This is a heartbreaking story.
A young man appeared at a playground in Townsville, South Carolina, where first-graders were playing. He opened fire. A child died. The shooter, it turned out, was not a man. He was 14 years old. He stopped when his gun jammed. He was captured.
There are states and cities that think the answer to school shootings is to arm teachers. Given the speed of this shooting, no one could have stopped it. Twelve seconds. The teachers, if they were armed, could have shot him, but the child would still be dead.
This is madness.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, it is madness. Any combat vet can tell you that no matter how many men are armed and ready, you never know when the blow will come and how many will die or be wounded.
When I was in Vietnam in 1966, an entire U.S. Marine Corps Division was dug in with bunkers, concertina wire, claymore mines, etc., to guard one air base in Chu Lai, and still the Vietcong managed to slip through all the defenses and reach the airbase to blow things up and continue to hit our forward positions every night in hit-and-run raids. Most of the time, they never stayed long enough for our artillery to return fire on their positions. The snipers would fire a few rounds, or drop in a few mortar rounds, or fire a rocket or two, and take out a few of us and then they’d almost always slip away before we could react. And these were not the nut cases that shoot up U.S. schools.
There is no fail-safe defense against a nut case with a loaded firearm, and if armed teachers are not trained to be expert shots, the odds are that they will end up shooting innocent children and adults too – not intentionally but by accident. Once fired, a round can go through walls and hit people you can’t even see. If there were houses on the other side of that teenage shooter, a teacher shooting at the shooter could end up killing or wounding an innocent person in one of those houses: an infant in its crib, a mother, a father, a grandfather, etc.
What will the GOP and Trump want to do next – turn the U.S. into an armed camp with every school and every city/town surrounded by coils of razor wire and bunkers with checkpoints?
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I hate to say this, but we had a horrible gun related massacre at a camp in Norway many years ago. Still, it is an outlier situation to have occurred over there.
Until more of the people on Capitol Hill start getting attacked with guns, the laws here will remain bizarre and full of anarchy. Hunting is fine with a rifle, but semi-automatic machinery has no place in the hands of a civilian.
This American rationale that citizens need to protect themselves from the tyranny of government is a fallacy because the arsenal capacity of the government will always dwarf that of the citizenry.
Guns to protect yourself is not altogether a far out notion when it comes to local crime or wildlife, but in general, it defeats the purpose of having a civilized society with systematized protections in place, such as the cops and the military, no? Localized guns in the hands of civilians invites 1,000 pounds of trouble, corruption, impulse, and incompetence just to create 18 or 19 pounds of safety. NOT worth it ever!
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What is you say is a fact. There is no way citizens with even AR15’s are going to stand up to the U.S. Military or a police SWAT team.
For instance, back when I was still teaching, one day a gang-banger (member of a street gang wearing the gang’s uniform of baggy pants hanging below crotch revealing his white boxer shorts underwear, and a white t-shirt, and with a shaved head and web belt hanging down toward his knee to indicate he was well hung) bragged that his gang could beat the police in a fight.
My reply: “If street gangs shot up the police and took over entire communities, the state governor or president of the United States would declare martial law and sent in the Marines and/or Army.”
The gang-banger bragged they would beat them too.
My reply: “Your gang members wouldn’t even know death was on its way until it was already there. The military does not operate by the same rules or with the same weapons. The police are there to keep the peace. The military is there to kill and win. One Cobra gunship patrolling the night skies over the ghetto after the military curfew went into effect could have a standing order to fire on anyone outside and on the streets without warning. The gunner on a Cobra has infrared imagery and the minigun is slaved to his helmet visor. All he has to do is say fire, and the weapon picks up his voice command and fires 6,000 rounds a minute wherever he looks because the minigun is linked to a target grid on his helmet visor. Where he focuses in eyes, the minigun fires. Then there are the Hellfire missiles that will take out a house and everyone in it.”
