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You are here: Home / Politics / Gun Issues / Open Thread: This Is the *BAD* Place

Open Thread: This Is the *BAD* Place

by Anne Laurie|  June 2, 202212:36 am| 101 Comments

This post is in: Gun Issues, Open Threads, Politics

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If you think this comic was hard to read, believe me, it was much harder to draw.

— Tom the Dancing Bug, by Ruben Bolling (@RubenBolling) May 31, 2022


My God, the teacher was on the phone with 911 when she closed the door. https://t.co/zpT91Kbej4 pic.twitter.com/dTVKK7LMGs

— Laura Seay (@texasinafrica) June 1, 2022

“The Bronze Cross is awarded for saving or attempting to save life at the risk of the Girl Scout’s own life.”

Heartbroken that we are a country awarding posthumous decorations of valor to ten year olds trying to save their friends and teachers at school. https://t.co/XO7ac3RKOE

— Kathleen J. McInnis ?? (@kjmcinnis1) June 1, 2022

Guns are what keep the government from becoming tyrannical but also the government should raise a 400,000 strong paramilitary force from among educators we regularly accuse of being communist pedophiles.

Conservatism is such a rich, coherent ideology. https://t.co/WiXNVkUEIb

— zeddy (@Zeddary) May 31, 2022

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Reader Interactions

101Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    June 1, 2022 at 8:39 pm

    Republicans don’t care.    The Tulsa shooting today killed 5 not counting the shooter, and it won’t be mentioned tomorrow.

    We are the nation with the most common shootings.

  2. 2.

    different-church-lady

    June 1, 2022 at 8:41 pm

    Aw crap… In my drunken state I saw the first cartoon and immediately thought, “Yay! New Ruben Bolling!” and then I saw it was about our shitty fucking reality and got immediately depressed and ashamed.

  3. 3.

    phdesmond

    June 1, 2022 at 8:41 pm

     

    italy 0-3 argentina

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    June 1, 2022 at 8:41 pm

    Great cartoon.  Sad state of affairs.

  5. 5.

    different-church-lady

    June 1, 2022 at 8:42 pm

    Shit, now I’m reading the thing and it’s breaking my heart…

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    June 1, 2022 at 8:43 pm

    LOVE that the pro-gun governor is a pig.

  7. 7.

    pat

    June 1, 2022 at 8:44 pm

    A mass shooting in a HOSPITAL in Tulsa OK.

    What’s next?  Church, grocery store, school….

    Watching Chris Hayes and a story about the caskets that are made special for the innocent victims.  And the fact that the Texas officials will blame everything EXCEPT THE GUN.  A teacher left a door propped open! OMG THAT’S what is responsible..  (not even true)  I detest these people.

    And Ted Cruz is a sociopath.

    eta:  Hey I can still do this copy/paste from the last thread!

  8. 8.

    JPL

    June 1, 2022 at 8:46 pm

    @different-church-lady: Ozark and I commented on it a day or so ago and he mentioned acceptable losses and mine was thoughts and prayers.

    Although I try not to turn to the dark side like they do, if I can be honest, I hate them.    I’m tired of sugar coating it.

  9. 9.

    sab

    June 1, 2022 at 8:47 pm

    About five years ago our local paper wrote up a sort of retrospective about the five or so mass shootings in our area. I was shocked, because I had only remembered one of them. That one involved people we knew. The other ones I remembered I had read about at the time and then forgot.

    It is amazing how normal this has become.

  10. 10.

    phdesmond

    June 1, 2022 at 8:49 pm

    oh, this was elsewhere:

     

    “We must reiterate that the Second Amendment protects a foundational individual right and that, however heartbreaking the behavior of their heinous criminals might be, free countries do not wantonly limit foundational individual rights that are, in well over 99 percent of cases, exercised by law-abiding citizens.”

    editorial

    so, thousands of dead are a sort of tax on the right to bear arms.

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    June 1, 2022 at 8:52 pm

    @phdesmond: The tree of liberty and all that….

  12. 12.

    JPL

    June 1, 2022 at 8:52 pm

    This is us

    Text ACT to 644-33

    @shannonrwatts

    ·
    1h

    Shootings unfolding simultaneously right now in America: At a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma; a Walmart in Pittson, Pennsylvania; and a high school in Los Angeles, California.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    June 1, 2022 at 8:54 pm

    My biggest fear is when a maniac discovers daycares are soft targets.   We won’t see those pics either, because…   fill in the blanks.

