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: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:12AM (11 children)
There is a reason we set the legal age to exclude most of these students. We don't trust their judgement.
In other news, the kids want lunch to be soda with chips.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:20AM (4 children)
It sounds like their judgement is far better the average republican.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:36AM (2 children)
"The only thing that can stop an insane teacher with a gun, is a student with a gun!" Next step, Republicans! Arm the students! (Can't wait till this line of thought is applied to mental hospitals and prisons!)
(Score: 3, Touché) by MostCynical on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:49AM
Oh, please let me protect myself from Nurse Ratched!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by west on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:43PM
allowing adults to conceal carry in school might help.
why not then?
whats your solution?
(Score: 1) by west on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:38PM
instead of disparaging people why don't you make an argument?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:42AM (1 child)
Homework just means that the school outsources some of its job to the parents. Instead of homework, have a scheduled exercise time at school, with teachers available to provide professional help if a child has trouble with the exercises.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:52AM
Or, just not give homework at all.
http://www.essentialkids.com.au/education/school/primary-school/what-happened-when-a-primary-school-stopped-setting-homework-20170301-guo1fz [essentialkids.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:03AM (1 child)
Yeah, stupid little shits, thinking they're old enough to understand things like "being shot" and "not wanting to die"!
(Score: 1) by west on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:40PM
not the point. the point is that adults are in charge. adults have empathy.
i don't entertain nuanced political policy rhetoric with children unless they demonstrate nuanced understanding.
why would you? im not surprised that people don't want to get shot. now we can talk about political policy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:43AM (1 child)
The homework is a waste of time since it requires only rote memorization to solve. In fact, that applies to our entire abomination of a school system. It seems that the judgement of most adults is that education doesn't matter, but subservience to authority and memorizing as many random facts as possible do matter. As such, why would I trust the judgement of the vast majority of my fellow adults, either? They helped create this situation. You are severely delusional if you think that busywork is doing anyone any good.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:20PM
That is precisely what the case is. The term you're looking for is "social efficiency curriculum," and the milieu in which this abomination gurgled to life was the late 19th century.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...