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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 GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:19PM (5 children)
(reposting this in the correct place)
I think it's more that those things are useful. Yeah, cars kill lots of people every year. But they save way more lives than they take - I'm not just talking about direct life-savings like ambulances and fire-engines and so on, I'm talking about all the efficiency that cars bring to society and the economy. Without cars or something similar, it would be about impossible for people to collaborate the the extent that they do to create, distribute and enjoy the myriad other technologies and goods that make our lives longer, safer and happier. Cars cost lives, but that is the cost of not living with Victorian-level industry, healthcare and society. Phones, to a far lesser extent, do the same (and their cost in lives is proportionally less as well).
Guns in the hands of civilians are useful for hunting (only really good for recreation these days), for shooting agricultural pests, and that's about their total contribution to society. You can't compare guns to cars.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:18PM (1 child)
And of course, the big one, self-defense! It's like listing several minor advantages of cars, but failing to mention their primary value as point to point transportation.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:31AM
Exactly - and we all need to remember that the second amendment was never about hunting.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:15PM
A couple weeks ago, a few blocks from my house, an armed passer by saved the lives of people trapped in their crashed cars by shooting the knife wielding road rager that was trying to break in and stab them. This is a good thing, and I'm very glad my state is shall issue for carry permits.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:35PM (1 child)
Just a quick question.
If your home gets broken into while you are there what will you do during the 15-30 minutes it will take for police to arrive after your call them?
Assuming that the police even show up [freerepublic.com] that is.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:13AM
Really not an issue for me since I don't live in a violent dystopia where the ubiquity of guns has escalated every confrontation into a shoot out. I mean two posts up from here there's a guy who saw a traffic dispute escalate into a hostage situation and gun battle. That's damn near unthinkable in any sane society.
The chances of an armed, violent intruder breaking into my home are non-zero, but negligible enough that I don't need to bring a weapon into my home. It would be like getting some kind of highly-dangerous electrocution machine to protect me against lightning strikes.
Life comes with risks. Live with it.