  14. 14.

    phdesmond

    June 1, 2022 at 8:55 pm

    @JPL:

    if we had eleven time zones, like the USSR (maybe Russia still), the shooting would never stop.

  15. 15.

    different-church-lady

    June 1, 2022 at 8:55 pm

    @phdesmond:

    NR: “there-is-no-magic-fix-for-school-shootings”

    How about if we try a fix that ISN’T MAGIC, you FUCKFACES?

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    June 1, 2022 at 8:56 pm

    @phdesmond: Maybe I can’t read, but I thought it was a foundational collective right, not individual.

  17. 17.

    Sure Lurkalot

    June 1, 2022 at 8:56 pm

    @phdesmond: If 99% of them are law abiding citizens, then they can abide by laws that ban assault weapons.  Oh, I probably used the wrong nomenclature. Nevermind.

  18. 18.

    Shalimar

    June 1, 2022 at 8:56 pm

    @phdesmond: There are consistently about twice as many gun suicide deaths as gun homicide deaths.  The biggest tax for the right is on the people who keep guns in their households.  And they don’t even realize they’re paying it, because you don’t notice when someone else’s kid commits suicide.

  19. 19.

    different-church-lady

    June 1, 2022 at 8:59 pm

    @WaterGirl: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of schoolchildren.” –Warped Sociopath Republican Thomas Jefferson

  20. 20.

    phdesmond

    June 1, 2022 at 9:00 pm

    @Gin & Tonic:

    some militia will sell membership cards as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  21. 21.

    Suzanne

    June 1, 2022 at 9:00 pm

    I literally had a meeting about hospital lockdown procedures and active shooter protocols yesterday. And now, I am going to have another one tomorrow.

  22. 22.

    RSA

    June 1, 2022 at 9:01 pm

    @WaterGirl: Ruben Bolling did an AMAZING job with that cartoon.

    Richard Scarry’s books were part of growing up for a few generations of Americans, I think. Bolling is telling every one of us who read those books, “If you want today’s children to have a good childhood, you need to do something.”

  23. 23.

    Anne Laurie

    June 1, 2022 at 9:02 pm

    @pat: A mass shooting in a HOSPITAL in Tulsa OK.

    That’s happened before — certainly here in blue-state Massachusetts, presumably also in Oklahoma.  (Hell, it’s been a plotline on more than one tv hospital drama I can remember.)

    People die in hospitals, and sometimes their loved ones think the hospitals are to blame.  Off the top of my failing memory, I remember at least a few news reports of pandemic-related threats to shoot up hospitals, although I can’t remember any actual ‘mass shootings’.

    People with mental-health challenges are temporarily incarcerated when they intersect with hospitals, and blame the hospital rather than any other circumstances.  When they’re released, it’s too easy for them to acquire a gun and come back for the revenge to which they believe they’re entitled.

    And then there are (many, too many) domestic-violence hospital shootings, where a ‘disgruntled’ partner comes looking for the nurse / doctor / therapist / janitor / patient who’s mistreated them, and any other bystanders (including, literally, bystanders, such as other patients and the take-out guy making a delivery, in one Boston case) are just collateral damage.

    There’s just too many guns, and it’s too easy for people who can’t responsibly use guns to acquire them.

  24. 24.

    YY_Sima Qian

    June 1, 2022 at 9:02 pm

    It’s getting harder & harder to convince my wife & in-laws that taking our daughter to the US for junior high or high school is a good idea. Rising anti-Chinese/anti-East Asian sentiments (which is actually more concerning to me) do not help, either.

  25. 25.

    Kelly

    June 1, 2022 at 9:03 pm

    On Memorial Day take a quiet moment to thank all those children that died to defend your right carry a rifle anywhere you want to.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    June 1, 2022 at 9:03 pm

    @phdesmond:

    Huh, no such hesitation to limit voting rights.  

  27. 27.

    different-church-lady

    June 1, 2022 at 9:03 pm

    @RSA:

    Ruben Bolling did an AMAZING job with that cartoon.

    That’s some Pulizer shit right there. Seriously, we should try to make it happen.

  28. 28.

    JPL

    June 1, 2022 at 9:04 pm

    @Anne Laurie: THIS

    We need to tax the heck out of ammo so they can sleep with their guns but not do harm.

  29. 29.

    JPL

    June 1, 2022 at 9:06 pm

    @RSA: 3 yr old imp loves them.

  30. 30.

    RSA

    June 1, 2022 at 9:08 pm

    @different-church-lady: I don’t know anything about the nomination procedure except (checking online) for a $75 fee, but count me in for a contribution.

