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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: 3, Informative) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:06PM (3 children)
I say simplistic, rather than simply wrong, because of course no one can deny that this is large part of politics.
But I'm happy to be able to say it isn't quite all of it.
And no matter how many schools you shoot up there's a significant portion of the country that isn't going to be panicked into begging you to become dictator in response. Because they see how this logic works, how it has worked consistently.
This is the 'dialogue,' the 'compromise' when it comes to rights.
We start with a big cake, let's call it 'second amendment rights.'
Then along come the victim-disarmament activists. They say "Give us the cake!"
"No. It's my cake. I like it. You can't have it. Don't come any closer!"
VDA: "Ok, ok, don't shoot! Be reasonable. Let's compromise. Just give me half."
US: "What? Give you half? And what do I get out of it?"
VDA: "Well, you get to keep the other half! Plus less cake violence, who doesn't want that?"
US: "Well, OK, I guess you convinced me.
*Enter various unconstitutional restrictions culminating in the National Firearms Act of 1934*
VDA: "Hey, give me that cake!"
US: "No, this is my cake. What's left of it, at least, you! Go away!"
VDA: "Hey, hey, don't shoot! Be reasonable. Let's compromise. Give me half of that."
US: "Compromise? Again? What's in it for me?"
VDA: "You can keep the other half! And less cake violence, who doesn't want that?"
(In fact there does not appear to have been any actual decrease in cake violence due to the earlier compromises, but reliable statistics really hadn't begun to be kept and so this fact was not noted as it should have been.)
*Enter Gun Control Act of 1968*
US: "Hmm, well, I only have a quarter of the pie left, but they promised they'd never bother us again, so I guess it's worth it. Let's go to the range!"
US: "Uhoh, what's *that one* doing here again?"
*VDA does not bother to ask or argue, simply grabs the cake, inserts it orally, and rips off several bites which are swallowed whole.*
*Enter Clinton Executive Orders.*
US: "Ermagerd! I can't believe she just did that!"
*VDA, having choked down the majority of the initial bites, has started slowly sucking/slurping up icing around the edge of the remaining cake.*
*Enter Lautenberg Act, HUD/Smith, Wesson agreement, School Safety and Law Enforcment Improvement Act*
US: "HOW RUDE!"
*US stalks off and the camera fades, to return to a view of US and VDA once again facing off*
VDA: "Give us cake! Why won't you be reasonable? Why won't you compromise? Extremist! Hate! Hate!! HATRED!!!"
US: "Go away, we're wise to you. We started out with a nice big cake we could share with everyone and now we're hording a few fragments and crumbs. And half of them have your spit on them. Enough. Go away!"
*Enter Columbine, etc.*
VDA: "See? It's a big problem. GIVE US CAKE! HOW MANY OF YOUR KIDS DO WE HAVE TO KILL TO GET A LITTLE CAKE YOU ASSHOLES?"
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:26PM (1 child)
You're kidding, right? You Americans are wandering about with military-level armaments and you call that fragments and crumbs?
Again, you seem to be implying that the anti-gun people are carrying out the murders.
Tell me, do you also believe that Greenpeace are hunting whales, the Vegan Society runs McDonalds and CND has a nuclear weapons program?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:45PM
Please, tell me about the "military grade armament" that we wander freely about with?
Do you have any idea what you have to do in order to legally acquire and possess any actual "military grade armaments" in the US today?
Clearly you do not.
"Again, you seem to be implying that the anti-gun people are carrying out the murders."
see the other reply, but;
"Tell me, do you also believe that Greenpeace are hunting whales"
IIRC they have been implicated in the torture of kangaroos, is that close enough for you?
"the Vegan Society runs McDonalds"
That's a new one to me so I have no comment, but again it seems to remind me of something similar.
There's a long-standing legend that 'the Mormons forbid Coke but they own it!"
Now that's not totally true, but it's not totally false either.
First, the LDDS Church won't kick you out for drinking a coke, that parts false. But it's sort of a recognizable exaggeration of the truth nonetheless. Caffeine, any sort of stimulant use, is frowned upon, not forbidden. Many, probably most LDDS members are 'Jack Mormons' and they often do many things that are frowned upon regularly. As long as they send in their dues and aren't looking to move up in the hierarchy it doesn't matter. I'm sure they are not the only religion to work that way.
So, caffeine is frowned upon, not actually forbidden, let's call that exaggeration, possibly misunderstanding. But does the CJC-LDS own Coke? Well, no, that doesn't seem to be exactly true either, Coke is even bigger than you can imagine and has lots and lots of owners and I've seen no indication that CJC-LDS is a particularly large stockholder.
But again, probably not so much false as exaggeration/distortion/misunderstanding. Because they own a LOT of stock, very diversified, I don't know they own Coke stock but I shouldn't be surprised if they do.
And you know what they DO own, or at least did own some years ago when this rumor was common? Regional bottlers. Where the Coke comes from. Where the local businesses send the money to pay for the Coke they sell to all the Jack Mormons that get a thrill out of the little 'sin' of drinking some caffeine.
So you ask me, "is the Vegan Society tied in some way or another to McDonalds?"
*Shrug* Wouldn't surprise me.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:24PM
Nice imagery you painted there.
To complement those bits of cake, do you also have, as a side, a chart on how many firearms got in the hands of population over time?
Latest number floated says there are about 300M of them, one for every person in US, kids included.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford