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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, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:50AM
I used to be a Republican in the '80s and '90s. Then I registered in the Independence Party, also known as the Reform Party. And in 2000 I ran for President (people don't know this, it was one of my first presidential campaigns). Until I saw that the Reform Party -- also known as the Independence Party -- was a mess. It just wasn't conducive to victory. So I withdrew. You can read about it in my book, The America We Deserve. And in August 2001 I joined the Democratic Party. Because I saw that George W. Bush was a TOTAL DISASTER for our Country. Something the whole world knew the next month. I was a Democrat until September 2009. Until I saw that Obama was a TOTAL DISASTER for our Country. So I joined the Republican Party. It's a much better fit for my views.
But this isn't about political parties, or any kind of parties. And it isn't about guns, it's not a gun thing. A bad or sick guy lost his mind. Had a "bizarre medical episode," so sad. And maybe, probably, some mental illnesses. I've known so many mentally ill people. SteveKBannon [twitter.com], I fired him and he lost it completely, he snapped. But fortunately, he didn't shoot anybody -- if I recall correctly. We have to be much more careful about our mentally ill folks. And some regular folks. Because they're not always safe. With guns, with so many things. We need much better gun safety. And much better school safety. We need to teach gun safety in our schools. We need to work much harder on protecting the children! Trust me, we're going to do the right thing.