Florida GOP Passed Gun Control Despite NRA, But DC GOP Still Owned by NRA

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2022 //
8

The Washington Post points out that the Florida GOP, then led by Governor Rick Scott, passed gun control legislation after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre.

But now Senator Scott and the rest of the Senate Republicans are opposed to passing similar federal gun control measures.

After a teenage gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers inside a Texas elementary school Tuesday, Democrats on Capitol Hill quickly lamented Republican lawmakers’ years of intransigence on gun control.


“No matter the cause of violence and no matter the cost on the families,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday, “nothing seems to move them.”


But that broadside wasn’t entirely accurate: Not long ago, GOP lawmakers bucked ferocious pressure from the National Rifle Association to pass significant new gun restrictions after a deadly school shooting, which were then signed into law by a fiercely conservative Republican.

It just didn’t happen in Washington.

Three weeks after 17 people were gunned down in 2018 inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed into law a bill that included provisions banning weapons sales to those younger than 21, imposing a three-day waiting period on most long-gun purchases, and creating a “red flag” law allowing authorities to confiscate weapons from people deemed to constitute a public threat.

The NRA’s powerful leader in the state, Marion P. Hammer, condemned Republicans backing the bill as “betrayers.” But 75 out of 99 GOP lawmakers voted for it anyway, and Scott — who was preparing to seek a U.S. Senate seat — signed it, calling the bill full of “common-sense solutions.” Other provisions of the bill included $400 million for mental health and school security programs, and an initiative, fiercely opposed by Democrats, that would allow teachers and school staff to be trained as armed “guardians…”

Interviews this week with Republican senators revealed little stomach for the sort of sprawling bill that Florida Republicans passed in 2018. None said they are open to a federal waiting period. Some are curious about “red flag” laws but skeptical about their implementation on the federal level. And asked about age limits for rifle purchases, one key GOP negotiator, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said, “I don’t think that’s on the table.”


Scott himself — who went on to narrowly defeat Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) in 2018, even after his NRA rating was downgraded from an A-plus to a C — said this week that he does not favor passing a federal version of the Florida law.


“It ought to be done at the state level,” he said. “Every state’s going to be a little bit different. … It worked in Florida, and so they ought to look at that and say, could that work in their states?”

Categories Florida, Guns

Mercedes Schneider: Ohio Passes Bill to Arm Teachers and Staff

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2022 //
48

Mercedes Schneider reports that the Ohio Legislature passed a bill allowing teachers and staff to carry guns. The Governor has promised to sign it.

Teachers have repeatedly said that don’t want to be armed. Whatever weapon they carry will be far less powerful than an AR15 or other assault weapon that school shooters favor. They worry about accidents, crossfire, killing students or other teachers.

But Ohio teachers will be able to carry weapons and to get training, though not more than 24 hours of instruction in handling a weapon.

Schneider has questions, informed by her experience as a high school teacher:

The bill does not consider that many parents may not want their children attending a school in which one or more teachers have a loaded gun in the classroom. The bill does not require school officials to identify to parents exactly which teachers have loaded guns with them in their classrooms. The bill does not require teacher-arming districts to offer wary parents any alternative, such as immediate transfer to another school or non-packing district with transportation provided.

The bill does not require notifying parents of any safety precautions regarding having a loaded weapon in a classroom full of children.

The bill fails to consider any publicized safety protocol or any training for students or anyone else who must be in the classroom, day after day, with a loaded gun in the same room.

Is the teacher carrying a concealed weapon as that teacher works in close contact with students? Is it locked in a safe in the classroom? Who has access? Are the exact teachers “packing heat” kept a secret from parents and students? What if those teachers are discovered and publicized on social media? Do they then become marks by those who see it as a challenge to confront a teacher carrying a gun? Does it become a dangerous game to some students to try to steal the teacher’s gun? Does videoing the teacher’s gun become a social media challenge?

How will districts pay for the liability insurance? What companies will insure the 24-hour-trained, gun-toting teachers in rooms full of children?

She hopes Ohio will think some more about this decision.

Categories Guns in Schools, Ohio, Safety

Ohio: State Superintendent Resigns After One Month on Job

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2022 //
12

Steve Dackin, who began his job as State Superintendent one month ago, has resigned. Questions were raised about his selection since he was chair of the search committee. Dackin said the controversy was a distraction from the work.

Anyone from Ohio want to shed more light?

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Ohio

New York: Will Governor Hochul Sign Class Size Bill?

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2022 //
3

Leonie Haimson urges every concerned New Yorker to call Governor Hochul and sign the class-size-reduction bill. If she does not sign within 30 days, the bill will die.

