I had a whole thing typed out and then Safari froze and I lost it. That’s probably for the best, to be honest. I’m not in a good place right now. I spent a lot of time crying in the shower this...
I had a whole thing typed out and then Safari froze and I lost it. That’s probably for the best, to be honest. I’m not in a good place right now. I spent a lot of time crying in the shower this evening.
The short of what I wanted to get across is this: as a teacher, it feels like every school shooting takes a part of my soul that I never get back. To this day, nearly ten years later, I still cannot look at the list of names of the victims of Sandy Hook without immediately crying. There are so many, and they were so young.
If they were still here, they would be graduating from high school soon.
I wonder if, in ten years, I’ll cry when I see the names from the Uvalde shooting or if my soul will have been fully taken from me by then, chunk by chunk, from the massacres of kids that will inevitably keep happening. Children bring a glorious and incomparable light to the world, and, instead of protecting that, we’re allowing the darkness to extinguish it, over and over again, in the most horrific of ways.
It doesn’t have to be this way — it shouldn’t be this way — but so much of my soul is missing that I lack the ability to believe that anything else is even possible. There’s a hollowness where a hope should be.
The kids from Uvalde were about to start their summer break. It was two days away.
Where there should have been only light, we let in darkness.
Even though their death are senseless and tragic, if you let it affect you too to such a degree, the perpetrators win. The purpose of terrorists is to terrorize. Working in education, I can see...
Exemplary
Even though their death are senseless and tragic, if you let it affect you too to such a degree, the perpetrators win. The purpose of terrorists is to terrorize.
Working in education, I can see how it would affect you more than others, even if you (luckily!) were not involved directly. I have no words that will make the pain go away. Perhaps you can find some semblance of comfort in the fact that a stranger from the digital tides decided to stop and write this out for you, though maybe that is a silly illusion on my part. Every time this happens, I react with apathy, but that is easier for me, because I live on a different continent and I also don't work closely with children. One can find such news disturbing but at the same time, stay emotionally detached, but like I said, that is much easier for me than it is for you. Man I suck at building people up, don't I? Let me try again.
Kids are, for many, the embodiment of innocence. A fresh life, hopefully coming into this world in a home full of care and love that they deserve. There are many of them. Way more than there are school shootings. So I would disagree with the fact that the light was extinguished. I'd oppose that vehemently even. Their light is a wave as strong as a generation, and the people who try to wipe them out are just a speck of darkness in that wave, barely able to be made out unless you look for them. Even in the US, the country that says "Nothing can prevent this" though it is the only country where this keeps happening, the majority of kids see school as a happy time, largely thanks to people such as you.
The amount of empathy, care, and thoughtfulness you radiate can be felt by me even an ocean away, even though we have interacted comparatively little. The fact that you put in so much effort into something as inconsequential as a post on some internet forum convinces me that you must work much more diligently, with much more empathy and with much more thought day-to-day as a teacher. You may not be part of that wave of light, but through your actions, you make it so much more stronger and brighter. And you do it every day, in a country that is ungrateful for your vitally important job, in a system that sometimes resembles more a meatgrinder than a government, and you keep doing it.
It is the tragedy of humanity that those who care most are often those who are hurt the most. The same empathy that enables you to such great deeds is the same that makes you so vulnerable to such crimes, even if they happen far away, maybe because part of you sees your own pupils as part of those death tolls, or maybe even your own name. Or maybe it's less complicated than that and you simply feel empathy for the victims. It is tragic that we have to carry on, the collective survivors of humanity, but it is all we can do. Prepare for the next wave of light, the next kids that are unaffected by this tragedy.
If you ever make it to the Alps, shoot me a PM and we can go out for beers. I'm buying.
I find comfort in gallow's humour, and often make terrible jokes about terrible things; blame it on all the medical staff in my family. But they're used to it. Losing a life in medicine is part of...
I find comfort in gallow's humour, and often make terrible jokes about terrible things; blame it on all the medical staff in my family. But they're used to it. Losing a life in medicine is part of the job, and you have to protect yourself to stay in a position where you can help others. Building a shell with that humour is part of that, and finding a balance between your empathy and your need to protect yourself from emotional damage is path that everyone in that field must walk.
You do not have that luxury. Even in a country where that happens too much, way, way too much, you are far away from being forced to experience it on your own person, and even with the staggering numbers in the US, I'd guess the chance of you becoming a victim is below 1% and forgive me, I'd rather not calculate the odds.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope that in the end, you'll find the strength to move on. The dark holes we sink into in such times are easy to get lost in, but if you can climb back out.
I’m not a teacher but this story kind of broke me. I stopped paying attention to shootings because they have become far too common and I am just too weak to have to keep hearing how we are...
I’m not a teacher but this story kind of broke me. I stopped paying attention to shootings because they have become far too common and I am just too weak to have to keep hearing how we are continually doing nothing to counter them. But today I am seeing children being murdered in cold blood because there are already too many people with guns to do anything about them. I can’t ignore this. It’s just too much. But I don’t know what to do anymore.
We are living in a society that allows you to think it’s ok to murder children as long as you hate them more than you care to live. We let practically everyone own the tools to do it as effectively as possible. Sometimes people blame this on the murderers’ mental health but nobody does anything to ensure that everyone has access to comprehensive mental health programs so they are complicit with the murderers. But for fuck’s sake, congress, DO SOMETHING. Something that will meaningfully act to stop this shit from happening over and over like keeps happening.
God this is depressing. Why are so many news sources mentioning the suspects name? We know naming them is very likely to inspire copycats. They should remain nameless. Frankly I’m surprised no...
God this is depressing.
Why are so many news sources mentioning the suspects name? We know naming them is very likely to inspire copycats. They should remain nameless. Frankly I’m surprised no state has passed laws banning naming mass shooters.
Do we actually know this is true or is it just an assumption a lot of us make? I don't doubt that it's true, I've just never come across this claim being backed by anything.
We know naming them is very likely to inspire copycats.
Do we actually know this is true or is it just an assumption a lot of us make? I don't doubt that it's true, I've just never come across this claim being backed by anything.
It's my understanding that it's fairly well documented that many (but not all) mass shooters are attention seeking and that extensive media coverage significantly increases the likelihood of...
It's my understanding that it's fairly well documented that many (but not all) mass shooters are attention seeking and that extensive media coverage significantly increases the likelihood of future shootings. This paper summarizes some of the past research on this effect and proposes a model in which media outlets don't broadly publicize the name/image of mass shooters while still covering the events and victims in as much detail as desired.
As it happened, I was at dinner with a co-worker whose spouse is an elementary school teacher in Texas (Dallas) when this news broke. They were frantically texting each other with reassurances and...
As it happened, I was at dinner with a co-worker whose spouse is an elementary school teacher in Texas (Dallas) when this news broke. They were frantically texting each other with reassurances and concerns for a half-hour or so afterward.
Apparently, the Texas State Legislature is again mooting laws to arm teachers as a defense... and the spouse was discussing resignation plans if that nonsensical response came to pass. They were actively frightened about the mental health of their stressed-out fellow teachers, and self-aware about their own bad days.
I remember how extreme it seemed when the inner-city high school my mother taught at installed metal detectors, because of increasing knife (!) crime. We've accepted intrusive scans and searches at airports, courthouses, and governmental buildings. It's unbelievable to me that we're accepting ever-escalating threats of violence in daily life without doing anything to control the widespread availability of extremely portable, concealable lethal weapons.
Holy shit, its gone up from 14. This is the worst school shooting I can remember hearing of over there since Sandy Hook. I don't look forward to all the false-flag conspiracy theories and...
Holy shit, its gone up from 14. This is the worst school shooting I can remember hearing of over there since Sandy Hook. I don't look forward to all the false-flag conspiracy theories and insincere mental health babble that'll be spewed over this to distract from the gun culture problem.
Don't forget the inevitable "crisis actor" accusation that are sure to be directed towards the surviving students, teachers, and families of the deceased too. This mass shooting event is already...
