We all went to high school and many had guns, heck, pickups with rifle racks parked at school
I do not recall any shootings?
Same where I went to school. Students could bring in guns from home to refinish the wooden stocks in Shop Class from 8'th grade thru 12'th.
Almost all the boys carried pocket knives starting in lower grade school. When I was old enough to drive I had guns in my pickup gun rack almost every day and sometimes parked within 50 feet of the school's main entrance. Sometimes I locked my truck. Other times I didn't. Teachers and the principal could not have cared less.
I graduated High School in 1974. No stabbings or shootings.
It never occurred to me to ever shoot or cut a teacher or another student.
Long, long ago in another galaxy far, far away, it now seems. Different world.
What has happened to people?
When my dad was in school in the 40's and 50's in a one-roomed country school where almost all the kids had to walk (some quite long distances) one of the teachers he had was a ln older man named Percy Bridges who was very popular and a collector of original muzzleloading rifles. He was a nice guy except when one or more of the kind of rough, ornery country farm boys would commit some especially aggravating offense in class. He had a customized wooden shovel handle for whipping the trouble makers. Used it often. My dad was a frequent flyer.
Talking too much with others in class-butt beating.
Fighting in class-butt beating.
Turning loose small wild animals in class to scare the girls and entertain the other boys-butt beating.
Prying open a school window and releasing a live skunk on Sunday night so school might be closed the following Monday so my dad and friend could go fishing without skipping school-enthusiastically applied butt beating. With bruises for my dad and friend. Bridges made them drop their overalls to their ankles for their beating when he realized they had put newspapers in the butt area inside their overhauls in case they got caught.
Unfortunately for my dad, when he and his friend showed up at school Monday morning acting innocent, they joined the crowd of students and the teacher gathered outside. Right off the bat, as the teacher was telling everybody there would not be class that day because somehow a skunk had gotten in the building and sprayed everywhere, he noticed my dad and friend had a slight skunk smell about them. Knowing they had been busted, they confessed-butt beating.
Bridges would sometimes offer to take any of the boys that wanted to go squirrel hunting with him after school, or on a Saturday morning. Always had several takers. If the group hunt was after school the boys would bring their .22 rifles and ammo from home and stand the guns in the corners and keep the ammo in their pockets or under their desks until school was out for the day. Again, no school shootings or stabbings.
Funny thing was sometimes one or more of the boys that went on a hunt with the teacher were the same boy or boys that had gotten a disciplinary whacking earlier the same day.
Different times.
My dad always said old Percy Bridges was the best teacher he ever had.
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