Social Question

Dutchess_III's avatar

Do you think part of the solution is to ban back packs?

Asked by Dutchess_III (47126points) February 23rd, 2018

When I was growing up and all through High School and even college I didn’t have a back pack. No one did. It’s convenient, sure, but maybe we should do away with that convenience now. That way, if someone walked in with a back pack they’d stick out like a sore thumb.
The only other answer would be to frisk and search Every. Individual. Student. Every time they come through the doors.

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

49 Answers

ragingloli's avatar

Really?
REALLY?
FUCKING REALLY?!

Dutchess_III's avatar

Come on you guys. Why not?

ragingloli's avatar

You should also ban clothes, because you can hide handguns and sticks of dynamite in them.

ragingloli's avatar

Should be really popular at catholic schools.

thisismyusername's avatar

You’re joking

Mariah's avatar

How would students carry their school supplies?

chyna's avatar

How about metal detectors?

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Or just make them put them through a Xray machine like they do at the airport, then you can see if they have drugs or a weapon they shouldn’t have.
Problem solved.

SavoirFaire's avatar

Both of your suggestions are unconstitutional. Students relinquish neither their First Amendment nor their Fourth Amendment rights upon entering a school. Backpacks can be construed as fashion (which is protected under the First Amendment as symbolic speech), and searches require reasonable suspicion of a particular individual or set of individuals (which is why searching everyone indiscriminately violates the Fourth Amendment).

Zaku's avatar

Ban backpacks? Seriously? Wow…

No.

The more ridiculous attempts to control and prevent any possibility of violence, the more tension and craziness gets generated.

“Hi kids, welcome the great culture you were born into. We’re afraid to let you have backpacks, because we think you might use them to conceal guns and go on shooting sprees, and we think banning bags is a logical thing to do about the problem that that actually happens somewhat frequently in this country.”

SQUEEKY2's avatar

@SavoirFaire why can airports do it then??
You wouldn’t be opening the backpack just putting it through the Xray machine checking for weapons and drugs.
Why would schools be violating the fourth amendment and not airports?

zenvelo's avatar

Well,you better ban purses,too. A lot of purses can carry more than a backpack.

@SQUEEKY2 Goibg through security at an airport is considered voluntary, because no one has to fly. But kids are required to go to school. Inspection would not be voluntary.

Darth_Algar's avatar

On an average day I had to lug 5 textbooks home and back, plus the routine school supplies. No way in hell would I do that without a backpack.

SavoirFaire's avatar

@SQUEEKY2 My previous post was meant to be addressed to @Dutchess_III, who was not talking about using x-ray machines. In any case, @zenvelo is correct about airport security being considered a voluntary search. And even at airports you are allowed to opt out of the full body scanners (which are legally dubious at best). You just can’t opt out of being searched at all.

MrGrimm888's avatar

Some schools are making see through back packs mandatory…

johnpowell's avatar

We could just ban schools. Laptops and webcams for the kids and the teachers could work from home too. No more school shootings.

You would run into a few problems like when your math teachers goes to your desk to show you how to do something. And, the whole schools being babysitters thing. And it is also kinda good for kids to talk to other kids as we learn how to function in the real world.

It is pretty funny. I like shooting guns. I own one. I like hunting. But the more I hear stupid shit like banning backpacks and arming teachers the more I lean towards eliminating the 2nd.

In high school I lugged 30 pounds of books around all day in my backpack. And I carried them home and back to school again. A backpack was essential.

SergeantQueen's avatar

That’s a dumb solution. I might be able to go without a backpack, most of my stuff is online so I really only have a computer, charger, notebook, pencil case and papers in my backpack, but it would be annoying when I had to carry a project home or my saxophone.
Lots of other kids though, have a few very thick textbooks, tons of notebooks, that wouldn’t work for kids with a few pounds in their bags.
And “The only other answer would be to frisk and search Every. Individual. Student. Every time they come through the doors.”
.... Metal Detectors. May not catch everything, but guess what? My school has 1,000+ kids. School would never start if we stopped and frisked every student, and I believe that is against the law to do so without actual evidence that every kid may be a threat to the school and needs to be frisked. Cops can’t just frisk people on the streets without evidence/a good reason.

Also by evidence, I mean the school found some comment a student posted about wanting to shoot up a school or whatnot. Not just “well any one of these kids could be a potential shooter, that’s evidence enough”

Darth_Algar's avatar

@SergeantQueen “Metal Detectors. May not catch everything, but guess what? My school has 1,000+ kids. School would never start if we stopped and frisked every student”

Yep. After Columbine my high school (this was a couple of years after I was out) installed metal detectors (no frisking though). Soon the reality of herding a thousand students through them one-at-a-time became apparent. The process just ate up far too much time at the beginning of the school day and within a couple of months the metal detectors were removed and put it storage (where, I hear, they remain to this day).

ragingloli's avatar

plus, you can now print guns with plastic.