Don't forget the inevitable "crisis actor" accusation that are sure to be directed towards the surviving students, teachers, and families of the deceased too. This mass shooting event is already incredibly traumatic for them, but now these poor people are also likely going to suffer from harassment and abuse from conspiratorial nutjobs as well. My only hope is that with InfoWars undergoing bankruptcy, and Alex Jones currently wrapped up in all the Sandy Hook related defamation lawsuits, these victims won't be subjected to the same conspiratorial accusations as the Sandy Hook victims were... but sadly Alex Jones isn't the only nutjob out there who does that sick shit. :(
In a tweet, a family member confirmed that Joe Garcia, Irma Garcia’s husband of 24 years, “passed away due to grief.” They were high school sweethearts and parents to four children.
Martinez told The New York Times Joe Garcia visited his wife’s memorial Thursday morning to drop off flowers. When he returned home, he “pretty much just fell over,” he said.
This is precisely why we need proper gun regulation, proper background checks, yearly licensing, mental evaluation testing, limit access to high powered weaponry, and far higher taxes on ammunition.
This is precisely why we need proper gun regulation, proper background checks, yearly licensing, mental evaluation testing, limit access to high powered weaponry, and far higher taxes on ammunition.
I agree with that, but not because of shootings. The mentally ill are more likely to commit suicide and that is why they generally shouldn't be around guns. Mental patients are also less likely to...
mental evaluation testing
I agree with that, but not because of shootings. The mentally ill are more likely to commit suicide and that is why they generally shouldn't be around guns.
Mental patients are also less likely to commit crimes. That is easy to understand when you realize that many psych patients lack either the initiative or the means to plan, prepare, and execute any kind of project competently, and that is precisely why we're being treated. The criminal presents a flaw of the moral ethical kind. Evil is not a mental illness.
You didn't do that, but mental illnesses are often used as a scapegoat for other factors. It's easy to ascribe to mental health what is clearly a more complex societal failure.
Oh no, that was definitely part of my way of thinking. I think we need them to reduce shootings of all kinds, others and personal. Mental evaluation and treatment are vital.
Oh no, that was definitely part of my way of thinking. I think we need them to reduce shootings of all kinds, others and personal. Mental evaluation and treatment are vital.
As loathe as I am to say it, the news cycle will cover this for a few days, we'll get "thoughts and prayers" from the republican politicians, and a doomed attempt at addressing the problem from...
As loathe as I am to say it, the news cycle will cover this for a few days, we'll get "thoughts and prayers" from the republican politicians, and a doomed attempt at addressing the problem from the democrats (though I don't place the blame for the inevitable failure on them).
I fear we've fully made the move in this country to a place where mass shootings (including children in schools) is just an accepted part of "freedom". It's incredibly upsetting, demoralizing, and an absolute embarrassment.
After the Sandy Hook shooting back in 2012, active shooter drills started to get instituted in schools across the country. My first one as a teacher was in 2013, and I've done at least one every...
After the Sandy Hook shooting back in 2012, active shooter drills started to get instituted in schools across the country. My first one as a teacher was in 2013, and I've done at least one every year since (sometimes more).
They are now required in 40 states and are used in 95% of schools. Nothing says "we as a country have given up on this issue" like actively teaching children nationwide that being indiscriminately shot at school is a very real possibility that they should prepare for.
We had “lockdown” drills (for dangerous intruders) in my schools more than a decade prior. Might have started after Columbine in 1999, or even earlier.
We had “lockdown” drills (for dangerous intruders) in my schools more than a decade prior. Might have started after Columbine in 1999, or even earlier.
Active shooter drills are quite a bit different than lockdown drills. I used to run those as a teacher too. Lockdown drills were generally a matter of locking the door, turning off the lights, and...
Active shooter drills are quite a bit different than lockdown drills. I used to run those as a teacher too.
Lockdown drills were generally a matter of locking the door, turning off the lights, and either going under desks or out of sight of doors/windows until an all clear is called.
Active shooter drills are much more involved and instead focus on taking the best course of action relative to the situation, essentially boiling down to run/hide/fight. We teach the kids that if the shooting isn’t near you, you should run out of the building and get away. If it is nearby and running would be potentially dangerous, try hiding instead. This is like locking down but also includes things like barricading doors with desks and furniture. The last resort is fighting back. If you are in imminent danger, do whatever you can including hitting the shooter, throwing textbooks at his face, etc.
We actually practice the different elements with kids, usually in a simulated “shooting” involving calls over the intercom that announce “gunfire” in a specific area of the school. Once a year I either run out of my class with my students to the nearest exit or we practice barricading our classroom and grabbing makeshift weapons while waiting to see if our doors get breached. Which course of action we take depends on where the “shooting” is announced to be in the school during the drill, and I usually don’t even know that in advance (they want us practicing on-the-fly decision-making as well).
I’ve also done some more involved teacher-only trainings. For example: our local police department came to our school and fired blanks at different parts of our building so that teachers could hear what gunshots would sound like from our rooms. In another we had an actor that played a shooter with a prop gun and made his way through the school firing plastic pellets at teachers and breaking his way into classrooms.
Ah, interesting. Sounds like they've really dialed it up to 11. If that's the level we're working at now... from a layman perspective, this seems like a gamble compared to pulling the blinds,...
Ah, interesting. Sounds like they've really dialed it up to 11.
We teach the kids that if the shooting isn’t near you, you should run out of the building and get away.
If that's the level we're working at now... from a layman perspective, this seems like a gamble compared to pulling the blinds, covering & barricading the door, then getting to a corner. The walls were all cinderblock back when I was in school, so it would have been pretty safe as long as the door/barricade held. Hoping teachers, let alone students, are able to assess gunshot distance and direction in a panic, run out an exit in the opposite direction hoping the gunman doesn't move and gain line-of-sight of the exit path, and that there's only one gunman seems like a tall order.
They actually talk about this extensively in our teacher-only trainings, as it’s a common concern (and one I had, and still have to some extent). Back when the Columbine shooting happened, many of...
They actually talk about this extensively in our teacher-only trainings, as it’s a common concern (and one I had, and still have to some extent). Back when the Columbine shooting happened, many of the fatalities were in the library, where kids were locked down. The common wisdom at the time was to stay in place and in school because, well, what else would you do?
The library itself had exits directly to the outdoors and the students had sufficient warning in the library that the shooting was occurring. If the ones who had locked down in the library had used that exit, they likely would have made it out alive, but their training at the time taught them to do the opposite and stay in one spot.
Many schools are big and have many exits, as well as lots of places that are difficult to secure. If students have a high likelihood of making it to an exit (or even creating one, like going out a first-floor window), we encourage them to do so. My school takes a good two-three minutes to walk across, so if a shooting is on the opposite side, I likely have a minute or two to try to get my kids outside, where they can run as far away as possible. If it’s closer, that’s where the judgment call comes in, and there’s no singular right answer.
Locking down also comes with its own trade offs. When they call the lockdown, and there are two students in the hallway coming back from the bathroom, what do they do? Do I let them into my room? What if I don’t know the students? What if one of them could be the shooter? But if they aren’t, and we lock them out of all of our rooms, have we left them in harm’s way — stuck in a hallway with long sight lines and nowhere to run? Yes, I’d be protecting more kids in my room by locking them in there, but I’d also be removing a chance at safety for those elsewhere. What if the kids in the room adjoined to mine need to flee theirs, but they can’t get through the door to our class because I blocked it?
Also, how can you tell when a lockdown has ended? When the police come? When an all clear is announced? Can you trust that? What if it’s part of the plan? What if it’s happening under duress? After the Oxford High School shooting a video went viral where a sheriff attempted to clear a classroom and was mistaken for the shooter. I actually thought it was a video of the shooter himself until I looked it up right now and saw the fact check. I highly recommend watching the video, as it captures the intensity of a moment like that. The officer says the word “bro” and the students see that as a “tell” that he’s a peer, not an adult, and they run. It’s chilling, and even though it turns out he wasn’t the shooter, the students had no way of knowing that at the time.
Running can certainly be risky, but the best safety one can get in moments like that is distance from the shooter, and lockdowns often keep kids closer to him.
As for the idea of multiple shooters, that’s definitely a concern. The last training I did they talked about this and showed data on it. The vast majority of school shootings are from a single gunman — events like the Columbine shooting where there were two are very rare.
The ongoing concern at this point is that the people who are likely to be active shooters have now been trained in these protocols and will just work around them. I won’t talk about the myriad ways in which that’s possible (one example is already identified above: impersonating an officer), but suffice it to say that a motivated person could easily find flaws with our current plans, even though I do believe our current plans are more effective than they were before.
