The scene at the Capitol in Tallahassee pic.twitter.com/lcJJgRzPA3
— Steve Bousquet (@stevebousquet) February 21, 2018
.
Reasonable argument, with a side of humor — “F*ck You, I Like My Guns”:
… I always find it interesting that when I was in the Army, and part of my job was to be incredibly proficient with this exact weapon, I never carried one at any point in garrison other than at the range. Our rifles lived in the arms room, cleaned and oiled, ready for the next range day or deployment. We didn’t carry them around just because we liked them. We didn’t bluster on about barracks defense and our second amendment rights. We tucked our rifles away in the arms room until the next time we needed them, just as it had been done since the Army’s inception. The military police protected us from threats in garrison. They had 9 mm Berettas to carry. They were the only soldiers who carry weapons in garrison. We trusted them to protect us, and they delivered. With notably rare exceptions, this system has worked well. There are fewer shootings on Army posts than in society in general, probably because soldiers are actively discouraged from walking around with rifles, despite being impeccably well trained with them. Perchance, we could have the largely untrained civilian population take a page from that book?
I understand that people want to be able to own guns. That’s ok. We just need to really think about how we’re managing this. Yes, we have to manage it, just as we manage car ownership. People have to get a license to operate a car, and if you operate a car without a license, you’re going to get in trouble for that. We manage all things in society that can pose a danger to other people by their misuse. In addition to cars, we manage drugs, alcohol, exotic animals (there are certain zip codes where you can’t own Serval cats, for example), and fireworks, among other things. We restrict what types of businesses can operate in which zones of the city or county. We have a whole system of permitting for just about any activity a person wants to conduct since those activities could affect others, and we realize, as a society, that we need to try to minimize the risk to other people that comes from the chosen activities of those around them in which they have no say. Gun ownership is the one thing our country collectively refuses to manage, and the result is a lot of dead people.…
Let’s be honest. You just want a cool toy, and for the vast majority of people, that’s all an AR-15 is. It’s something fun to take to the range and put some really wicked holes in a piece of paper. Good for you. I know how enjoyable that is. I’m sure for a certain percentage of people, they might not kill anyone driving a Formula One car down the freeway, or owning a Cheetah as a pet, or setting off professional grade fireworks without a permit. Some people are good with this stuff, and some people are lucky, but those cases don’t negate the overall rule. Military style rifles have been the choice du jour in the incidents that have made our country the mass shootings capitol of the world. Formula One cars aren’t good for commuting. Cheetahs are bitey. Professional grade fireworks will probably take your hand off. All but one of these are common sense to the average American. Let’s fix that. Be honest, you don’t need that AR-15. Nobody does. Society needs them gone, no matter how good you may be with yours. Kids are dying, and it’s time to stop fucking around.
.
The @NRA is the only organization in America that gets routinely blamed for things their members did not do
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 15, 2018
as someone named Abdul i’ll never understand what it’s like to be generalized by the actions of a few. must be rough, thank you for sharing your story. https://t.co/VlOhSO3haK
— abdul (@Advil) February 16, 2018
Betty Cracker
Trump is doing his “listening session” thing with school shooting survivors. I just clicked on via a Twitter feed, and he’s doing all the talking so far. He’s mumbling the crackpot ideas from Fox News, e.g., arming lunch ladies.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
So I guess all that lobbying for looser gun laws is all just nothing huh?
Betty Cracker
Oh god, now someone is talking about how our schools should be like Israel’s. Betsy DeVos is gaping cluelessly. ETA: Ended the feed. It’s too dumb to listen to.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
A gun safety law that consists of raising the minimum age to buy a semi-automatic weapon is pathetic. Seriously? Maybe you could suggest passing out aspirin to those who are shot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If you think this is stupid, I guess you hate veterans. ETA: Is there somewhere in the internets I can place a bet on Jethrene Huckabee’s next performance?
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Do teachers have any say in this? Do they want to be trained to kill, as snipers or sharp shooters? I am not signing up to kill people when I take on a teaching assignment.
Annie
I can’t get a driving license because I can’t pass a DMV eye exam. Which is fine by me, my eyes are lousy even with glasses. But it’s always astounded me that I could buy a gun without anybody even checking to find out if I could see what I shot at.
Mike J
As I’ve said a few times on twitter, the day somebody brings a 24′ sloop to school and murders 17 people is the day I stop sailing. Why can’t people with other hobbies do the same?
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It is insulting.
Corner Stone
Where were the persuadables?
West of the Cascades
Have Cole and agingmillenialengineer ever been photographed together?
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@Betty Cracker:
My boss last night brought up a story about middle school student who brought a gun to school and had accidentally shot themselves in the bathroom. They also had a bomb in their backpack. He said that arming teachers wasn’t the answer. His solution was having an armed officer stationed at every school but wasn’t there one at that Florida school and that didn’t make a difference?
I personally have a bigger question: have kids always been this fucked up and never had access to this kind of weaponry or is there a social problem with kids today, in addition to the guns?
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: It’s an absurd suggestion, isn’t it? Most schools already have an armed cop onsite — MSDHS did, and so did Columbine. They can’t afford proper equipment, but they’re going to train and arm legions of teachers? And provide secure weapons storage spaces, etc.? Absurd.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dear god
I’m glad I didn’t watch this, but I can see it in my head, he’s doing that arms-folded thing and rocking around in his chair while he talk, isn’t he?
raven
@Betty Cracker: I think he spent quite a bit of time listening.
Chet Murthy
These picures and videos, they strike at you, just as the pictures and videos (which I couldn’t watch — I’d get too angry) from the massacre did. After Nov 2016, I felt enormous fear — bordering on terror sometimes. I wondered if I should start preparing for a career overseas (lucky to have that possibility open), start preparing my family for expatriation (even though I know no other home).
And then the Women’s March, and #MeToo, and now these youth. These things, they make me feel like we have hope as a nation, and we’ll come out of this.
We gotta support these youth. It’s a moral imperative. More than just supporting gun control, I think supporting these youth, helping them figure out their own voice, their own demands, help them to force the issues that they care about.
I donated to March for our Lives today. And when it comes time in SF, I’ll march. With a poster saying “The Kids Are Alright”.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Imagine this, a teacher has a gun locked safely and has a choice to make, lock the door and barricade the students or get the gun. The police were at Sandy Hook in a little over two minutes and it was too late.
The Florida shooting was about six minutes.
Corner Stone
In happier news, the women;s curling NBC promised us last night is now finally on CNBC.
Betty Cracker
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: Both and, I think. It’s not just kids, as you know.
