Eight to 10 people killed at Santa Fe, Texas, high school. Galveston County, about 35 Miles from Houston.
Another tragedy.
Not an AR-15, a shotgun and a .38. His father’s guns.
What will do about it?
More guns?
More thoughts and prayers?0
Archives for category: Guns
Well, here is a creative alternative to arming teachers, which most teachers oppose.
“The Utah Association of Public Charter Schools recently brought on YouTactical founder, Dave Acosta, to conduct training sessions around the state, centered around a program that teaches educators to, among other things, defend their students from active shooters with their bare hands…
”Friday, roughly two dozen administrators and teachers gathered at Thomas Edison Charter Schools South, in Nibley, to learn from Acosta.
“How many people can a bad guy shoot in 5 minutes if nobody interferes?” Acosta asked the group. “If nobody interferes, it’s a lot of people. Let me just say that.”
“The educators also watched and practiced techniques to disarm would-be active shooters in scenarios that featured handguns and AR-15 rifles.”
A chemistry teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida was arrested for accidentally leaving a loaded handgun in a public bathroom stall. A homeless man found the weapon and fired it. No one was injured.
Shortly after the February 14 massacre at the school, he said on national TV that he was open to the idea of arming teachers.
This commentary was submitted by a teacher who requested anonymity. In his community, it is dangerous to say such things. He might become a target.
U.S. Gun Tributes Worse Than Hunger Games
In the fictional novel Hunger Games, 23 youths are tributed to death each year to supposedly keep the peace.
In the present day United States, however, the number of people being tributed to gun violence each year is much higher.
Let’s do the math:
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The United States has more than 33,000 gun related deaths each year.
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That’s 5x higher per capita than any other developed nation
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If the United States were like other developed nations, it would have 1/5th its gun-related deaths, that’s just 6,600 a year.
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So that’s 26,400 unnecessary gun related tributes each year to supposedly keep the peace in the United States today (or 72 per day), which is much worse than the mere 23 that was tributed a year in the fictional Hunger Games.
How many more gun-related tributes do Americans need to endure?
Get involved!
Support the March 14 action of the Women’s March, which calls for a 17-minute walkout at 10 am..
Support the March 24 “March for Our Lives,” organized by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, which will occur in DC and across the nation.
Support the Day of Action on April 20 in every school and school district sponsored by the Network for Public Education, the NEA, the AFT, the BATS, the AASA, LULAC, the National Superintendents Roundtable, the Center for American Progress, and Gabby Giffords, with many more sponsors. Every school and district is encouraged to choose its own way to speak out against gun violence in schools. Activities include wearing orange armbands, assemblies to discuss the issues, sit-ins, teach-ins, before school, after school, or during school, a March on your legislators’ offices, candlelight vigil, linking arms around the school. Use your creativity. Collaborate.
Support the National Student Walkout on April 20, which calls on high school students to walk out at 10 am and not return.
April 20 was chosen for the last two protests because it is the anniversary of the Columbine massacre.
Anti-gun violence actions should continue until state legislatures and Congress act, or until NRA puppets are thrown out of office by irate voters.
Congress should ban the sale of assault weapons to civilians, as it was did from 1994-2004. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter endorsed the ban. These weapons, meant for military use, are the guns of choice for mass murderers.
Enough is enough!
Reader CarolMalaysia shares a letter she sent to Indiana Senator Todd Young, to be sure he understands that he has blood on his hands.
She writes:
3/10/2018
Corrupt Senator Young, a hero is in the hospital because of your support for assault weapons. He took 5 bullets to save his classmates in Florida
How many more mass killings are necessary before we ban military type assault weapons and criminalize their possession? I hold you responsible for the injury of this brave child of 15 who was shot 5 times and is still in the hospital.
If the point is it’s a great thrill to go to a shooting range and fire an AR-15, make a special permit for the shooting range owners to provide the AR-15, which the visitor uses and leaves at the shooting range.
Here is Anthony Borges’s story: When a 19 year old gunman raged through a high school in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018 a 15-year-old soccer player named Anthony Borges showed extreme courage.