The hard pill to swallow about all of this is that our plans do not ensure safety — they simply minimize harm. The run/hide/fight strategy only happens after a threat has manifested. It will reduce the number of victims in aggregate but not guarantee any individual person’s safety. The better solution is to not have the threat manifest in the first place via preventative measures. Some of those have been put in place (for example, my school has a very strict entry policy), but many lie outside of our purview, and our country has shown us time and again that it is uninterested in exploring those potential solutions.
This was the plan back when I was in school ten or so years ago. Every class had a designated area several blocks away into the neighborhoods to run to if you are escaping from gun fire or bomb...
If that's the level we're working at now...
This was the plan back when I was in school ten or so years ago. Every class had a designated area several blocks away into the neighborhoods to run to if you are escaping from gun fire or bomb but that was only a technicality because it was followed up always by "but never go where the shooter knows where you go, make it random, and always get as far as possible and call the police once you are safe"
We always had fire drills that had a designated area on school property, but for shooting and bombs that was always the focus of the lesson on what to do if it wasn't a drill. We would have these every month, and sometimes twice a month (and fire/tornado drills every semester).
Absolutely not a place we should be at this point where we are having to train children so much.
I think we're in an even worse place. The overwhelming majority of the country favors universal background checks and a fairly solid majority or plurality favors enacting laws that are even more...
I fear we've fully made the move in this country to a place where mass shootings (including children in schools) are just an accepted part of "freedom".
I think we're in an even worse place. The overwhelming majority of the country favors universal background checks and a fairly solid majority or plurality favors enacting laws that are even more strict, depending on the poll/policy. In other words, we haven't grown to accept this as a consequence of "freedom," rather, we've reached a point where we've basically accepted the fact that there is nothing we can do to counter the stranglehold that the NRA and gun manufacturers have on our politics. It's perhaps the most blatant sign of the corruption and ineptitude that has ruined this country's ability to govern itself or respond to the growing number of crises it faces every year.
Kind of replying to people discussing the problem of the NRA, but I want to make this a top-level comment.... 20-ish years ago, from a throw-away comment in The West Wing ... the NRA has ~5...
Kind of replying to people discussing the problem of the NRA, but I want to make this a top-level comment....
20-ish years ago, from a throw-away comment in The West Wing ... the NRA has ~5 million members. The NRA members elect their leaders. If 6 million anti-gun Democrats joined the NRA before the next NRA election, and nominated their own candidate, overnight, the NRA becomes an org dedicated to reforming US gun laws.
I know it's a problematic idea; joining means paying dues, which means helping to fund them (though that's not where most of the lobby's funds come from), and if "they" saw this huge spike in new members, there'd be some kind of effort to prevent them taking over the organization.
Still, it's an intriguing idea that Democrats have been crying about the problems with the NRA, and yet they don't try joining the org to change it from within.
Like many other things in this nation, it probably just seems futile to Democrats to even bother- and like you said, it would probably be stopped before it could be taken over, and then what are...
Like many other things in this nation, it probably just seems futile to Democrats to even bother- and like you said, it would probably be stopped before it could be taken over, and then what are we left with- just an NRA with even more money
This type of takeover actually did happen at the NRA, just in the opposite direction, in the 1970s, with the Revolt at Cincinnati. Prior to 1977, the NRA was primarily an organization focused on...
This type of takeover actually did happen at the NRA, just in the opposite direction, in the 1970s, with the Revolt at Cincinnati. Prior to 1977, the NRA was primarily an organization focused on marksmanship, sport and recreation, and hunting (and as a result, also traditional, hunting-perspective environmental conservation, because you can't enjoyably hunt if there's no natural habitat left). It generally supported controls of firearms from an establishment perspective, especially types less suited to hunting and shooting sports, and didn't necessarily support carrying them for self-defence (in the 1930s, in support of the National Firearms Act, Wikipedia quotes the NRA President as saying 'I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.').
In 1977, NRA leadership planned to move their headquarters from D.C. to a large outdoor centre built for recreational shooting and hunting that they wanted to construct in Colorado, which would of course also symbolically move them away from politics further than they already were. Harlon Carter led a large group of members to oust the leadership, stop the move, and refocus the organization away from marksmanship and toward a strident arms-bearing and anti-gun-control advocacy organization.
I can remember even into the 1990s, there seemed to be some vestiges of the old NRA in some places, especially around scouting: the old mid-century shooting ranges with only bolt action rifles, the old literature focused on careful, slow marksmanship, and safety. In that NRA, the idea of wanting many of the sorts of weapons they idolize today, and certainly carrying them around for self-defence, would seem sinister. That was the sort of thing you'd do if you were a criminal, or a revolutionary; surely if you were an upstanding member of society (ie, white and not a Marxist) you'd have the police to protect you? It was certainly a conservative, normative perspective, but I feel like it was at least better than the violent anarchy promoted by the NRA now.
Unfortunately, from a democratic perspective, Carter's guns-guns-guns direction for the organization seems to have been the much more popular one, with the membership tripling after the change. I also would suspect, since they gained power themselves through a democratic overthrow of leadership, that they took steps to defend against someone else doing that in the future.
Hmm. I wonder why the organization might have taken such a hard right turn on promiscuous gun toting and "self-defense" just 8 years after the civil rights act was signed?
In 1977, NRA leadership planned to move their headquarters from D.C. to a large outdoor centre built for recreational shooting and hunting that they wanted to construct in Colorado, which would of course also symbolically move them away from politics further than they already were. Harlon Carter led a large group of members to oust the leadership, stop the move, and refocus the organization away from marksmanship and toward a strident arms-bearing and anti-gun-control advocacy organization.
Hmm. I wonder why the organization might have taken such a hard right turn on promiscuous gun toting and "self-defense" just 8 years after the civil rights act was signed?
I wouldn't necessarily characterize the move as being a 'hard right turn'. While gun fanaticism is a current tenet of the American far right, I think it's mostly peculiar to the current American...
I wouldn't necessarily characterize the move as being a 'hard right turn'. While gun fanaticism is a current tenet of the American far right, I think it's mostly peculiar to the current American far right: it is not intrinsic to conservatism. The pre-1977 NRA was also conservative, but in a different way, and gun control itself can be a conservative cause, in the interest of keeping guns away from the 'wrong' sorts of people*, while keeping them available to others. It was, however, a turn to a very different sort of conservatism.
More likely to have been a major influence was that the NRA supported the Gun Control Act of 1968, and declined to campaign against politicians supporting gun control. But while I had initially been a bit skeptical of the in considering this, I then realized that this in itself is related to the CRA in that, while the GCA was prompted by JFK's assassination, it languished for years until MLK's assassination provided the support needed to pass it, which is why it was passed around the same time as the CRA.
(* Consider, in the Gun Control Act of 1968, that amongst the prohibitions for the people you'd expect, like a 'fugitive from justice', or someone 'committed to a mental institution', is anyone 'who is an unlawful user of or addicted to marihuana...'.)
A) Nothing else seems to be working, and 2) like the NRA might become more powerful? Per Wikipedia, the NRA president is a figurehead, and the org is mainly governed by a board of 76...
A) Nothing else seems to be working, and 2) like the NRA might become more powerful?
Per Wikipedia, the NRA president is a figurehead, and the org is mainly governed by a board of 76 member-elected directors.
Also according to Wikipedia, less than 7% (~350,000 members) of NRA members actually bother to vote for NRA leadership.
Seriously, I feel like there is potential here. Even if a million responsible Republican gun-owners joined and actively worked to reform the NRA, it could make a huge difference. Hell, even if a productive ad campaign worked to enlighten and motivate responsible gun owners who are already members but part of that silent majority that doesn't bother to vote.
I'm not saying this is the best/only solution, but reforming/transforming the NRA is, at least, an under-explored option.
ETA: It also really appeals to the subversive guerrilla in me.
ETA2: My web search for "can democrats take over the NRA" returns exactly 0 results that even consider this option ... it's all about "beating" or eliminating the NRA, making membership illegal (?!!?), etc.
Seriously, the NRA actually used to be an excellent org that promoted safe and responsible gun ownership; it's only in the past 40-ish (?) years that it turned into this political parody of itself. Fixing it would be much better than "defeating" it (whatever that means).
