A longtime teacher who went through a shooter lock down in 2013. When the intercom said, “shooter, not a drill” I had the classroom door locked, lights out, students under their desks in less than a minute. After about 15 minutes, I crawled to the back window and saw 4 Tucson police with guns drawn across the street. Finally, after 45 minutes the all clear was sounded! There have been 416 school shootings since Columbine HS and the REPUBLICON BULLSHIT OF DOING NOTHING ABOUT GUNS AND “THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS” IS NOT WORKING! FUTURE PRESIDENT HARRIS HAD IT RIGBT YESTERDAY, WE DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT THIS CRAP ANYMORE!!!
Thanks Vickie! It turned out the Tucson police were chasing an armed suspect and the Tucson School District has a policy if the armed suspect gets within one mile of a school, they lock down the school. It was a terrifying 45 minutes and halfway through a kid went nuts and I cradled him in my arms to keep him quiet! It took months for me to psychologically get over this incident. In my last teaching job, both myself and another teacher kept pistols in our cars in the parking lot because the closest police station was about 7 minutes away. Too long a time (7 minutes) for help to arrive!!
This insanity needs to stop. The US is the only industrial country with this kind of problem. In 2021 - the last date I could find data for, over 48,000 people died as a consequence of a gunshot. Now, some of them were suicides, but that is still the population of a small city getting killed every year. The modern rethuglican party is delusional and irrational. They are more concerned with making sure people can own weapons of war than they are with protecting the lives of the populace. We need to overwhelm the rethugs at the ballot box and then fix this. By the way, for the constitutional originalists out there, I have no problem with you owning as many muskets as you want to.
Unfortunately, as you saw firsthand, when this type of situation occurs, there is much confusion. Who is the shooter? How many are there? Where are they? To expect teachers to respond with weapons is ridiculous. As is the assertion that more guns in society makes it safer. We are living in the Republicans' Bizarro World.
Mark it is traumatic for students and teachers. We had shooter drills regularly toward the end of my teaching career. The children were jumpy and anxious the remainder of the day after each drill. I was the school counselor and stayed very busy. During Columbine I was a high school counselor in IA and the teens were beside themselves. We called school off early and our offices stayed open for everyone who needed to talk. Just this past year I met a woman who was a science teacher at Columbine HS during the massacre. She and fifty percent of those teachers left education within two years. These killings can be stopped. Republican leadership has neither the will nor the courage to face the truth.
My daughter stayed home on her last day of high school because she was terrified. There had been rumors of a particular student planning a shooting. This was 18 years ago. There was a shooting at a different school. Republicans and some Democrats who voted with for more gun rights will never be able to wash the blood of their hands.
So...more opportunities to traumatize kids? 45 minutes of unnecessary terror should be prosecutable. "IT TURNED OUT"?? That should have been conveyed to teachers up front. Unconscionable.
If the teachers were reporting being horribly traumatized and then experiencing PTSD, what about the children? Do they ever, to quote the King of Disgusting, just “get over it”?
My experience from the 45-minute lockdown is that the students were jittery about it for about a week. I did have a parent conference for the student who panicked halfway through the lockdown so that he could get professional help. After about two weeks, I do not remember the students mentioning the incident the rest of the academic year!
I have to ask -- are you sure that it's a good idea to keep a loaded weapon in your car, from which it can be stolen? Especially knowing that a pistol will almost certainly do nothing against a shooter with assault weapons?
I know that you've experienced something I haven't and that you (not me) are the authority on your needs. But I'm concerned that your trauma from that event has prompted you to do something that is maybe more harmful than helpful. If I've offended you, I apologize profusely -- that's not my intention. I wish you well, and I hope you and everyone you care about stays safe.
