By Peter Frost in Britain:
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
School shootings: a US epidemic
PETER FROST compares school shootings on both sides of the Atlantic
DONALD TRUMP has been short and sweet in his response to the tragic shooting in Parkland Florida that saw 17 students and teachers gunned down by a right-wing white supremacist.
First he repeated his long-held opinion that it isn’t yet time to discuss gun control. That opinion is probably much to do with the huge stream of funding coming to him and his supporters from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
They are busy campaigning to arm and train teachers in gun use. They say more guns in schools would make schools safer.
Their slogan is, “The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
Trump yesterday in a White House meeting with massacre survivors and their parents: Trump’s solution to school shootings: arm teachers with guns.
The pro-Trump nazi Internet site the Daily Stormer advocates all students over 15 should bring guns to school as well as a ‘solution’.
Yeah, right. At school massacres now, some students may save their lives by running away from the gunman. In the NRA/Trump/Daily Stormer scenario, bullets would come not just from one direction, but from several directions. So, students would be caught in the middle with not anywhere to run to save their lives.
Trump supports the NRA as much as it supports him. He says the shootings are not a gun problem but a mental health problem.
He ignores the fact that, in countries where guns are far more difficult to obtain, the mentally ill find it far more difficult to actually kill and injure people.
This is the same kind of demented Trump logic that says anyone attacking civilians with guns or bombs who is black or Muslim is a terrorist whereas, if they are white, Christian and even a white supremacist, then they can’t be a terrorist, just mentally ill.
Our comparative figures for school shootings in Britain and the US are remarkably revealing.
On one hand the history of school shootings in Britain is very short.
On March 13 1996, the Dunblane massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School, near Stirling, Scotland. Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and one teacher before committing suicide. The Dunblane shooting led to the banning of handguns in private possession in Britain. There have been no school killings and only one spree killing, in Hungerford on August 19 1987, since Dunblane.
Actually, the 1987 Hungerford massacre was nine years before Dunblane and the subsequent gun ban.
In contrast here is a list of shootings at elementary, middle and high schools in the US that have resulted in fatalities in the last 20 years.
This list does not include suicides, gang-related incidents or deaths resulting from interpersonal conflicts.
February 14, 2018 — Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida. Expelled student white supremacist Nikolas Cruz kills 17 and injures 14 more with an AR-15 rifle.
January 23 2018 — Marshall County High School, Benton, Kentucky. A 15-year-old student shoots two dead and injures 18 others. The suspect is arrested.
December 7 2017 — Aztec High School, Aztec, New Mexico. William Atchison, a former student, shoots and kills Casey Marquez, Francisco Fernandez and himself.
September 13 2017 — Freeman High School, Spokane, Washington. One student killed and three injured by a second-year student.
April 10 2017 — North Park Elementary School, San Bernardino, California. Eight-year-old special needs student and his teacher killed by a teacher’s estranged husband. Two other students injured and the gunman kills himself.
September 28 2016 — Townville Elementary School, Greenville, South Carolina. A 14-year-old opens fire in playground after shooting his father dead. One student dies, two pupils and one teacher are injured.
October 24 2014 — Marysville-Pilchuck High School, Marysville, Washington. Freshman Jaylen Fryberg shoots five people in the school cafeteria, killing four. Fryberg shoots himself at the scene.
June 10 2014 — Reynolds High School, Troutdale, Oregon. Jared Padget, 15, shoots Emilio Hoffman, 14, in the school gym. He later takes his own life.
December 13 2013 — Arapahoe High School, Centennial, Colorado. Karl Pierson, 18, opens fire inside, critically injuring one student, who dies eight days later, then killing himself.
October 21 2013 — Sparks Middle School, Sparks, Nevada. Twelve-year-old Jose Reyes takes his parent’s handgun to school and shoots three. Two students are injured one teacher killed. Reyes then kills himself.
December 14 2012 — Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut. Adam Lanza guns down 20 children aged six to seven and six adult staff before turning the gun on himself. Police later find gun collector Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, dead from a gunshot wound. The final count is 28 dead, including the shooter.
February 27 2012 — Chardon High School, Chardon, Ohio. Student TJ Lane, 17, kills six with others wounded when another opens fire in the school. Lane gets a life sentence but has already escaped once.
January 5 2011 — Millard South High School, Omaha, Nebraska. Seventeen-year-old Robert Butler Jr opens fire on principal Curtis Case and vice-principal Vicki Kasper. Butler then kills himself. Kasper later dies.
February 5 2010 — Discovery Middle School, Madison, Alabama. Fourteen-year-old Todd Brown dies after being shot in the head in a school hallway by fellow ninth-grader Hammad Memon.
August 21 2008 — Central High School, Knoxville, Tennessee. Fifteen-year-old Jamar Siler shoots and kills 15-year-old Ryan McDonald.
