I think that as a whole, the American public has decided that fairly free gun ownership & access is worth the price.
It's a mind set, it isn't going to change any time soon, so they can most likely expect these sorts of attacks on a regular basis, until the current fashion in shootings changes.
As for school practices. There are regular practices in Australian schools too. They are not specifically for shootings but there are 2 types of drill.
1. There's the 'fire drill' which is basically where every class has a designated spot to meet outside. When I was teaching, we did this several times a year. Had to grab a copy of the roll, line up, walk to the designated spot, do a roll check. Prin would be there to clock how quickly it was done & congratulate us all.
The main purpose was not to get the classes out (as that's easy) but to see that the other parts of the duties were all done too. The prin would get a few older kids to hide in spots like the toilets, store rooms, behind library stacks etc just to see every teacher had checked their designated extra spots.
2. There's the lock down drill. This works in reverse. All children are brought in, doors locked, no one is allowed to move out of their area unless in danger. Not even toilet visits.
We had a couple of occasions where our drills were not practice. One was a bomb scare (on a rainy day too) where we evacuated the whole school up to the local kindergarten for an hour while police checked each room. We got the biggest laugh of the day when one officer said that when they entered one of the classes (where there was a messy male teacher) they thought the bomb had already gone off.
But the second occasion was when there was a knife wielding man in a siege in a nearby street. Every parent had to be called to personally pick up their child as no one was allowed out. We were locked in our portable classes till nearly 6pm Friday afternoon which would be okay except for the toilet issue with kids!!
Realistically, if someone came in with guns, knives or other weapons though, schools in Australia are sitting ducks as there is free access to most primary schools & what could you do if someone came in shooting out windows & locks etc?
All you can do is practice at quick assembly, quick movement from place to place.
These things seem to happen more in American secondary schools so at least teens might have some initiative but what hope would little kids have? What chance does anyone, child or adult have, if they are going about their everyday business in a shopping centre, school, street etc and someone starts randomly shooting?