Betty Cracker
@raven: It was just my bad luck to click on when he was running his yap, then. I watched a total of maybe two minutes.
Lapassionara
God, how I miss Obama!
Chet Murthy
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: Kids have always been this fucked-up. When I was in HS, the younger brother of a friend brought a big-ass knife to school and got into a bit of an altercation with it. Lots of kids did drugs. And this was around 1980.
As they say, “The Good Old Days” were not as good as people remember them. Hell, I remember (in my bible belt hometown) a friend would craft obscene things out of pizza dough (not gonna say what). I’m sure today he’s an upstanding father of daughters who gets angry if they’re one minute late getting home.
Had another friend who was into Nazi stuff a bit. Harmless acting-out, IIRC. Several who were into confederate memorabilia. All in HS.
Timurid
This moment is both inspiring and disturbing. A movement by media moments is not sustainable. People who are sympathetic, media savvy or just relatable enough to the mainstream and/or elites will get an audience. And everybody else? There were two other mass shootings this year (Las Vegas and Texas) that were much worse than this one (500+ victims in Vegas, nearly as many small children dead in Texas as at Sandy Hook). And. Nobody. Cared. At. All. What about Puerto Rico, an event orders of magnitude worse than any mass shooting? Those victims missed out on their magic media moment, and there will never be a national movement to avenge them. Ever.
And if we decide that the best gun control solution is banning entire classes of weapons, we don’t start with assault rifles. The answer to that question is handguns. And it’s not even close.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
For anyone’s who’s watching, has Trump actually listened to any of the victims and let them speak?
MomSense
My son and I are watching this listening session and he just asked if anyone had considered that a teacher may be disgruntled and shoot their class.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: As I commented on previous thread:
raven
@Betty Cracker: I’m NOT defending him at all but they are actually still at it.
bluefish
Looks like young Sam Zeif is being left to do a lot of heavy lifting. Pathetic! Thank you, young Sam.
JPL
I am posting this again.. It was the local abc channel
My local news said that it was the first time that a president and victims showed such raw emotion. Yup if shaking your head like a marionette is showing raw emotion, the president excels.
Sab
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: They used to not have access to that weaponry. When I was in school in the late sixties, early seventies the tough kids had knives. Nobody but actual hunters had guns.
ETA And the NRA was a wimpy organiztion that actually taught actual gun safety.
bemused
@raven:
He spent a lot of time being quiet which must be a record for him. He may have looked like he was listening but I don’t think much penetrated.
schrodingers_cat
How many parents are on board this idea of turning their children’s school into a war zone.
Mike J
@schrodingers_cat: Thought of you when I saw this: “Donald Trump Jr. says he admires India’s poor people because of their spirit and smiles”
Corner Stone
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
There was quite a bit of long winded filibustering by some of the adults in the room. So to speak.
opiejeanne
@Betty Cracker: These guys proposing arming teachers never had that one teacher, usually in middle school, who if he had a gun handy would have shot one of the snot-nosed punks in his class. I had one in 7th and again in 8th grade, both of them math teachers fo some reason.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@Corner Stone:
We’re they gun nuts?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That should go well for black kids-squads of 70+ year old veterans of CONUS QM depots who swagger down hallways in MAGA hats while toting various pistols. Maybe a few unemployable 400 pound militia clowns can get in on the show, too, sweeping Bushmasters and AK47s back and forth, scoping out potential threats.
Them black kids and hippie freaks will learn their place, you betcha. No more uppity talk!
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@opiejeanne:
Seriously. What if a teacher just snapped one day and shot some students?
schrodingers_cat
@Mike J: Serves Modi’s government right for kissing Trump Jr’s ass.
condorcet runner-up
@JPL: Also, doesn’t that just make the teachers the first targets?
ETA: But it does sell more guns, so …
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Corner Stone: Mr DAW has been recording all the curling and watching it. Yesterday he had a segment recorded at 1AM. It included an ad for a phone sex site
bemused
@MomSense:
Smart kid you have there.
mai naem mobile
Arming teachers is so.incredibly stupid, I don’t even know what to say. First you now have teachers with guns which makes them targets even before a shooting. You could have some angry student or two grab the gun from the teacher. During a shooting the teacher is the target. Also, you always have the element of surprise with the person committing the crime. Is the teacher going to teach or worry about an attack?,We haven’t even gotten to the accidents that would occur with a teacher carrying around a loaded weapon. Truly stupid idea.
MomSense
@opiejeanne:
My son in middle school is with you on this.
SiubhanDuinne
In case you’ve neglected to pay a call on yr Wonkette this afternoon, here is some mighty fierce and pleasurable reading for you.
Anne Laurie
@MomSense:
Heck, I was just an extremely annoying nerd in high school, and I can remember occasions when my teacher would definitely have shot me if they could’ve. And most of my HS teachers were nuns!
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I’m pro anything that makes it harder to get a gun, just from a public health perspective.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Has Chuck Todd praised his statesmanship yet?
schrodingers_cat
@JPL: As someone who has had experience with classroom teaching, I can say without the slightest hesitation that it is an unworkable and an extremely stupid idea.
laura
@Corner Stone: https://youtu.be/evNi4_2qHPY
JPL
@condorcet runner-up: Well not if they had a grenade.
dmsilev
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
“Need help getting your rocks off?”?
MomSense
@Anne Laurie:
I remember that two teachers in my school went through a horrible divorce where one of the teachers had been having an affair with a third teacher. That situation was bad enough without guns involved..
raven
I’m sorry, I had dvr’d it and was watching a delay.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Major Major Major Major: Me too, but it’s still pathetic that’s the best we can do.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@opiejeanne:
You act like that’s a bad thing. Ever chaperone a middle school dance? The sixth grade boys sent me into a murderous rage….
Corner Stone
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: No, they seemed to be pro-gun control. But in a bland, technical way. The old white guy talked about all the groups he had started/joined that were working in this space. I had the black guy on mute but he was speaking passionately about something for several minutes. It seemed like the Round of Adults was in there to run out the clock or keep the yoots away from the mic. May just be me.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@dmsilev: Hey, you must be an ad writer! LOL
Betty Cracker
@Timurid:
I disagree, not because you’re not correct that handguns are responsible for more gun deaths but because I don’t think we could get broad support to ban handguns, but most Americans are already there on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. It’s not as heavy a lift. The gun culture and gun death toll are very complex problems, and we should definitely address them. But mass casualty shootings are relatively simple to ameliorate — ban or heavily restrict access to semiautomatic weapons and high capacity magazines. Do that first, then do what Australia did, which is require licenses to own different classes of pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. It works.