In a because of course they are move, the right wing is already in full conspiracy mode with their favorite "source" as their evidence that the shooter was a 'Transsexual illegal alien' which has...
The only difference that I can immediately identify by comparing it to the original URL’s archived version is the new last paragraph: I wonder why the URL changed this time though, since they had...
The only difference that I can immediately identify by comparing it to the original URL’s archived version is the new last paragraph:
This story has been corrected to reflect that state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said the gunman shot his grandmother before going to the school; he did not say the gunman killed his grandmother.
I wonder why the URL changed this time though, since they had previously made other alterations to the victim count and other details but the URL remained the same after those.
The National Rifle Association began its annual convention in Houston on Friday, three days after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school on the other side of the state, renewing the national debate over gun violence.
Former President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders were scheduled to speak at the event. Leaders of the gun rights lobbying group planned to “reflect on” — and deflect any blame for — the school shooting in Uvalde. Protesters angry about gun violence demonstrated outside, including some holding crosses with photos of the Uvalde shooting victims.
Some scheduled speakers and performers backed out of the event, including several Texas lawmakers and “American Pie” singer Don McLean, who said “it would be disrespectful” to go ahead with his act after the country’s latest mass shooting. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Friday morning that he had decided not to speak at an event breakfast after “prayerful consideration and discussion with NRA officials.”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) introduced a bill Thursday that would withhold congressional pay in the aftermath of a mass shooting.
The No Pay Until Peace Act would withhold a month of pay from all members of Congress every month that a mass shooting occurs, defined as four or more people being killed from one incident. Cleaver put forward the bill following the Tuesday shooting at a Texas elementary school that killed 21, including 19 students, as legislation on guns has long been stalled in the Senate.
“While the loss of one month’s paycheck doesn’t even begin to compare to the loss of a child, every lawmaker should be held accountable for the unconscionable failure to do something, anything, that will save lives,” Cleaver said in a press release.
Two senior federal law enforcement officials said the federal agents decided after about 30 minutes not to wait any longer and entered the school to find gunman Salvador Ramos.
Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter, say two senior federal law enforcement officials.
According to the officials, agents from BORTAC, the Customs and Border Protection tactical unit, and ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrived on the scene between noon and 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Local law enforcement asked them to wait, and then instructed HSI agents to help pull children out of the windows.
The BORTAC team, armed with tactical gear, at first did not move toward the gunman. After approximately 30 minutes passed, however, the federal agents opted of their own volition to lead the “stack” of officers inside the school and take down the shooter.
On a state level, we see the positive impact of more restrictive laws. A recent BMJ article found that states with more restrictive laws have reduced the rate of mass shootings. This was the case even after accounting for other state-level factors that could explain the relationship, like income, education, race, female head of household, poverty, unemployment, and incarceration rates. There is also a growing divide emerging between restrictive and permissive states [...]
[...]
But even if states don’t pass policies, this doesn’t mean we are out of luck. There are a number of public health interventions we can still implement [...]
Police admitted to a stunning string of failures — including driving right by the gunman — in responding to the Texas school shooting while children were being massacred inside, with the head of the state's Department of Public Safety saying the time for making excuses about the botched response was over.
The Friday news conference came after days of confusion, inconsistencies and a muddled timeline of law enforcement's response to the rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Clearly a lot of Republicans have not yet figured out a coherent position to take on this. Here is Herschel Walker, Georgia Republican Senate nominee, when asked about the shooting:
Clearly a lot of Republicans have not yet figured out a coherent position to take on this. Here is Herschel Walker, Georgia Republican Senate nominee, when asked about the shooting:
"Cain killed Abel and that's a problem that we have. What we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation -- what about getting a department that can look at young men that's looking at women that's looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that and we can stop that that way. But yet they want to just continue to talk about taking away your constitutional rights. And I think there's more things we need to look into. This has been happening for years and the way we stop it is putting money into the mental health field, by putting money into other departments rather than departments that want to take away your rights."
My personal favorite "solution" being proposed by them is to have less doors at schools: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ted-cruz-uvalde-shootings.html p.s. One of the reasons why...
My personal favorite "solution" being proposed by them is to have less doors at schools:
In multiple interviews from Uvalde, Cruz has, with a tone of deep conviction and concern, called for schools to reduce the number of doors they use. “Don’t have all of these unlocked back doors,” he said on Fox News. “Have one door into and out of the school and have that one door—armed police officers at that door.” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are among the others who’ve said the same thing: You stop shooters by making them get past someone else with a gun.
They don’t believe their own bullshit. Saying this nonsense is just a gambit to distract people from talking about the horrors of the shooting to spending time debunking. That is all. There’s a...
They don’t believe their own bullshit. Saying this nonsense is just a gambit to distract people from talking about the horrors of the shooting to spending time debunking. That is all. There’s a reason it’s different nonsense every time, it’s so people don’t tune out the arguments. The argument is the point. It gets the pictures of the kids off the news and fills it with inane ”debates” about doors or video games or rap music, or whatever other garbage instead.
It’s easier to have inane debates because it’s easier to poke fun at how fucking stupid these people are than it is to sit and dwell on the thought of a bunch of dead kids so we all happily do it. These people are manipulative and they are shameless. They know they don’t have a leg to stand on so they delay, evade, and flood the zone with utter bullshit to avoid having to confront the monster they created and continue to feed. They’re too fucking cowardly to back out now because they know Audrey II will eat them if they do.
These canards they throw out each time are simply not worth engaging with. Anytime spent not making people face up to the human cost of the status quo is a victory for them. They need to have the reality of this shoved in their faces.
I can attest to the fact that outside doors or gates in schools in my country are generally closed, locked, and guarded by security or a janitor. We do not have any shootings that I can remember....
I can attest to the fact that outside doors or gates in schools in my country are generally closed, locked, and guarded by security or a janitor. We do not have any shootings that I can remember. However, we also have strict gun control, in reality we don't even have the concept of gun ownership as a right. It is very much a privilege.
Probably preaching to the choir here but the problem with biblical literalists is that they're literally on another plane of existence relative to everyone else. That the 'fallen man' is being...
Probably preaching to the choir here but the problem with biblical literalists is that they're literally on another plane of existence relative to everyone else. That the 'fallen man' is being used as a crutch to avoid any sense of betterment or progress in society is so tiring when they literally just need to open their eyes and look at their peer countries for examples of this problem being tackled.
It seems like the libertarian position being adopted after this shooting is that because the police didn’t respond fast enough, the answer would have been to have more people armed and not wait...
It seems like the libertarian position being adopted after this shooting is that because the police didn’t respond fast enough, the answer would have been to have more people armed and not wait for police to act.
I sympathize with police actions being abysmal, but how is this a seemingly popular refrain online? It's insane. The notion that everyone could walk around armed and the result being less instead of more shootings is a more outlandish utopianism than the most intense Marxist fever dreams I’ve ever heard of. If you want less shootings, you just need less guns available.
I can't seem to find it now, but I recently watch a low quality youtube where a guy attends a recovering conspiracy theorist meeting. They go around the circle where the group reacts with empathy...
I can't seem to find it now, but I recently watch a low quality youtube where a guy attends a recovering conspiracy theorist meeting. They go around the circle where the group reacts with empathy as each reveals the outlandish theories they used to believe: underground lizards, Jewish overlords, free energy. Then they get to the newcomer, who blurts out that he used to believe in trickle down economics, and everyone bursts out laughing.
If I had the wherewithal, I'd remake the video with the line "I used to believe that if everyone walked around armed the result would be less instead of more shootings!"
I guess the thing that really stands out to me is that these are ostensibly cynical people who are often quick to call government programs as too naive, trusting, or idealistic and then turn...
I guess the thing that really stands out to me is that these are ostensibly cynical people who are often quick to call government programs as too naive, trusting, or idealistic and then turn around and think arming everyone is a good idea. Have you met people?!
I am surprised to hear you say this, because in my experience the response has always been that public schools are deeply flawed and we should get rid of them.
I am surprised to hear you say this, because in my experience the response has always been that public schools are deeply flawed and we should get rid of them.
Students trapped inside a classroom with a gunman repeatedly called 911 during this week’s attack on a Texas elementary school, including one who pleaded, “Please send the police now,” as officers waited in the hallway for more than 45 minutes, authorities said Friday.
