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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the mental-issues dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:25PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:25PM (#647053)

    So if the armed lunatic knows teachers are likely to have a gun, they'll be the first target, once down they won't be able to shoot back, will they?

    What you are arguing for is making teachers the first target when another crazy with a gun attacks.

    So the nutter will go into a classroom, shoot the teacher, then barricade the door before anyone else with a gun can get in. They then have the chance to kill the whole class full of kids before they can be stopped.

    The only solution is to stop these nutters getting guns in the first place.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:02AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:02AM (#647344) Journal

    You seem to presume that the shooter is experienced, accurate, and rational. We'll dismiss the rational first - rational people don't shoot school kids to death. Experienced, next - almost all of our school shooters with experience have been killed, and the rest are in the court systems. Accurate? What is it about a deranged school shooter that makes him more likely to kill the teacher, than the teacher killing him? Have school shooters somehow acquired super hero powers? Whatever else the shooter may or may not be, he is hyped up on adrenaline, and maybe other drugs as well. He's emotional, excited, and also crazy. Yet, he has the presence of mind to distinguish teacher from student, to aim at that teacher, and to hit the teacher? Mmmmmm - maybe. And, maybe not.

    Bottom line, arming a teacher will help to even the odds. You may or may not enjoy shooting fish in a barrel, but it would be a lot less enjoyable if one or more of the fish were shooting back!

    • (Score: 2) by boltronics on Sunday March 04 2018, @09:25AM

      by boltronics (580) on Sunday March 04 2018, @09:25AM (#647561) Homepage Journal

      We've seen problems in the past with teachers bringing phones in with pornographic photos of themselves that were subsequently obtained by students and exposed. One would expect that the teachers in question would be very reluctant to ever allow a student access to such a device, and yet that's what has happened. If you have teachers bring guns into schools, what's to stop the same thing from happening again?

      Sure you could lock the guns away instead of hiding one in a handbag, but then what happens when a kid pulls out a gun in class? You think a teacher will simply be able to ask for a moment to go and unlock a nearby cabinet draw? Kids aren't stupid - you can bet they'll learn real quick where the guns are kept.

      Or maybe teachers will need to wear them in holsters at all times just like the police? That would probably help, but I can't even... I'm just glad I don't live in the US.

      --
      It's GNU/Linux dammit!