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat:
As someone who teaches in a university system in a very red southern state who might get sucked into this madness if it ever gains real traction….
NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE
JPL
I feel that Mr. Pollock lost his daughter but he is wrong that airports are protected. In his state five people were killed at the Ft. Lauderdale airport were killed, and several wounded. There is no way to fortify the nation, unless you examine the root cause.
Corner Stone
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
Then that obviously calls for an armed Commissar in each room to watch the teacher.
Anne Laurie
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
It’s a step that even gun-fondlers have trouble arguing against. Kids’ brains are not developed enough for serious adult pleasures, like owning one’s very own semi-automatic! We have age requirements for drinking, smoking, even renting a car!
Again: Consider the anti-smoking campaigns. Prohibition wouldn’t have worked, but gradually narrowing the areas where smokers *can* indulge has reduced the percentage of adult smokers a lot, because it makes it harder to get addicted / easier to avoid temptation. We didn’t get into this mess overnight, we’re not (unfortunately) gonna be able to climb out overnight either.
bemused
I can imagine a lot of teachers would quit rather than required or strongly encouraged to be trained and armed. I can imagine that an armed teaching profession would then attract the type of people who are primarily interested in jobs where they can be armed, law enforcement, ICE, etc, etc.
There’s not one good or sensible reason to arm the all the school personnel.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Don’t be so quick to mock. When I was a school student, I would have been happy as hell had a lunch lady pulled out a pistol and blown away the meal burgers we were served on some days.
Shoot bad food, not people.
I guess I will have to check out some of this Trump BS later. I doubt that he’s a match for these students.
debbie
@raven:
Did he ask them to confirm his Inauguration crowd was the biggest ever?
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I didn’t realize the “listening session” was so early, so I haven’t tuned in. Now I’m afraid to.
Rachel Maddow covered the “armed teachers” thing last night. She pointed out that if we suddenly had just 6-8 armed teachers in every school in America (“reasonable compromise” number, right?) we would suddenly have more armed teachers than there are police officers in the country.
Amir Khalid
@Annie:
Some years ago an NRA official was advocating — I kid you not — guns for the blind. I’ll never forget Stevie Wonder’s reaction: “Imagine me with a gun. It’s just crazy.”
rp
Has anyone been following Greenwald and Scahill on Twitter today? They’ve been tweeting all day about this interview CNN did with a woman in Florida who ran a Trump FB page and how terribly unfair it was. I find it more than a little odd that the two of them along with several others who they’ve retweeted have been pushing this so hard. Did a bunch of people simultaneously decide that a fairly innocuous interview was the most important story of the day? Or is this coordinated?
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
As I’ve said before, ban the high capacity magazines.
I’ll be the first to admit that I bought my Colt AR and Maadi AK mostly for the coolness factor, and that included the 30 round mags.
Were they fun to shoot? Sure.
Would they have been less fun having to swap magazines every 5 or 10 rounds?
Yes, but I still would have bought them regardless.
Unless you ban *all* semiautomatics with detachable magazines, the gun makers will start selling high cap mags for “traditional” looking rifles, and the whack jobs will use those instead of a banned AR or AK clone.
Start with magazines and then we can see what else may be needed.
schrodingers_cat
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: A more likely scenario: A student gets hold of the classroom gun and shoots the teacher and fellow students.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: Shooting bullets in random directions and listening for the sounds of ricochets (or screams) is _exactly_ like dolphin or bat sonar, so why do you hate giving blind people another way to navigate the world?
Mike in NC
In this “listening session” did Trump talk about the huge crowd that attended the inauguration? You know, IMPORTANT STUFF!
Corner Stone
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Never pass. The NRA wants to tap that younger market before they die from binge drinking, DWI crash or drug overdose. They can’t give them three years without buying a gun!
opiejeanne
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: Both of the teachers I described acted out in ways that would get them canned now, and should have even back in the 60s. They both slammed a kid up against the wall with the windows, made the whole room shake (new building in 1963). The 8th grade teacher disappeared a month before the end of the year, supposedly had a nervous breakdown which I totally believe from the way he was suffering in that class. The new teacher had no record of our earlier test results or anything else, and everyone got a C. I was pissed, especially when I entered HS in another district and tried to explain that to the counselor when he was trying to figure out where to place me.
A kid who sat next to me in that class in 7th grade took six weeks off while recovering from a bullet wound in the head he acquired while “cleaning his uncle’s gun”. Just missed killing him and he had an interesting scar until his hair grew back. It was a rough school and there were gang fights after hours.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
Nuns with guns. Always a ballistic combination.
Corner Stone
@dmsilev: I think of it like crosswalks. The gun could emit sounds as you navigate through crowds. That’s how you determine where to “make a hole”.
Gravenstone
@raven: Listening to Fox News doesn’t count, sadly.
JPL
Now Dana Bash is saying it was a moment for the history books.
debbie
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
If you’re talking about the kid I think you’re talking about (near Masillon?), he died in the hospital earlier today. They found all kinds of other stuff in his backpack, so he may have been planning something.
debbie
@Brachiator:
They were bad enough when they just had rulers!
Chet Murthy
@Timurid: I don’t know about you, but it’s not just (as admirable as they are) the individual survivors that are getting me optimistic. It’s the videos of -masses- of students (like during the Women’s March).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dear God. The Tweet-For-Everything thing makes me wonder if the only god left awake is the Trickster
Timurid
@Betty Cracker:
Assault rifles are the easiest win, but I’m worried about people declaring victory and going home.
The gun violence debate is totally dominated by mass shootings and the weapons used to commit them. And, unfortunately, it’s not because those are the easiest problems to fix. It’s because mass shootings can happen to Good People, and all the other modes of gun violence can’t. (That’s actually a lie. Even the most sheltered members of the upper middle class are orders of magnitude more likely to be shot by family members, friends or themselves than by a terrorist or headcase with an AR-15. But nobody believes it.)
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Amir Khalid: In Iowa, it’s legal for blind people to own guns
Bobby Thomson
@rp: Glenn’s just pissed off about losing half his followers.
opiejeanne
@MomSense: I saw. Jesus, don’t any of these morons remember middle school? Don’t they remember the days they tormented a substitute teacher to the breaking point?
heck, my 9th grade Algebra teacher would throw the eraser at kids who were annoying him and he had excellent aim. Imagine someone with a worse temper and a handgun.
Betty Cracker
@rp: I did see that. They work together, presumably, so I’m not surprised they were in agreement. But I did think it was weird that they were so outraged by the CNN piece. I saw it and thought it was fairly harmless. Seemed like a legit news story to me.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
I think the traditional collapsible white stick might be a bit safer for those in the visually-impaired person’s vicinity. Also less likely to result in misleading echoes or reverberations.