To demonstrate the difference between the rules the police are required to follow and the military, I used a real event that took place during the Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles. The military was called in and they set up road blocks and checkpoints. Martial Law was declared. A Marine Corps general was in charge. When the police were in a standoff with a street gang inside a house, a police lieutenant requested backup from a military squad a block away at a roadblock. No shots had been fired. The Marine squad led by a Marine officer arrived and asked what the police wanted.
The police officer in charge (who must have never been in the military) said he wanted the Marines to provide cover as the police went in to arrest the gang members.
Cover to the police means you wait until you receive an order to fire. Cover to the military means you lay down a heavy field of fire on the target and destroy it. The Marines set up and immediately opened fire on the house riddling the walls, windows, and doors with hundreds of rounds from automatic weapons including heavy 50-caliber machine guns. The police officer was shocked and had to stop the Marines from firing. As soon as the Marines stopped, the gangsters, with piss and shit stained pants, came out with their hands up. Lucky for them, none were hit but the house had been destroyed.
In another incident, when one resident of the area under martial law attempted to run a military roadblock without stopping, he was shot dead with multiple gunshot wounds, and his car was riddled with bullet holes. He didn’t get past the road block.
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Missing some key facts… shooter killed his father BEFORE going to the school where 1 student was killed, 2 other students were injured and 1 teacher was injured. He was stopped by an armed citizen. The shooter, age 14, was then taken into custody by authorities.
The important thing that needs to be discussed is SHOULD A 14 YEAR OLD BE CHARGED AS ADULT in cases like this. Why is the first and often only narrative the cry to take away the rights of millions because of one or two “bad apples”?
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Linda,
No key facts are missing. Anyone interested can read the article and learn that the boy killed his father before going to the school. It took 14 seconds before his gun jammed after spraying the school yard with bullets. Should a teacher have shot him dead before he fired his weapon? Could any teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School have killed Adam Lanza with a handgun when he was armed with a high powered assault weapon? Should every teacher and principal have an AR-15 strapped on their backs?
You are really way out there. Are you armed right now?
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Visualize this scene. Nut case shooter walks on a school campus at lunch. The odds favor that he is wearing a bulletproof vest, has automatic weapons and a backpack full of ammo.
There are several hundred students sitting around eating and there are a few teachers and administrators along with the cafeteria staff watching over them.
The shooter opens fire. Hundreds of students panic like fires in nightclub cause the people to panic and stop thinking as they run for their lives trampling each other and piling up in doorways to get stuck so no one can escape.
Teachers, administrators, and cafeteria workers pull out their guns and open fire shooting in the direction of the shooter who is across the room from them with his bullet proof vest on. Bullets are flying everywhere from every direction hitting other kids, teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers and even going through walls to hit people on the other side.
The shooter gets maybe one or two before he goes down or is stopped, but how many are wounded or killed from all the return fire.
If you have never been in a firefight, you have no idea how dangerous it can be with all those firearms in use.
If everyone in the U.S. is armed and ready to rumble no matter where and when then the U.S. will be a free-fire zone and no different than combat in the crowded streets of a city in the Middle East.
In war zones, more civilians from infants to the elderly are wounded or killed than the troops and insurgents fighting it out and the troops are highly trained.
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Well, if she is, given her attitude, remind me not to invite her over for dinner.
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“All nine people wounded during a dramatic confrontation between police and a gunman outside the Empire State Building were struck by bullets fired by the two officers, police said Saturday, citing ballistics evidence.”
This was an interesting event . This is midtown Manhattan , I would guess at any given time there are numerous undercover officers and cars with in blocks of this guy who was walking away from the scene
of a previous shouting . When these two cowboys were grabbed .
How would target practice fit into the teacher evaluations. Would we we close down schools where teachers could not hit the target
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shooting
My birthday is in September I’ll take the edit button
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Number four on SAUL ALINSKY’s HOW TO CREATE A SOCIALIST STATE addresses gun control. His idea is to remover an individual’s right to have a gun and give control to the government. However, any first responder will tell you that in times of a natural disaster, or attack, you need to be prepared to be on your own for at least the first 72 hours because governmental agencies will be overwhelmed. Are you advocating the relinquishing of the individual’s right to control his own destiny?