  31. 31.

    trollhattan

    June 1, 2022 at 9:09 pm

    @phdesmond:

    We must reiterate

    Lemme stop you right there.

    National Review, striving for relevance for seventyjust once.

  32. 32.

    Suzanne

    June 1, 2022 at 9:10 pm

    @Anne Laurie: There have been lots of shootings in medical facilities. (One of my clients had one.) Most of the dangerous behavior is actually domestic violence against nurses (and doctors) by their boyfriends/husbands. There are also multiple documented cases of people going to attack a doctor or nurse after they had a bad outcome, or a loved one dies. There’s have also been attempted gang-related shootings….someone tries to kill someone else, doesn’t succeed, and so they go to the hospital to finish the job. There’s also a fair amount of violence in behavioral health hospitals, and emergency departments, also.

    But domestic violence is a surprisingly large share of it.

  33. 33.

    Kelly

    June 1, 2022 at 9:10 pm

    Thread: How many school shootings?

    https://twitter.com/johnpavlovitz/status/1532082355824885761

  34. 34.

    raven

    June 1, 2022 at 9:12 pm

    @Suzanne: We live two blocks from our main hospital and there are so many disoriented folks walking and driving in the area.

  35. 35.

    Redshift

    June 1, 2022 at 9:12 pm

    @phdesmond:

    “We must reiterate that the Second Amendment protects a foundational individual right…”

    Ah, yes, abortion rights can be discarded because they aren’t “deeply rooted” in the country’s history, but the Second Amendment guarantee of individual gun ownership that didn’t exist until well after Roe v Wade is just an indisputable fact.

    I feel like conservatives were less annoying when they pretended to have rationales, even in support of heinous beliefs. “We’ll just make up contradictory reasons why we get what we want and you don’t” is even more depressing.

  36. 36.

    different-church-lady

    June 1, 2022 at 9:12 pm

    @RSA: Yeah, I’m pretty sure we have the means here at balloon-juice to hit a $75 fundraising goal.

  37. 37.

    Raoul Paste

    June 1, 2022 at 9:13 pm

    It’s very hard to read about the 10 year old Girl Scout.  The AR 15 producers are no different than the tobacco industry execs.  And I bet some of them have children

  38. 38.

    YY_Sima Qian

    June 1, 2022 at 9:14 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Violent rage at medical staff is a common problem in China, too. However, due to the lack of guns, would be assailants have to make do w/ cleavers. Every once in a while one would read on the news of an attack where a doctor was hacked to death, or a hand or fingers chopped off. Casualty counts are much lower, though, due to lack of guns.

    In the early to mid-aughts there was a series of attacks by deranged persons against kindergarten & grade school kids (4 or 5 incidents), using cleavers. So now every kindergarten & school in China has an office at the entrance where a police officer and/or security guard is posted. (Probably an overreaction, given the very rare occurrences of such incidents, certainly compared to school shootings in the US, but Chinese parents are paranoid about safety of their children.) They are not equipped w/ firearms, but shields, batons, staffs & other equipment designed to ward off an attacker w/ knives or cleavers. No knife attack drills in Chinese schools.

    At some point, if things in the US keep devolving, the rest of the world may feel they have more in common w/ each other than the American polity. There is no sensical explanation (let alone excuses) for what has been happening, for decades.

  39. 39.

    Redshift

    June 1, 2022 at 9:18 pm

    @phdesmond:

    some militia will sell membership cards as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

    Well, they do a lot of illegal things, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work. Back when the Second was recognized as a collective right, just putting “militia” in the name of your armed gang didn’t give it constitutional status. “Well-regulated” or GTFO.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    June 1, 2022 at 9:18 pm

    @raven: Yes.

    People are also really, REALLY stressed out in hospitals. Even the most mentally healthy, neurotypical, intelligent people are usually at a hospital under some degree of emotional stress. I remember seeing a presentation given by the head of one of the two leading accrediting agencies for hospitals in the country. He related a story from his past, when his daughter was undergoing treatment for leukemia. And he was leaving one day, after being there many, many days in a row, and he couldn’t remember where he parked his car. And he lost his shit and had an emotional breakdown and apparently screamed at someone.

    So this is why there should never, never be guns at a hospital.

  41. 41.

    Anne Laurie

    June 1, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @Suzanne: But domestic violence is a surprisingly large share of it.

    Yeah, and I have gotten the impression — maybe it’s just reading the news in a blue-state market — that a good percentage of those domestic-violence mass shootings are half-conscious ‘suicide by cop’.

