Yesterday there were over 50 swatting threats made against schools in New York state. Our kids’ school district was one of them, so my two youngest were home with school cancelled, and my oldest had to shelter in place in one room for almost the whole day while police cleared the building. And this all comes just after there were dozens of swatting threats made last Thursday across New York state, and several more in Massachusetts last Tuesday.

Living in the UK I cannot fathom how that must feel, sounds bonkers. 😞

It seems to be more of a recent problem. When I finished high school in 1997, this phenomenon had not really begun. It seems to have started to really increase sometime in 1998 and has been on the rise since then. I don’t really understand why, but parents throughout the USA have to not only worry about their kids grades in school but whether or not they’ll even come home alive and uninjured (and not mentally scarred) each day. So sad, and frightening.

My wife is terrified. We have a 1 and 3 yr old and she doesn't wanna send em to school now. Statistically, its pretty slim anything will happen but its a real fear once you have kids.

The places under threat, like schools, would require the staff and teachers to be armed to make any difference. Parents’ guns won’t help keep them safe. Not to dissuade anyone from buying a gun if they want one, but unless you and the guns are both there when an attack occurs, it will make no difference. I dislike the idea that I should carry a gun the rest of my life for security. I refuse to live in fear, and if anything I’d have more fear about the possible misuses of the gun. There are always risks. We could get hurt or killed in a car accident every time we drive. I think the likely outcome of a shooter situation is that people will still get hurt or killed, even if there are armed people all around.

The recent Nashville shooting had employees w/ guns and it didn't help at all.

Wow, I’m sorry. That has got to be hard. I’ve never been in a situation like that and hopefully never will. I was driving through Cleveland once on I-90, and a guy stuck his arm out a window waving a handgun around, pointing it at various cars and honking his custom car horn that sounded a lot like a gun. I think he just wanted to rile people up.

It was a bit weird but didn't mess w/ me at all honestly. I think i have a unique view on it being involved in the thing that scares people a lot and coming out OK.

For me, it’s the combination of the two. An unstable person with a gun can do a lot more damage to a lot more people at a much greater range than someone without.

It's become quite a paradox. We have too many guns in the U.S. Lowering the number of guns will obviously reduce the amount of gun violence, but nobody wants to give up their guns because they need protection from the "bad" people with guns, or flat out stubbornness, and they buy more guns to protect themselves from the problem mass gun production in the U.S has caused. Honestly, the 2nd amendment is a bit outdated. With the military's current technology, we don't stand a percentage of a chance against "tyranny". Firearms do still have a place in the U.S, primarily in rural areas, but guns in urban environments just means trouble in my head. We tend to overestimate the effectiveness of guns for personal protection as well. It's not as easy to hit a moving target when your adrenaline is flowing as people think. As soon as someone gets within an arms reach of you, if they aren't already, it's now a fight for that gun which could wind up doing more damage to yourself than the person attacking you. Creece's point about the teachers being armed in the Nashville shooting is another aspect of the same point.