ACT NOW!

Whew! The long-awaited and much-needed class size bill was passed yesterday afternoon by the NY State Senate, 59 to 4, and late last night by the State Assembly. It calls for class size caps in NYC public schools of no more than 20 students in grades K-3; 23 students in 4th-8th grades; and 25 in high school academic classes, phased in over five years. If implemented well, it will bring a sea-change to our schools, and equity at last to NYC kids.

Our press release is here, along with quotes from AQE and the Ed Law Center, hailing the passage of this bill and thanking the key Legislators who made this happen. It is now up to us to ensure that the DOE’s class size reduction plan and its implementation are reasonable, effective, and responsive to parent and community concerns.

But the first step is to urge Gov. Hochul to sign the bill, so the planning can start NOW. Please call her today at 1-518-474-8390 or send her a message via her contact form here. Tell her: “Please sign A10498/S09460 now so that NYC students can benefit from the smaller classes that kids in the rest of the state already receive.”

Yes!!!

Categories Class size, Education Reform, New York, New York City

New York Legislature Passes Bill Reducing Class Sizes

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2022 //
9

After years of rallying, protesting, and demanding class size reductions, the parents and teachers of New York won! The legislature passed a bill mandating a reduction in class sizes.

This is the single most powerful reform that will help students, especially the neediest students, who will benefit from smaller classes and more teacher attention.

Class size reduction matters more than school choice or teacher evaluation or other expensive but ineffective fads.

A special shout out to Leonie Haimson, the unpaid executive director of Class Size matters, who has fought this battle with all her time and energy for years.

I’m proud to say that I am a board member of Class Size Matters and Leonie is a board member of the Network for Public Education.

Categories Accountability, Class size, Class Size Matters Org, Education Reform, New York, New York City

Why the AR-15 Should Not Be Sold to Civilians

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2022 //
246

There have been more than 200 mass murders in the United States since the beginning of the year, and we have not yet reached the halfway mark. For mass killings, the sociopath’s gun of choice is the AR-15. It’s a guaranteed killing machine, used most recently in Buffalo to murder 10 innocent people who were grocery shopping. It will kill many more people this year. You are not safe anywhere after you leave your home. Not safe in a school, a grocery store, a place of worship, a nail salon, a music festival.

As states enact laws permitting concealed carry and open carry of guns, try not to get involved in a road rage incident. The other person might shoot you dead. Avoid all disputes. Put your hands up in the air and walk away quickly.

Life in America in these times will begin to resemble the Shootout at the OK Corral. Tourists beware. Parents, grandparents, and children, beware. Death could come anywhere, at any time.

A writer called Democracy points out that there are still some limits on guns, even though AR-15s seem to be easy to buy. In New York, a teenager who had recently had a mental evaluation (and was quickly cleared) after threatening murder and suicide. He said he was joking but he wasn’t. After killing 10 people, he didn’t have the guts to kill himself. Since he’s likely to go to jail for the rest of his life, he can count on his fellow prisoners to give him the Justice he deserves.

Democracy writes:

It’s important to note here what Antonin Scalia said in his Heller decision, the one in which he essentially REWROTE the Second Amendment to his liking. Even in Heller, Scalia made it a point to say this:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

Scalia went on to say this: “that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ”

Assault-style rifles like the AR-15 are, in fact, very “dangerous,’ military-grade weapons.

PBS described what the AR-15 is:

“the AR-15 is America’s rifle because it’s what America’s military carries…even those who don’t serve feel that they’re part of that effort when they carry the AR-15… It’s a military rifle. It’s designed to deliver masses of bullets to a very specific target…This is a weapon designed to kill…It’s a military weapon…What’s different on the civilian versions is, it only allows semiautomatic fire…It’s very easy to reload. It’s very easy to get more ammunition in there and continue to shoot at your target…The ammunition for the M-16 or the AR-15 is a 5.56-millimeter bullet. It’s a very small and very fast bullet that does a lot of tissue damage… because it’s so small and moves so fast, it tends to tumble…when it hits a person, and so it tends to create a very large wound and very difficult-to-treat wounds. Again, it’s a military weapon. It’s not designed for hunting…It’s designed to wound or kill soldiers in combat…”

The Trump judges erred, badly, and likely, on purpose.

Categories Accountability, Guns, Insane

Uvalde: “I’m Not Surprised,” Writes Uvalde Native

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2022 //
12

Neil Meyer, a native of Uvalde who now lives in Bethesda, Maryland, says he was not surprised by the massacre there. He explained why in the Washington Post.

I was born in Uvalde, Tex., lived there recently and love its complex history and people. Like most, I’ve been struggling under the weight of grief to understand the violence that left 19 children, two teachers and a young killer dead last week. But I’m not surprised.


First, you would be challenged to find a more heavily armed place in the United States than Uvalde. It’s a town where the love of guns overwhelms any notion of common-sense regulations, and the minority White ruling class places its right-wing Republican ideology above the safety of its most vulnerable citizens — its impoverished and its children, most of whom are Hispanic.

Second, at news of the shooting, I was struck to hear the words “Robb Elementary” because I knew of its centrality to the struggle in Uvalde over the past half-century to desegregate its schools. Robb sits in the city’s southwest quadrant. So I knew the victims of the shooting would largely be Hispanic. They have been locked into that school for decades.
In Uvalde, simply put, everything north of Highway 90 is primarily White Republican, and everything south is mostly Hispanic Democrat. The city has about 15,000 residents; more than 80 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino.


Most of Uvalde’s political leadership and the heads of the largest employers are White. At the center of town on the courthouse grounds, you’ll find a monument to Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president — installed when the Ku Klux Klan dominated Uvalde politics. (Some of us tried to get the monument removed after the murder of George Floyd, but that’s a story for another day.)

Categories Guns, Poverty, Racism, Texas

Rachel Cohen: The Debate About “Lock-Down Drills”

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2022 //
10

Rachel Cohen describes the ubiquity of lock-down drills in American schools. About 95% of schools prepare teachers and children for the possibility of an active shooter. There are a variety of programs and protocols, she writes. Everyone accepts the reality that there are many guns out there and that schools are a target.

Cohen points out that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida did not have active shooter training, and many students were in the halls, increasing the death toll.

But others worry that millions of children are traumatized by drills that pit them against an intruder with a deadly weapon.

Read her article and be amazed at the extraordinary lengths we have to go, the burdens we inflict on children, the commitment of time and resources—because our Republican members of Congress refuse to ban and criminalize weapons of death.

No matter how many teachers and children die, the fictional “rights” of gun owners must be protected.

Categories Guns

Russian Journalist Will Auction His Nobel Prize Medal to Aid Ukrainian Refugees

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2022 //
23

This is truly a noble gesture by an independent Russian journalist whose publication was closed by V. Putin. He says the Nobel Prize should have gone to Alexei Navalny, the bold leader of the opposition to Putin, who was imprisoned for nine years for opposing Putin; Navalny was warned a few days ago that another 15 years may be added to his prison sentence, just because…

After winning the Nobel Peace Prize last October, the Russian journalist Dmitri A. Muratov said he thought the honor should have gone to a different Russian: the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny.

Mr. Muratov, the editor of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta (who shared the prize with the journalist Maria Ressa of Rappler, a news outlet in the Philippines), later announced that he would donate his roughly $500,000 in prize money to support various charitable causes.

And now, Mr. Muratov — whose paper suspended publication in late March, saying Russia’s increasingly draconian press laws made it impossible to truthfully cover the war in Ukraine — is giving away the 23-karat gold Nobel medal itself.

On June 20, the medal will be sold in New York by Heritage Auctions. All proceeds will go to UNICEF.

Categories Accountability, Courage, International

David Taylor: Why Not Classify Guns the Way We Classify Drugs?

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2022 //
122

Retired educator David Taylor, who lives in Texas, has a novel idea for improving gun safety: classify guns.

Classify guns the way the government classifies drugs, with appropriate restrictions.

He begins:

In 1970, the government passed the Federal Controlled Substance Act. “The goal of the Controlled Substances Act is to improve the manufacturing, importation and exportation, distribution, and dispensing of controlled substances.” It has now been over 50 years since this act was passed. In recent years. there has been some refining of it processes and procedures. Schedule I and Schedule drugs are the most highly regulated. Pharmacy are required to keep a database of users and prescriptions issued.

I’m not sure why this is not possible with firearms. I know the answer is money, politics and the gun lobby.

The broad categories of guns are

  1. Revolvers
  2. Handguns
  3. Rifles
  4. Shotguns
  5. Machine Guns
  6. Assault Rifles

If there were scheduled like drugs then we would have a scale of I-V with I being the most dangerous and most highly regulated.

  1. Class I – The most highly regulated.
    1. Assault Rifles
    2. Machine Guns
  2. Class II – Slightly less regulated
    1. Hand Guns (does not include revolvers)
  3. Class III –
    1. Rifles
  4. Class IV-
    1. Shotguns
  5. Class V-
    1. Revolvers
    2. Antiques

Read on to see how this classification could be used to establish meaningful gun control.

Categories Accountability, Guns, Safety
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