School Safety Shield: guns

I learned of this tragedy as my school bus fleet prepared for our annual Christmas luncheon. We held a moment of silence, and then we shared our company with each other, with a renewed sense of life and an awareness of how it could end quickly. It reaffirmed for us why we do what we do, to get our precious cargo to and from school safely.

There are numerous pitfalls that can come after a tragedy like this. The first is to be reactionary. The smoke has barely cleared, literally, and I've already see some of this;

'Put all schools into lockdown!'

'Ban all guns!'

I heard it described succinctly by Dr. Greg Sipes, a psychologist, on local radio. He described left-brained and right-brained thinking. Left-brained thinking governs logical, rational thinking, while the right-brain governs emotional thinking. The reactionary examples come from the right brain. It is a natural response to trauma such as this, and should not be scorned or dismissed out-of-hand. However, we need to keep it in perspective, and keep the left-brain engaged as well.

This is hard to do with the pictures we are seeing of horrified children and parents that are coming out of Newtown, CT.

The second pitfall, exacerbated by the first, is to react based upon early information. This information will often change as it is vetted, corrected, then disseminated. We should then study the information, and get to understand the ramifications before we make changes.

Sandy Hook Elementary School has suffered a horrible tragedy at the hands of a gunman for as yet undisclosed reasons. 20 children are dead, as are 6 staff members.

Pray for the victims, and let the information develop.

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Tucson, AZ
A Tucson school was placed on lockdown for five hours after an anonymous threatening note was found in the nurse’s office Friday, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

The principal of Flowing Wells Junior High School told police he found a the note, which implied the use of guns and other weapons in the school, around 9:30 a.m.

The school, located near Wetmore Road and La Cholla Boulevard, was immediately placed on lockdown and the Sheriff’s Department was called in to investigate, said Clarence Dupnik, a spokesman for the department.

Dupnik said the lockdown was kept in effect during the investigation in order to ensure a methodical and orderly threat assessment.

The Pima Regional Bomb Squad brought a specialty canine to the scene to detect explosives or guns, and the Department of Public Safety and the Davis-Monthan Airforce Base provided an additional two canines to join in the search, Dupnik said.

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