For many Norwegians, the American city of Flint in Michigan is best known for the water scandal nearly ten years ago, where the lead-poisoned water led to 12 deaths and up to 100 patients. Now the city, which has 80,000 inhabitants, is making headlines because of the actions taken by the authorities there is taking in the hope of reducing the number of school shootings in the country. Paradoxically, the first day of the ban ended with school shootings. A mother shot another mother in the parking lot outside one of the city’s schools. Transparent bags According to the Washington Post, a grim record was broken last year, with 46 school shootings. There are no centralized statistics, but the newspaper has checked figures back to 1999, the year the world was shaken by the Columbine massacre, and there have never been as many cases as in 2022. Since the Columbine shooting, in which 13 were killed, according to Washington Post has been 380 school shootings in the country. On Monday this week, students arrived at schools in the city of Flint without backpacks. They were allowed to have a small bag for personal belongings, but had to keep gym clothes and books in transparent bags. – Backpacks make it easier for students to hide weapons, in pockets, between books or under other objects, says a letter from the school authorities to parents. The backpack ban applies until the end of the school year. The school authority is well aware that this creates challenges for both pupils and parents, and that there is also no guarantee against school shootings. – This option does not solve the problem. Weapons may still have been hidden, even in transparent bags, say school authorities, according to NBC. Fresh shooting incident At the same time as the ban was implemented, the city was hit by a shooting incident – in the parking lot of one of the schools in Flint. Because it doesn’t help with transparent school bags if parents have weapons with them when they pick up the children. Two parents got into an argument, which ended in a shooting. A 31-year-old woman is critically injured after she was shot by a 27-year-old woman on Monday afternoon, writes WNEM. The argument between the two parents happened at the same time as others arrived at the school to pick up their children. The American schoolchildren Sarah, Tala, Hamzah, Lana, Yasmine and Bilal show off so-called bulletproof school bags. Photo: RICK WILKING / Reuters / NTB Metal detectors Measures against school shootings are nothing new in the USA, several attempts have both been proposed and carried out. Transparent bags have been discussed several times, and there has also been talk of bulletproof bags. At the latest last year, it was a topic, after the school shooting in the Texas town of Uvalde, where 21 were killed, writes The Dallas Morning News. The measure that has been mentioned most often is entrance areas with metal detectors – like at airports. – Metal detectors and transparent bags will most likely to cause children to be scared and feel criminalised. Many of the proposals seem to be based on little research, and they can actually undermine a healthy school climate, said psychology professor Amanda Nickerson to the Associated Press last year. According to the American National School Safety and Security Services, there is no central record of how many schools have metal detectors on permanently basis. Some have it, others install it if there is a need for it for security reasons. Tragedy in Serbia On Wednesday morning, the alarm went off in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Eight students and a security guard were killed after a seventh-grader started shooting around at a school. – My daughter was in the classroom when he started shooting, but got out. I saw the security guard lying under a table, and I saw two girls with blood on their shirts, says a father. The perpetrator, a 13-year-old boy, has been arrested. According to the news agency Tanjug, he probably used his father’s firearm. According to the police, the teenager had a detailed plan, including a kill list. – The suspect planned the shooting for a month and made a list of children he planned to kill, says Veselin Milic, police chief in Belgrade.
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Ban backpacks to prevent school shootings – on the same day a mother shot another in the parking lot – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