Doug R
@rp: You follow Greenwald and Scahill on twitter?
I’m sorry.
bemused
@rp:
I saw that video. Even when the reporter carefully explained how Russians influenced her, she refused to believe it and emphatically said she had nothing to do with Russians. She didn’t get it. Gullible and not too bright. Whatever Greenwald and Scahill are doing with pushing this “unfair” story so hard, it’s nothing good.
Corner Stone
@Amaranthine RBG: Come on man, that’s ridiculous.
Chet Murthy
@Timurid:
Nobody’s declaring victory and going home. That’s like “the ACA was the end goal for health care”. Nopes, nopes, nopes, and nopes. The reason to focus on assault weapons is the same as focusing on health care for the poorest. It’s the -least- defensible position. Attack, bring it down, then move on to the next. It’s what those forced-birthers do, right? Start with third-trimester abortions (in their eyes least-defensible, *not* mine) and work backwards to contraception and chastity belts.
Gravenstone
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: Or one of their staff members, in a heated moment. We all understand this, but having ready access to firearms is not a fucking panacea.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hmm. She also said he was Putin’s Puppet.
Bobby Thomson
Am I being paranoid or does this all sound like an excuse for shooting more black kids?
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
And to shoot them as well?
Corner Stone
@Doug R: I actually like Scahill. He used to have a sense of humor as well as excellent long form work. I haven’t dipped in for a while though.
JPL
OMG.. Trump had a list of things to say during his performance ..
Someone else can highlight… I’m sick
https://twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/966444573374472197
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: Russian asset’s gonna Russian asset.
Baud
@JPL: Sarah Palin did better writing it on her hand.
Baud
@Bobby Thomson: Heh.
Timurid
@Chet Murthy:
You and I might think that way… but all the people who only have an opinion about guns right after the latest mass shooting? I’m not sure I trust them…
JPL
@Baud: What a fucking asshole… His staff had to remind him to say I hear you.. Think of the staff member who wrote that. .. What type of person is that..
btw I’m pissed.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
There are probably more rules to throwing a down field pass than owning a gun.
Amaranthine RBG
@Corner Stone:
How so?
Doug R
@Bobby Thomson:
BINGO
rp
@Doug R: I occasionally hate read them. One of my new year’s resolutions was to stop, but I’m a fallen man.
Eric S.
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): No, no. Aspirin is to prevent the wimmin folk from getting pregnant.
grandpa john
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: so I assume that our billionaire idiot pres is going to pay for the liability insurance for all these hundred of thousands of untrained vigilante guards. Our moron pres needs to be under 24 hour lockdown he is insane. As a retired teacher I can say it would have required a hell of a salary more than I was paid t for me to wear a gun at school
Betty Cracker
@Timurid: You’re not wrong on the facts — handguns kill a lot more people. The randomness of school shootings and mass shootings like Vegas, Aurora, etc., makes people feel more vulnerable, whereas they’re far more likely to lose a family member to suicide, domestic violence, etc. All of it needs to be addressed. I think AL’s correct at #63, though. It’s going to have to be an incremental process.
Jeffro
There is already a major teacher shortage in many parts of the country right now. Is this supposed to make the profession more appealing ??
debbie
A Dallas councilman has asked the NRA to move their convention out of Dallas. Siberia would work for me.
rp
@Betty Cracker: Even if you thought the reporter was unfair, their completely over the top reaction was beyond weird. And then they were retweeting others making the same point. Really does make you wonder if someone is coordinating this activity.
Corner Stone
@Amaranthine RBG: Shotguns without a minimum length barrel are already illegal. So all others put their shot in a selected pattern. And every second the shooter takes to shove more shotshells into the tube gives people more chances to escape or attack the shooter. The shotgun also is not going to have the lethal impact down a school highway an AR will. I could go on but there is just no comparison for this type of incident between an AR and a shotgun.
Baud
@JPL:
“I … care… about…me, no, you…I mean, you.”
opiejeanne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I worked as a substitute teacher. My first day was at a jr high, 7th & 8th grade, that was a rough school at the time. Really rough. Parents treated the 8th grade dance like a prom because they figured their kids wouldn’t make it to their junior year without either dropping out or being assigned to the school where pregnant teens were parked. (I taught there once, too)
I was so shell shocked that the person assigning jobs handed me a real sweetheart assignment for the next day and told me that if I didn’t take it she could see I’d never come back. I had a ball with those kids, but that junior high was the absolute pits.
I had to quit a couple of years later because I kept catching everything from the kids and after the second bout of pneumonia the doctor told me to do something else.
mai naem mobile
I hate the way that Dolt45 folds his arms tightly at these kind of occasions and he has this expression that you damn well know he thinks he should put on because of his reality show acting training. You know he’s not listening and he’s already made his mind up.
Baud
@rp: “someone”
MomSense
@Bobby Thomson:
We already have a school to prison pipeline so I do not think you are being paranoid at all.
Gravenstone
@Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman):
I’m perfectly happy to go there. Yes, ban all firearms with detachable magazines. If you can’t effectively hunt with a 3-5 round fixed magazine rifle, defend your home with a 4-5 round fixed magazine shotgun, deter a mugger with a six gun – you’re doing it wrong. You’re just not going to find yourself in a situation where you have to defensively engage more than a couple of targets outside of a combat situation. Buybacks and/or trade ins to get compliant weapons, then destroy those out of compliance. Hell, the old warhorse M-1 Garand could make a comeback under those conditions.
cwmoss
@JPL: Ten bucks says your local station is owned by those Sinclair motherfuckers.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: it is a multi faceted problem and we can and should bring that up at every opportunity . ( plenty of sensible solutions for every facet by the way – which I’m sure you already know, Betty – just saying that bringing up all of the facets and all the solutions helps defeat this “nothing can be done mentality” on the right)
debbie
@JPL:
Unbelievable that he would turn the note around like that. How stupid must he be?
celticdragonchick
If anyone is interested…my letter to James Fallows at The Atlantic on gun control and arming teachers was published this morning.
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2018/02/a-veteran-on-the-need-to-control-civilian-arms/553709/
I’m a veteran, and I’m a teacher, and I have yet to find a single one of my colleagues or read a single comment from any teacher anywhere who thinks putting guns in our classrooms is a good idea. I refuse. Period.
rp
@Baud: To clarify, I’ve long thought Greenwald et al were simply a-holes who were doing it for the attention. But now I’m starting to buy that he’s actually on the payroll.
celticdragonchick
@Gravenstone: Restrict all detachable magazines to ten rounds. We did it before.
trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
My 8th grade history teacher (sadly can’t remember his name) had quite the reputation for flinging missiles at unruly kids. Once was talking to a kid next to me when the pencil suddenly flew out of my hand resting atop the desk. Chalk, dead center, and I was in the middle of the room.