My last teaching position was at a rural middle school and next to the school was desert. I told all of my classes that if there was a shooter that I would use chairs to break out the windows and they were to run south into the open desert covered with small mesquite trees. I would then head to my car and get my pistol. I could look out my classroom window and my car was parked about 50 yards away. I had two 15 round clips for my Glock and was not going to let a shooter slaughter kids without a fight. The school district had an off-duty police officer on duty only three days a week because of budget issues. I spent at least $300-$400 dollars per school year on school supplies. My car had an alarm and I was always one of the first teachers to school so I always parked my car in front of my classroom. I was not worried about my pistol being stolen from my car. That is the situation I am sure that many teachers face every day in this crazy gun society we live in now!
Props to you, Mark, for being a teacher and for your concern for your students. That anyone has to endure this type of trauma is insane. Only in 'Murica
Just making this up, but I predict that the wing nuts will claim this school shooting was organized by the Democratic Party to help Kamala Harris win the state of Georgia.
So true. I'm grateful, though, that Jeff focused his column on this today. His words hit hard and go straight to the nub of the matter. These goddamned Republican politicians and their goddamned ignorant white rural voters who advocate for weapons of mass murder in the hands of every citizen rather than firearms solely for self defense. Winder Ga. is ground zero for this stuff. Mike Collins gets elected there by glorifying AR 15 weapons and just up the road a ways to the northwest Marjie T Greene does the exact same thing, and they vote for Kemp for governor twice after voting for him as secretary of state twice, based greatly on his advocacy for automatic weapons and no restrictions. You can't fix what's wrong with these people. I lived in Athens for a few years, it's the closest small city to Winder, and then in coastal Glynn County for 30 years, up till Oct. 2017, and white Southerners just can't be convinced that these things need to be limited or outlawed. I suspect white rural non-southerners are similar. I give up.
Well said. America’s biggest problems are cultural because as you said, politicians (overwhelmingly on the right) have exploited these disagreements and especially fears. I blame a lot on Reagan. That mofo and his minions courted the evangelical vote fervently and aggressively exploited the culture wars. Remember how he did almost nothing about the emerging AIDS epidemic, because at that time it was almost exclusively a gay male affliction? And assholes like Falwell opined that AIDS was God’s retribution for homosexuality? The Reagan era not coincidentally saw the Satanic Panic, where many innocent people were persecuted by nutty “Christians”. The rural gunnuts are also part of that culture war, stoked by racism. No end in sight for that kind of ‘Murican
Not all of us living in southern states are supporters of the right to own these fast killing machines. It’s so senseless that there are more bubbas/tRumpettes than sensible voters in too many of these united or un-united states. 😢
As somebody who prides herself as “not crying at the drop of a pin”, I’ve sure cried a lot in the privacy of my home lately thanks to the current abnormal politics and societal brainwashing. My prayer: dear God... “please save us from the former guy, Project 25, and all the chaos and crap the MAGATs will rain down on this country when that horrid stain on our beautiful but messy democracy looses by a landslide.”
We know it’s definitely not true that more people are pro-gun/anti abortion & they know that too; that’s why they gerrymander the fuck out of districts so that our majorities can’t win. And, of course, the anti democratic electoral college always gives the minority a huge advantage.
That wouldn’t fit his narrative though. How could he ever expect to do that? Dear Leader would chastise him if dear leader could round up enough brain cells to complete said chastisement, that is.
Oh, no, they would just respond like Tim Burchett did when asked about the Nashville school shooting : "We homeschool our daughter". Thank you, Tim! Mr. "Pro life"!😤😤😤 Vote for Jane George 2nd District Tennessee!
Yes, they allow this because they WANT public schools to fail! Then their donors can suck all the money out via charter/religious schools. They have been starving Public education, since Reagan.
I used to think Hillsdale was neutral - they always tout the fact that they don’t take fed $, but I found out their big donors include tfg! They support the Federalist society, too. 😠
Probably, they would just force themselves on someone poor “breeder” and just make more. They seem to hate their kids too. Remember to a republican the only good kid is an unalive one unless it’s giving them sexual pleasure.
