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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 The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:28PM (19 children)
Having everything you ever wanted simply for going to work is not the American Dream; it's the Soviet Dream. The American Dream requires, and has always required, the willingness to produce work of noteworthy value for your fellow man. If you're making less than twice minimum wage as an adult, you've failed miserably in that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:44PM (10 children)
And the American Nightmare is when, in spite of willingness and effort, you can't get ahead.
Because, you see, the money are vacuumed from the market faster than you can... mmm... "dream".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:52PM (4 children)
Effort is not part of the equation. Never has been. Producing something of value to others is.
If you inherit a legacy job from your grandfather polishing a brass cannon out in front of the courthouse, you would be ill advised to buy your own cannon and go into business for yourself just because you don't like your wages.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:19PM (3 children)
Producing something of value, like what? How about loaves of bread? That has value to others. Probably doesn't pay much and you can work your ass off at it and not get too far ahead.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:54PM (2 children)
Feel free to throw the word "significant" in my previous statement where it applies. Nit-picking over non-zero but still trivial values is disingenuous at best.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:37PM (1 child)
Insignificant? Try going without food. Let me know how "important" it is to you after a few days. Your holier-than-thou facade is what is disingenuous, my friend.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:47PM
Next time, try replying to what was actually said if you're going to troll. You'll be much more effective at it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @03:14PM (4 children)
Complete bullshit. For starters, that's not happening. Second, the world is not zero sum. Just because someone is doing better doesn't mean that they're the reason you're doing worse. Let us recall that you could have invested in the stock market way back when (use a broad index-based fund, you're probably shit at investing), and be sharing in that "vacuuming" that you claim is going on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:57PM (3 children)
disillusioned US citizen: I barely have enough bread.
khallow: but if you invest your cake, it will only grown bigger
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:18AM (2 children)
They could start by selling their laptop, amirite?
Saying it in a mocking voice, doesn't make it less true.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:09AM
You mean, to further reduce their chances to get anywhere?
And that's assuming they have a laptop in the first place.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:00AM
Yes, the Earth orbits the Sun. No, seriously, it does.
Too bad this is also irrelevant to the disillusioned US citizen.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:09PM (7 children)
America has some of the first worlds shittiest odds of being able to better yourselves economically. Somewhere I saw that it is 4 times easier to move from the bottom quintuple to the top quintuple of earners in Canada then America. I can't find that study right now but from [URL:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide>
In other words, it is hard to get ahead by working hard in the States compared to being born in the right caste.
Here's a right wing think tanks view on Canadian economic mobility with links to studies, https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/social-mobility-alive-and-well-canada [fraserinstitute.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:57PM (2 children)
Assuming this is true, for the sake of argument, I'd say it's caused more by an almost entirely unskilled labor pool than it is by a new wave of robber barons. Those of us with scarce and in demand skills are doing just fine, thank you very much.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:47PM (1 child)
That's probably as true in Canada as the States. Unluckily there is a good portion of the population who just don't have those in demand skills. Shit, I'm in the top 2% IQ wise, but my mind just doesn't work the right way to follow Perl code. You're lucky to have won the lottery in having an in demand skill as well as working hard to take advantage of those skills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:10PM
Google Translation:
I'm the smartest guy in the room, but I can't figure out how to use that to find a job that doesn't require me to wear a paper hat.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:29AM (3 children)
It's easier for an amateur basketball player to move from the worst 20% to the best 20% just by playing weekend pick up games than it is for a professional basketball player to move from the worst 20% to the best 20%. Income and wealth inequality are dishonest for making such comparisons. The US is much more competitive and higher overall income/wealth at its highest levels than Canada is (a much bigger business creation environment and finance sector, for example). So I don't consider the difficulty to be a valid measure of what makes economies good or bad.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:24AM (2 children)
So you're saying it is fine that people can't better themselves as there are already so many better people?
Seems to me that it should be easier to better yourself as it has
so more opportunity.
Perhaps America should change their slogan from "Land of Opportunity".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:28AM (1 child)
No, but you are saying here that you didn't read and understand my post.
It's harder to place in the top 20% in the US because the standards are higher and you have to be a lot wealthier to place. And the dirty fact is that most people don't care enough to do that just like they don't try to place in the top 20% of professional basketball.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:19AM
It's still just 20% of the population. We're not talking about joining the 1% or rather the 0.01%. You're 10 times bigger so you should have a 10x upper 20%.
OK, Americans just don't want to advance themselves compared to all other developed nations excepting the UK. Doesn't take away from my original point that birth is more important then working hard. See they're talking about luck up the page as well, something else to consider, you can be the best basketball player in the world but if a scout never sees you...