January 3 2007 — Henry Foss High School, Tacoma, Washington. Student Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, fatally shoots another student.
October 2 2006 — Georgetown Amish School, Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Thirty-two-year-old Charles Roberts IV goes to a small Amish school and takes at least 11 girls hostage. Five girls were killed and six others wounded. Roberts then kills himself.
September 29 2006 — Weston High School, Cazenovia, Wisconsin. Eric Hainstock, 15, shoots and kills the school principal.
September 27 2006 — Platte Canyon High School, Bailey, Colorado. Fifty-four-year-old Duane Morrison takes six female students hostage. When Swat teams enter the school, Morrison shoots 16-year-old Emily Keyes. Morrison then kills himself. Keyes later dies at the hospital.
November 8 2005 — Campbell County Comprehensive High School, Jacksboro, Tennessee. Fifteen-year-old Kenneth Bartley Jr opens fire on a principal and two assistant principals, killing one of them and critically wounding another. He is already out of jail.
March 21 2005 — Red Lake High School, Red Lake, Minnesota. Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise kills his grandfather and another adult, five students, a teacher and a security officer. He then kills himself.
September 24 2003 — Rocori High School, Cold Spring, Minnesota. Fifteen-year-old Jason McLaughlin shoots and kills 17-year-old Aaron Rollins and critically injures another student. The second student dies in October
April 24, 2003 — Red Lion Area Junior High School, Red Lion, Pennsylvania. Fourteen-year-old James Sheets brings a revolver to school and kills his principal Eugene Segro and then himself.
March 5 2001 — Santana High School, Santee, California. Fifteen-year-old Charles “Andy” Williams kills two classmates, a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, and injures 13.
May 26 2000 — Lake Worth Community Middle School, Lake Worth, Florida. Thirteen-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, after being sent home for misbehaving, returns to school and shoots and kills his teacher.
February 29 2000 — Buell Elementary School, Mount Morris Township, Michigan. An unnamed six-year-old boy shoots and kills a six-year-old playmate, Kayla Rolland, at school. He is removed from his mother’s custody and put up for adoption.
November 19 1999 — Deming Middle School, Deming, New Mexico. Twelve-year-old Victor Cordova shoots and kills a 13-year-old classmate.
April 20, 1999 — Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, kill 12 fellow students and one teacher before killing themselves.
May 21 1998 — Thurston High School, Springfield, Oregon. After killing his parents the previous day, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel returns to Thurston High armed with a rifle. He kills two students in the school cafeteria, a 16 and a 17-year-old.
April 24 1998 — James Parker Middle School, Edinboro, Pennsylvania. Fourteen-year-old Andrew Wurst shoots and kills science teacher John Gillette at a school dance.
March 24 1998 — Westside Middle School, Jonesboro, Arkansas. Eleven-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson ambush fellow students and their teachers, killing five. Johnson is incarcerated in a youth facility.
August 11 2005. Golden is released on his 21st birthday, May 25 2007.
TRUMP PROPOSES A PAY BUMP FOR ARMED TEACHERS Doubling down on the idea during a meeting with law enforcement at the White House. Educators responded with the viral #ArmMeWith campaign, and experts were quick to condemn the idea. [HuffPost]
PARKLAND SURVIVOR ON TRUMP’S SYMPATHY CALL: ‘I’VE NEVER BEEN SO UNIMPRESSED AFTER A PHONE CALL’ The criticism hearkens back to when Trump faced public ire over his condolence call to the wife of a soldier killed in Niger. [HuffPost]
Donald Trump backs arming teachers over controlling gun sales: here.
President Donald Trump is leading the charge to flood schools across the country with armed teachers and staff as the supposed solution to the epidemic of deadly school shootings in the US, a week after a shooting by 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 and injured 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida: here.
N.Y. SAYS NO TO GUN-TOTING TEACHERS New York has banned schools from arming teachers and other non-security staff under a new law signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). The measure exempts school resource officers, police and other law enforcement staff. [HuffPost]
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP BACKPEDALED ON RAISING THE GUN PURCHASE AGE But has doubled down on arming teachers. Universal background checks also appear to have been cut from the Trump proposal to reduce gun violence. [HuffPost]
Seething Jewish Parents And Students Lead Emotional Anti-Gun Fight: here.
‘A MONSTROUS UNSPEAKABLE LIE’ The family members of six victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, along with an FBI agent who responded to the mass shooting, filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who for years has claimed that the massacre never happened. [HuffPost]
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Now, how did we know he’d say that? As I understand it, the Florida school was bristling with armed guards. It did no good.
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How long will it be before Trump tries to arm fetuses? Only for self-defense, of course.
In the wake of the mass shooting at Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the Lyin’ King thinks he has a solution. Guns for teachers.