Alinsky pushes for gun control because it make people easier to control. Look at the deterioration of human rights and over a 700% rate of inflation. The “government” is happy, but the citizens are not. They are at the mercy of their socialist leader, who now wants to rewrite the country’s constitution.
An action may seem okay, but what most seem t overlook is what will be the consequences that will result in the future. Chicago has the highest gun violence numbers in the nation, but it also has the strictest gun laws…only criminals have guns because they don’t follow the law to begin with.
Seattle decided to tax bullets in order to control gun activity and create a nice “kitty” in the process. They did not earn nearly what they thought they would through this tax, basically nothing changed.
Seattle was also a point taker for the minimum wage increase. They did not think that through either, but they did commission a group at the University of Washington to figure out what went wrong. The study, recently released, pointed out that businesses cut the number of hours employees received. Overall hours were cut 3% which resulted in a $100-125 CUT IN PAY.
Consequences … as it is said “an equal and opposite reaction”.
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Quote: “Chicago has the highest gun violence numbers in the nation, but it also has the strictest gun laws…only criminals have guns because they don’t follow the law to begin with.”
I saw a documentary on TV recently. Most of the illegal guns used in Chicago come from three gun shops in the suburbs surrounding Chicago and from Indiana. None of those places have any gun control laws. Hence, there is a great number of illegal guns running around Chicago.
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Joel, I like “shouting,” given that we have a POTUS who is constantly shooting his mouth off.
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Quote:” Why is the first and often only narrative the cry to take away the rights of millions because of one or two “bad apples”?”
I’d like to know when the rights of people to not be killed come before the rights of anyone to own a gun made for only killing humans.
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You have no right to bare arms. The state has a right to a well-regulated militia, in order to hunt down runaway slaves and prevent slave rebellions. Prior to the revolution several Southern colonies insisted that all able bodied men be in those Militias.
That militia can in turn be called up by the Federal Government in times of National Emergency(wars) . . Those State Militias would have been a Federal Militia but the slave states did not trust the Federal Govt. to have either a standing army or control over those militias .
As that I would now need tanks ,Cruise missiles and B1 Bombers to defend my rights against a tyrannical state . Items I would not be permitted to obtain. I would be happy to see your weapons that the framers never intended for you to have as a right, taken away .
The reason that throughout our Constitutional history. States and municipalities have always had the right to control arms, was that it was never your right to own them.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-origins-of-public-carry-jurisprudence-in-the-slave-south/407809/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/what-the-founding-fathers_b_10479314.html
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“You have no right to bare arms.”
See the Short Sleeves Amendment.
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See District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290
The right to bear arms, and keep them in your residence, is BOTH an individual and a collective right.
(Am I the only person here, who reads the Supreme Court decisions?)
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In that case, I want to arm my home with mini-guns that have armor piercing and explosive rounds. I’ll mount them on tracks on the ceilings in every room in the house.
Something like this one but a larger caliber:
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Charles
You obviously didn’t read either link .
“Nunn v. State, a state-court decision written by Georgia Chief Justice Joseph Henry Lumpkin in 1846. As a jurist, Lumpkin was a champion both of slavery and of the Southern code of honor. Perhaps, not by coincidence, Nunn was the first case in which a court struck down a gun law on the basis of the Second Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court cited Nunn in District of Columbia v. Heller,”
It is time for us to stop pretending that the Supreme Court is not political . So that being the case. When we snowflakes on the left take over the courts. We will pass a law that insists that all those who have conservative views should be institutionalized and given the drugs they need . Of course that will be following on the precedent of other court rulings. Since the likes of Scalia , Thomas and Gorsuch.
If we insist of playing the game of seeing the constitution as a static(originalism ) rather than living document . We should at-least understand the context of the what the founders had in mind.
