I volunteer at the school where my spouse works.

They’re more than willing to drop $10-20k a year on random equipment from a big name corporation for my “club” without so much as even a review by more than one person. We can get the same stuff 2nd hand for about $500, but we’re not allowed to do that.

she’s making <$2k/month and a raise is “in the works” but she won’t see it until spring 2024. It’ll probably be less than 10%.

Approving actual classroom expenses, or raises takes years. But if they’ve got a budget for “student enrichment” the district can just spend the money on whatever the fuck they want as long as a corporation is selling it.

I think it's common knowledge what happened to the Native Americans but if not then I'll say it again: land rights mean nothing if you can't militarily defend them and, as a result, almost all countries were founded and certainly expanded on bloodshed and taking land away from others. This includes taking land from the Native Americans (who also warred among each other for the same thing).

However, it doesn't take away from the national parks.

Lastly, if you want to nitpick everything where if one thing somehow invalides everything then you won't find anything positive about anything. You can't even admire jazz - an American-invented form of music - because someone will point out that it developed as a result of slavery.

The US has done plenty of horrible things - and I said that we're far from being the greatest country in the world - but if you want to put the US into context then you really should travel to other countries. I think it's fair to say that we're far better than many other countries.

What can you still enjoy if you nitpick everything about it with a negative slant. You can't even enjoy water, sugar, or sex.

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That's gonna be problematic if they're too weak with hunger to push the security walls into place.

That is thought provoking... imagine a school shooter, or any mass shooter, with a camelback full of gasoline. Or lighter fluid, even alcohol(s). Hell even a mixure of ammonia and bleach.

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Every time Ukraine asks for a new weapon system, there is a lot of debate but they eventually get it. We have seen this song and dance with HIMARs, and tanks before.

During the "debate" phase both Ukraine and the western allies are preparing for the systems to come over.

All they need is an old fork- https://youtu.be/JBVvsNdzOr0?t=6

They run tests by telling the police there’s unarmed black kids resisting arrest inside the school.

Let's hope the shooters who target schools with dropped ceilings have never seen Die Hard.

Or, maybe, hear me out, we can regulate guns? You know, the source of the issue?

Omg stop using target hardening strategies against an insider threat!! Such a waste and psychologically harmful.

You need to defend against the kid in the shelter with you, not ISIS.

>It's two bullet proof walls that pull out from the corner of the room, meaning that entire square area must be absolutely empty.

It's not empty. It's a forever shrine to the gun god of America. Can't put a table and chairs there, can't put a bookshelf there (in Florida, there are no books anyway), can't use it as a play area...it's just empty.

Given the number of K-12 schools in the US my quick estimate is 16,000,000 classrooms plus or minus a few million.

So about $960,000,000,000. Just a couple bucks I guess.

Guns are literally the top cause of death in children https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2201761

>We do many things well (ex: national parks)

I suspect if you look into the history of those, you'll find horrors you never knew about. Do you think ALL those land were just there waiting for us to come along? Just there with absolutely nothing and nobody already there?

https://timeline.com/national-parks-native-americans-56b0dad62c9d

I think Americans tell ourselves that this is the greatest country in the world because it's the only way we can survive living in this hellscape. And if someone came along and said "guys, we can improve" or "guys, America did some horrible things in the past", we just can't listen. But to listen and admit they might be telling the truth is to force ourselves to take a real hard look at our country. And none of us is ready for that.

BTW, prior to just now I had never thought about the history of national parks. Then I was responding to your comment and decided to Google "national parks on Indian ground" and boy, was I not ready for the results.

I’m not saying I think it’s a good idea and certainly not the best we should have available to us.

But at this point, if I were a parent (full disclosure, I’m not), I’d rather my children have this option than to not have it.

It’s a fucking dystopian nightmare, but I’m sure if you ask any parent of a child who has been a victim of a school shooting if they’d have wanted their kids to be able to hide in something like this, I’m pretty sure I’d know what their answer would be.

Not fool proof. Maybe even a grift. But better than nothing - which seems to be the only other choice I see with my (honestly defeatist) attitude on this issue.

“Welcome to the 21st century, get fucked”

Right, does it fail if there isn't a shooting at this particular school involving this particular classroom? Or do they just do a drill, pack all the kids in. And then declare it a success and get payed more than every teacher in the country to put one in every room in the country?

I imagine that they probably have more pilots than usable aircraft at any one time. Combat aircraft are very complicated to keep in a ready state, so you're going to have aircraft that are unable to be used. Adding more aircraft or even just spare parts is going to enable them to increase their sorties.

Regular aircraft require a significant amount of maintenance just to fly safely, now add even more systems to that - radar, more communication gear, countermeasure/defensive systems, then the weapons, and it gets even worse. Then when you look at fighters, that can undergo extreme stresses, it compounds everything.

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>The RASR can be deployed in 10 seconds

But how long does it take to herd a group of scared children into the shelter? What's the protocol if some do not make it in quickly enough? Do you hold the door open for them or leave them out to die? And if your child is the one left out to die, are you ok with that? Will the kids be doing drills on how to quickly leave everything and get into the shelter? Who will pay for the therapy for these children?

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Except that’s patently false. Alabama is 11th on the list of school shooting numbers.