week. Police got called to retrieve the kid after he was flattened by a teacher.

17. …kinda. But only specifically because I wanted to make a map for Counter strike and I thought my school would make a good map. Never did put it together though

18. No. In the UK boys would tell each other their survival plans for when the zombie apocalypse starts, not share their plans on surviving a school shooting.

    We don’t enjoy that passtime like children in states do.

19. We probably joked about it in a “wouldn’t that be ridiculous” kind of way but I don’t think I ever thought that was a thing that might legitimately happen

20. No, of course not. My high school had no fences, wide open doors where anyone could walk in. There just wasn’t any significant risk of harm.

21. Never, guns just aren’t really a thing here and never were even before Dunblane. We did have a bomb threat once during the active IRA days but that turned out to be a hoax.

22. This happened here already remember!!!!

    Dunblane tragedy– thankfully this was a sensible country at the time & we banned guns almost overnight.

    So yea, we had 1school shooting & acted to stop it happening again

23. No, never occuret to me even vaguely. We had a moose wander in once, we had to stay indoors.

24. No, of course not, but I’m sorry that you do. Active shooter drills start so early in the US it’s understandable that it isn’t something you’ll easily get over.

25. Looking at the American schools, they all seem to be built on a single, ground-floor level.

    Thinking back to my senior school days, we were in a building dating back to the 1600s, and in my first year, my classes were in a room on the third floor (fourth if you’re American)

    Anyone coming in the main entrance to the grounds would have a 150-metre walk to the building, then around it, would have to come into the centre courtyard, cross that, and climb four flights of narrow spiral staircase to get to us. There wasn’t a single classroom on the ground floor in the whole of the building. Most of the classrooms in the secondary buildings were on upper floors too.

    There’s definite advantages to vintage architecture.

26. Schools and nurseries now have “lockdown” drills like fire drills but nothing with the fear that comes

27. During my entire education, I can say with 100% conviction that I never considered a ‘school shooter’ as anything other than something someone’s mum who knew nothing about football would say.

28. yes sometimes I used to daydream I was in a school shooting scenario and I used to save the day.

29. As a young kid in the 80s I often assumed shootings of people in cars was common, because it was something I saw on the news happening in Northern Ireland so often. But as a teen in school I don’t think I ever thought about that happening. It’s just not something we ever have to consider here.

30. Nah this country isn’t that much of a shithole