    Guy slaps his b*tch around a bit, she runs off to a hospital and gives them a sob story, the local law enforcement tells him they’ll be showing up in 24/48/72 hours to confiscate his weaponry.  A fate worse than death, for sure!   Only way not to be a p*ssy, at that point, is to go down in a blaze of Scarface-style glory, amirite?

  42. 42.

    raven

    June 1, 2022 at 9:21 pm

    @Suzanne: Not even “security”?

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    June 1, 2022 at 9:22 pm

    @YY_Sima Qian: Not to minimize the horror of these shootings, but violent crime in the USA has been trending down for decades.  If you believe Kevin Drum (and I think he makes a good case) a lot of it can be credited to drop in lead levels in our blood.

    The news is horrible.  But don’t let it make you learn incorrect lessons.

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    opiejeanne

    June 1, 2022 at 9:23 pm

    The Girl Scout award, the Bronze Cross, made me cry again. I didn’t even know about that award until today and it makes the loss of these children and adults seem even more tragic, if that’s possible.

  45. 45.

    raven

    June 1, 2022 at 9:24 pm

    @Anne Laurie: I don’t think there is much “half-conscious ‘suicide by cop”. Suicide by cop? Hell yes but half-conscious I’d be surprised.

  46. 46.

    Suzanne

    June 1, 2022 at 9:27 pm

    @raven: Most hospital security guards, in my view, shouldn’t have guns. Most of them just want to sit there in their little panopticon and write reports and watch people.

  47. 47.

    SeattleDem

    June 1, 2022 at 9:28 pm

    @different-church-lady: The Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat has a piece showing how the voters in the state of Washington have helped stop teenagers with assault rifles.

  48. 48.

    Suzanne

    June 1, 2022 at 9:29 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Usually it’s more that they are actively trying to shoot their girlfriend at work.

  49. 49.

    debbie

    June 1, 2022 at 9:29 pm

    @Suzanne:

    I was at a hospital today and was surprised there was no security or metal detectors.

  50. 50.

    TS

    June 1, 2022 at 9:29 pm

    @phdesmond:

    so, thousands of dead are a sort of tax on the right to bear arms.

    Millions are impacted. Every parent and every child in American schools are the tax on the “right to bear arms”. Every day the parent wonders if the child will make it safely home and every day the child has active shooter drills to put the emotion of fear into their brains.

    Seems the GOP desire is to have an uneducated population as school becomes too dangerous for children to attend.

    Wonder if removing all the protections & security from the RW members of the SCOTUS and their families would impact any of their decision making.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    June 1, 2022 at 9:35 pm

    @debbie: Some hospital systems believe that metal detectors, bag searches, visible security, etc, are antithetical to creating a welcoming environment. It’s a balance. Every hospital does it differently.

  52. 52.

    raven

    June 1, 2022 at 9:35 pm

    @TS: And just who is going to “remove” that?

  53. 53.

    Early Riser

    June 1, 2022 at 9:38 pm

    The idea that children in our schools are being trained to respond to mass shooter events is not a good thing for their mental health.

    This is a good point and one wonders why children are subjected to this repeated trauma again and again, year after year given that far more people are struck by lightning in the US each year than are killed in school shootings.

  54. 54.

    phdesmond

    June 1, 2022 at 9:42 pm

    @Shalimar:

    @TS:

    the tax is getting bigger and bigger.   i thought repubs were against taxes!

  55. 55.

    RSA

    June 1, 2022 at 9:46 pm

    @Early Riser:

    This is a good point and one wonders why children are subjected to this repeated trauma again and again, year after year given that far more people are struck by lightning in the US each year than are killed in school shootings.

    What a stupid and offensive false equivalence.

  56. 56.

    Redshift

    June 1, 2022 at 9:50 pm

    @Another Scott: Yeah, it’s so weird. We are living in arguably the safest time in the history of civilization, but there are still these random threats that we shouldn’t have to live with.

  57. 57.

    Bill Arnold

    June 1, 2022 at 9:51 pm

    @RSA:
    Ruben Bolling has always had a good eye. This morality table from 1991 Human Morality Made Simple is depressingly true for the bulk of humanity.

  58. 58.

    Ohio Mom

    June 1, 2022 at 10:04 pm

    I can’t help but imagine that when the Girl Scouts created that award they were thinking mainly of things like capsized canoes or snake bites. Near misses mostly.

    I was reading up on Ohio’s grand new idea to allow teachers to be armed; someone pointed out that will make every teacher the first target for shooters since obviously the shooter can’t know if that particular teacher is armed or not, best to assume she is and shoot her before she is able to get her gun out.

    Elsewhere someone pointed out that the young men most likely to shoot up schools have participated in active shooter drills themselves, and that can give them an idea of how to plan their attack. Really, what else is there to do while cowering in a corner but play out different scenarios?

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    June 1, 2022 at 10:06 pm

    @Redshift: +1

    Indeed.  Things could objectively be so much better for everyone – even the MotUs! – with just a few different people in positions of authority.  2 more decent Senators, 6 decent SCOTUS justices, etc.

    Even these gun manufacturers probably don’t like the fact that their stuff is being used to murder children.  They could be using their skills to make things to make life better…

    We have to keep moving forward.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  60. 60.

    Eunicecycle

    June 1, 2022 at 10:06 pm

    We almost had an active shooter at the hospital I worked in. A doctor who did surgery in several local hospitals was gunned down at a different hospital. Apparently the gunman was looking for the doctor and had hunted him at my hospital earlier in the day, according to security tapes. It was over a woman if I recall correctly.

  61. 61.

    Wag

    June 1, 2022 at 10:07 pm

    @Early Riser  

    bullshit.   An average of 43 deaths from lightning per year.   We’ve suffered through that many deaths from mass shootings in the past month.
    https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-odds

  62. 62.

    JanieM

    June 1, 2022 at 10:08 pm

    @RSA:

    What a stupid and offensive false equivalence.

    In more ways than one, since it elides the difference between deaths and injuries. Fewer people are *killed* by lightning each year than were killed in Uvalde last week:

    Lightning kills about 20 people each year in the United States and hundreds more are injured. Some survivors suffer lifelong neurological damage. Here’s more information on the victims and the survivors.

    From https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-victims

    So glad we have the pie filter.

  63. 63.

    Feathers

    June 1, 2022 at 10:08 pm

    @RSA: Nope. We could have teachers talk about what to do if there is a shooter, like they do for fires or other dangers.

    These drills that cop consultants run where a fake shooter comes into the school and there are blanks fired and SWAT teams running around — they must end. They have no proven efficacy over simple teacher led letting children know what to do and we know that they traumatize many of the children involved.

    They are just letting sickos play out their hero fantasies. And as we saw in Texas, they are no guarantee that the cops will be ready and prepared.

    i worked for a civil engineering firm and one of the rules was that for projects over a certain size, you have to do design/build. One firm designs, another builds. We don’t do that with policing and we need to. Police get to decide the technology, the tactics, how much overtime all the cops will be working, etc. it’s a huge conflict of interest and there is no oversight to see if any of this works. They just make shit up. Like police dogs finding drugs. There needs to be a barrier of civilian control.

  64. 64.

    Nelle

    June 1, 2022 at 10:09 pm

    I called Chuck Grassley’s office today, thanked the woman who answered and said I had a question for her to personally answer and to pass on to Grassley to answer.  She said sure.  I asked, “Was that a well-regulated militia that attacked the Uvalde?”  Instead of hemming and hawing as usual, she immediately said “No, that wasn’t. ”  I asked, why is the senator apparently comfortable ignoring that part of the vaunted Second Amendment,  especially when the cost is so high?

  65. 65.

    debbie

    June 1, 2022 at 10:10 pm

    @Ohio Mom:

    At least so far, teachers can’t be forced to carry, so there’s that. That wizened gnome has said he’ll sign the bill.  

  66. 66.

    patrick II

    June 1, 2022 at 10:12 pm

    @Ohio Mom:

    I can’t imagine teachers actually carrying a sidearm while teaching class. But that may  be part of the reason it is so often proposed by NRA types. It would be a good advertisement for future sales to have such a trusted member of the community packing in front of their students.

  67. 67.

    Ohio Mom

    June 1, 2022 at 10:23 pm

    @debbie: Yes, a teacher can’t be forced to carry, and some school boards will decline to allow guns on their teachers.

    I wonder if this could end up being one of those questions certain types ask when choosing where to buy a home: what are the average SAT scores, what are the sports like, and do the teachers carry.

    I’d be disinclined to buy a house in a school district where teachers are armed if I had a school-aged kid but I suppose others would find that attractive.

  68. 68.

    JanieM

    June 1, 2022 at 10:23 pm

    @debbie:

    At least so far, teachers can’t be forced to carry

    I wonder how many teachers would simply leave the profession if school boards tried to require it.

