Several components here.

As I have written here before in a variety of ways, the all-spectrum Gramscian campaign of attacks against our traditional world-view, culture, morality, values, and behavior has succeeded in loosening traditional moral standards and constraints, and changed expectations, has flooded every form of communication/entertainment/propaganda with very visceral, highly influential, violent stories, behavior, and images, and has “defined deviance down.”

This because Gramsci et al very coldly calculated that a society in which anger, despair, violence, and chaos were more prevalent and had more scope for action, in which groups, interests, and factions were pitted against each other and family, social, civil, generational, and patriotic unity was shattered, in which evil was denied and/or went unpunished, justice very often denied, genuine peace and real satisfaction increasingly harder to find, and cynicism rampant would be much less able to resist their campaign, and much more receptive to their message that the Left had the solutions and policies to “fix” things.
These Gramscian attacks have succeeded in moving the bar, so that the old governing images and standards as to what was “thinkable” and acceptable, the social and cultural barriers that formerly existed in people’s minds with regard to behavior and violence have been “transformed,” and the quantity, content, nature, and intensity of such witnessed, read about, remembered, and, then, imagined violence-and it’s possibility-has grown and become more and more imaginable and, thus, possible; such intense violence now virtually omnipresent as compared to the “old fashioned,” “rigid,” “judgmental,” and “stuffy” times of several decades ago.

Paralleling these developments a current “therapeutic” model of dealing with crime in which punishments have been weakened, and a concomitant rise in the Marxist, determinist idea that individuals really have no personal responsibility for their acts, but are the powerless “victims” of various impersonal historical/economic/social forces–the Gramscian attack against Education, Religion and Judeo-Christian values, morality, and behavior has played its part here. Further compounding the problem came the “deinstitutionalization” movement, which has flooded our streets with more and more of the mentally ill, while simultaneously making the definition of who is seriously mentally ill much narrower, and commitment of those seriously mentally ill much more difficult.

Making matters even worse has been the Left’s politically correct desensitization of us all to what in former decades (until, starting in the 1960s) would have been considered “crazy” behavior, and the mantra that we mustn’t be “judgmental” about other people, so that people who would have formerly been seen as potentially dangerous, been more carefully watched, and seen as in need of hospitalization are now more often seen as just “odd,” and as people who should not be “judged,” but should be allowed to just “follow their own drummer,” “as long as they don’t hurt anybody.” Of course, by the time they actually “hurt” somebody it is just too late.

I can’t guarantee it, but my guess is that in the former “bad” old decades a lot of these sociopathic, greatly “disturbed” mass murderers would have not had so much social and cultural “permission” to carry out their fantasies and impulses, would have been detected, and locked up in some mental hospital, and not been free and out on the streets, able to commit these crimes.

Incentivize the credentialing by adding an economic stipend from the school districts for those passing the course (even janitors, secretarys, school guards, whatever), and maintaining a concealed carry weapon on their person at all times.

And introduce legislation to abolish the establishment of the idiotic “gun free” campuses …or as the evil call them “free fire zones”.

One of those administrators/teachers might then have been able to take that loony out before those babies died.

…but unarmed like that? – This was finished almost before the police could arrive.

Senseless, senseless tragedy. Evil …just evil.

Military and/or police training certainly helps. The idea of training and practice is that your reactions become automatic when faced with an emergency. But it’s not a guarantee.

I remember my dad, who was a WWII Navy vet, saying that sometimes the roughest, toughest guys would go to pieces when they had to get their vaccinations. They were scared of the needles.

Then there are people like Sgt. Alvin York, who initially claimed conscientious objector status but ended up earning the Medal of Honor.

I’m always fascinated by the eagerness with which the media focuses, laser-like, on the firearms used in tragedies like this – including misrepresenting a semi-auto rifle as an “automatic” or “assault” rifle – but there rarely seems to be nearly as much interest in understanding the details of the shooter’s mental state, what factors led to it, and how all that pertains to the shooting.

Furthermore, I’m always fascinated by the media’s complete dismissal of where these kinds of events always seem to occur – specifically, in places where there’s an implicit guarantee no one will shoot back and / or at least pin the aggressor down with return fire so as to minimize the carnage.

As far as I can tell, though, the women here who were murdered, such as the principal, did not “hide,” as you state. The principal was reportedly killed “lunging” at the perpetrator in order to overtake him.

Now, of course you may regard this as a lie for propaganda, in order to make her seem more heroic. That is always possible. But that’s the report.

I also heard that some of the other teachers/staff who were killed may have done similar things. Of course we don’t know for sure. Many of the women who “hid” (like the first grade teacher who was interviewed) had classes of young kids they were protecting, and they hid because they were hiding with the children under their care. I agree with you, though, that women are probably less likely, statistically speaking, to try to tackle or disarm a shooter, than men would be.

I would be in favor of an armed guard at schools, or even arming certain teachers who have the right training and/or background. The idea of schools as a totally gun-free zone only seems to empower criminals bent on harm to come there knowing it will be very hard to stop them.