Most male teachers had served in WWII or Korea, so we “tested” them gingerly.
Baud
@celticdragonchick: But what if 11 people burgle my house simultaneously?
debbie
@Jeffro:
Chief Justice Warren Burger had it right.
Ladyraxterinok
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: My son (now 48) said at time of Columbine he was surprised people were surprised at the shooting. He was only surprised something like that hadn’t happened earlier. He said the hi school kids he was tutoring were very angry, orders of magnitude angrier than when he’d been at that hi school 10 yrs earlier. And that what he found really upsetting was that now girls were angry too.
Why the anger? His thought – no one was paying any attn to them. Everyone in their lives was working flat to survive and then get ahead. They had no time for their kids, just gave them some shiny things and then rushed off to their next job/appointment/meeting.
Son admitted he had no answer, just his observations.
schrodingers_cat
@celticdragonchick: Agreed. Guns don’t belong in classrooms and teachers already have a job and that job is not that of an armed guard.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Call 911.
trollhattan
@celticdragonchick:
Damn fine letter. Belongs alongside TBogg’s “Natural Born Killer” piece. Well done!
Amir Khalid
@Amaranthine RBG:
You have to take into account the relative difficulty of restricting assault rifles (if you tut-tut my use of the term just to split hairs, then to perdition with you) vs. that of restricting pistols or shotguns. Also too, assault are the weapons of choice in mass shootings, and preventing more deaths from mass shootings is what this part of the gun debate is about.
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
I had guy friends who would build pipe bombs and explode them in the woods at night. This was the mid to late 80s.
So, yes, teenagers have always been fucked up. They just didn’t have easy access to military-quality guns and high-capacity magazines.
celticdragonchick
@Jeffro: No way in hell am I bringing a gun into my classroom. I am a decent shot…and I shoot regularly. I know perfectly damned well I am nowhere NEAR good enough to try to engage a shooter in a crowded hallway or surrounded by screaming students.
Special Operators do that shit and they train with live ammo three or more times a week. I was an M60 gunner on my helicopter…not a Delta operator. I know my weapons and I know my limitations…and it is fucking madness to expect educators to act like SEAL Team 6. What the holy fuck?
And keep in mind that I DO have military training and that I shoot and I am comfortable with weapons? What the hell about my colleagues who never touched a gun before? Why in God’s name do that want to put this fucking unforgivable burden on us? So the manufacturers can keep selling AR platforms? So nuts can get ready for their wet dream race war?
NO! FUCK NO!!
My students, my colleagues and I am not their goddamned blood sacrifices.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
PUBLIC: “How do we keep guns out of our schools?”
TRUMP: “By having more guns in our schools!”
celticdragonchick
@trollhattan:
I appreciate the feedback. Thanks.
celticdragonchick
I’ll BBL….
debbie
@celticdragonchick:
Even more offensive is training kids to throw books at the shooter and sacrifice themselves for other kids. Children should sacrifices themselves over inconveniencing these gun-toting dickheads??? Fuck all of them.
(Nice letter, by the way.)
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone:
Well, it appears the original has been sent to the Island of Misfit Comments, but considering everything else he/she/it/them has ever said, why would we expect different?
Jeffro
@debbie: absolutely
And that’s exactly the language we should use : fraud
smintheus
The people most determined to protect their right to own as many killing machines as possible are also highly touchy about being criticized by others? How could that be?
different-church-lady
@rp: Snowflakes.
dmsilev
@Baud: One pistol in each hand, following the example set by the best Hollywood cheesy-action-films.
Timurid
@trollhattan:
I had an art teacher in high school who snapped one day, walked over to a bunch of drawing boards that were stacked at the front of the room and started throwing them frisbee style, as hard as he could, at the class. We were literally hiding under our desks. A few people got hit, but they got away with bruises. If he’d had a gun within reach, people would have died.
Gravenstone
@celticdragonchick: Still makes reloading an exercise taking only several seconds, rather than having to lock the action open (or clearing spent cartridges for the revolvers) and loading each new round individually before closing the action to ready the weapon. It’s all about adding time to the exercise of committing a mass atrocity.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: A friend and I would frequently build and detonate explosives, back in 6th grade. In retrospect, I’m surprised we didn’t hurt ourselves. But guns were just way beyond the scope of anything possible at the time.
Jeffro
@celticdragonchick: I understand and completely agree with the emotion, but in my experience with schools and school districts and police officers and police organizations tells me this will never get off the ground. It is far too unworkable for so many reasons.
What does concern me is that there will be a renewed push to turn our already-secure schools into fortresses. As if that will solve the problem . As if that is a good use of funds
But, just like building the wall, at least it is only an expensive boondoggle.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Trump carrying to those notes in tells me he didn’t read them beforehand.
JPL
@cwmoss: Nope.. In fact I know a lot of people who work for that company, Cox Media. It has an interesting history.
Cox later became the Democratic Party candidate for president of the United States in the presidential election of 1920, running unsuccessfully on a ticket that included Franklin D. Roosevelt as the vice presidential candidate
His phony listening session is getting good press across the spectrum. If only Obama had on the elementary students, then he could have enacted change I guess. His tears were not good enough.
Gravenstone
@trollhattan: My sixth grade homeroom teacher was missing half his right hand due to injuries suffered in Korea. Definite DNFW material, that man.
lgerard
@JPL:
looks like the possum queen’s handwriting
smintheus
@celticdragonchick: I am hoping this will spark nationwide student walk outs. The kids should walk right out of school and stay out until the so-called adults do something to address the threat they face.
Teachers should walk out as well because they face a mortal threat as well. A national walkout for any lengthy period would basically spell doom for the NRA cultists.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
I got to wonder if it’s computer games. Speaking as a game, games really do romanticize weapons a lot and quite deliberately omit the horrible parts of their use like someone on the ground screaming and crying because they’ve been gut shot.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Congrats! I’m assuming this is the same one you posted the other night? It was a good one.
Niles
In America our rights aren’t up for a vote.
Gravenstone
@Mnemosyne: At least the improvised explosives I made in my youth were designed explicitly NOT to make hazardous shrapnel. I just wanted the boom. Going full pipe bomb is 1) fucked up and 2) Darwin award fodder.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Or an acknowledgement of severe short-term memory problems.
bemused
Trump said to parent arming teachers could very well solve “your” problem. He’s detached from anything but himself.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Gravenstone:
That’s something I’d be willing to consider, though I would like to see exceptions for.22 rimfire rifles.