SergeantQueen's avatar

@Darth_Algar I’ve seen metal detectors that have one on each side of the entrance.

ragingloli's avatar

Why a metal detector at all? Why not arm the pupils, so they can defend themselves?

ragingloli's avatar

After yet another shooting in a school in America, surely the time has come when we have to listen to the arguments of ordinary Americans and issue every child over the age of six months with a gun.

The only way to keep kids safe is to make sure they’re heavily armed as soon as they’ve developed the ability to grip. Obviously this leaves smaller babies vulnerable, so they should be given voice-activated flame-throwers that scorch anyone within 20 yards whenever there’s a gurgle.

Then the teachers can get on with the job of teaching kids how to shoot things. When a college student goes wild with a Heckler & Koch 9mm pistol, instead of telling them off like we do at the moment, they can offer advice, and say, “Watkins, WHAT have I told you about lining up your target? You did very well to murder three boys in the doorway but you completely missed Mr Nolan the caretaker.”

This shooting in Florida was the 18th such event in an American school this year. Soon there will be so many they won’t be news; they’ll be read out like the football results each Saturday afternoon. The announcer will say: “Here are this week’s shooting sprees in schools: Kansas 3, Wyoming 1, Montana 2, Texas FOUR.”

Then, instead of moaning about these incidents, they can be incorporated into lessons. A maths teacher might say, “This morning there were 28 of us in the classroom. Now four of us are lying in a pool of blood. Express as a fraction the amount of us who have survived.”

The National Rifle Association and fellow opponents of gun control used to be a bit sheepish after each shooting. They’d stay quiet for a week, then mumble a statement such as, “In the light of events, maybe we shouldn’t say anything until we know the facts, as it might be that the gunshot wounds weren’t caused by a gun.”

So it’s good to see they’ve got over that timid phase, and now they respond to a massacre by saying, “Yeeeehahhhh, did you see what that dude was using? Awesome.”

Then they emphasise that a critical clause in the original constitution of their country asserts the fundamental right of every citizen to carry a gun. That makes sense, as the founders of the nation ensured the common man should have the right to oppose the tyrant, and protected the right of the colony to defend themselves against a foreign dictator, by enshrining in law the power of the governed to resist unfair governance. And that’s exactly the same as protecting the right of a bloke who sits in an attic for eight months at a time playing computer games who thinks he’s been sent to earth by the Mighty Thor to buy a semi-automatic rifle so he can blast everyone in a shoe shop in Wyoming.

Americans’ insistence about their right to own guns is sometimes difficult for outsiders to comprehend. But it’s linked to their fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and we should respect that, because when Jesus was asked what he would do if someone slapped him on the right cheek, he said, “Load my A15 semi-automatic rifle and fire at random strangers in a shopping centre in Nazareth.”

Indeed if there is a cheery side to this latest slaughter, it’s the excellent publicity it’s provided for the AR15. Because it was used not only in this shooting, but in the Sutherland Springs school shooting in Texas, and for the one in Las Vegas. So the manufacturers will rush out an advert that goes: “Hi, I’m a lunatic who eats raw squirrels and lives in a bedsit with the Devil, and when I go crazy in a school playground I always take my AR15 – it’s guaranteed to slaughter like it oughta.” Then Charlton Heston can say: “AR15: the choice of nine out of 10 fruitbat gunmen across the United States.”

The main argument we’re used to hearing from gun-toting Americans is that each new massacre proves not how dangerous guns are but how dangerous it is to not have a gun. Because the best protection against a wild gunman is a gun.

And this is true. Similarly, not many people get killed by crazy people driving their tank through a school or a shopping centre. This might be because it’s quite tricky, even in America, to buy a tank. But there is a more sensible way of looking at this, which is that if someone were to go berserk with a tank, the rest of us would have no protection. So we should immediately make it legal to possess your own personal tank.

Within a couple of years, tanks would be as easy to buy as guns are now. You could get 2 for 1 during happy hour at Hank’s Tanks, and some days you’d get one free when you bought an Aero, and before long, millions of people would have tanks so no one would need worry about tanks.

So the only problem is how to make us as safe globally from the danger of guns as they are in America. The answer must be to give other countries more guns. Trump must start giving shiploads of them to Syria and North Korea, so we can all stop worrying.

And the National Rifle Association, along with the rest of the gun lobby, will all join Isis, as the Islamic caliphate is the nearest to a society where everyone has a gun.

Then at the current rate there will soon be thousands of shooting sprees a day, until there are only three people left alive in the whole of America, each pointing guns at the heads of the other two, unable to work or hold any food, so they live by nibbling berries and never falling asleep, and at last they’ll be safe.

- Mark Steel

SergeantQueen's avatar

I’m reading that quote as sarcasm. Or just someone explaining how it wouldn’t work. I’ve actually heard people seriously suggest that students should carry a gun to school.
I’m not carrying a gun to school. Nor will I be attending a school where everyone has guns.
The negatives here outweigh the positives. Yes, by having everyone armed a shooter could be taken down easily, but you will be raising shootings that happen.
What if someone uses the gun on a bully?
what if someone uses the gun on a teacher that’s pissing them off?
There are so many what-ifs that can be applied, it seems stupid.
Guns should not be allowed in schools unless they are a trained professional (cops)
Not teachers, not students, doesn’t matter how trained they are, only cops.

jonsblond's avatar

I’m so glad I’m homeschooling right now, but then we still need to worry about concerts, malls, movie theaters, clubs. Our local high school went on lockdown the other day because a student threatened to shoot up the school. I hate that our children need to deal with this bs.

