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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 dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:50PM (10 children)
So you agree that to protect life, arms should be regulated. Hard to have the liberty to pursue happiness without life.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:25PM (9 children)
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:01PM (8 children)
The discussion on this page.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:15PM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:46PM
Truly, friend khallow, you are an idiot.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:52PM (5 children)
Where did I say that arms aren't currently well enough regulated? I did say, "arms should be regulated" without any comment on how much and whether the current regulations are enough.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:47AM (4 children)
Sorry, that's heavily implied. Nobody in the discussion was speaking of removing most or all firearm regulation - so why bring it up? After all, rules against murdering people should exist as well, but no one ever needs to point it out except when employing high levels of snark.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:06AM (3 children)
I just had an AC scream at me for suggesting that a reasonable regulation is firearms having a safety as the right to be armed is absolute and overrides all other rights. So yes, there are people who are not fine with any regulations on firearms.
I'm not American and don't consider owning and using a firearm to be any more then a right then owning and driving an automobile. To me it is reasonable expecting people to have some understanding of firearm safety (first time I owned a rifle, I got the neighbour, a WWII/Korean war vet, to give me a few hours instruction as I knew very little). Some arms shouldn't be sold and it should take a judge to remove that privilege.
What really scares me about the land of the free is regulations removing the right of owning a firearm from whole chunks of the population, basically using laws, aka letters of attainment. Accused of certain crimes, no arms for you. Any chance of mental instability, no arms for you. Went to jail for something unrelated to firearm violence or even any type of violence, no arms ever for you. That's insane regulations, not having a safety or requiring a couple of ounces of pressure to fire a weapon seems sane.
If you're going to have a Constitutional right for people to be armed, honour it. Other then a court order, and not a rubber stamp either, all people are allowed to be armed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:38AM (2 children)
Not in this thread you didn't. I'm not that AC, I don't answer for it. Plus I read through your posts and don't see this alleged AC in reply to any of those posts. Let us also keep in mind that safeties are not perfect nor are the people who use firearms. If one treats a firearm as always loaded with a round in the chamber and the safety off or broken, then one is far less likely to be unpleasantly surprised by the firearm accidentally going off.
I agree that is a problem. It is also an indication that gun control advocates often have ulterior motives.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:52AM (1 child)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=24366&page=1&cid=647270#commentwrap [soylentnews.org] read the parent as well.
You're right about safeties not being perfect, but they're better then the alternative and to me seem a reasonable regulation along with strongly encouraging never having a bullet in the chamber.
The thread was originally about a cop accidentally discharging his weapon in a school, not good for police to be using weapons without safeties and not a good representation of their training or presuming no meaningful punishment, the whole culture.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @07:29AM
And what would be the enforcement mechanisms for this regulation? We can already show a high degree of negligence in court, for example, if someone causes damage or injury from accidentally firing a weapon because they had the safety off and a bullet chambered. Regulation isn't required for that.
But if we're going to stop people on the street or go into their homes, in order to inspect their firearms, that's a very intrusive step which I don't agree is justified.
Insistence on safety equipment is also being exploited as a means to suppress firearm ownership, for example, mandating trigger-locks, excessive gun safe standards, DNA bullets, and other frivolous but costly safety devices and procedures. That incidentally is another reason gun rights advocates often oppose even simple-sounding safety procedures. Because it is a pretext to insert more costly and intrusive obstacles later on. All such safety equipment and procedures needs to be bypassed in order to use the firearm. Not much of a problem if one is merely shooting for entertainment, but a very big deal, if one is using that firearm in self-defense.