What the fuck happened with here and Parkland? Ever since Columbine I thought police departments had learned to assume its an active shooter and not a hostage taker, and to go in and neutralize...
What the fuck happened with here and Parkland? Ever since Columbine I thought police departments had learned to assume its an active shooter and not a hostage taker, and to go in and neutralize the perpetrator ASAP.
To spin it in a slightly different direction: The police were afraid to enter the building. Ok fine, I get it, they have tactics and training but at the end of the day they're still human like the...
To spin it in a slightly different direction:
The police were afraid to enter the building. Ok fine, I get it, they have tactics and training but at the end of the day they're still human like the rest of us. They can still feel fear, panic, and anxiety. They may not have known what exactly was happening inside, but they watch the news with the rest of us.
They know that if there's a report of a gunman in a school, he's very likely not carrying his grandpa's rusty bolt-action hunting rifle. They know that there's a high likelihood that the weapons he's carrying is a semiautomatic. They know that he's probably got more than one of them. They know that there's a non-zero chance that those weapons are loaded with ammunition designed to fragment and shred a human body beyond just punching a hole in it. They know that even if they rush in with vastly superior numbers, if the gunman lets loose someone is likely to die, and they don't what it to be them. We've talked about the militarization of the police, the billions of dollars of military surplus that has flowed into local law enforcement. Even with all that equipment, the training, the protection, they still don't feel safe enough to do their job.
So why the FUCK does any police officer in America find this acceptable. Why doesn't every police officer that showed up to that school link arms with every teacher and student, march up to Congress and start screaming.
I have seen a lot of law enforcement people over the internet saying they are just as appaled and disgusted by the inaction of those police officers. Anonymous unverifiable reports, but it was a lot.
I have seen a lot of law enforcement people over the internet saying they are just as appaled and disgusted by the inaction of those police officers. Anonymous unverifiable reports, but it was a lot.
I reckon they're appalled in the same way people like to say "If it had been me bro. . ." But in practice most of them would probably have shit their pants the same way. If we're going to accept a...
I reckon they're appalled in the same way people like to say "If it had been me bro. . ."
But in practice most of them would probably have shit their pants the same way. If we're going to accept a world where any idiot can buy any kind of gun and take it with him anywhere he goes, we're living in a world where either police are going to be outgunned basically all of the time or they're going to be kitted out like Navy SEALS every time they step out of their squad car.
Video of Wayne LaPierre Ridiculed at NRA Convention Viewed 2M Times https://www.newsweek.com/nra-national-rifle-association-wayne-lapierre-good-liars-guns-thoughts-prayers-1711303 Video link:...
An exterior door at Robb Elementary School did not lock when it was closed by a teacher shortly before a gunman used it to get inside and kill 19 students and two teachers, leaving investigators searching to determine why, state police said Tuesday.
State police initially said a teacher had propped the door open shortly before Salvador Ramos, 18, entered the school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
They have now determined that the teacher, who has not been identified, propped the door open with a rock, but then removed the rock and closed the door when she realized there was a shooter on campus, said Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety. But, Considine said, the door that was designed to lock when shut did not lock.
Lot-o-internet-speculation abound with ideas that the video contains one or more of the following in increasingly horrific order: Police audio stating something along the lines of "I'm not going...
Lot-o-internet-speculation abound with ideas that the video contains one or more of the following in increasingly horrific order:
Police audio stating something along the lines of "I'm not going in there." "I'm not going to die for them." etc.
Another plausible reason. Being that Ken Paxton is a literal slimeball under multiple investigations, I doubt he'll release it once he's had a meeting/fundraising dinner with a police union or...
Another plausible reason. Being that Ken Paxton is a literal slimeball under multiple investigations, I doubt he'll release it once he's had a meeting/fundraising dinner with a police union or two.
Or he might to try to deflect attention from said investigations during a election year.
Screenshot of Abbott's two latest tweets. Palpable irony from a Governor that's done nothing in this state to protect citizens while being in charge when a US citizen perpetrates the 3rd deadliest...
The National Rifle Association’s annual meeting is set to be held in Houston starting on Friday. Former President Donald J. Trump, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Senator Ted Cruz are among those scheduled to address the gathering.
Edit: Updated title as AP did, now 18 children and 3 adults, but AP notes at this time "it is not immediately clear whether that number included the assailant." Also updated from 5th to 3rd deadliest school shooting.
On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of mourners turned out for the funeral Mass for Amerie Jo Garza, a smiling fourth-grader who was killed a week ago when 18-year-old Salvador Ramos stormed into her Uvalde, Texas elementary school and opened fire on her classroom. Amerie’s funeral was the first since the massacre, with Maite Rodriguez’s scheduled for later Tuesday at an Uvalde funeral home.
Nineteen more funerals are planned for the next two-and-a-half weeks for the 19 children and two teachers who were killed in that classroom on May 24.
I had a whole thing typed out and then Safari froze and I lost it. That’s probably for the best, to be honest. I’m not in a good place right now. I spent a lot of time crying in the shower this evening.
The short of what I wanted to get across is this: as a teacher, it feels like every school shooting takes a part of my soul that I never get back. To this day, nearly ten years later, I still cannot look at the list of names of the victims of Sandy Hook without immediately crying. There are so many, and they were so young.
If they were still here, they would be graduating from high school soon.
I wonder if, in ten years, I’ll cry when I see the names from the Uvalde shooting or if my soul will have been fully taken from me by then, chunk by chunk, from the massacres of kids that will inevitably keep happening. Children bring a glorious and incomparable light to the world, and, instead of protecting that, we’re allowing the darkness to extinguish it, over and over again, in the most horrific of ways.
It doesn’t have to be this way — it shouldn’t be this way — but so much of my soul is missing that I lack the ability to believe that anything else is even possible. There’s a hollowness where a hope should be.
The kids from Uvalde were about to start their summer break. It was two days away.
Where there should have been only light, we let in darkness.
And it extinguished the light.
Again.
Even though their death are senseless and tragic, if you let it affect you too to such a degree, the perpetrators win. The purpose of terrorists is to terrorize.
Working in education, I can see how it would affect you more than others, even if you (luckily!) were not involved directly. I have no words that will make the pain go away. Perhaps you can find some semblance of comfort in the fact that a stranger from the digital tides decided to stop and write this out for you, though maybe that is a silly illusion on my part. Every time this happens, I react with apathy, but that is easier for me, because I live on a different continent and I also don't work closely with children. One can find such news disturbing but at the same time, stay emotionally detached, but like I said, that is much easier for me than it is for you. Man I suck at building people up, don't I? Let me try again.
Kids are, for many, the embodiment of innocence. A fresh life, hopefully coming into this world in a home full of care and love that they deserve. There are many of them. Way more than there are school shootings. So I would disagree with the fact that the light was extinguished. I'd oppose that vehemently even. Their light is a wave as strong as a generation, and the people who try to wipe them out are just a speck of darkness in that wave, barely able to be made out unless you look for them. Even in the US, the country that says "Nothing can prevent this" though it is the only country where this keeps happening, the majority of kids see school as a happy time, largely thanks to people such as you.
The amount of empathy, care, and thoughtfulness you radiate can be felt by me even an ocean away, even though we have interacted comparatively little. The fact that you put in so much effort into something as inconsequential as a post on some internet forum convinces me that you must work much more diligently, with much more empathy and with much more thought day-to-day as a teacher. You may not be part of that wave of light, but through your actions, you make it so much more stronger and brighter. And you do it every day, in a country that is ungrateful for your vitally important job, in a system that sometimes resembles more a meatgrinder than a government, and you keep doing it.
It is the tragedy of humanity that those who care most are often those who are hurt the most. The same empathy that enables you to such great deeds is the same that makes you so vulnerable to such crimes, even if they happen far away, maybe because part of you sees your own pupils as part of those death tolls, or maybe even your own name. Or maybe it's less complicated than that and you simply feel empathy for the victims. It is tragic that we have to carry on, the collective survivors of humanity, but it is all we can do. Prepare for the next wave of light, the next kids that are unaffected by this tragedy.
If you ever make it to the Alps, shoot me a PM and we can go out for beers. I'm buying.
This was a beautiful comfort. You, too, are a light. Thank you for shining for me at a moment when I’m struggling to.
