We're utterly failing kids as a society when we build schools to accommodate shooters rather than students. https://t.co/9rpw9zG5l7
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 4, 2019
From the Washington Post:
Former vice president Joe Biden said he wanted to spend Monday celebrating the role organized labor has played in improving the lives of Americans. But moments into his first Labor Day appearance, the presidential candidate turned instead to the nation’s latest mass shooting, which left seven dead in the west Texas town of Odessa on Saturday.
“It is irrational, with all due respect to the governor of Texas, it is irrational what they’re doing on the same day you see a mass shooting . . . and we’re talking about loosening access to have guns,” he told reporters at a picnic in Cedar Rapids…
Stopping it, he conceded, meant going against one of his stated goals: working with Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“I think there’s no compromise,” Biden said. “This is one where we are going to just have to push and push and push and push and push. And the fact of the matter is, I think it’s going to result in somebody being defeated.”
Since retaking control of the House in January, Democrats have passed measures to extend background checks to all gun sales and to give investigators more time to complete such checks. McConnell has refused to allow Senate votes on the measures. President Trump has repeatedly indicated he could support some tightening of background checks but then has backed away and insisted existing checks are sufficient…
In Hampton Falls, N.H., Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told a crowd of 800 about the 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Mass., highlighting how women set aside their differences to stand up to power. But her remarks also pivoted to gun violence, which she said should be treated “as the public health emergency that it is.”
“It’s going to take a lot of pieces and a lot of changes that we need to do to bring down deaths from gun violence,” Warren said. “That needs to be a goal. Deaths from mass shootings. Deaths that happen in parks and on sidewalks every day. Deaths from domestic violence. Deaths from suicide. We need to bring down deaths from gun violence, and that’s why I have a comprehensive plan to do that.”…
Read my column, “Stop Lying About Gun Control,” and let me know what you think. (@BetoORourke was my hero of the week.) https://t.co/vbeb9CYVQe
— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) September 5, 2019
Beto …Among other things, O’Rourke’s “gun safety” plan includes declaring gun violence a public health emergency, creating a national gun licensing system and registry, requiring universal background checks, implementing red flag laws and banning “the manufacturing, sale and possession of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”…
This week in Charlottesville, a reporter asked O’Rourke, “How do you address the fears that the government is going to take away those assault rifles — if you are talking about buybacks and banning?”
O’Rourke didn’t skip a beat: “I want to be really clear, that that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Americans who own AR-15s, AK-47s, will have to sell them to the government. We’re not going to allow them to stay on our streets, to show up in our communities.”…
To my mind the goal is as simple as the task is daunting: We must reduce the overall number of guns in the population, especially those considered weapons of war; we must shrink the market desire for new weapons; and we must set a course to not only pass a new law in a moment but build in the expectation that federal legislation around guns will be the never-ending, ever-adjusting reality.
People interested in reducing gun violence in America have to stop lying about what that would require. Opponents of new gun legislation will accuse its supporters of seeking the worse no matter what they do…
This is a public health crisis, as O’Rourke points out, and anything we can do to prevent guns from being used in a crime, to prevent a child from accidentally shooting a sibling, to prevent a depressed person from putting a barrel in his or her mouth, must be a consuming priority for all of us.
The people resisting regulation say that any new legislation is a slippery slope for an aggressive agenda to massively restrict guns. I say my great desire is to thoroughly hose that slope with oil…
.@WashingtonPost is running a full-page editorial in Wednesday's paper. It's a message to @senatemajldr: "When the Senate returns from its Labor Day recess, it must act on guns." pic.twitter.com/avlbRPyfm6
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 4, 2019
#Walmart #MoscowMitch #GunControlNow pic.twitter.com/xvyjCrvU6G
— She Persisted (@varnabal) September 3, 2019
TenguPhule
And there goes the economy.
RepubAnon
We require cars to be registered, and folks operating them to have insurance and be licensed. Despite this, the “car-grabbers” favoring mass transit have not yet seized everyone’s cars. Funny, that.
For that matter, the ATF has not used the information available from browser histories and credit card purchases to seize all guns. It’s almost as though these arguments are hogwash.
debbie
I think it’s the kids who need hiding places, not the shooter. A school with curved walls is as stupid idea as Trump’s wall.
Baud
Taken out of context, that sounds horrible.
Expect Fox to run with it.
MattF
@debbie: Surprising that no one is considering trenches, barbed wire, artillery, and machine guns.
Yarrow
Who’s making money off hardening schools? Need to look into their connections to Trump and Republicans.
CliosFanBoy
@debbie: actually it helps the victims more by reducing the length of the line of fire. that’s why trenches in WWI zig-zagged.
debbie
@CliosFanBoy:
Regardless, this isn’t the answer to the problem.
TS (the original)
Check the WaPo link if you wonder why Biden is ahead in the polls over Elizabeth Warren. Look at the picture of Biden & then the picture of Warren. Note we were told how many people were listening to Warren, but no information on the numbers at the Biden event.
The political media is all white male.
zhena gogolia
Reposting from earlier inappropriate thread:
Bank parking lot, just now:
Woman leaving the bank in front of me is wearing a T-shirt listing 5 things starting with “F,” of which I can only remember “Family, Faith, and Firearms” — “5 things you don’t mess with!” I said, “So little kids have to do shooting drills in school so you can have your firearms.”
“I’m a school bus driver. That has nothing to do with my firearms.”
“So I have to worry about getting shot when I go to work.”
“You are out of your fucking mind.”
“No, this country is out of its mind.” (I refrained from using profanity.)
“I’ll have you know that VETERANS made this T-shirt.”
“I don’t care. I’m a citizen of this country, and our gun situation is nuts. Do you know what it’s like in other civilized countries, what the murder rate is — ”
“I don’t give a fuck. I’ll give up a round any day for ISIS.”
“Oh, ISIS, ISIS, that’s what you’re worried about!”
She roars off in her big-ass pickup truck.
I’m in a bad mood. These people have NO BRAINS YOU CANNOT REASON WITH THEM
CliosFanBoy
@debbie: I know that. but it’s not a bad design…
zhena gogolia
When they walk around with it on their T-shirts, I consider them terrorists, and I refuse to be terrified.
Next time I’m just going to say, “Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook,” over and over again.
JPL
@Baud: Everything can. Warren last night said we needn’t focus on lights, straws and such, but the trump campaign turned it around and said the opposite.
I’m so sick of this shit, how bout you .
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Careful. How will you react when she tells you those children were really crisis actors? //
Don’t engage. Just wish horrors on them.
Wakeshift
@zhena gogolia:
Insanity in defense of domestic terror is looking a lot like Treason in Defense of Slavery.
I’m still hoping we can avoid a full-scale reenactment
Jay Noble
Once a shooter is in the school, those curved walls and hiding places become disadvantages for the rescuers/responders. They also provide just all kinds of places for bullies to victimize people on a day to day basis, even without a gun. Another thing that curved walls does is a subtle disorientation that would be amplified in a crisis situation. I went to a jr. high that was completely round and was easy to get turned around because the “landmarks” weren’t always in sight. Remember the one shooter walked out with the other students
And the most chilling thing I’ve read is that the shooter, who’s probably a student/former student, will know those halls better than anyone coming after them.
TS (the original)
@TenguPhule: Well, it should make money for trump, move government income into private hands and generally allow free rein as happened until the 2008 collapse – how could that be bad.
Proposal would release Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government control.
Jeffro
@Jay Noble: Yup. Schools/districts are already having to deal with the fact that any shooter is likely a student of the school, who not only knows the shelter-in-place plan but also knows any/all of the various codes for various types of lockdowns…and also knows that he could just pull the fire alarm and pick kids off.
Heck even the STUDENTS know this…I’ve seen news reports (and heard from my own kids) that students get especially nervous during routine fire drills these days, wondering if it’s just a ruse to get them out of a ‘secure’ school.
Sorry GOP, sorry school-“hardening” industry…you just can’t make these places safe when there are assault weapons and large magazines around. Teachers carrying is just gonna get kids and teachers shot, too. “Good guys with a gun” are just gonna get shot by the cops. Resource officers don’t stop shooters either.
I guess we’re just gonna try everything, twice, before we try doing the right thing here.
Chris T.
@RepubAnon:
Yeah, but those car-grabbers won’t let me drive my fully operational M1A2 tank everywhere!
matt
the NRA has imploded. Attack! Attack!
Sure Lurkalot
I also wish that some attention would be paid to the thousands wounded. There are sometimes stories of amazing recoveries and resilience, but many victims’ lives are horrifically impacted by their injuries. Never being able to walk, see, work, have children…there are few stories about these people. The tragedy of our ridiculous gun culture runs deeper than the death toll.
FlyingToaster
Instead of building schools where you might actually be able to teach kids (soundproofing, LED dimmable lighting, nooks for small-group breakout, modular tables, easily stacked chairs), they’re wanting to build schools to enable bullying. Which is guaranteed to happen, unlike an active shooter.
There’s insane levels of fucked-up, and this is approaching it.
Personally, I’m vindictive, and I’d consider doxxing the “school bus driver” to notify her company that she’s a gun nut and they need to search her every shift before they let her drive the bus with kids on it.
Keith P.
@TenguPhule: But here comes Infrastructure Week!
Jeffro
On a lighter note, the #SharpiePresident memes are just tremendously hysterical. I fully expect trumpov to keep flailing on this one through at least the coming weekend.
Major Major Major Major
Some people at work were arguing about guns over lunch. Not acceptable in the workplace IMO, but at least nobody was being a complete dipshit. I went back to reading.