Most fixed magazine 22 rimfire rifles hold anywhere from 12 to 18 rounds, though the Ruger 10/22 has a detachable 10 round factory magazine, and in my experience, the aftermarket 20 and 30 rounders are crap.
different-church-lady
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?:
Probably
Yes, the tech increases the problem.
Ideas are viral. In 1850 you didn’t have automatic weapons, but you also didn’t have the concept itself of going on a shooting rampage in a school. The more it happens, the more it becomes a model for the insane to adopt.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
I always thought they copied it from Chow Yun Fat in John Woo gangster movies.
different-church-lady
@Niles:
True. Only our lives qualify for that.
Gravenstone
@celticdragonchick: I’ve mentioned this here before, but the school distract adjacent to the one I graduated from voted to allow their maintenance and custodial staff to conceal carry in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. Had I children living in that area now, I wouldn’t even allow them to attend events in that district because of that stupidity.
Timurid
@Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman):
What, you don’t find clearing jams every three minutes fun and relaxing?
Chyron HR
@Niles:
You don’t actually have the “right” to kill as many children as possible before the cops arrive, skippy.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Timurid:
If I enjoyed that, the Jennings J-22 would be the weapon of choice.
Tom
@debbie: Why move the NRA convention from Dallas to Siberia when the Marianas Trench is open?
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Violent video games are hugely popular in Asia — far more popular than they are here — and yet they don’t have mass shootings.
It’s the guns.
cain
@Mike J:
You didn’t think of me? Wait.. maybe that is a good thing.. huh. Never mind, back to sipping whiskey.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Please tell me that was photoshopped.
Corner Stone
@Timurid:
Someone confuse the work of Manet with Monet?
Mandalay
@SiubhanDuinne: Your post oddly reminds me of Australia’s Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1983, after Australia had won the America’s Cup. He said “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum“.
A very different situation to the Parkland massacre of course, but the vile Superintendent Curtis Rhodes unwisely decided to say “I’m the boss and you’ll do what I say”, whereas Prime Minister Hawke was smart enough to say “fuck the bosses”.
I hope students in Texas take the Bob Hawke path.
Gravenstone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Please don’t be that fucking stupid.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
Right? And the “45” sleeve monogram–so klassy.
JPL
CBS Nightly News showed Trump’s cheat sheet. My TV was on mute and I happened to look up..
Now they are doing the segment on David Hogg and the fake news about him including Trump’s son liking the conspiracy theory.
Cheryl Rofer
cain
@schrodingers_cat:
My uncle was telling me about that. We initally liked Modi, but not so much. My other uncle, is all BJP because he thinks Hinduism needs to be protected. Which is funny because he was all about helping the muslims some years ago, and now he’s changed his position. If Hinduism needs to be protected, it needs to be from BJP politicians and culture warriors. Christ, what a mess. What will kill Hinduism is apathy not Muslims. I love Hindu thought, but the religion is just kinda meh. My uncle has gotten more religious somewhat thanks to his wife and they are all into Putaparth and Sai Baba etc. Meh.
JPL
@Cheryl Rofer: CBS Nightly news just did a segment on that.
gwangung
@Niles:
Not if you’re white and male, that is.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
In the Chicago suburbs (Oak Park/River Forest), public schools are saying that the students are permitted to walk out in protest, but the teachers must stay, even if the classroom is totally empty.
That seems totally fair to me, and I think it keeps the focus where it belongs: on the kids who are sick of this bullshit.
SiubhanDuinne
Mr. Charles P. Pierce:
When I was in high school, a classmate of mine, and her entire family, perished in a house fire because someone accidentally left the iron plugged in and face down on a piece of fabric, and that shirt or dress or pillowcase caught fire and burned down the house.
To this day, I am beyond paranoid about checking and double/triple-checking to make sure I’ve unplugged the iron (on the rare occasions that I even press clothes any more).
So when Shapiro writes, “What, pray tell, did these students do to earn their claim to expertise?” I will say, assuredly, that THEY WERE THERE. That gives them all the expertise they need.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Some days I find it nearly impossible to believe thatches man is actually president.
Bill
So today I delivered a scissor lift, one of those things you see electricians working from when they’re putting fixtures or boxes in up high in a building. We have a couple of 19 foot lifts, which is to say they’ll put your feet at 19′ above the floor, so a working height of 25 feet. One of the summer camps up the road needed our 26′ lift, which is a pain in the ass because it won’t fit through a standard 80″ door opening because it’s so tall. You have to fold the safety cage down to get it into the building, and then re-unfold it once inside. Not a huge deal, but a pain. Once in the building, a big rec hall, it becomes clear why the need the big lift, the ceiling is HIGH. Like higher than you’d think from the outside of the building, and they’ve got all these colorful banners up in the rafters. “What are those, plywood panels, or textile, or what” I ask. “Canvases.” says the guy. “The campers and the counselors paint them at the end of the summer to commemorate each season at camp.” “Wow” I say, “They’re great, so colorful, and such variety; very interesting”.
“We have to take a couple down, for a memorial service” says the guy. “One of our long-time counselors died last week. That’s why we need the lift.”
“Oh, crap, I’m sorry. That’s terrible. I’m really sorry to hear that.” I said. I don’t know the people at this camp that well. It’s one of the nicer ones, but way up the road, like an hour drive. Still, you feel a little bad. Even from the maintenance guy, a sense of real sadness. “What did he do the rest of the year, when he wasn’t here?”
“He was a teacher at that school in Florida.”
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne:
Other than come extremely close to being slaughtered?
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer:
The bolded part is perfect!
Tenar Arha
@celticdragonchick: I appreciated that, a lot. Thanks for sharing.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: RSS and its political arm, the BJP is bad news for India, it has always been. Its fascism wearing saffron robes.
Truth. They want a Hindu version of Pakistan.
FWIW I think Satya Sai Baba (not the original one in Shirdi) is/was a charlatan. Is he still alive?
ETA: I am not particularly religious, culturally I am a Hindu but by belief I lean agnostic to atheist.
Corner Stone
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m not sure what expertise is needed? Saying you’d prefer to do schoolwork without worrying about being shot seems like a pretty straightforward position with no research needed.
The Dangerman
Late to this thread, but what happens if all the teachers in a school say, fuck you, we’re not packing. Are you going to make it a job requirement to want to carry a gun (I think I know the answer to the question). Then, if you have another requirement to teach, you have to pay them more in salary, right?
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Every time some adult threatens to punish these kids for walking out, I hear the Violent Femmes in my head, dripping with sarcasm:
Steeplejack
Huh. Just saw some snippets of Trump’s listening session on Ari Melber’s show. For some reason I thought it was going to be more of a “town hall” type thing. “Sitting in chairs in a circle” seems kind of bush league. Did they pass around a talking stick? Back to Melber to find out.
Ladyraxterinok
@bemused: Part of the ongoing, never ending GOP plot to destroy public schools. Known on the right as ‘ government schools’.
10 or so yrs ago Al Mohler, president of the SoBapt seminary in Louisville and leader of the conservative takeover of the SoBapt Covention in the 70s and 80s (labeled by some as pope of the SBC), posted a long tirade against ‘government schools’ in which he told the SBC faithful to homeschool or church school their kids to protect them from the govt school’s indoctrination into the evils of todays world, eg feminism, etc.
SiubhanDuinne
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, exactly.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: Obviously you have more armed veterans in every classroom to shoot the teacher in case the teacher is about to shoot somebody. Ideally every moment of the day should look like the climax of a John Woo movie. Maybe they can release some pigeons to fly through the room.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve been thinking very hard about OPRFHS today, and hoping the students of my alma mater will do what needs to be done.
Ladyraxterinok
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): IIRC when I lived in IA (68-89) there was an extremely powerful lobby for the blind there. Several odd things were done out of fear of that lobby.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@Niles:
Actually, technically they are. You just need 3/4 of Congress along with 3/4 of the state’s to change the constitution. High bar, yes, but they can still be put up to a vote.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
The Trib says they walked out today. ?
Ohio Dad
@Betty Cracker: A handgun is the most useful weapon for self-defense. One can argue that the defense offered by a handgun is not worth the mayhem its possession may cause, but having a handgun gives many not privileged to live in a safe neighborhood peace of mind. This was the argument frequently brought by the late Joe Bageant, mentioning women needing to visit iffy laundromats alone at night.
Eunicecycle
@celticdragonchick: That is a wonderful essay. You must be a terrific teacher. Thank you.
tybee
@SiubhanDuinne: good stuff.
Immanentize
@Ohio Dad:
Ok, first “iffy laundromats at night?”. That is some weird male fantasy stuff right there. In all my experience working in the criminal justice system, I have never represented a client, nor even heard of, an assault or crime in an iffy laundromat. And I represented someone charged with a rape on an ice cream truck!
As for best weapon for defense in the home (not taking around town as you wash your smalls) experts generally agree the pump action shot gun is the deterrent and weapon best suited. The sound of racking a shell is generally enough for not-totally-messed-up folks to flee.
r€nato
I don’t wish to live in a country where citizens are obligated to go everywhere carrying a firearm in case there’s a spree shooter, and that is exactly what a significant number of Americans (including people who have the actual power to enact this agenda) want for this country.
One of the several reasons why I am working on my exit plan to move abroad. Fuck the USA, it’s became a shithole and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. It’s not only about Trump because if he was abducted by aliens tomorrow, we’d still have to contend with the people who thought it would be a good idea to give this so-called ‘man’ the power of life and death over every single person on the planet.
Corner Stone
@Immanentize: You can also scream at them that you’ve already called 911 and you don’t want to kill them but will if you have to.
Corner Stone
@r€nato:
Where you going? My son wants Iceland but I have been pushing for Ireland.
Immanentize
@celticdragonchick:
I read your letter at the Atlantic. Very fine points.
But in the end, you are going to keep your military style assault guns. Because…. You think they are cool?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Corner Stone:
My snap impression is that Iceland is “cool” right now but expensive as hell and doesn’t have legs as a long-term sanctuary. I’d take Ireland in a heartbeat.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (phone): He’s in to the geothermal energy resource and overall adaptation to a lower/mixed carbon world. That’s my para based on what he advocates for there. Plus it’s beautiful as all F. But yeah, getting grandma there or coming back home a couple times a year would really suck.
I’ve always wanted to live in Ireland. I think it fits better.
H.E.Wolf
@Ohio Dad:
Bless the late Joe Bageant’s heart. “Women need to visit iffy laundromats at night” (?!?!) — and therefore the dames should all be packin’ heat while a-haulin’ their man’s clothes to the Whale Of A Wash? Have any of these great thinkers ever lifted a full laundry basket? I mean, sure, I bet Barbara Stanwyck coulda done it, given the proper staging beforehand; but that’s the movies.
(Immanentize sez it more concisely, up above.)
SiubhanDuinne
@celticdragonchick:
Brava!
Immanentize
@Corner Stone: you’ll be dead if that is the quality of your communication with an intruder.
I tell my students this all the time. Gun owners who want to protect their castle generally say stuff like “I have a gun!” And then they are killed. Because of the burglar is armed, they are ready to shoot, often drug and/or alcohol involved. No chit chat like, “Well, so am I!”
As someone here perfectly said, the only way you can defend your home from an intruder is being willing to shoot whatever you hear moving at night without warning. And then your teenage daughter is dead.
The shotgun is the compromise. Res ipsa loquitor.
Of course, just call 911 is another choice. Cops have guns AND training.
Ohio Dad
@Immanentize: Joe Bageant cited this as an example of why some liberal arguments were viewed as elitist by those not privileged to have washers and dryers in their homes. I can understand why a smaller person could feel vulnerable alone in the laundromat in front of the big picture window and may want to carry something to ward off a weirdo who may drop in.
ETA: Incidentally, I can see no legitimate use for an AR-15. That is why.the public may be ready to accept restrictions on them.
Corner Stone
@Immanentize: It’s not like I’m going to square up to them and give them a target, jackass.
efgoldman
@raven:
It’s missing from the unabridged dictionary one of his aides keeps on his desk to look up werdz to the ignorant asshole.
JPL
@efgoldman: For Trump it means keep your mouth shut.
Immanentize
@Ohio Dad:
Feeling vulnerable is never a good reason for carrying a gun. Just the fucking opposite.
I’m telling you plain, the “iffy laundromat” crap is the most elitist shit I’ve heard in ages. It is a crack dream of people trying to prove they are hip with the masses. Or more on point in this case, it is another demonization and fantasy criminalization of poor people simply in the service of gun humping.
I’m telling you, ok? “Iffy laundromats” are not places where serious crimes occur. Got that? But in your messed up mind world, it should become a place where more shootings occur, right?
Immanentize
@Corner Stone:
Your voice just did, Prince of home defense training.