On guns and on the separation clause we know exactly how they arrived at the wording.
They left us a rich library of letters . Like Federalist 29
“to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, RESERVING TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS, AND THE AUTHORITY OF TRAINING THE MILITIA ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE PRESCRIBED BY CONGRESS.”
Or earlier precedent.
“United States v. Miller 1939. which drew the first distinction in the issue.
As a case that dealt with challenges to a law prohibiting certain firearms it came with two big conclusions:
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FLERP!
bare , bear , there, their hear ,here . The finger go where ever they want.
But it is good to see that Gun manufacturing is a stimulus to many industries. From shirt manufacturing to heavy equipment makers who supply excavating equipment to graveyards .
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I read that back when freeways were spreading across the country, the funeral industry lobbied and supported the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Did they want a faster way to move corpses around?
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Where ever – wherever
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@jwherman: I am reading a book, called “The Dirty Dozen”, about the twelve worst Supreme Court cases ever decided. One of these is Miller v. US, (1939).
Miller v. US was partially overturned and reversed in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)
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That is just so silly, Linda. Obviously, the fewer guns in circulation, the fewer incidents like these could ever happen. I grew up in rural upstate-NY in the ’50’s, when farmers & hunters had old-fashioned rifles, & some kids had beebe-guns & later Daisy rifles. Very few had hand-guns, & nobody had anything w/repeating rounds. Every yr in a township of 30k, maybe 3 people died from gun-cleaning accidents, & every couple of yrs there was a suicide by gun. Nothing like this ever happened.
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Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. They have now clocked in 1,714 SHOOTINGS IN 2017! Bad guys do NOT follow the law.
There is a 1990, or 1994, paper from the CONSTITUTION SOCIETY that really clarifies our Second Amendment. I will find it and post the address since its been a while since I have read it. The idea behind the Second Amendment is for us to help police ourselves and not rely on someone else.
You won’t find 1,714 shootings anywhere else except where the laws are strictest. In open carry states shooting numbers are the lowest according to FBI numbers. You should look up the numbers because they list knives and baseball bats among the most lethal … ahead of guns.
For years Israel has relied upon teachers to be armed in order to protect the children in the classrooms. That is a necessary way of life for them since they are constantly under terrorist threat. They carry big guns, but I have not seen any call for big guns here in the U.S.. The safety of the children and the knowledge of the handler are vital.
Here is the link – http://www.constitution.org/leglrkba.htm
The paper is titled – Legal Theory of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
It was copyrighted in 1994. It is a good interpretation of the law.
Please note, I am a firm believer that the CONSTITUTION IS A LAW, NOT A LIVING DOCUMENT SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITH THE CURRENT WHIMS OF SOCIETY. It is a solid foundation, not jello you build upon.
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Linda,
You don’t seem interested in education, only in promoting Trump. This is not the right blog for you.
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Linda, you did not respond to my point. I said nothing at all about gun control laws. Not a hot-button issue back in those days, even in that very red, John Bircher-infested region. Turn the clock back 50+ yrs, the reason there wasn’t a lot of gun violence is because there weren’t… a lot… of guns. Remember street-gang violence– ‘rumbles’? Baseball bats, chains, & brass knuckles. Current gun-control laws don’t have the desired effect because they don’t address the gun market. Just one more example of untrammeled capitalism bulldozing quality of life.
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Just wondering if we created courtyards, surrounded by the building and only accessible through the building, if we could cut down on some of these out door ambushes to our children.
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Sure, sounds great, but who is going to pay for this?
More and more public schools no longer have the money to hire librarians, counselors, specialty teachers, or even purchase enough books for all the kids. Class sizes are increasing, and in many states, teachers are fleeing because they are not getting raises, they are losing benefits, they are expected to treat their students like robots and “teach to the tests.”
If you have not been reading Dr. Ravitch’s blog before this, I urge you to read some of her past columns.
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Not only that, walling in children sounds like it would cause a host of other problems in the emotional well-being of children. The paranoia it could cause. I don’t want my children growing up in that kind of environment.