Well, at least he didn’t suggest bazookas for boys. Or grenades for girls.
How could anyone this thick call himself President of the United States? Please, contribute to our campaign to end the Trump Regime, and Stop Stupid >>
Would someone please explain to the Short-Fingered Vulgarian that crossfire is unlikely to end the problem of assault-weapon attacks in schools?
Would someone please explain to the Talking Yam that his “brilliant” idea would fall victim to the simplest possible countermeasure? The countermeasure called shoot the teacher first?
Just how dumb is this latest Trump-twaddle?
You could make a better argument for universal Facetiming to class.
You could make a better argument for mandatory bullet-proof vests for all students.
You could make a better argument for refusing school admission to anyone unless he or she is naked. (Go try to conceal an AK-47 when you’re nude.)
And here is the ultimate better argument: Donald Trump should not be President of the United States.
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Dear Friends and Activists,
Leave it to Donald Trump to parrot the most demented proposal out
there to try to finally respond, even in some small way, to the
epidemic of gun massacres in America. We all know the problem is too
many guns. And the answer is supposed to be more and more guns out
there??
Yeah, sure, turn all our teachers, who are mostly women in case
anyone didn’t not know, into lethal commandos. Not just in high
schools and grade schools and kindergartens, but Sunday schools too.
Trump says it’s called “concealed carry.” No, what it’s called is
dumb and dumber.
Trump made a big public show of directing Jeff Sessions to consider
regulating bump stocks. Does he not know the ATF has already
determined they have no power to promulgate any such regulation
without Congress passing a new law? Apparently not.
But it isn’t just his embarrassing ignorance. The insincerity of
Donald Trump is so abysmal he came to the meeting with survivors
yesterday armed with crib notes (captured by a photographer) to
remind him to respond with “I hear you.” Who needs such a reminder
except a terminally insensitive creep?
What we have in America is a boat with 3 huge holes in it.
We’ll break it down. In principle it’s real simple to understand and
to fix. But you can’t just plug one hole, or even worse just
partially or temporarily fix one hole, and expect the boat not to
keep sinking.
1) The Background Check Sieve
When you hear talk about fixing the background check system, most of
the time it does not even consider gun shows or online sales. The
back burner bill languishing in Congress right now, the Fix NICS bill
being touted by some, would do nothing but provide additional funds
to enforcing EXISTING and inadequate provisions, it would not cover
these massive gaps. As long as anyone, even a mentally ill person,
can walk into a gun show and buy anything they want no questions
asked, nothing has been fixed.
2) Patchwork Gun Registration
Even if we had a truly robust background check system, it would not
keep guns out of the hands of lunatics if private parties, outside of
the background check system, were spreading them around. It MUST be
illegal, nationwide, to transfer a gun without licensing. For those
irrationally paranoid about jackbooted federal thugs, we are
prefectly happy with state registration systems. They work perfectly
fine for cars, but they must be univeral, just like car
registrations.
3) Obscene, Murderous Firepower
Do we allow civilians to have flame throwers, bazookas, or an Abrams
tank for so-called self-protection? No, we do not. Because these are
weapons of war, and we don’t want our streets and classrooms to be
war zones. Assault rifles, even so-called semi-automatic ones, gonzo
magazines, bump stocks, these are all totally unacceptable in private
hands in a civil society. Ban them all.
There was a time in America when a foreign army might come marching
up your street at any moment, when you might need a guy on a horse
riding at midnight to warn you they were coming, when you might need
a “well-regulated militia” to respond to an actual armed invasion. If
you want to get your hands on weapons of war in these modern times,
join a real militia, which in today’s America would be the Army, the
Navy, the Air Force or the Marines.
There is a reason why the Constitution also prohibits quartering of
soldier in private homes. We don’t want our armed forces turned on
our own citizens. But what we have today is even worse, militias of
one, mowing down our own peaceful citizens in bulk.
Each and every one of these three huge holes must be permanently
patched, with laws not allowed to lapse ever again. Otherwise the
massacres will just continue. The NRA knows this perfectly well, and
they will fight tooth and nail to keep their gun sales booming, which
is ALL they care about.
The NRA talks about hardening schools, because of the threat THEY
have created by deliberately handing out assault weapons like candy
to sickos. Where is this going, having every citizen having a gun
pointed at every other citizen at all times? The only thing the NRA
is interested in hardening are hearts, their own already being
petrified.
Any member of Congress, any member of state legislature, any other
elected official, who will not immediately stand up and stand strong
for each and very one of these fixes must be removed from office . .
period. Let us make it so no later than November.
The right not to be mass murdered is inalienable. The right to play
with assault weapons like they’re sex toys is not. We say, “People
With Guns Kill More Than People Without Guns.” You can too.
People With Guns bumper stickers: https://www.talk.us/?g=1:SK
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