  69. 69.

    ian

    June 1, 2022 at 10:29 pm

    @Redshift:

    I feel like conservatives were less annoying when they pretended to have rationales, even in support of heinous beliefs. “We’ll just make up contradictory reasons why we get what we want and you don’t” is even more depressing

    For a lot of them, it is the ‘we’ve always been at war with Eurasia’ that Fox news repeats to them over and over again.  For the more informed, It’s part of what drive them, part of ‘owning the libs’  by inventing new rules to be enforced or flaunted as they see fit.  Rules for thee, power for me.  It’s part of how they could deny Garland a seat on the SC (plus the whole Obama isn’t legitimate so he can’t place picks thing), then turn around 180 degrees four years later.  I’ve met conservatives who literally chuckle and giggle when that is pointed out to them, its their kicks.

  70. 70.

    debbie

    June 1, 2022 at 10:29 pm

    @JanieM:

    They’ve said as much.

    I’m so tired of these god-awful stupid ideas. Why do the rest of us have to pretzel ourselves into stupid habits and practices to accommodate these pathetic losers? Why aren’t they accommodating the rights of the rest of us?

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    June 1, 2022 at 10:32 pm

    @patrick II: We’ve been there before.  E.g. OregonLive (from May 2018):

    The school police officer accidentally fired his gun in his Virginia office, sending a bullet through a wall into a middle school classroom. The teacher was demonstrating firearm safety in California when he mistakenly put a round in the ceiling, injuring three students who were hit by falling debris. And the sheriff left a loaded service weapon in a locker room at a Michigan middle school, where a sixth-grader found it.

    All told, an Associated Press review of news reports collected by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive revealed more than 30 publicly reported mishaps since 2014 involving firearms brought onto school grounds by law enforcement officers or educators. Guns went off by mistake, were fired by curious or unruly students, and were left unattended in bathrooms and other locations.

    “If this can happen with a highly trained police officer, why would we give teachers guns?” interim superintendent Lois Berlin of the Alexandria, Virginia, school system asked after the incident involving the officer whose accidental discharge put a bullet through a wall at George Washington Middle School. He was placed on leave and is under investigation.

    Moar gunz are not the answer to any sensible question about violence in America.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    jl

    June 1, 2022 at 10:34 pm

    ” I’m so tired of these god-awful stupid ideas. ”

    Stupid ideas?  It’s so simple. One door schools, one door doctor offices, one door dentists, pharmacies, stores, hospitals, museums, parks, amusement parks, theaters…. concert halls…. seaside attractions…. roadside attractions… community centers… funeral homes….. Sand bags. Staff in body armor and armed… side arm and semi. Simple as pie. We’ll finally have a polite society.

  73. 73.

    Gvg

    June 1, 2022 at 10:35 pm

    @pat: hey guns don’t make themselves or shoot themselves. It’s the fault of people who chose gun worship over neighbor caring. It’s the fault of Republican loony politicians and dam fool fanatic voters. Let’s name names. NRA, governors, judges, police (this one puzzles me, wouldn’t it be better for them if the cops had most of the guns?)

  74. 74.

    satby

    June 1, 2022 at 10:35 pm

    @patrick II: knew a nutbag teacher who used to insist on her concealed carry permit as her ID to cash checks at the store I worked at (which didn’t work, the verification systems require a driver’s license number). She’d get pretty nasty about it when we insisted on other ID. Always thought she must have sucked as a teacher.

    Happy ending though, she shot herself to death putting her pistol into her bra holster.

  75. 75.

    jl

    June 1, 2022 at 10:37 pm

    @Another Scott: if the sixth grader has taken a gun course, that would have been no problem.

    Sorry, bitter and snarky today.

  76. 76.

    opiejeanne

    June 1, 2022 at 10:37 pm

    @Ohio Mom: It’s a recipe for disaster. I know how incredibly nasty some jr high kids can be, and my 8th grade math teacher had a nervous breakdown thanks to some of the little bastards I was in school with. Imagining him with a gun makes me shudder.

  77. 77.

    Calouste

    June 1, 2022 at 10:38 pm

    @Another Scott: The US doesn’t have many highly trained police officers. A lot have less than a year of training.

  78. 78.

    Jay

    June 1, 2022 at 10:41 pm

    @Wag:

    thank you.

  79. 79.

    debbie

    June 1, 2022 at 10:44 pm

    @satby:

  80. 80.

