My friend Andy Hargreaves said on Twitter that we should not allow Trump to distract us from the students’ righteous demand for gun control. Trump knows that he is changing the subject. When he gets into hot water, he always changes the subject. The White House is relieved to be talking up their solution for mass murder as a distraction from the survivors’ laser-like call to ban military weapons outright. They are also happy to talk about school shootings, not corrupt Paul Manafort and Jared’s failure to get a security clearance.
Stay focused. Organize against any member of Congress who takes NRA blood money. Vote for candidates who refuse NRA money. The NRA is a Pro-Death lobby. It is toxic.
Stay focused. The mass murders will continue until the U.S. bans weapons of mass murder.
Please go to Wikipedia and read about the Port Arthur Massacre in Australia and why it led to a national ban on assault weapons.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You are so right. Wag the dog. I can’t believe we are failing for it. We too should be asking for outragous things.
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This is ridiculous. As a teacher and a gun owner, we should not arm teachers and we don’t need a ban. We had a ban when Columbine, the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11 happened.
What we need is stricter laws as we had on restrictions for feetizer and airport security. We also need to focus on warning signs of spree killers and authorities need to follow a protocol instead of passing it off.
The ban from 1994-2004 didn’t stop anything.
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Haha. Fertilizer sorry.
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We ban and or restrict many types of armaments, such as machine guns, hand grenades, land mines, RPGs, flame throwers and those restrictions work for the most part. It is theoretically possible to purchase a machine gun in some states but it’s expensive, involves lots of paper work and being investigated by authorities, the FBI, etc. Machine guns and 50 caliber sniper rifles are banned in NJ, for example. There are firing ranges in some states that have machine guns for gun enthusiasts. Machine gun massacres are rare. Ban the damn semi-automatics and the large magazines, it’s a small step in the direction of sanity.
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There are legitimate hunting uses for semi auto guns, but no hunting or sporting need for high capacity and especially removable magazines which are features of military weapons and should be reserved for them alone. If a semi auto gun is limited to having an internal magazine only of no more than 5 rounds, that would be a good, common sense solution. Hunters would not be impaired in the field. FYI, Internal magazines have to be loaded one round at a time. What to do about handguns is a stickier problem, and worse than all that is getting the gun toothpaste back in the tube.
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No. Don’t ban them. Make the same precautions as the other weapons. See how it worked for machine guns? It’ll work for semiautomatic weapons as well. However, ban bump stocks.
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No civilian should own a weapon made for military use.
Period.
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Any discussion of arming teachers is a smokescreen. Do not look to this president for any substantive leadership on this issue.
BTW: you said Q The mass murders will continue until the U.S. bans weapons of mass murder. ENDQ
What exactly is a weapon of mass murder? Be specific. Do you have any specific information that is leading you to this conclusion?
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Your friend is absolutely correct. Let’s get back to work.
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“Stay focused. The mass murders will continue until the U.S. bans weapons of mass murder.”
The mass murders will continue until the USofA quits being the world’s leading purveyor of death and destruction, not only through its weapons sales but more importantly through its use of the military in killing many innocents. This century alone the USofA is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths of innocent children, non-combatants and elderly. For an idea of the death and destruction we sow see: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147
This country is awash in violence. Violent movies, video games, commercials, etc. . . and the glorification of the death and destruction machine that is the USofA’s military. “Oh, you can’t criticize the men and women in uniform.” Horse manure, they are the ones who enable the death and destruction. The guilt is not only theirs, but ours collectively as we, as a society applaud and glorify them as “heroes”. Smmmhh.
As it is, what is a “weapons of mass murder”? Please define the term as it sure makes a nice emotional statement but lacks any solid definition. And no, I don’t know what you mean by that statement, Diane. It is not self-explanatory because as far as I’m concerned we need to ban, or at least dramatically cut the size (easily by 90%) of the organization that is the true leader in the use of “weapons of mass murder”, the USofA’s military.
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Thanks and well said.
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A school filled with blood and human tissue splattered on the floors and walls is a “nice emotional statement?” A weapon (plus the large capacity magazines) that enables a person to slaughter 26 people in a few moments seems to fit the weapons of mass destruction label, in my dumb opinion, but what do I know, I’m just a mere mortal.
Can’t we do both? Address the bloody US foreign policy and all these school shootings?
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Joe,
I’m pointing out what I believe to be THE most important factor regarding the shootings. The factor that the vast majority, probably 95% turn a blind eye to. Without understanding the root, the fundamental, the most basic cause one cannot address the problem. And that root problem is the insane violence that the citizens of this country allow through their government and its foreign policy and military.
And what I am trying to counteract are narratives that are based on gut emotions and that don’t take into account the reality of the situation such as the fact that the vast majority of guns owned by law abiding citizens are semi-automatic. My son and I guestimated that only about perhaps 10-15% are single shot weapons. Not to mention that attempting to confiscate those weapons would cause a mass counter protest/not going along as the folks that I know that own weapons all would deny/hide the existence of the guns they know and/or declare that they had given or sold them and there would be no paper trail as individuals who sell, trade, buy or give do not need to record such things.
Now perhaps one might try to ban any further manufacture of semi-automatic weapons but good luck on that.
Again, until this country realizes just how violence and death and destruction loving it really is, well. . . there will be more violence, death and destruction perpetrated by deranged individuals who, like Cruz, fantasize being killers.
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Duane, thanks for the explanation, much appreciated. I don’t disagree with your larger point about our culture of violence and militarism. All that being said, the words and actions by the teenagers from MSD HS in FL give me hope that we might actually do something constructive about gun control. We did once have an assault weapons ban and the ban/restrictions on fully automatic guns works for the most part.
The sad part, is that we will be having this discussion again in a few weeks in the wake of yet another gun massacre (I hope I am wrong).
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Agreed, Duane. Well said.
I believe it’s true that Trumpism and the call to arms in schools is a distraction. It’s a distraction from what the Koch cabal is doing.
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The real reason the NRA and gun industry want to arm teachers? MONEY! The gun industry has achieved market saturation, sales are way down since there’s no Obama or Hilary to fear monger with, their stock values have plummeted, AND, Smith and Wesson has filed for bankruptcy protection! Those guys are not going away, just doing a Trump and trying not to pay their bills. The bottom line here is that THIS decline in sales and stock value is the most rational, in fact the only real explanation for the cynical push to arm teachers, the gun industry needs to open a new, virgin market to keep the cash flow going, and our schools and teachers are it. The actual gun and accessory/ammo sales are just the tip of the iceberg here, the real cash cow is the cost of all the ongoing training, which IS NOT OPTIONAL if you are at all serious about being able to defend your school. Even if well trained, you will not prevail in a gunfight if a determined shooter decides to wear body armor, especially if it is full body armor as was worn by a pair of bank robbers years back who were not slowed down in any way in spite of being hit with multiple handgun rounds fired by the police before their heavier weapons could be deployed. No body armor? No problem! A rifle has far greater effective range than a handgun, so all a shooter has to do is take up a firing position away from the school and attack in the morning or during dismissal, bringing parents into the victim pool as well. The idea of arming teachers and/or school staff is preposterously stupid and will not increase school security one bit. https://www.npr.org/2018/02/27/589061976/for-the-first-time-in-years-shops-have-more-guns-than-buyers
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YEP!
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And yet President Trump’s comments direct our attention to his fundamental imbecility.
Well played sir! Well played….
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Give the devil his due: the AFT and NEA had to use bandwidth to push back against his preposterous idea… and as a later post indicates it spurred legislative action in FL… It’s crazy-making that every time a mass murder occurs the NRA makes deeper inroads… The NYTimes had an insightful article this weekend on how the NRA doesn’t buy legislators, it buys influence. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/us/politics/nra-gun-control-florida.html If those of us who seek sane legislation on guns could get behind one organization who turned out voters whose rabidity matched that of the NRA voters we MIGHT be able to turn the tide… It strikes me that the NSBA. NEA, AFT, AASA, and national PTA leaders ought to be able to coalesce to get parents, teachers, and community members to vote out legislators who are proposing irrational bills like those just enacted in FL.
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The NRA has only one goal, the other groups have many.
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True— but if these groups could get a common legislative agenda on this one particular issue they might— paraphrasing the NYTimes— create a muscular electioneering machine that could issue campaign ads and voter-guide mailings that would scrutinize candidates for their views on guns and propel members to the polls. I’ve got to believe parents are as rabid about keeping guns out of schools as the NRA voters are about keeping their own guns… And I also got to believe the the pro-NRA candidates and the pro-privatization candidates are identical.
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I hope you are right
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