I find comfort in gallow's humour, and often make terrible jokes about terrible things; blame it on all the medical staff in my family. But they're used to it. Losing a life in medicine is part of the job, and you have to protect yourself to stay in a position where you can help others. Building a shell with that humour is part of that, and finding a balance between your empathy and your need to protect yourself from emotional damage is path that everyone in that field must walk.
You do not have that luxury. Even in a country where that happens too much, way, way too much, you are far away from being forced to experience it on your own person, and even with the staggering numbers in the US, I'd guess the chance of you becoming a victim is below 1% and forgive me, I'd rather not calculate the odds.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope that in the end, you'll find the strength to move on. The dark holes we sink into in such times are easy to get lost in, but if you can climb back out.
I’m not a teacher but this story kind of broke me. I stopped paying attention to shootings because they have become far too common and I am just too weak to have to keep hearing how we are continually doing nothing to counter them. But today I am seeing children being murdered in cold blood because there are already too many people with guns to do anything about them. I can’t ignore this. It’s just too much. But I don’t know what to do anymore.
We are living in a society that allows you to think it’s ok to murder children as long as you hate them more than you care to live. We let practically everyone own the tools to do it as effectively as possible. Sometimes people blame this on the murderers’ mental health but nobody does anything to ensure that everyone has access to comprehensive mental health programs so they are complicit with the murderers. But for fuck’s sake, congress, DO SOMETHING. Something that will meaningfully act to stop this shit from happening over and over like keeps happening.
God this is depressing.
Why are so many news sources mentioning the suspects name? We know naming them is very likely to inspire copycats. They should remain nameless. Frankly I’m surprised no state has passed laws banning naming mass shooters.
Do we actually know this is true or is it just an assumption a lot of us make? I don't doubt that it's true, I've just never come across this claim being backed by anything.
It's my understanding that it's fairly well documented that many (but not all) mass shooters are attention seeking and that extensive media coverage significantly increases the likelihood of future shootings. This paper summarizes some of the past research on this effect and proposes a model in which media outlets don't broadly publicize the name/image of mass shooters while still covering the events and victims in as much detail as desired.
We had a brief period around when Christchurch happened, and even in that case in the US it fell away rapidly.
Too much of a chance it'll be a 1st Amendment violation.
As it happened, I was at dinner with a co-worker whose spouse is an elementary school teacher in Texas (Dallas) when this news broke. They were frantically texting each other with reassurances and concerns for a half-hour or so afterward.
Apparently, the Texas State Legislature is again mooting laws to arm teachers as a defense... and the spouse was discussing resignation plans if that nonsensical response came to pass. They were actively frightened about the mental health of their stressed-out fellow teachers, and self-aware about their own bad days.
I remember how extreme it seemed when the inner-city high school my mother taught at installed metal detectors, because of increasing knife (!) crime. We've accepted intrusive scans and searches at airports, courthouses, and governmental buildings. It's unbelievable to me that we're accepting ever-escalating threats of violence in daily life without doing anything to control the widespread availability of extremely portable, concealable lethal weapons.
The names
Holy shit, its gone up from 14. This is the worst school shooting I can remember hearing of over there since Sandy Hook. I don't look forward to all the false-flag conspiracy theories and insincere mental health babble that'll be spewed over this to distract from the gun culture problem.
Don't forget the inevitable "crisis actor" accusation that are sure to be directed towards the surviving students, teachers, and families of the deceased too. This mass shooting event is already incredibly traumatic for them, but now these poor people are also likely going to suffer from harassment and abuse from conspiratorial nutjobs as well. My only hope is that with InfoWars undergoing bankruptcy, and Alex Jones currently wrapped up in all the Sandy Hook related defamation lawsuits, these victims won't be subjected to the same conspiratorial accusations as the Sandy Hook victims were... but sadly Alex Jones isn't the only nutjob out there who does that sick shit. :(
Yep, within moments of the news breaking I saw mentions of it being "another false flag like Sandy Hook".
Husband of slain Uvalde teacher dies of heart attack after visiting memorial at school
This is precisely why we need proper gun regulation, proper background checks, yearly licensing, mental evaluation testing, limit access to high powered weaponry, and far higher taxes on ammunition.
I agree with that, but not because of shootings. The mentally ill are more likely to commit suicide and that is why they generally shouldn't be around guns.
Mental patients are also less likely to commit crimes. That is easy to understand when you realize that many psych patients lack either the initiative or the means to plan, prepare, and execute any kind of project competently, and that is precisely why we're being treated. The criminal presents a flaw of the moral ethical kind. Evil is not a mental illness.
You didn't do that, but mental illnesses are often used as a scapegoat for other factors. It's easy to ascribe to mental health what is clearly a more complex societal failure.
Oh no, that was definitely part of my way of thinking. I think we need them to reduce shootings of all kinds, others and personal. Mental evaluation and treatment are vital.
Where do I go to vote for this?
As loathe as I am to say it, the news cycle will cover this for a few days, we'll get "thoughts and prayers" from the republican politicians, and a doomed attempt at addressing the problem from the democrats (though I don't place the blame for the inevitable failure on them).
I fear we've fully made the move in this country to a place where mass shootings (including children in schools) is just an accepted part of "freedom". It's incredibly upsetting, demoralizing, and an absolute embarrassment.
After the Sandy Hook shooting back in 2012, active shooter drills started to get instituted in schools across the country. My first one as a teacher was in 2013, and I've done at least one every year since (sometimes more).
They are now required in 40 states and are used in 95% of schools. Nothing says "we as a country have given up on this issue" like actively teaching children nationwide that being indiscriminately shot at school is a very real possibility that they should prepare for.
We had “lockdown” drills (for dangerous intruders) in my schools more than a decade prior. Might have started after Columbine in 1999, or even earlier.
Active shooter drills are quite a bit different than lockdown drills. I used to run those as a teacher too.
Lockdown drills were generally a matter of locking the door, turning off the lights, and either going under desks or out of sight of doors/windows until an all clear is called.
Active shooter drills are much more involved and instead focus on taking the best course of action relative to the situation, essentially boiling down to run/hide/fight. We teach the kids that if the shooting isn’t near you, you should run out of the building and get away. If it is nearby and running would be potentially dangerous, try hiding instead. This is like locking down but also includes things like barricading doors with desks and furniture. The last resort is fighting back. If you are in imminent danger, do whatever you can including hitting the shooter, throwing textbooks at his face, etc.
We actually practice the different elements with kids, usually in a simulated “shooting” involving calls over the intercom that announce “gunfire” in a specific area of the school. Once a year I either run out of my class with my students to the nearest exit or we practice barricading our classroom and grabbing makeshift weapons while waiting to see if our doors get breached. Which course of action we take depends on where the “shooting” is announced to be in the school during the drill, and I usually don’t even know that in advance (they want us practicing on-the-fly decision-making as well).
I’ve also done some more involved teacher-only trainings. For example: our local police department came to our school and fired blanks at different parts of our building so that teachers could hear what gunshots would sound like from our rooms. In another we had an actor that played a shooter with a prop gun and made his way through the school firing plastic pellets at teachers and breaking his way into classrooms.
This shit can't be healthy for the kids psyche, can it? I imagine the training alone could make them quite afraid.
Ah, interesting. Sounds like they've really dialed it up to 11.
If that's the level we're working at now... from a layman perspective, this seems like a gamble compared to pulling the blinds, covering & barricading the door, then getting to a corner. The walls were all cinderblock back when I was in school, so it would have been pretty safe as long as the door/barricade held. Hoping teachers, let alone students, are able to assess gunshot distance and direction in a panic, run out an exit in the opposite direction hoping the gunman doesn't move and gain line-of-sight of the exit path, and that there's only one gunman seems like a tall order.
They actually talk about this extensively in our teacher-only trainings, as it’s a common concern (and one I had, and still have to some extent). Back when the Columbine shooting happened, many of the fatalities were in the library, where kids were locked down. The common wisdom at the time was to stay in place and in school because, well, what else would you do?
The library itself had exits directly to the outdoors and the students had sufficient warning in the library that the shooting was occurring. If the ones who had locked down in the library had used that exit, they likely would have made it out alive, but their training at the time taught them to do the opposite and stay in one spot.