    Peale

    June 1, 2022 at 10:45 pm

    99% of gun owners are law abiding. That gives us only 800,000 in not law abiding gun owners. That’s comforting.

  81. 81.

    Delk

    June 1, 2022 at 10:48 pm

    Illinois Masonic hospital in Chicago is off of Halsted St. “Dr Halsted” is the hospital’s code for Chicago Police Officer. They can discreetly tell the police where to go over the intercom. Dr Halsted report to the third floor, etc.

  82. 82.

    satby

    June 1, 2022 at 10:53 pm

    @debbie: made international news

  83. 83.

    prostratedragon

    June 1, 2022 at 10:57 pm

    @Suzanne:  Mercy Hospital in Chicago, 2018. Fit that domestic violence pattern exactly, but not in some databases because only 3 beside the shooter were killed — a police officer trying to intervene, a staff member who simply got off an elevator at the wrong time, and the doctor who had earlier ordered the shooter to get his evil and anti-productive self out of her life.

  84. 84.

    debbie

    June 1, 2022 at 11:00 pm

    @satby:

    Oy. A bra seems a little high up on the torso to be really optimal for whipping out a gun, but what do I know?   ‍♀️

  85. 85.

    Another Scott

    June 1, 2022 at 11:02 pm

    @Calouste: Good point, but I’d argue it’s worse than that.  People get distracted.  They make mistakes.  It’s too easy for a mistake with a gun to be deadly.

    My Life Member of the NRA uncle was cleaning his rifles one day, got to one and the brush didn’t go in as far as it should, so he pushed more and BANG.  The bullet grazed his index finger and gave him a permanent scar…  He had all kinds of training, knew all the rules about always clearing a gun before transporting it or doing anything with it, etc., etc.  And he made a mistake that almost killed him. More training probably wouldn’t have helped him; being more vigilant and careful would have, but it only takes one slip-up and people aren’t machines.

    There are ways to make guns that can only be fired when the person really, really, is sure they want to fire it (“smart guns”).  We could mandate such technologies, but a phase-in would take years or decades.  So that would reduce accidents, but wouldn’t directly address the mass slaughter situation… :-(

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  86. 86.

    mrmoshpotato

    June 1, 2022 at 11:04 pm

    Rest In Power, Amerie Jo Garza.

  87. 87.

    sdhays

    June 1, 2022 at 11:06 pm

    @Calouste: And the “training” is highly suspect. We know, for example, that the “training” materials used by the Kentucky State Police heavily reference Nazi SS resources.

    That kind of training isn’t better than no training.

  88. 88.

    sdhays

    June 1, 2022 at 11:11 pm

    @Peale: Even that statistic just means they don’t have a criminal record. These people aren’t the type of people the police get into confrontations over broken tail lights. I’ll bet a lot of them get away with a lot of things other people go to jail for.

  89. 89.

    Another Scott

    June 1, 2022 at 11:31 pm

    Potentially relatedly … STATNews:

    Four neuroscientists who discovered the genes involved in a host of serious brain disorders on Wednesday won this year’s $1 million Kavli Prize in neuroscience, honoring arduous work undertaken long before sequencing of the human genome accelerated investigations of what goes wrong in the brain.

    Together, research by the four winners — Jean-Louis Mandel of France, Harry Orr of the U.S., Christopher Walsh of the U.S., and Huda Zoghbi of Lebanon and the U.S. — revealed the genetic underpinnings of Fragile X syndrome, spinocerebellar ataxia, Rett syndrome, and rare forms of epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder.

    “Understanding inherited brain disorders has been made possible by the novel genetic approaches developed by this year’s laureates,” Kristine Walhovd, chair of the Kavli Prize Neuroscience Committee, said at the award ceremony in Oslo. “Together, these four scientists uncovered the genetic basis of multiple brain disorders and in doing so, paved the way to the development of diagnostic tools and improved care for those affected.”

    The prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

    […]

    There’s still so much we don’t know about our brains and how and why we think and react the way we do. Imagine there were a pill to cure gunhumper’s disease…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    prostratedragon

    June 1, 2022 at 11:32 pm

    @jl:  Some reasons why that one in particular really provokes me: Iroquois Theater; Triangle Shirtwaist factory;  Hamlet chicken plant; Our Lady of the Angels School.

    Any one in the august position of a United States Senator should know of at least a random couple of these incidents well enough to have their memory pinged, and their mouth thereby closed.

  91. 91.

    Another Scott

    June 1, 2022 at 11:42 pm

    @prostratedragon:

    Of course it’s not about real solutions to problems, it’s about getting tribal memes repeated in the media.