Anthony, who is of Venezuelan descent, apparently was the last of a group of students rushing into a classroom to seek refuge. He shut the door behind him and frantically tried to lock it, but in an instant the gunman appeared on the other side. Instead of running for cover, Anthony blocked the door to keep the shooter out. He held his ground even as the attacker opened fire.
Asked why he would do that, he replied, “What’s so hard to understand about what I did?”
Shot five times in the legs and torso, Anthony phoned his father to say that he had been wounded. He was rushed to a hospital and survived.
Anthony Borges may not yet be able to walk, but tens of thousands of us will be Marching for him, led by his classmates from Parkland, on March 24 in Washington DC and in places all over the country. Hoosiers are going to show that they do not support corrupt politicians like Senator Todd Young who was bought out by the NRA. [$2,896,732] We want meaningful strict gun legislation.
Senator Todd Young, are you going to pay for this young man’s medical bills? You are personally responsible for all the deaths and injury caused by an assault weapon. What about giving Anthony Borges a scholarship? A moral person in your position would accept what he needs to do.
Corrupt Senator Todd Young’s stance:
I believe the “Assault Weapons Ban” of 1994 was bad legislation that needed to be repealed.”
Source: 2010 House campaign website, toddyoungforcongress.com/ , Nov 2, 2010.
Let’s honor Anthony Borges, not just as a counterpoint to corrupt, bought out politicians who leave children in harm’s way, but as a beacon of courage and selflessness for all of us to follow.
This short clip from CNBC explains why the AR-15 is so popular. It is relatively inexpensive. It is light. It doesn’t have much recoil. And it is very powerful.
The NRA would have us believe that any effort to ban it violates the Second Amendment. What they don’t admit is that such weapons were banned from 1994-2004 but the ban expired and was not renewed. The ban was supported by Presidents Reagan, Ford, and Carter.
The AR 15 and similar weapons are called sporting rifles but it hardly seems sporting to use such a powerful weapon to kill deer or squirrels or any other animal that prowls the woods.
It has become the favorite weapon of mass murderers.
Watch the video to see which corporations manufacture these weapons of death.
Make sure you are not invested in these funds, which are unwilling to withdraw their holdings in gun manufacturers.
Pension funds, especially teachers pensions and government workers funds, should divest their holdings in all these corporations. State pension funds could divest
Do not invest in weapons of war.
As it happens, some of the largest index funds are using their clout to demand that the gun manufacturers take affirmative steps, like producing so-called “smart guns,” which respond only to the fingerprint of their owner. But that’s not enough. It leaves millions of these killing machines on the loose.
How many more mass killings are necessary before we ban them and criminalize their possession?
The United States has minimal requirements for buying a gun. Although some cities restrict gun ownership, guns are readily available in most states and at gun shows and on the Internet. A purchaser might buy a gun in less than an hour.
Other countries have established high barriers to gun ownership. It is possible to buy a gun but not easy.
Japan
1. Join a hunting or shooting club.
2. Take a firearm class and pass a written exam, which is held up to three times a year.
3. Get a doctor’s note saying you are mentally fit and do not have a history of drug abuse.
4. Apply for a permit to take firing training, which may take up to a month.
5. Describe in a police interview why you need a gun.
6. Pass a review of your criminal history, gun possession record, employment, involvement with organized crime groups, personal debt and relationships with friends, family and neighbors.
7. Apply for a gunpowder permit.
8. Take a one-day training class and pass a firing test.
9. Obtain a certificate from a gun dealer describing the gun you want.
10. Buy a gun safe and an ammunition locker that meet safety regulations.
11. Allow the police to inspect your gun storage.
12. Pass an additional background review.
13. Buy a gun.
Japan has the lowest rate of gun homicides in the world.
Australia
After the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, where a man methodically killed 35 random people and injured many more at a popular tourist site, Australia made it more difficult to get a gun. Gun ownership is a privilege, not a right.
1. Join and regularly attend a hunting or shooting club, or document that you’re a collector.
2. Complete a course on firearm safety and operation, and pass a written test and practical assessment.
3. Arrange firearm storage that meets safety regulations.
4. Pass a review that considers criminal history, domestic violence, restraining orders and arrest history. Authorities may also interview your family and community members.