I believe you are correct. The extent that they "protect" children is only that they are guarding property, what they consider their own, what serves them. You can be sure they won't hesitate to destroy even those carrying their "superior genes" in their sick need for dominance. I see this in families passing as the most "upstanding". It is sick. And, yeah, it is a sexual thing. People getting their rocks off on control, desecrating innocence, preying on the most vulnerable. If you can be ok with violence against any children, there is little in the way of any line to protect any life.
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was killed at MSD, is not big on gun control -- AND he voted for djt in 2016 (before the shooting) and supported him in 2020, after, despite djt's appalling record on guns.
Sadly and shockingly, some (many) people who are jerks and / or who lack empathy are unchanged even by deep personal tragedy; in some cases, that tragedy makes them double down on their jerk-ness. Humans are complicated, and many are really shttty.
Reminds me of Covid denying people who literally died of Covid and insisted to the very end that they didn't have it because it was just a plot to take away their "freedom".
Also they’re ok with their children going through shooter drills also. What these do to the psyche of children is just more than they can comprehend or give a damn about. It disgusts me to my soul.
And yet they wonder why there is a mental health crisis among the youth (though not just the youth). I'm over 30 and we had active shooter drills even when I was in high school. Generations of kids traumatized by the fear of getting shot at school, and Republicans think that's just fine.
Post-birth abortion is a made-up thing that is literally impossible, but to the extent it exists as a concept, it's school shootings. Funny (horrifying and sociopathic) how they don't give a single fuck about kids once they're born.
No child should have to ever think about someone shooting them. This insanity is so sad. It really hurts my heart to once again know that children were killed.
My niece has been a teacher for 25 years. She has told me how awful it is, for both her and her children, to have to practice these drills. (I had commented about how young people don't seem as big into protests re climate change, as my generation was re the VN war. She wrote back: "They have more immediate things to worry about." And then told me the horrors of knowing that you could be killed by a monster with an AK-47 just for being at school. It broke my heart.
I think even losing their *own* child to a school-shooter wdn't make a difference to these jerks. Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was killed at MSD, is not big on gun control -- AND he voted for djt in 2016 (before the shooting) and supported him in 2020, after, despite djt's appalling record on guns.
Sadly and shockingly, some (many) people who are jerks and / or who lack empathy are unchanged even by deep personal tragedy; in some cases, that tragedy makes them double down on their jerk-ness. Humans are complicated ...
Fuck them all…and make ALL their pissin’ tongues stop working. Makes me sick to my stomach. Your March 30,2023 summarizes the republican party to a tee. 😭
And the Republican party, such as it is now, will never change. They are the worst of the worst. All they do is double down on the worst of their policies...that's what makes them so dangerous and stupid. Do any of them never, in times like these, just stop and think, even if they don't say it out loud...maybe we should do something about the FUCKING GUNS!!!
"Today is not the day for politics or policy." That is SO far beyond despicable -- no words. Question: WTF do "thoughts" do for children who are dead? WTF do "prayers" do for dead children. They're already dead. Your "prayers" are just meaningless gobbledygook.
Fucking Fat Tony Scalia, just because he loved blasting small animals in staged, "canned" hunts inflicted this hell on us. The fucking sadistic sociopath continues to inflict violence on society even from beyond the grave.
They aren't extending authentic comfort, regret, or intention to change. They are comforting & justifying themselves that children are acceptable casualties in their war for dominance. It doesn't matter if they believe their own gobbledygook, either. Children are dead. That's the fact. No gobbledygook changes the concrete fact. I don't have children but I'm not going to stand by & let it continue, the murder of children for sick people's gobbledygook. This is a war on all of us. You said it well, all the bullshit words in the world don't change their actions. They are perpetuating the murder of children with their gobbledygook & we're not going to stand for it. Nothing can bring these children back or make this right.
They know that ‘thoughts and prayers’, delivered in a sincere tone, will be enough to quiet their evangelical followers. You know, those hateful sheep. I’m DONE.
It allow them to pretend to have the compassion they lack. And act all superior because "religion". And fools will buy into it, because they are sheep.