WHY isn’t a gun buy-back and ban, similar to what Australia did, even considered???
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That’s a pretty defeatist position. Let’s change educational architecture nation-wide because we simply can’t stop these shootings. Sort of a hunker-in-the-bunker mentality. I think we can do better.
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I would hope so, but we don’t seem to be doing better.
I would like every public school to be fully staffed, clean, with fully functioning restrooms, decent facilities, with smaller classes, with enough books and supplies for every child, with counselors, a good library, specialist teachers like art, music, PE, with enough ELL and special education teachers for all the students who needed them. With free breakfast and lunch for those kids who need them. With good before and after school care. With experts offering parental support as needed. With the schools available to the surrounding neighborhood for various neighborhood and societal functions.
And on and on and on.
Ain’t gonna happen any time soon. 😔
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Imagine the cost, from funds that are not there, to rebuild almost 99,000 public schools into fortresses. And then we’d hear the hue and cry for funds from the 7,000+ corporate charter schools that they need to do the same thing.
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Lloyd,
Don’t forget that the Supreme Court just made states responsible for paying for the costs of every religious school in the nation. The buildings, the playground, the parking lot, the roof, even the security guards. The nurse, possibly all the teachers except the religion teacher.
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Diane … That is NOT what the Supreme Court decision stated. That church playground was QUALIFIED for the monies. The Court said you could not deny them funds they were qualified to receive SIMPLY BECAUSE OF RELIGIOUS REASONS … That is called DISCRIMINATION, and violates the laws of this country.
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If the law of the land was clear, why did the case reach the Supreme Court?
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Gun control. A hell of a lot cheaper for everyone but the gun mfrs/ dealers.
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One of the earliest school shootings occurred in Greenwood SC.in September 26, 1988. A young man, age 19, with serious mental illness, schizophreniia, killed 2 eight year old little girls- Shaquila Bradley and Tequila Thomas – at Oakland Elementary. He started firing in the cafeteria hitting 2 children. He then moved to a 3rd grade classroom. Eleven people were shot including 2 teachers. Seven other children were shot, but survived. It was a PE teacher, Kat Finkbeiner who stopped the killings. She confronted him as he entered a restroom to reload. She followed him and tried to prevent him from leaving the room. During the scuffle, she was shot twice, one in the mouth and once in the hand. She told him to raise his hand and stand until police arrived.
This young man had been a frequent patient at pyschialtric hospitals in SC. But his family’s insurance ran out. He took a gun from his grandmother’s home, went to a department store to buy ammunition, and went to Oakland Elementary into the cafeteria where 100 children were gathered for lunch.
This man, Jamie Wilson, has been on death row in SC since his conviction.
Let’s not forget the teacher, Ms. Finkbeiner, who save so many children. The second injured teacher was Eleanor Hodge.
Let’s not forget the failure of our insurance-based health care system to provide necessary mental health treatment which may have prevented this shooting and saved the lives of Tequila and Shequila.
Let’s keep these two little girls, Tequila and Shequila, in our thoughts and prayers as we mourn for even more children who have lost their lives or were injured in these senseless shootings.
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I just googled the heroic teacher, Kat Finkbeiner.She taught physical ed in Greenwood, SC, schools for more than 40 years.
http://www.lander.edu/news/2017/02/23/kat-finkbeiner-recognized-for-loyalty-to-lander-university-with-alumni-award
We need more teachers like Kat!
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I always try to mention (and say a prayer) these 2 little girls when folks talk about school shootings as they seem to have been forgotten.
I am so tired of teacher bashing, when parents, every day, throughout this nation and world, leave their kids, without even a worry, in the safekeeping, of its teachers. Teachers are so trusted and rise to so many challenges caring for children. Yes, this teacher as with so many who have given and risked their lives for children facing active shooters, are true courageous heroes. I am proud to tell their stories.
We have to do better providing services to persons with mental health issues.
