The immigration situation isn't going anywhere. Look at how many Afghan and Ukrainian refugrees we've taken in. Then think about how many of those folks fleeing climate change will increase over the next few decades....
Shooting at a Texas elementary school. Reports are varying wildly on everything. ABC says at least 14 people are dead and the shooter is dead. AP says it's 2 people dead and the shooter is alive. Either way, it happened in Texas, where you can apparently get a gun with your 5th purchase of a sandwich at Subway. Republicans don't generally give a shit about something until it happens to them, so I'll be interested to see if a Republican actually does anything beyond thoughts and prayers.
So ISIS tried to assassinate George W. Bush. Which like... ok, I get it. Given how much unjustifiable shit ISIS has done, them targeting the man who invaded Iraq at least has a logic to it.
Governor Abbott confirmed 14 children are dead, 1 teacher, the suspect, and the suspect's grandmother. Just thrilled my 6 year old gets to do active shooter drills for exactly this.
What the hell is wrong with you, man. "Oh, hey, it finally happened to Republicans, let's see what they do". It's reported that the 18 year old shooter used a handgun. He was ineligible to buy a handgun because of his age. So, once again, there are laws on the books that should have prevented this. I'm with you, I want harsh, widespread punishment for anyone involved in letting the 18 year old do this. Since the suspect could not buy the gun, legally, he is not alone in responsibility.
According this, 18 year-olds can buy a handgun in Texas, provided it was a private sale. They aren't licensed to carry it in public. Do we think that an 18 year old buying a handgun is going to leave it locked in a safe for 3 years until they can use it off their property? In Texas? If 14 dead children won't move Texas Republicans toward any kind of meaningful gun reform, I can't imagine there being anything that will. It might happen in a couple of decades after they've passed laws mandating teachers and administrators carry guns, then passing laws that shield districts from being sued after a gun goes off and kills a student, then a school shooting happens and a teacher shoots a bunch of kids while trying to shoot the shooter. Then and only then would they even talk about the possibility of reducing gun availability. I'm just sad that it may take hundreds, if not thousands of people to die before that happens.
this happened about 2 hours from us, and obviously hits close to home as I work in schools as well. My hope is that Texas will finally allow administrators to carry, and/or remove the "gun free" zone designation. By definition, the only people who follow laws are not criminals. So if those gun free zones worked, there'd be no such thing as school shootings. You look at all these fucked up individuals, and as soon as they hit any form of resistance, be it a cop or otherwise, and they off themselves (NY one being a rare exception). So what happens if you get trained, armed administrators? These fucked up pieces of shit wouldn't make it past the front doors.
Let's be honest, this is a silly fantasy. The number of teachers/administrators, people who dedicated their lives to helping children, who would be willing and able to train to put a bullet between a child's eyes, will be very small. These are people who are already experiencing a burnout crisis just from the regular tribulations of teaching. Adding what basically amounts to SWAT responsibilities on top of that just isn't going to happen. An increased presence of guns in such a situation is likely to lead to more accidental deaths than it saves in intentional deaths. There are plenty of cases where an armed law enforcement officer wasn't able to prevent a shooting, so the idea that the vague possibility of an armed teacher would seems like wishful thinking at best.
I referring specifically to this happening in Texas. I don't know anyone, on any part of the political spectrum, who is anti-gun here. Training with firearms is something we do as a hobby. We compare pictures of our gun safes and ammo stockpiles and groupings from our last range trip to brag. We're a different breed here, for better or worse. Your job requires more gun training? Well shit, sounds like a tax write off for ammo to me!! As to your second point, see the previous point. Guns don't magically go off unless you pull the trigger. We'll have to agree to disagree with the third point. Statistics are easily manipulated, and to be honest I'm not sure you're gonna argue in good faith anyway since you've openly admitted to trolling on here. Regardless, I didn't say armed teacher, I said armed administrator. Major difference.
You don't have to be anti-gun to not want to daily carry and be prepared at any moment to put down a teenager. "Texans are a different breed" is just the gun-owner version of "I'm not like other girls." You are like other girls. As for guns magically going off. They don't "magically" go off, they go off when some idiot pulls the trigger when they don't mean to or when they judge poorly. Which statistically speaking happens a lot. As for the third point, I'm not quoting statistics, I'm quoting examples of when armed and trained law enforcement, who were already on site, failed to deter or stop a mass shooting. Hell, just last week the security guard in Buffalo died because he was outgunned by the shooter. The idea that a teacher or administrator is going to have a 100% success rate when cops themselves don't seems silly.
A silver lining to a bunch of people being killed by guns that are too readily available to people who aren't able to use them responsibly would be less people being murdered by guns. I'm not sure why you think I want a certain subset of people dead just because I don't agree with their politics. To be clear, I don't hate people based on who they vote for. I hate the assholes that get voted in. That security guard was a retired cop. There was that other cop that ran away during the Parkland school shooting in Florida. These are the type of people who are allegedly trained to handle themselves in bad situations. I'm not saying all school admins are incapable of shooting a school shooter. What I am saying is putting a pistol in the hands of a 57 year old school administrator and telling him to shoot someone without killing an innocent bystander, just seems like a bad idea.
I don't have the data handy, (and there no national database I'm aware of that I could point you to) but if you saw how many negligent discharges happen among the military, law enforcement, and private security per year you might change your mind about arming school teachers. Also, plinking at cans on your back 40 or at a range is not training. It takes tens of thousands of hours to become proficient enough to be able to respond with accurate and safe fire to a threat while under duress. Most police don't receive enough training, what makes you think school officials will? Until the ma gunz & ban everything crowds stop shouting past each other nothing meaningful will change.
The kid broke a list of laws, including shooting his own grandmother, before he set foot in that school and fired a shot. So has just about every other mass shooter before they fired a shot. What legislation stops a person like that?
Arming teachers is a HORRIBLE idea. Let's say there is an active shooter and the school admin is armed to deal with the situation. A shooter comes in, gets10 students before a teacher can take them down. The teacher as well happens to hit another student and kills them. You now have 11 sets of parents who are going to sue EVERYONE for failing to keep their child safe. So on top of the teacher having to shoot someone, mistakenly killing someone else, they are now probably going to be sued into oblivion for not saving everyone. It's a liability nightmare. Secondly, we are now putting an armed force into our schools? For people who are gung ho with the constitution, there's not many steps between having a trained armed force of teachers around the nation ( here's probably 100,000+ schools which means probably a 1-2 million strong trained armed force) and having a standing military stationed around the country to "protect" us.