Later I overheard somebody say that Kevin Spacey was an example of “cancel culture run amok.” After making sure they were unaware that the allegations were about like, 14-year-olds, I once again went back to reading.
Who talks about this stuff at work? Seriously.
John Revolta
@Sure Lurkalot: This would be a great idea for a major article, or series of articles, in one of our major news outlets. However, they’d probably have to cut a story about neglected farmers
in Nebraska diners, so…………………….
JPL
@Jeffro: It wouldn’t surprise me if he was on the phone with jr. to buy up land on Grand Bahamas.
Mike in NC
@TenguPhule: We’ll all be living in cardboard boxes on Skid Row. Cool.
Steve in the ATL
@debbie:
Filippo Brunelleschi is getting recognized more and more
Too obscure? He was a renaissance architect who sometimes designed buildings with no straight lines whatsoever in them.
Ok, fine, I’ll delete my account.
MomSense
@Steve in the ATL:
Ha! Never thought I’d have occasion to remember that college renaissance architecture elective.
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: Did he know about AR15’s
obscure but cool factoid so you can stay
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: YES!
@MomSense: I am all about making irrelevant, unimportant information relevant and important. And also trying to justify my liberal arts degree, 30 years later…
MomSense
@Steve in the ATL:
I gave up on that folly years ago. I loved college. It made me the dilettante I am today!
Jay Noble
@Steve in the ATL: Give me an example of a no straight lines building – Not that I don’t believe you but art history was not one of my better classes. Just as in the exams, I recognize the name but can’t place it with his work. And all those Italian names . . .
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
Used to talk about politics, culture et al every day at lunch at a Tech Company.
It was one way of countering the stupid some people would run into online every day.
On the other hand, this was a Co. that had a Senior Manager transition, so we had a whole series of manditory HR meetings to educate us about what was happening, misgendering, what the Company rules about inclusion were, and BC’s Human Rights Code.
CliosFanBoy
@zhena gogolia: ISIS?? Since when is ISIS a threat in 99.99% of the US?? What an idiot (the bus driver, not you)
Butter emails!!!
@TS (the original):
Biden is ahead because Sanders, Warren and Harris are splitting white liberals and Biden is kicking their butts among African Americans.
Sab
@Jay Noble: My B school (CWRU/Weatherhead School of Management in Cleveland) was stupid enough to blow a fortune on a new Gehry building about twenty five years ago. It was all curves and such. They did have an active shooter, and the police found it was really difficult to secure the building.
NobodySpecial
@Jay Noble: The Guggenheim Museum looks pretty curvaceous.
J R in WV
@NobodySpecial:
So is the one in Bilbao, stranger altogether. The one in NYC is a wonderful spiral, like a sea shell. Fabulous building — but they did have to rebuild it, Frank didn’t ever specify enough rebar in his cast concrete. Fallingwater nearly fell into the creek before they could afford to rebuild it.
Not to blame him… cast reinforced concrete was a new thing when he started specifying it. IIRC…
Sab
@NobodySpecial: I have only been to the Guggenheim once, decades ago, and I found it to be one of the most unpleasant art display areas I have ever been in. The building was interesting in itself, but absolutely toxic as an art display space. Viewer had no control over viewing- either too close or too far, depending on the whims of the architecture, and bustling, bumping crowds always.
lahke
@Sab: Absolutely, I’ve hated every Wright building I’ve ever been in. The Marin Civic center, Taliesen West; dark, dreary and damp. Just don’t get the appeal stall.
J R in WV
@lahke:
The houses are very different. Fallingwater is not practical as a house, but it was intended as a weekend getaway place for the fabulously wealthy. It has been somewhat improved structurally, but as Frank was a really short person the ceilings are a little low. There’s another FLW home near Fallingwater (which is in SW Pa SE of Pittsburgh, and was built during the depression) built in the 50s on a very high knob.
Those folks knew the Kaurmanns, and Ms Kaufmann warned them to tell Frank that they had a son who was 6’7″ in order to get ceilings to a proper height. The house has no 90 degree angles in it, they’re all 120, except for the tub enclosure, the plumber told Frank plumbing fittings only came in 90s. Literally even the built-in silverware drawers are not square edges, but 120 trapezoids. Anyway, beautiful views, stone and cypress. Current owner is some British lord who collects gaint out door sculpture and architecture, he visits the place periodically, and otherwise it too is open to the public for guided tours, which we were fortunate enough to get into when we visited Fallingwater some years before we built our place.
Incidently, we have a close friend who worked at the Guggenheim and became eventually the lead master carpenter for building the installations for each periodic art exhibit. They have their own collection, but get the largest part of their exhibits loaned from other museums and Bill and crew would build as needed to put up the new work.
He retired recently back to his farm not far from us in in WV.