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Thank you, Concerned, for mentioning our failure to deliver healthcare — especially follow-up healthcare! [Patrick Kennedy’s mantra] to the mentally ill. That– plus strict gun control– would go a long way toward minimizing the occurrence of such incidents.
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Sorry for misspellings, typing in a really small box on my iPad.
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Many of my posts are written on iPhone, as now.
If you see a post where the link is not embedded, I wrote it on iPhone.
Most others on iPad.
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“…The teachers, if they were armed, could have shot him, but the child would still be dead.”
Correction: “…The teachers, if they were armed, could have shot him, and then two children would have been dead.”
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Thank you, Stu. And your hypothesis imagines only teachers-as-sharpshooters. More likely, had multiple teachers been armed, there would have been multiple casualties.
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This is part of an email from TrumpAccountable.org. Hatred is being spread/encouraged and is affecting schools. How sad for children.
………………….
Retired Laconia, MN school superintendent Nancy Floros Rajanan spoke out on Facebook about how Trump’s tweets fly in the face of the anti-bullying efforts of schools and youth programs across the U.S.
As a Superintendent of Schools, I authorized thousands of dollars of expenditures on bullying education, anti-harassment training, and character education. These efforts were mandated by state and federal law and were good efforts to produce thoughtful citizens who respected others. I am devastated that our president continues to undermine our efforts through his abhorrent role modeling. Personal attacks, name calling, and insensitivity are beneath the dignity of his office. School leaders wouldn’t allow this type of behavior from a kindergartner!
In many cases major league sports figures struggle with the challenge of being role models. Many just want to play football and win a Super Bowl, for example, and feel that the responsibilities of being a role model are unwanted baggage on the road to their athletic goals. The presidency is simply not the same. The president is necessarily a role model for the kinds of behavior we value in our society. If Donald Trump sees himself as a role model for America’s youth – or American society in general – there’s little evidence of that on display in his Twitter feed.
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So true. I very much hope young children do not even hear about these tweets. And I count on seasoned soc stud teachers to hold an occasional discussion among high-schoolers to address the issue, bringing up norms of presidential behavior, & noting the WH disarray & political consequences of flouting the norms.
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Dearest Dr. Ravitch:
I really appreciate your forum where there resembles the real mini American society with full of all personalities in all circumstances in education.
You and all of conscientious educators have advocated for American Public Education in a whole child concept. This is an ultimate goal to sustain a (democratic= tolerant) compassionate community and society for all citizens in America.
The best solution, which comes out from this thread, is to nurture children in K-12 (or 18 and under) with love, caring, tolerance, respect and responsibility for their thoughts and actions. This solution can prevent children to grow up like the current USA President and his administration people. Lots of love. May
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In the debate about guns, don’t forget what an absolute scumbag this POS psychpath is.
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Omg! Has this country gone totally NUTS?
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What teacher would speedily shoot a child? That goes against every instinct for a teacher.
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a 14-year-old at a distance firing a gun at smaller children that the teachers know might motivate some teachers to fire back if they were armed. At a distance, some 14-year-olds look like mature adults
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Not clear on your point, LL.
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That the 14-year-old is considered a child and teachers wouldn’t fire on a child.
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Too many guns and too easy to get. Period.
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Congress has been bought out by the NRA.
How happy I am the ‘guns don’t kill people’. Just how demented is the national thinking when people have bought into this theory? More guns means more killing.
Australia had one mass shooting and the populace got fed up. They passed a good gun law (don’t know what it was) but now streets are safe. We can’t say that here.
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Capitalism TRUMPS everything, every human value, all good sense, in the United States.
One of the richest and most powerful U.S. industries is producing weapons…and these arms manufacturers then must find customers like the Saudis who are decimating the Yemenis using American weapons, and any 14 year old who can buy a Saturday Night Special for $25, or if they have more cash than that, they can buy an automatic repeater long rifle out the trunk of many cars in the parking lots at gun shows.
We live in the culture where money is king, and manifest destiny rules.
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Ellen Lubic
New NRA ad seems to be inciting right wing violence . Perhaps they are trying to encourage the left to arm themselves in defense. Not a bad corporate strategy considering polls consistently show a 60 /40 split.
Teasing!! I think
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So true, Ellen. The gun mfr/distr lobby here is just one more example of big corp $ interest buying legislation to thwart the public good.
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A fine of up to $10,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years, with a two-year mandatory minimum . For possession of assault weapons after the ban . a year for possession of an older weapon. that was not handed in for compensation . Basically only police , military and security forces exempted.
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Before this child got the gun what were his behaviors at home and in school? A child was likely displaying behaviors that should have set off alarms but no one was observing and listening.
§300.111 Child find (a) General. (1) The State must have in effect policies and procedures to ensure that—(i) All children with disabilities residing in the State, including children with disabilities who are homeless children or are wards of the State, and children with disabilities attending private schools, regardless of the severity of their disability, and who are in need of special education and related services, are identified, located, and evaluated; (ii) A practical method is developed and implemented to determine which children are currently receiving needed special education and related services.
§300.111 Child find (b) Use of term developmental delay. The following provisions apply with respect to implementing the child find requirements of this section:(1) A State that adopts a definition of developmental delay under §300.8(b) determines whether the term applies to children aged three through nine, or to a subset of that age range ( e.g. , ages three through five). (2) A State may not require an LEA to adopt and use the term developmental delay for any children within its jurisdiction. (3) If an LEA uses the term developmental delay for children described in §300.8(b), the LEA must conform to both the State’s definition of that term and to the age range that has been adopted by the State.(4) If a State does not adopt the term developmental delay , an LEA may not independently use that term as a basis for establishing a child’s eligibility under this part.
§300.111 Child find (c) Other children in child find. Child find also must include—(1) Children who are suspected of being a child with a disability under §300.8 and in need of special education, even though they are advancing from grade to grade; and (2) Highly mobile children, including migrant children.
§300.111 Child find (d) Construction. Nothing in the Act requires that children be classified by their disability so long as each child who has a disability that is listed in §300.8 and who, by reason of that disability, needs special education and related services is regarded as a child with a disability under Part B of the Act.
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This is one of the most horrific stories I have read of recent, but strongly and effectively written to really get at the horror of it all. The actual news account is so poignant because it shows the aftermath in such starkly real terms: the coping process of the children who experienced the event. One other factor that I read in this story and that this nation still does not take seriously enough is THE EFFECTS OF BULLYING. While there is no excuse for the heinous actions of the shooter, we have to ask what were contributing factors if any? There are children who are relentlessly bullied who take their own lives, some carry on and get past this emotionally and often physically abusive period in their lives and THEN THEIR ARE CHILDREN LIKE THE SHOOTER in this story who take the lives of others. Our laws need tweaking to account for the seriousness of bullying. We see time and time again the destructive aftermath and rightly express horror at the killer but do not look at what factors helped “pull the pin” on the grenade.
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I once met a man in Huntsville ALA. He owned a gun store. He had a photograph of his best salesman, prominently displayed in his store. The photo was of Barack Obama. When Obama was elected, his sales took off, and he had ammunition on back order, gun sales went up all over the nation.
Since the current president was elected, gun sales have plummeted. see
https://www.thenation.com/article/gun-sales-are-plummeting-and-trump-wants-to-help/
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Sick, Charles, and racist too.
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What is sick and racist? Whenever a gun-grabbing, anti 2d amendment politician is elected, gun owners panic, and rush to buy guns and ammo, before they are illegal. This is what happened with Obama.
When a pro-2d amendment person like Trump is elected, who has an A+ rating from the NRA, gun owners breathe easier.
If you research, you will see that after the Sandy Hook shooting, that gun sales skyrocketed, because people assumed that congress would enact new legislation restricting 2d amendment rights .
“Government is like fire, a dangerous servant, and a terrible master”- George Washington.
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