5. Apply for a permit to acquire a specific type of weapon.
6. Wait at least 28 days.
7. Buy the specific type of gun you received a permit for.
The article in the New York Times describes the gun laws in 13 other countries.
Those who mistakenly claim that the Second Amendment protects their unlimited right to buy any kind of gun ignore the fact that Congress banned assault weapons from 1994-2004. Before the ban was passed, it was endorsed by former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter.
The National Park Service rejected a request for a permit for a “March for Our Lives” demonstration on the Mall in D.C., expected to attract 500,000 people, organized by the students leaders at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The March is planned to protest gun violence.
The NPS said the Mall was not available because it had been booked by a small “talent show.” The sponsors of the talent show were not identified. Could it be the NRA talent show? Twirling your AR 15 like a baton? Shooting at targets and trying to hit a bullseye? Balancing an AR 15 on your head while you juggle apples and plates? Crooning tunes about the gun you love?
“A planned rally against mass shootings can’t be held on the Mall later this month because it conflicts with what’s described in a National Park Service permit application as a “talent show.”
“A permit application filed last week by survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school massacre indicated the “March For Our Lives” rally will be on March 24, with up to 500,000 attendees expected. Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the Park Service, said organizers proposed holding the event on the Mall but were looking to move the rally to another location after the request conflicted with a film crew’s permit.
“Litterst said the film permit was “from a student group at a local educational institution,” but he wouldn’t name the institution because “applications from educational institutions are withheld from release for privacy reasons,” he wrote in an email….
”The “March For Our Lives” rally, funded in part by Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities, will include “student speakers, musical performers, guest speakers and video tributes,” according to the permit application, with 14 Jumbotrons, 2,000 chairs and 2,000 portable restrooms. The film crew’s plans for the Mall were more modest, listing equipment such as two tables, two bikes and jump ropes.”
Shooting at moving targets while riding a bicycle? What stunt can be performed with jump ropes and AR 15s?
This is the Trump administration trying to silence the kids.
Let them march.
Reschedule the film crew with two bikes and two jump ropes.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a series of essays about the Supreme Court and its treatment of important issues like gun control. The Washington Post excerpted one of them here, in 2014.
“Following the massacre of grammar-school children in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, high-powered weapons have been used to kill innocent victims in more senseless public incidents. Those killings, however, are only a fragment of the total harm caused by the misuse of firearms. Each year, more than 30,000 people die in the United States in firearm-related incidents. Many of those deaths involve handguns.
“The adoption of rules that will lessen the number of those incidents should be a matter of primary concern to both federal and state legislators. Legislatures are in a far better position than judges to assess the wisdom of such rules and to evaluate the costs and benefits that rule changes can be expected to produce. It is those legislators, rather than federal judges, who should make the decisions that will determine what kinds of firearms should be available to private citizens, and when and how they may be used. Constitutional provisions that curtail the legislative power to govern in this area unquestionably do more harm than good.
“The first 10 amendments to the Constitution placed limits on the powers of the new federal government. Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of the Second Amendment, which provides that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
“For more than 200 years following the adoption of that amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus, in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated Militia.”
“When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about the limited coverage of the amendment, and I cannot recall any judge suggesting that the amendment might place any limit on state authority to do anything.
“Organizations such as the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and mounted a vigorous campaign claiming that federal regulation of the use of firearms severely curtailed Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Five years after his retirement, during a 1991 appearance on “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” Burger himself remarked that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
Got that? The conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger, appointed by President Richard Nixon, said that the NRA had perpetrated a fraud on the American people by twisting the words of the Second Amendment to deregulate military weapons and put then in the hands of civilians.
Justice Stevens added:
”In response to the massacre of grammar-school students at Sandy Hook Elementary School, some legislators have advocated stringent controls on the sale of assault weapons and more complete background checks on purchasers of firearms. It is important to note that nothing in either the Heller or the McDonald opinion poses any obstacle to the adoption of such preventive measures.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 