Many schools are big and have many exits, as well as lots of places that are difficult to secure. If students have a high likelihood of making it to an exit (or even creating one, like going out a first-floor window), we encourage them to do so. My school takes a good two-three minutes to walk across, so if a shooting is on the opposite side, I likely have a minute or two to try to get my kids outside, where they can run as far away as possible. If it’s closer, that’s where the judgment call comes in, and there’s no singular right answer.
Locking down also comes with its own trade offs. When they call the lockdown, and there are two students in the hallway coming back from the bathroom, what do they do? Do I let them into my room? What if I don’t know the students? What if one of them could be the shooter? But if they aren’t, and we lock them out of all of our rooms, have we left them in harm’s way — stuck in a hallway with long sight lines and nowhere to run? Yes, I’d be protecting more kids in my room by locking them in there, but I’d also be removing a chance at safety for those elsewhere. What if the kids in the room adjoined to mine need to flee theirs, but they can’t get through the door to our class because I blocked it?
Also, how can you tell when a lockdown has ended? When the police come? When an all clear is announced? Can you trust that? What if it’s part of the plan? What if it’s happening under duress? After the Oxford High School shooting a video went viral where a sheriff attempted to clear a classroom and was mistaken for the shooter. I actually thought it was a video of the shooter himself until I looked it up right now and saw the fact check. I highly recommend watching the video, as it captures the intensity of a moment like that. The officer says the word “bro” and the students see that as a “tell” that he’s a peer, not an adult, and they run. It’s chilling, and even though it turns out he wasn’t the shooter, the students had no way of knowing that at the time.
Running can certainly be risky, but the best safety one can get in moments like that is distance from the shooter, and lockdowns often keep kids closer to him.
As for the idea of multiple shooters, that’s definitely a concern. The last training I did they talked about this and showed data on it. The vast majority of school shootings are from a single gunman — events like the Columbine shooting where there were two are very rare.
The ongoing concern at this point is that the people who are likely to be active shooters have now been trained in these protocols and will just work around them. I won’t talk about the myriad ways in which that’s possible (one example is already identified above: impersonating an officer), but suffice it to say that a motivated person could easily find flaws with our current plans, even though I do believe our current plans are more effective than they were before.
The hard pill to swallow about all of this is that our plans do not ensure safety — they simply minimize harm. The run/hide/fight strategy only happens after a threat has manifested. It will reduce the number of victims in aggregate but not guarantee any individual person’s safety. The better solution is to not have the threat manifest in the first place via preventative measures. Some of those have been put in place (for example, my school has a very strict entry policy), but many lie outside of our purview, and our country has shown us time and again that it is uninterested in exploring those potential solutions.
This was the plan back when I was in school ten or so years ago. Every class had a designated area several blocks away into the neighborhoods to run to if you are escaping from gun fire or bomb but that was only a technicality because it was followed up always by "but never go where the shooter knows where you go, make it random, and always get as far as possible and call the police once you are safe"
We always had fire drills that had a designated area on school property, but for shooting and bombs that was always the focus of the lesson on what to do if it wasn't a drill. We would have these every month, and sometimes twice a month (and fire/tornado drills every semester).
Absolutely not a place we should be at this point where we are having to train children so much.
I think we're in an even worse place. The overwhelming majority of the country favors universal background checks and a fairly solid majority or plurality favors enacting laws that are even more strict, depending on the poll/policy. In other words, we haven't grown to accept this as a consequence of "freedom," rather, we've reached a point where we've basically accepted the fact that there is nothing we can do to counter the stranglehold that the NRA and gun manufacturers have on our politics. It's perhaps the most blatant sign of the corruption and ineptitude that has ruined this country's ability to govern itself or respond to the growing number of crises it faces every year.
Kind of replying to people discussing the problem of the NRA, but I want to make this a top-level comment....
20-ish years ago, from a throw-away comment in The West Wing ... the NRA has ~5 million members. The NRA members elect their leaders. If 6 million anti-gun Democrats joined the NRA before the next NRA election, and nominated their own candidate, overnight, the NRA becomes an org dedicated to reforming US gun laws.
I know it's a problematic idea; joining means paying dues, which means helping to fund them (though that's not where most of the lobby's funds come from), and if "they" saw this huge spike in new members, there'd be some kind of effort to prevent them taking over the organization.
Still, it's an intriguing idea that Democrats have been crying about the problems with the NRA, and yet they don't try joining the org to change it from within.
Like many other things in this nation, it probably just seems futile to Democrats to even bother- and like you said, it would probably be stopped before it could be taken over, and then what are we left with- just an NRA with even more money
This type of takeover actually did happen at the NRA, just in the opposite direction, in the 1970s, with the Revolt at Cincinnati. Prior to 1977, the NRA was primarily an organization focused on marksmanship, sport and recreation, and hunting (and as a result, also traditional, hunting-perspective environmental conservation, because you can't enjoyably hunt if there's no natural habitat left). It generally supported controls of firearms from an establishment perspective, especially types less suited to hunting and shooting sports, and didn't necessarily support carrying them for self-defence (in the 1930s, in support of the National Firearms Act, Wikipedia quotes the NRA President as saying 'I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.').
In 1977, NRA leadership planned to move their headquarters from D.C. to a large outdoor centre built for recreational shooting and hunting that they wanted to construct in Colorado, which would of course also symbolically move them away from politics further than they already were. Harlon Carter led a large group of members to oust the leadership, stop the move, and refocus the organization away from marksmanship and toward a strident arms-bearing and anti-gun-control advocacy organization.
I can remember even into the 1990s, there seemed to be some vestiges of the old NRA in some places, especially around scouting: the old mid-century shooting ranges with only bolt action rifles, the old literature focused on careful, slow marksmanship, and safety. In that NRA, the idea of wanting many of the sorts of weapons they idolize today, and certainly carrying them around for self-defence, would seem sinister. That was the sort of thing you'd do if you were a criminal, or a revolutionary; surely if you were an upstanding member of society (ie, white and not a Marxist) you'd have the police to protect you? It was certainly a conservative, normative perspective, but I feel like it was at least better than the violent anarchy promoted by the NRA now.
Unfortunately, from a democratic perspective, Carter's guns-guns-guns direction for the organization seems to have been the much more popular one, with the membership tripling after the change. I also would suspect, since they gained power themselves through a democratic overthrow of leadership, that they took steps to defend against someone else doing that in the future.
Hmm. I wonder why the organization might have taken such a hard right turn on promiscuous gun toting and "self-defense" just 8 years after the civil rights act was signed?
I wouldn't necessarily characterize the move as being a 'hard right turn'. While gun fanaticism is a current tenet of the American far right, I think it's mostly peculiar to the current American far right: it is not intrinsic to conservatism. The pre-1977 NRA was also conservative, but in a different way, and gun control itself can be a conservative cause, in the interest of keeping guns away from the 'wrong' sorts of people*, while keeping them available to others. It was, however, a turn to a very different sort of conservatism.
More likely to have been a major influence was that the NRA supported the Gun Control Act of 1968, and declined to campaign against politicians supporting gun control. But while I had initially been a bit skeptical of the in considering this, I then realized that this in itself is related to the CRA in that, while the GCA was prompted by JFK's assassination, it languished for years until MLK's assassination provided the support needed to pass it, which is why it was passed around the same time as the CRA.
(* Consider, in the Gun Control Act of 1968, that amongst the prohibitions for the people you'd expect, like a 'fugitive from justice', or someone 'committed to a mental institution', is anyone 'who is an unlawful user of or addicted to marihuana...'.)
A) Nothing else seems to be working, and 2) like the NRA might become more powerful?
Per Wikipedia, the NRA president is a figurehead, and the org is mainly governed by a board of 76 member-elected directors.
Also according to Wikipedia, less than 7% (~350,000 members) of NRA members actually bother to vote for NRA leadership.
Seriously, I feel like there is potential here. Even if a million responsible Republican gun-owners joined and actively worked to reform the NRA, it could make a huge difference. Hell, even if a productive ad campaign worked to enlighten and motivate responsible gun owners who are already members but part of that silent majority that doesn't bother to vote.
I'm not saying this is the best/only solution, but reforming/transforming the NRA is, at least, an under-explored option.
ETA: It also really appeals to the subversive guerrilla in me.
