School shooting not nearly serious enough to change law, society

The nation is underwhelmed this morning, after a minor mass shooting at a primary school – which left only a meagre 24 children and a mere 6 teachers dead – failed to be grave or shocking enough to inspire legislative and constitutional changes in the nation’s legal structure.

According to eyewitnesses, the shooting only lasted 43 minutes, and failed to claim the lives of anyone younger than the age of 12.

“When we think about the kinds of terror-inspiring, numbing horrors that we’ve encountered and seen plastered bloodily across our TV screens on an almost monthly basis, then clearly this tiny blimp on the mass murder radar just simply isn’t enough to inspire our politicians and countrymen to take the huge selfless leap necessary to create a better, safer society,” said political analyst and school shooting expert Loki Nlode. “If we want to have our country changed for the better, then I just hope the nation’s unstable psychopaths start upping their game, for example by at least taking out a preschool or something.”

Experts now believe that the shooting came in at just number 12 in the Top Shooting Spree Rankings of Q4 2015.

“This shooting, well, it might as well not even have been reported,” said chief investigator Chuu Tsukyl. “I mean, they didn’t even use a calibre bigger than .303, and the killer didn’t even have a racist or misogynistic manifesto that motivated his hate crime. Honestly, I’m not surprised that it was only front-page breaking news on just 34 international news services.”

And editors say it’s a justified choice.

“Right now, with the Syrian bombings and awful political situations unfolding in the Ukraine and Greece, we need something else that’s lighter and less serious on our screens to calm down anxious parents and voters - something like this comparative yawn-fest that utterly fails to shock or horrify our nation's leaders into action” said CNN senior news editor Thysys Justin. “So we’ll keep it blaring on the 24/7 breaking news or developing stories roll for a short while, at least until we run out of frightening stock footage of blaring sirens, flashing blue and red lights, armed policemen and weeping, shell-shocked parents.”

However, other news services don’t believe this will happen anytime soon.

“Seriously, we have thousands of hours of that kind of disturbing, bloodcurling imagery from just the last six months alone,” said political editor at the BBC, Gunther Kiddsdown. “We’ll probably just cut it off after 6 days of terrifying, around-the-clock bulletins.”

Gun debate sees massive changes to US schooling

As the gun debate heats up in the United States of America, teachers, principals and students are seeing a huge set of sweeping changes aimed at securing their educational spaces and lessening the chance of future tragedies.

“It’s been a while since the last mass shooting,” said principal of Bay High in Utah, Luke Hanlode. “Really, when you look at the historical statistical data, we’re about three months overdue for the next senseless slaughter of preschool, highschool or university students and their teachers. We must act now.”

And while principals and gun lobbyists agree that banning the sale of fully-automatic firearms and increasing the depth, number and frequency of background checks and firearm safety and proficiency tests would do “absolutely nothing” to lower the likelihood of an incident, they say there is much that schools can do to prevent being the next iteration of World-wide breaking news.

“We already care about our children’s safety, which is why we have things like drug awareness campaigns, road safety classes and self defense courses like Karate and Judo,” said one teacher, “but we need to step it up. We need gun classes in school. Our kids don’t need a blackbelt. They need a bandolier and holster. We could make it fun: just think, Trigger-nometry.”

Publishers and book houses are already hard at work 'remastering' much-beloved classics to teach kids the necessary skills every school-going American child needs.

This is not all, they said.

“The answer is counterintuitive but simple: more guns,” said a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. “Armed guards in the hallways. Teachers with concealed carry permits. Snipers in the football lights. Automated sentry guns on the CCTV cameras. We need to think of our children’s safety. If we weren’t wasting money on unnecessary Public Health and Obamacare, we would be able to reallocate funds into our always-cut Military Defense budget and arm every child.”

Though teachers have commented on the possible risk of actually being the one who blows all their students away because that little shit Billy in Grade 6 Maths won’t Shut The Fuck Up for ten seconds and never hands in any homework, they agree that it’s a risk they’re willing to take.

“We need to put their interests first,” said Maths teacher. “Even if teaching sometimes makes me think, ‘these psychopaths may have had a point.’”

Companies across the country have jumped on the bandwagon, and are now offering protection aimed at young Jane or Jimmy.

“With our new line of bulletproof children’s clothing and Kevlar-lined sunhats, as well as fun and exciting rebranding on our most popular lines of firearms, not only will you be protecting little Timmy from brain-destroying high-velocity fragmentation, low-caliber projectiles and the deadly Ultra-violet rays of the sun,” said a company statement by military supplier Arma Inc, "but you'll also be bringing yourself just that little bit more peace and comfort."

"Machine-washable and stain resistant, the fibre is a breeze to clean, and its breathable material means your child won’t feel hot and bothered any time, whether he is kicking a ball around with his friends or running for his life through the blood-soaked halls of his once innocent schoolgrounds.”

Only one thing remains certain, however: this debate is not one that has any easy fixes.

“Some people think that just banning guns will sort out the problem, but guns don’t kill people. People do," said one resident, who said that that argument doesn't equally apply to poison or Class 5 illegal narcotics or Biological and Chemical weapons. "You want to ban guns? Well, just look at godless hellholes like Australia and Britain. Do we want to go down that same, socialist road?"

He shook his head and pumped another depleted-uranium pyrophoric armour-piercing high-velocity explosive-tipped thermobaric anti-tank round into his fully automatic shotgun. "I'd rather die. Or, in this particular case, that my children die."

Pic (my edit) composed of Public Domain images and Ak47 by Burnyburnout and Rebel (inserted) from Al Jazeera Creative Commons