Uff. I can't even imagine. I'm so sorry for you and your kids alike. And I guess it's not the precautionary floor lines that strike me, it's that this style of violence really is so pervasive—and we've concluded that it's such an inevitable part of childhood now—that the reasonable thing to do is to reify it in the physical architecture of their day-to-day lives. And in training young minds to imagine themselves unarmed in a situation of combat...
Of course we don't get to just choose innocence and be surprised by a style of evil behavior over and over again. But I wonder also sometimes if, just as suicides can inspire people who hear about them, large-scale and permanent institutional response to kids-shooting-classmates gives form and legitimacy to that avenue of acting-out, when disaffected kids think about acting out.
> it's that this style of violence really is so pervasive
Agree, and it's tragic that this is were we are in the US, and the only concrete action we're willing to take (thoughts and prayers don't count) is to try to mitigate the impact of a shooting rather than preventing it.
Of course we don't get to just choose innocence and be surprised by a style of evil behavior over and over again. But I wonder also sometimes if, just as suicides can inspire people who hear about them, large-scale and permanent institutional response to kids-shooting-classmates gives form and legitimacy to that avenue of acting-out, when disaffected kids think about acting out.