SergeantQueen's avatar

I agree. I admit I am a bit scared of it happening at my school. We’ve had a few bomb threats, (one when I was at the school) but nothing with shooting the place up. Still scary.

Zaku's avatar

How about giving all of the students body armor to wear at all times?
(It could even include chastity belts to reduce teen pregnancies.)

SQUEEKY2's avatar

If that includes helmets as well, it just might work.

ragingloli's avatar

You could also implant everyone with a micro-explosive in their skulls, to be detonated at the first sign of defiance if they try to run amok.

BellaB's avatar

I can’t imagine life without a knapsack. I’ve been using one pretty much every day since about 1971. My mother caved and bought me a beautiful black sequined one to take to formal events about 20 years ago as she got tired of me showing up at the symphony/opera etc with my black leather knapsack.

There are better solutions to America’s current problems than making things unnecessarily difficult for teens. Carrying their school supplies without a knapsack or rollie bag would make things difficult.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I take it that’s a No.

@Mariah students would carry their books and school supplies the way thye did before back packs became a thing in the 80’s. The way we carried them in clear through the 70s. Books and notebooks cradled in their arms. So the girls could “accidentally” drop them right in front of the guy they have a crush on!

Darth_Algar's avatar

10 blocks with the load I typically had to carry cradled in your arms? Yeah, not going to happen.

Darth_Algar's avatar

Yes, that’s how far I walked to and from school.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Well, we left our books in our lockers, unless we needed a specific book for homework. Sure they got heavy, but we were young and strong.

Darth_Algar's avatar

I only wish leaving them in my locker would have been an option. Nope, pretty much every day we had a homework assignment in just about every class.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I guess I was lucky. Never more than two books to tote home. Usually it was just 1.

MrGrimm888's avatar

I definitely had homework in almost all subjects. Usually, that averaged 5 books. Not counting notebooks, composition books, whatever book I had to read for English class, protractors, compasses, pens, pencils, erasers, highlighters, and other supplies. Asking a kid to somehow carry all of that is impossible, without a way to keep it together.

I feel this has parallels to the banning certain guns thread. While a book bag can be used in nefarious ways, the vast majority are used as intended. We can’t ban everything that has ever been used improperly…

Dutchess_III's avatar

@MrGrimm888 it’s not impossible. Generations of students did it including mine.

Dutchess_III's avatar

We kept our math supplies, like protractors, in little plastic boxes.

MrGrimm888's avatar

I know it’s been done Dutch. My nephew would probably forget, or lose everything without that pack. Now, would he turn out better having to remember everything, and carry it? Different discussion…

SavoirFaire's avatar

@Dutchess_III Generations of humans went without electricity, too. But more relevantly, students carry more stuff these days than they used to. We probably shouldn’t be making educational policy on how things were in the 70s.

zenvelo's avatar

@Dutchess_III What do you have against backpacks? You can’t hide an AR 15 in a backpack.

And are you going to ban purses too? What about pressure cookers?

Dutchess_III's avatar

@SavoirFaire Yeah, back packs probably affected the amount of homework assigned, too. My point was, it isn’t “impossible.” Just like it isn’t “impossible” to live without electricity.

I don’t have anything against back packs, @zenvelo. I thought perhaps the gun could be broken down to fit in one. The Florida shooter carried magazines in his back back. BUT he also walked into the school with an entire duffel bag that concealed the assembled rifle.

I don’t know what to do, except find some way to stem this love affair with guns. And don’t get me wrong. I love target shooting. I’ve shot hand guns at a range, I’ve shot single shot rifles in the country, I’ve shot BB guns, I’ve gone clay pigeon shooting. We always shoot those heavy-assed “rifles” at Bass Pro when we go once a year. It’s fun. But I could give up my “fun” in a heartbeat if it meant one child would stay alive.

Mariah's avatar

I had about 30 pounds of school supplies. And in college, I had to carry my school supplies through weather that would destroy them (rain, snow) if not protected by a backpack.

Sorry, this just isn’t a practical idea.

BellaB's avatar

@SavoirFaire , in the 1960’s I carried a briefcase to public school as I had so many books (+ lunch and gym gear) to transport. I was so excited when schools allowed knapsacks in the early 1970’s. So much easier on the back. Ours weren’t as nice as the ones they traditionally used in Japan and Germany (and likely other countries) but they were still such an improvement on briefcases.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I think I got my first back pack in college. Maybe. You know, I just don’t remember.

RocketGuy's avatar

Backpacks are great for carrying: textbooks, notebooks, stationery, water bottles, cell phones, extra clothes, food. I often wonder it my kids will get back problems carrying all of that.

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.
Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther