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The Los Angeles Times reports
After their teacher fires a gun at school, Georgia students use opportunity to challenge Trump's proposal
Jesse Randall Davidson wasn't a stranger, some mysterious threat from the outside. He was a bearded, bespectacled, 53-year-old social studies teacher and the play-by-play announcer for the football games at Dalton High School in northwest Georgia.
But when the teacher brought a gun to school, barricaded himself in his classroom [February 28], and fired a single shot, students quickly recognized that this wasn't just a sad local incident.
Amid national outrage over school shootings--and suggestions by President Trump that schools would be safer if some teachers packed guns--it was a political event.
"my favorite teacher at Dalton high school just blockaded his door and proceeded to shoot", a 16-year-old student named Chondi Chastain tweeted at the National Rifle Assn., earning more than 17,000 retweets. "We had to run out The back of the school in the rain. Students were being trampled and screaming. I dare you to tell me arming teachers will make us safe."
[...] When students came to his door at room 413 during third period--a time his classroom is normally empty--it was locked, and Davidson wouldn't let them in, police said later.
"My brother, who was one door down from the teacher, said he was yelling at his students to 'get the [expletive] out of here'", junior Henry Hansen, 17, wrote in a private message on Twitter.
The principal, Steve Bartoo, tried to unlock the door with a key, but Davidson "slammed the door before I could open it and said, 'Don't come in here, I have a gun'", Bartoo said at a televised news conference.
Bartoo put the school into lockdown mode, and soon after, Davidson "apparently fired a shot from a handgun through an exterior window of the classroom", Dalton police spokesman Bruce Frazier said at a separate news conference. "It did not appear that it was aimed at anybody."
[...] Dalton police, the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office, the Georgia State Patrol, and federal law enforcement agencies all responded to the emergency. "More or less everybody with a badge in the area came running", Frazier said.
After about half an hour, Davidson surrendered and was taken into custody
[...] The Dalton students immediately turned to social media to take issue with Trump's calls to arm teachers.
Heavy.com adds
Records show Davidson has been charged with aggravated assault with a gun, terroristic threats and acts, carrying a weapon in a school safety zone without a license, reckless conduct, disrupting public school, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He is being held without bail at the Whitfield County Jail.
[...] Davidson has a history of bizarre medical episodes both at school and outside of school, The Chattanoogan reports.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:30AM
So true, that is so true.
Let me tell you, Ariana Grande, great American singer. And she gave a concert in #Manchester [twitter.com], in England. Where they hardened the stadium, the arena, where she was singing. England, they have big problems with the terrorists.. Because their government is VERY WEAK & INEFFECTIVE. And a Radical Islamic terrorist, an ISIS terrorist, came with a bomb, he set off a bomb. He didn't go in the hardened area, but it was still a big problem. Because he set it off where people were waiting outside. So many people killed & injured, and a lot were children. #NeverForget [twitter.com]
9-11, we hardened all the airplanes after that one, right? And put in the security check at our airports. But Los Angeles, so much "carnage" going on there. Big problems with terrorists. And a couple of times, the terrorists didn't even try to get on a plane. They went into the terminal, they started shooting in the terminal. And killed a few people. Including one of our brave TSA agents. They didn't bring bombs, thank God. It could have been so much worse. It was just guns -- that's why you don't hear about it -- it still wasn't great. Bush, Obama, terrible presidents, they did nothing. But what could they do? The planes, the airports are hardened. But guys come to the edge of where it's hardened, they start shooting, maybe they're bringing bombs, what can you do?
The White House in Washington, I wasn't there today. I was at my Southern White House, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida. As I wrote in my Journal. But as everybody knows we have a fence around the White House in Washington. A tall, beautiful fence. Which served my predecessors very well, it's serving me very well. And today we had a guy, not a bad guy, maybe sick -- there's something about the White House that really attracts the crazies. A harmless guy, maybe just a loser. But he came up by the fence and he shot himself in the head. And left a terrible mess. My White House is hardened, he didn't make a mess in there. That would have been so much worse -- you don't know how hard @FLOTUS [twitter.com] and I have been working on sprucing it up. After years of neglect. A lot of work, a lot of expense fixing it up. The carpets, the drapes, everything. So blood spatters are the last thing we need right now. I mean, who wants that, right?
I don't have all the answers, But I'm going to get them. I'm LISTENING to our amazing students & parents -- the very brave survivors. LISTENING to our terrific NRA, who work so hard on Gun Rights. And NEGOTIATING with our folks in Congress. On both sides. And believe me, we're going to do the right thing. We're going to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. And maybe we'll have to harden our whole Country. We can start at the Border. More than ever wee need to BUILD THE WALL!