ETA2: My web search for "can democrats take over the NRA" returns exactly 0 results that even consider this option ... it's all about "beating" or eliminating the NRA, making membership illegal (?!!?), etc.
Seriously, the NRA actually used to be an excellent org that promoted safe and responsible gun ownership; it's only in the past 40-ish (?) years that it turned into this political parody of itself. Fixing it would be much better than "defeating" it (whatever that means).
In a because of course they are move, the right wing is already in full conspiracy mode with their favorite "source" as their evidence that the shooter was a 'Transsexual illegal alien' which has already been disproven: The far right is falsely blaming a trans woman for the Texas school shooting
Article has been updated again. It now says 19 children and 2 adults. So I have edited the title to reflect that.
WTF, is anyone getting Page Not Found on this article now?
P.s. Archive links just in case:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220525055605/https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-b4e4648ed0ae454897d540e787d092b2
Edit2: For some unknown reason, after their last update to the article 25min ago, the URL has changed. It is now https://apnews.com/article/politics-texas-gun-violence-el-paso-mass-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683, so I have updated the main link to that.
yup, from Germany if that matters.
Ditto, in the Netherlands.
Seems they changed the link. Not sure if the article is the same - I read it from the BBC instead.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-texas-gun-violence-el-paso-mass-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683
The only difference that I can immediately identify by comparing it to the original URL’s archived version is the new last paragraph:
I wonder why the URL changed this time though, since they had previously made other alterations to the victim count and other details but the URL remained the same after those.
Amid protests, NRA meets in Texas after school massacre
House Democrat introduces bill calling to withhold pay for Congress after mass shootings
Federal agents entered Uvalde school to kill gunman despite local police initially asking them to wait (NBC)
We can reduce gun violence in the U.S. (Your Local Epidemiologist)
[...]
Waiting to confront Texas school shooter was ‘the wrong decision,’ police admit along with string of other failures
Clearly a lot of Republicans have not yet figured out a coherent position to take on this. Here is Herschel Walker, Georgia Republican Senate nominee, when asked about the shooting:
My personal favorite "solution" being proposed by them is to have less doors at schools:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ted-cruz-uvalde-shootings.html
p.s. One of the reasons why that's a horrible fucking idea: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
They don’t believe their own bullshit. Saying this nonsense is just a gambit to distract people from talking about the horrors of the shooting to spending time debunking. That is all. There’s a reason it’s different nonsense every time, it’s so people don’t tune out the arguments. The argument is the point. It gets the pictures of the kids off the news and fills it with inane ”debates” about doors or video games or rap music, or whatever other garbage instead.
It’s easier to have inane debates because it’s easier to poke fun at how fucking stupid these people are than it is to sit and dwell on the thought of a bunch of dead kids so we all happily do it. These people are manipulative and they are shameless. They know they don’t have a leg to stand on so they delay, evade, and flood the zone with utter bullshit to avoid having to confront the monster they created and continue to feed. They’re too fucking cowardly to back out now because they know Audrey II will eat them if they do.
These canards they throw out each time are simply not worth engaging with. Anytime spent not making people face up to the human cost of the status quo is a victory for them. They need to have the reality of this shoved in their faces.
I can attest to the fact that outside doors or gates in schools in my country are generally closed, locked, and guarded by security or a janitor. We do not have any shootings that I can remember. However, we also have strict gun control, in reality we don't even have the concept of gun ownership as a right. It is very much a privilege.
Probably preaching to the choir here but the problem with biblical literalists is that they're literally on another plane of existence relative to everyone else. That the 'fallen man' is being used as a crutch to avoid any sense of betterment or progress in society is so tiring when they literally just need to open their eyes and look at their peer countries for examples of this problem being tackled.
I don't think the quotation makes sense even for a religious person. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
It seems like the libertarian position being adopted after this shooting is that because the police didn’t respond fast enough, the answer would have been to have more people armed and not wait for police to act.
I sympathize with police actions being abysmal, but how is this a seemingly popular refrain online? It's insane. The notion that everyone could walk around armed and the result being less instead of more shootings is a more outlandish utopianism than the most intense Marxist fever dreams I’ve ever heard of. If you want less shootings, you just need less guns available.
I can't seem to find it now, but I recently watch a low quality youtube where a guy attends a recovering conspiracy theorist meeting. They go around the circle where the group reacts with empathy as each reveals the outlandish theories they used to believe: underground lizards, Jewish overlords, free energy. Then they get to the newcomer, who blurts out that he used to believe in trickle down economics, and everyone bursts out laughing.
If I had the wherewithal, I'd remake the video with the line "I used to believe that if everyone walked around armed the result would be less instead of more shootings!"
I guess the thing that really stands out to me is that these are ostensibly cynical people who are often quick to call government programs as too naive, trusting, or idealistic and then turn around and think arming everyone is a good idea. Have you met people?!
I am surprised to hear you say this, because in my experience the response has always been that public schools are deeply flawed and we should get rid of them.
https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-430b975bbaacce445451e4026cedc171
What the fuck happened with here and Parkland? Ever since Columbine I thought police departments had learned to assume its an active shooter and not a hostage taker, and to go in and neutralize the perpetrator ASAP.
Police slow to engage with gunman because ‘they could’ve been shot,’ official says
Just a complete failure on the part of that police department.
To spin it in a slightly different direction:
The police were afraid to enter the building. Ok fine, I get it, they have tactics and training but at the end of the day they're still human like the rest of us. They can still feel fear, panic, and anxiety. They may not have known what exactly was happening inside, but they watch the news with the rest of us.
They know that if there's a report of a gunman in a school, he's very likely not carrying his grandpa's rusty bolt-action hunting rifle. They know that there's a high likelihood that the weapons he's carrying is a semiautomatic. They know that he's probably got more than one of them. They know that there's a non-zero chance that those weapons are loaded with ammunition designed to fragment and shred a human body beyond just punching a hole in it. They know that even if they rush in with vastly superior numbers, if the gunman lets loose someone is likely to die, and they don't what it to be them. We've talked about the militarization of the police, the billions of dollars of military surplus that has flowed into local law enforcement. Even with all that equipment, the training, the protection, they still don't feel safe enough to do their job.
So why the FUCK does any police officer in America find this acceptable. Why doesn't every police officer that showed up to that school link arms with every teacher and student, march up to Congress and start screaming.
I have seen a lot of law enforcement people over the internet saying they are just as appaled and disgusted by the inaction of those police officers. Anonymous unverifiable reports, but it was a lot.
I reckon they're appalled in the same way people like to say "If it had been me bro. . ."
But in practice most of them would probably have shit their pants the same way. If we're going to accept a world where any idiot can buy any kind of gun and take it with him anywhere he goes, we're living in a world where either police are going to be outgunned basically all of the time or they're going to be kitted out like Navy SEALS every time they step out of their squad car.
Uvalde police, school district no longer cooperating with Texas probe of shooting: Sources
Video of Wayne LaPierre Ridiculed at NRA Convention Viewed 2M Times
https://www.newsweek.com/nra-national-rifle-association-wayne-lapierre-good-liars-guns-thoughts-prayers-1711303
Video link:
https://youtu.be/ywPZ3fMlpro
Texas police: School door shut but didn’t lock before attack
Texas Police Want Uvalde Bodycam Footage Suppressed Because It Could Expose Law Enforcement ‘Weakness’
Because It Could Expose Law Enforcement
WeaknessCowardice/noise
Lot-o-internet-speculation abound with ideas that the video contains one or more of the following in increasingly horrific order:
/noise
Another I have seen posited:
4. Police actually being the ones that shot the teacher who died
Another plausible reason. Being that Ken Paxton is a literal slimeball under multiple investigations, I doubt he'll release it once he's had a meeting/fundraising dinner with a police union or two.
Or he might to try to deflect attention from said investigations during a election year.
Screenshot of Abbott's two latest tweets. Palpable irony from a Governor that's done nothing in this state to protect citizens while being in charge when a US citizen perpetrates the
5th3rd deadliest school shooting in the country's history and worst the state as ever seen.Edit: Updated title as AP did, now 18 children and 3 adults, but AP notes at this time "it is not immediately clear whether that number included the assailant." Also updated from 5th to 3rd deadliest school shooting.
Mourners gather as funerals begin for Uvalde school killings