    Republicans: Your schools are being run by woke groomers and we must harden every campus to one door so your kids can't get out.

    — LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) May 29, 2022

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    Captain C

    June 2, 2022 at 12:49 am

    @Ohio Mom: If teachers are forced or even allowed to carry, how long before a student or someone else overpowers on, takes their gun, and uses it.

  93. 93.

    Mai Naem mobile

    June 2, 2022 at 1:12 am

    I had a coworker who would not let her kids do sleepovers at any of their friends’ houses. The reason was a tragic accidental killing in her small town in NY where a kid shot another kid with the parents’ gun.

  94. 94.

    Early Riser

    June 2, 2022 at 2:55 am

    The idea that children in our schools are being trained to respond to mass shooter events is not a good thing for their mental health.

    This is a good point and one wonders why children are subjected to this repeated trauma again and again, year after year given that far more people are struck by lightning in the US each year than are killed in school shootings.

    The people above disputing this didn’t read what I wrote.  I said people struck by lightning in the US each year.  That avererages about 270 per year.  https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-odds

    That’s far more than die in school shootings.

    Given how extraordinarily rare it is for children to die in school shootings, it really is unfortunate that they are subjected to drills that traumatize them.

    It’s no different than running drills with your kid about what to do when they are abducted by strangers at the Wal-Mart.  That, too, is extremely rare.

    It’s time to rethink the imposing irrational fears on children and making them bear the price.

  95. 95.

    prostratedragon

    June 2, 2022 at 4:18 am

    @Another Scott:  Well, the first newspaper article I ever read was a description of one of those fires, so he and his ilk can take their tribal memes and shove them.

  96. 96.

    prostratedragon

    June 2, 2022 at 4:20 am

    @Early Riser:  More words aren’t helping you.

  97. 97.

    Paul in KY

    June 2, 2022 at 10:48 am

  98. 98.

    Paul in KY

    June 2, 2022 at 10:49 am

    @satby: Ha!

  99. 99.

    Dopey-o

    June 2, 2022 at 11:09 am

    @Suzanne: There have been lots of shootings in medical facilities. (One of my clients had one.) Most of the dangerous behavior is actually domestic violence against nurses (and doctors) by their boyfriends/husbands. There are also multiple documented cases of people going to attack a doctor or nurse after they had a bad outcome, or a loved one dies. There’s have also been attempted gang-related shootings

    15 years ago i rushed my daughter to the ER at the local Children’s Hospital. Was amazed to see a metal detector and an armed guard at the entrance.

  100. 100.

    J R in WV

    June 2, 2022 at 12:06 pm

    @Another Scott: ​

    My Life Member of the NRA uncle was cleaning his rifles one day, got to one and the brush didn’t go in as far as it should, so he pushed more and BANG.

    When I was still working, a co-worker was a delightful woman who managed staff using the data systems I was responsible for. So she frequently reported complex problems to me, and we would confer together to determine what went wrong so I could then inspect the system to determine how to eliminate the problems.

    One winter day I noticed she was walking with a pronounced limp, and asked if she was alright. She told me about the time years before when her husband, an experienced city cop, was cleaning a pistol at their kitchen table and shot her with a .357 round which hit her thigh. Those are hugely powerful rounds and she nearly died.

    20 years later when the weather changed she still had a limp. A trained experienced city cop, who pretty much lost it after the gun went off.

    I was on a jury in a murder case and a ballistics witness was called to testify about the weapon in question and the events that night. When the gun went off it was in a holster, we know this because the victim was covered in bits of holster all around his wound.

    One of the most informative lines of questioning of this witness went like this:

    “How many police ready rooms (locker rooms where cops get ready to go on duty) have you been in you career as LEO?”

    “At least hundreds.”

    “How many of those ready rooms had signs of an unintentional discharge of a weapon?”

    Long pause while the guy thinks, then… “I would say nearly all of them.”

    So in a room where trained LEOs don their uniforms and weapons, there is nearly always a mark where a gun was accidentally fired. In fact, in the courtroom where this case was tried there were bullet holes in the walls where a woman brought a pistol to court to take care of her unfinished business with a witness. She was a terrible shot, no one was seriously harmed.

    After that purses weren’t allowed in the court room. And eventually someone was hired to fix the bullet holes in the nice wood paneling in the courtroom. Guns are as dangerous as fuck for everyone!!!

  101. 101.

    J R in WV

    June 2, 2022 at 1:54 pm

    deleted

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