Corner Stone
@Immanentize: How about this. You not give me any lessons on this.
Ohio Dad
@H.E.Wolf: If you’ve ever read Bageant, you’ll know that he’s talking about the redneck underclass that he grew up in. There often is little reason to marry or stay married in this society because there is little financial stability. If the laundromat woman is washing a man’s clothes, he is unlikely to provide much help.
H.E.Wolf
@Ohio Dad:
I can give the late Mr. Bageant a respectful first-person anecdotal counter-example, as a 5’1″ then-recent college grad who used to haul my actual laundry to the actual Whale Of A Wash at night after work, on the bus, in an actual low-income neighborhood that had actual railroad tracks that we were on the wrong side of. :)
The only time I was ever afraid in that laundromat was the night that President Regan gave his infamous “Star Wars” speech, which played over the radio there. It was terrifying to contemplate the spectre of nuclear war which that smarmy, fake-soothing voice was conjuring up. Partway through the speech I realized that I was all hunched down as if to ward off a nuclear attack. Horrible experience.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s really bad. People are making heartfelt statements and the best he can do is repeat what he heard on Fox and Friends this morning.
This isn’t fixable, his problem. There’s not enough there to work with. You need some raw material when trying to create “Presidential”. His Presidential bust would be about 4 ounces of clay and an incredibly frustrated sculptor. “I don’t know- don’t I need MORE here, before I worry about the details?”
john fremont
@Ladyraxterinok: In a way, a few years before another disgruntled teen, Nathan Dunlap, entered his old workplace and shot his former boss and coworkers at closing time. This was right across town from Columbine HS in Aurora Colorado in December of 1993. The Chucky Cheese shootings made national news at the time and sadly have been eclipsed by this terrible trend in workplace and school shootings since then. Dunlap had also attempted suicide in high school before then. He also committed several armed robberies before the shooting.
Immanentize
@Corner Stone: agreed. You are without ability to learn.
Ladyraxterinok
@smintheus: pMight be the push to totally dump public schools. Right hates them.
Corner Stone
@Immanentize: Listen, friend. I am just about sure I know a little more about this than you do, Professor. But you do your lawyer thing where you know more about everything, ever.
Ladyraxterinok
@cain: Thank you both for your many discussions of India’s history, politics, and culture. One of tbe reasons to read this blog.
Ohio Dad
@H.E.Wolf: Ohio Mom reminds me that I *am* a privileged elitist, so I rely on the impressions of people like Bageant. I do highly recommend *Deer Hunting With Jesus.* It makes a lot of sense to me.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: @Immanentize: As my dad used to say to my two sisters and me: Why can’t you kids just get along? :-)
mai naem mobile
@schrodingers_cat: Satya Sai Baba died a few years ago. There’s somebody on You Tube posting clips of breaking down Sai Baba’s ‘miracles’. There’s also some stories about sexual abuse at his compound. Sounded like a cult kind of situation to me.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl: Mainly because he’s a dbag.
Miss Bianca
@dmsilev: Oh ffs, I can’t believe you have me laughing at this.
Ladyraxterinok
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): IIRC when I lived in IA (68-89) there was an extremely powerful lobby for the blind there. Several odd things were done out of fear of that [email protected]Ohio Dad: @Ohio Dad: Love Bageant’s writings I discovered his work shortly before he died.
I didn’t agree with him a lot, but I appreciated how he tried to help city liberals understand the world of his ill-educated people – very badly taught, governed, and preached to.
Miss Bianca
@celticdragonchick: Congratulations! Well done!
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne:
Right on!
celticdragonchick
@Immanentize:
Good question. I am ambivalent on the issue since I know perfectly well I don’t need them and society should really consider getting rid of them.
Turning them in myself doesn’t actually do anything, however. It really is one of those things were we all need to do it together. We need to seriously talk about that.
Aleta
Late, but I’ll propose that specifically arming teachers is not what the no-restrictions people are after anyway. They have only one all-purpose answer for preventing legislation, in two parts: ideally everyone should self-defend if they can; and no restrictions on arms in schools, malls, the street. They say teachers but they mean anyone.
The NRA’s business goal is growth of the security industry, more jobs for guards and consultants in schools, housing, business. That would bring more NRA-sponsored conferences, and a piece for them of some of the shooting ranges, operator training, certified courses, trainers, product go-between, endorsements, accessory sales. The philosophy is lawlessness and from there “It’s strictly business.”
Aleta
The pressure on teachers and professors right now is so horrible and cruel. What is expected of them, and we know they care this much, is to stand between the gun and the kids, and to help get the kids to safety before themselves. At least two of the student boys carried out that expectation too. (My brother the kid Boy Scout and adolescent Eagle Scout was trained for that too.). I can imagine if a teacher were to flee ahead of students or take shelter early, the social outcry if discovered would be fierce. So teachers are asked to save their pupils at the expense of harm to their own children and of abandoning their families. And I believe most would, of course, hoping they’d survive. But our forcing that choice on them is barbaric and cruel. This semester my partner is teaching and I’m off. I’m wondering if I should buy him a vest ? It’s terrifying.
Aleta
@Bobby Thomson: You’re right, and people with neurological illness that’s acting up, or strange movements, tourettes, confusion, hard of hearing, unknown shapes in their pockets or bags are at terrible risk right now. And people who share homes with someone else who is heavily armed or paranoid or ill.
Brendan in NC
@opiejeanne: We had a history teacher, in middle school (surprise!), who was a Vietnam vet, and Special Forces. Kids would ask him to tell stories, and he would decline, saying “If I did, I’d have to kill you.” When they’d laugh, he’d give them a look that quickly shut them up.
J R in WV
@celticdragonchick:
Great letter. I’m a vet, never a door gunner or anything like that. I was a sailor in the Navy. But my grandma taught me to shoot a .22 when I was just a kid, she was a really good shot and knew how to do it, safely.
I think suggesting that adding more guns to schools when the problem is guns in schools is crazed as well as stupid. I don’t have an assault rifle, just a .22, some pistols and a 20 gauge bird gun. Two of the pistols are elderly, my great-uncle’s guns when he was a traveling salesman probably in the 20s or 30s. They don’t work. The prettier one is very unsafe.
Two others were a gift, they belonged to a friend’s father. I was a pall bearer for him years ago, and a couple of years later my friend gave me a .22 revolver and a Hi-Standard .22 automatic target pistol.
Guns are part of the problem, the rest is that there is no nation-wide health care system for everyone. The Theocrats who believe that everyone needs murder weapons are giving me a heartache! I’m going to stop now, I’m getting upset about it and don’t need to go off at bedtime.