By Trévon Austin in the USA:
Ten killed in mass shooting at Texas high school
19 May 2018
A 17-year-old carrying a shotgun and a revolver opened fire at a Houston area high school Friday morning, taking the lives of nine students and one teacher and injuring ten others.
https://twitter.com/MetalMixtress/status/997558724247072768
Texas School Shooting Suspect Posed With Nazi Cross On Social Media: here.
The horrific shooting was the deadliest such incident since the massacre of 17 students and teachers in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which sparked a nationwide wave of student-led protests and walkouts against school violence.
The suspect, identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, opened fire in an art class in Santa Fe High School around 7:45 a.m., killing nine students and one teacher. According to authorities, Pagourtzis said he had intended to take his own life after the initial shooting but surrendered to officers and stated that he did not have the courage to shoot himself.
Pagourtzis, now in police custody, had also apparently brought explosive devices, including a Molotov cocktail, that were found in the school and nearby. It was not immediately clear if any had exploded.
Just two months prior to Friday’s attack, Santa Fe was placed on lockdown after reports of gunfire in the surrounding area. Officers swept the campus and found no threats. According to eyewitnesses, teachers and students yelled “It’s real this time!” as a warning after the first shots rang out Friday morning.
Attacks on schools in the United States, typically by a current or former student armed with a gun, occur with a terrifying regularity across the country. According to CNN, there have been 22 school shootings this year, with an average of one shooting incident per week. The shooting at Santa Fe was the third in just the last eight days.
On Thursday, 19-year-old Matthew Milby opened fire in the gymnasium of Dixon High School in Dixon, Illinois. He was quickly chased off by an officer and arrested before hurting anyone.
Last week, a 14-year-old boy went to Highland High School in Palmdale, California and fired ten rounds from a semiautomatic rifle shortly before classes were scheduled to begin, hitting and wounding a 15-year-old student. The student was eventually detained by police and charged with attempted murder.
In what has become commonplace after mass shootings, politicians have offered canned statements condemning the massacres and offering empty condolences and pledges for action.
https://twitter.com/1IronMan2018/status/997517879296843776
President Trump tweeted, “We grieve for the terrible loss of life, and send our support and love to everyone affected by this horrible attack in Texas.” He added that the administration would “do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others.”
Nancy Pelosi, the leading Democrat in the House, issued a boilerplate statement calling for an end to “the gun violence epidemic.” She stated, “All Americans grieve for those whose lives were stolen by this tragedy, and our prayers are with the families and loved ones of who have been wounded.”
What no politician from either party will state is that the frequency and severity of mass shootings is a reflection of the deeply diseased nature of American society, marred by historic levels of social inequality at home and unending wars abroad.
School shootings are the most tragic and serious expression of the crisis affecting students and youth. A nationwide survey by the health insurer Cigna found that loneliness is widespread in America, with nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they sometimes or always feel alone or left out. Young people born in the 1990s and 2000s were most likely to report feeling lonely.
Recent studies cite significant increases in depression and suicide, particularly among young people, in the last decade. Blue Cross Blue Shield recently noted that depression diagnoses increased 63 percent in adolescents (ages 12 to 17) and 47 percent in millennials (ages 18 to 34) between 2013 and 2016. Another recent study in Pediatrics found that in 2015, 1.82 percent of teenage hospital visits were due to attempted suicide or suicidal thoughts, nearly tripling from 0.66 percent in 2008.
To the social crisis in America is added the endless promotion of militarist violence by the state, at home and abroad. Both factions of the American ruling class have carried out war crimes in the Middle East and are preparing to wage even bloodier wars against Russia and China, possibly with nuclear arms. …
Neither party has offered any serious solution to the fundamental issues underlying the unending wave of school violence. Republicans have used each incident to call for the further militarization of schools, including the arming of teachers. The Democrats aim to use the deaths of youth to score votes in the November mid-term elections with calls for stricter gun control laws.
…
Depression, poverty, police brutality and decades of unending war are the real issues that lie at the core of mass shootings in America. Tragic incidents such as Friday’s shooting at Santa Fe High School can only be prevented by addressing the social problems rooted in the failure of the capitalist system.
https://twitter.com/danigirl1207/status/997475805310550016
‘SHE REPEATEDLY TOLD HIM NO’ The mother of one of the victims of Friday’s Texas school shooting said her daughter was targeted because she rejected the shooter’s advances, while two parents who also lost children to campus gun violence slammed the GOP for offering “moronic” platitudes rather than gun control. Capping the insanity, incoming NRA president Oliver North blamed Ritalin and a “culture of violence” for the repeated school massacres — not guns. [HuffPost]
Police engaged in 25-minute shootout with Texas high school gunman: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Do you think the parents of the Santa Fe dead children are proud to have donated their kid’s lives for the good of the NRA? Will they get a medal or a plaque to commemorate their child’s service? Will they stand proud with their hands over their hearts knowing that their child died so that Dana Loesch can go pump bullets through an AR15 any darn time she feels like it?
If all congress people and Donald were required to walk through schools where mass shootings have just taken place, to see first hand the carnage and bullet riddled bodies, would they say that this was an acceptable amount of human sacrifice on the shrine of NRA privilege?
Too bad Donald didn’t do EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER before they got dead! Too bad his speech is all just words and he still won’t do A SINGLE THING in his power, even as he steps over their blood spattered bodies on the way to his next campaign rally.
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Trump may do a thing even worse than doing nothing; his plan of mandatory guns for teachers who don’t want them.
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https://twitter.com/danagould/status/997864820215922688
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US TEACHERS and students have vowed to kick politicians out of office if they refuse to change gun laws and take on the epidemic of violence plaguing the country.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) said it was mourning the lives lost at Santa Fe High School, where 10 people were shot dead on Friday in the country’s latest school shooting.
In a joint statement, the 1.7 million-member AFT’s national president Randi Weingarten and David Hogg, a senior from the high school in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed in February, said it was “shameful that President Trump and those who control Congress continue to choose gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association over children and educators.”
They warned they were “determined to change” those politicians who refuse to change gun laws in November’s mid-term elections.
“Students should be able to go to school without worrying whether they could be shot. Parents shouldn’t have to wonder whether their kids will come home safely every day. And educators shouldn’t have ‘human shield’ or ‘marksman’ in their job description,” they said.
Since the 1999 Columbine massacre more than 187,000 students have been affected by school shootings according to the union, with at least 193 incidents since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
The statement promised to use the union members’ most powerful mechanisms for change: their voice and their vote.
The AFT will join with students to launch a voter registration drive to ensure “that come November, we elect politicians who support public education and ensure schools are safe sanctuaries, not armed fortresses.”
Police arrested 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis on Friday in relation to the Santa Fe shootings.
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f-2nd-teachers-and-students-vow-kick-out-politicians-over-gun-laws
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