NeuroTypical

Harden the schools, with armed SROs in every one. Pay for it by having congress re-purpose 10% of it's $113 billion unspent COVID funds currently allocated to schools. That'll immediately hand every single public school in the United States $120,000 with which to make improvements. What to do about the dangerously mentally ill who have committed no crime, but might? We used to have asylums for such folks, but it was so unpopular and inhumane we closed them all, choosing instead to, well, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freud-fluoxetine/201807/the-american-mental-asylum-remnant-history

Yay speculating! It's fun to speculate, as long as we don't place speculation and guessing on the same level as doctrine and salvation. I figure if the Lord tells the prophet the day and hour, it'll be for a reason. I'm guessing that reason will be so the prophet can start proclaiming whatever the Lord wants proclaimed as the time draws near. And finally, I think it's a reasonable assumption that no matter what the prophet says, no matter how many unmistakable miraculous signs get prophesied about and then come to pass, no matter how blindingly transparently obviously accurate the prophet is being, no matter how many angels minister to him daily, even if he goes around to morgues raising people from the dead, on camera and streamed live, the past will repeat itself. 3 Nephi 1-2, and 7-9 is a decent record of how humans deal with such things.

Excellent overall post Vort, but I had one clarification: People react irrationally to such mass shootings, only after the media makes a big deal out of it. And boy howdy no, do the not make a big deal out of things unless there's a reason. I wonder how many of us can name any of the 4 elementary school shootings that happened in the 1970's. Or the 9 from the '80's. Or the 5 from the 2000's. Or any of the 10 from the 2010's besides Sandy Hook. For that matter, I wonder how many of us know how many children were shot and killed in Chicago last year. 41, btw. We've understood the media spin for a long time. This chart needs to be updated to include kids, but it's scary accurate.

If you find data and perspective is helpful, and if you have a strong stomach for such things, there is quite a lot of information on school shootings here, the Homeland Security's K-12 School Shooting Database: https://www.chds.us/ssdb/

I always like to mention at this stage of 2nd Amendment discussions, that Utah has had a law on the books since the 90's allowing for permit-holding conceal carry in public schools. Visitors, staff, teachers, legal to carry. School policy covering employees might be another matter, but think about it - our schools have been armed for a quarter century. Something many permit holders know, is legal + shutting up about it = armed good guys but nobody knows they're there, except bad guys who are freaky smart about preserving their own lives. Even the mentally ill ones. It looks like Utah has gone permit-less since I last checked, but the law is still clear: https://bci.utah.gov/concealed-firearm/ That's 25 years for at least one news story about little Johnny Psychopath, and that news story hasn't happened. Folks are free to do some research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States Out of 369 school shootings in the last 20 years, three have occured in Utah. No deaths. - An elementary school teacher with a concealed weapon permit had her gun fire accidentally in a faculty bathroom. The bullet shattered a toilet, and fragments of both the bullet and the porcelain injured her leg. - Police say the two teens ages 14 and 16 were involved in a confrontation on the far north end of Union Middle School. The boys got into an argument. The argument lead to a shooting. The 14-year-old shot the 16-year-old twice. He was sent to the hospital in critical but stable condition. - At Mueller Park Junior High School, a 15-year-old student fired one shot into the ceiling and then pointed the weapon at his own neck. The student was confronted verbally by a teacher and another student and later arrested in possession of a shotgun, a handgun, and ammunition for each and was sentenced to spend time in a Juvenile Justice Services facility. Feel free to compare these stories to any state with more strict school gun bans. I double-dog-dare ya. The argument "we can't have armed citizens/teachers/regular folk, blood will run in the streets/bad guys will take the gun/accidents will soar!" was used in the '80's when conceal carry laws came back and swept the nation. By the '90's, the notion had been basically studied out of existence. Given any demographic, age, sex, income, profession - the permit holding subgroup in that demographic will have lower rates of violent criminal behavior than the rest in that group. Jury has been out for 20 years at least on the subject. Other story - there's a school in one of Colorado's sparsely-populated counties, where they send a group of teachers to Nevada every year for a 4 day defensive handgun course. Someone did some math about police response times and remote distances, and everyone got on board. They've apparently been doing it for years.

Last I heard, 18 kids dead, 3 adults. The killer is dead. I am forcing myself to not become numb at such news. It's harder every time.

Here's the GatorCam, showing one of his category 5 relaxing sessions "up north": I keep trying to get him to invite Mirkwood, but he keeps "forgetting".

I figure since I have changed my username on this forum at least once, that makes me something of an expert. Anyway, going completely off of memory: I figure wherever the participant in the WPP ends up, they should have an honest and transparent discussion with the bishop/branch president presiding over their area. Perhaps a series of discussions.

Howdy - I see nothing wrong with anything on this thread. It's kind of you to consider the testimonies of others, but there's nothing wrong with bringing up personally challenging aspects to our faith that trouble you, even if the same things may trouble others. We're told about gifts of the spirit, and how folks have different gifts. Some folk are given to know, some to believe, some to teach, others to believe the testimony of others. I see a handful of those gifts in this thread, and don't see any reason to hide them from anyone looking. (If you really want the thread taken down, we can do that. But it's not like the mods are all clucking our tongues and worrying about this thread. )

I'm watching Hulu's "Cults and Extreme Belief" show, there's an episode on the FLDS. And I thought of this fun thread. Now I'm bummed out that I didn't keep that letter.

Perspective is important, and relevant data helps drive relevant perspectives. From the chief health policy and planning entity for the state of Florida: I'd also like to see statistics reported by race, but for some reason that raises people's blood pressure.

I don't know anything about Google sheets, but I am a data nerd, so here's my data: ~$19k across 13 years, so around $1500/year? This is for a house with a family of 4 living there.

In case of unintended extra time during sacrament meeting, when the bishopric scrambles to figure out how to fill those last 5 minutes, I keep a link on my phone to this thing. Worthy of being read across any Christian podium, and we saints are hardly an exception.

Well, with other people leaving other organized religion in record numbers, maybe. I mean, folks can always make cases for inactivity, or people who don't believe any more, but don't not-believe enough to have their names removed from the rolls. But just plain old looking at membership numbers (or in this case, numbers of wards/branches): We've been tracking what they call a "declining rate of increase". That means we're still growing, just not as fast. (Sorry, I can only find 2019 data, but I've seen beancounter threads after April's General Conference where folks crunch the numbers and say we're still baaaaarely growing.

Ah, the sweet sound of someone being filled by a well-timed on-point song. Good deal @Jamie123! From 2012 until around 2020, I had a growing playlist of impactful songs that just seemed to add meaning and hope to my life. I was so surprised to discover a connection to music - it was like I woke up one day and started seeing a bunch of new colors I never knew existed. I'm always happy to hear someone else is experiencing something similar. The song impacting you reminds me of Michael McClean's stuff. Here - perhaps this something in this list can build on things for you: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCta5-IAIOzLSGjM4tiWRpbA