Just another day in the good ol’ USA, where every sperm is sacred ‘cause we need lots of babies to be born do that our well armed mass murderers can shoot them.
As Lawrence O'Donnell says after every mass shooting, "[Republicans] want to continue to make sure that American mass murderers are the best equipped mass murders in the world."
Any of you all that think Donnie’s ear was actually hit by a bullet from an AR15 should look at what one bullet does to that voting machine. And then think about what it would do to one of your children.
I worked in surgery, as I understand it bullets tend to flatten out, and fragment on impact, so as to do more damage, that's what they are designed to do in these type of weapons which was designed for a battlefield (and copied for sale to civilians which I've never understood). So, no.
Kemp should be recalled for his asinine law (yes his and the other republican fuckwits) for the law he proudly passed and signed giving any citizen of Georgia permission to walk into a gun shop and not need a permit to buy any weapon.
And give it a fucking pass on saying “evil” took these four innocents as if it was just that screwed up kid. The evil lies at the feet of gun manufacturers who sell AR15 type weapons as hunting rifles. Unless they admit those hunted with it are usually kids.
The most popular brand of the AK-15 is made in Georgia. While I can’t remember the name - and refuse to look it up - you can rest assured that that company is one of Kemp’s largest donors.
And let’s not forget those things (I don’t know what they are called) that convert a regular rifle into automatic weapons that shoot like a weapon used by armies in a war.
i’m a little bit confused by this in My Home state of North Carolina when you want to purchase a firearm from a gun-shop… There is no permit required, but a background check is required, and you have to be of legal age. They perform the background check while you wait, it takes about 30 minutes. So my question is.. in GA is a background check not required?
I’m definitely adopting that phraseology every time I see a post about post birth abortions or when Trump says that in 6 states, you’re allowed to kill the baby after it’s born.
Vance! This was a despicable act!….what he needs to add is…yet we encourage it by repeating and promoting NRA propaganda and putting a SCOTUS in place to solidify the ability to murder, anywhere, anytime. The US is the ONLY developed country…on planet earth!, to allow these extraordinarily loose gun rights. And we watch children get murdered on a daily basis, including mass murder in overwhelmingly white, christian, suburban areas of our country! The Democrats have been disgustingly complicit in doing little to make meaningful changes. So, we will be electing a Democratic President and we WILL turn Congress reliably BLUE. We must rid this society of guns! Australia did it, Scotland made changes after ONE mass murder!
We continue to witness a multitude of children get slaughtered at SCHOOL! Disarm the American public! It is long past due!
The gun worshippers blame these acts on "mental illness". As though all of the other countries in the world don't have mentally ill people - and somehow those countries don't have endless mass shootings. They act as though human sacrifice is normal as long as it's to appease the God of Guns.
It is long past due. It's our responsibility, as a nation of representative government of adults, to stop people profiting from the destruction of the most vulnerable. We will elect those most aligned with the welfare of the citizens that they represent & hold that leadership accountable. It's time the U.S. grows the f*ck up.
Lawrence O’Donnell said on his show last night that Republicans want to insure that our mass murderers have top-of-the-line equipment to carry out their bloodbaths.
A longtime teacher who went through a shooter lock down in 2013. When the intercom said, “shooter, not a drill” I had the classroom door locked, lights out, students under their desks in less than a minute. After about 15 minutes, I crawled to the back window and saw 4 Tucson police with guns drawn across the street. Finally, after 45 minutes the all clear was sounded! There have been 416 school shootings since Columbine HS and the REPUBLICON BULLSHIT OF DOING NOTHING ABOUT GUNS AND “THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS” IS NOT WORKING! FUTURE PRESIDENT HARRIS HAD IT RIGBT YESTERDAY, WE DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT THIS CRAP ANYMORE!!!
Thank you for being a brave teacher and keeping your students safe on that horrific day.
Thanks Vickie! It turned out the Tucson police were chasing an armed suspect and the Tucson School District has a policy if the armed suspect gets within one mile of a school, they lock down the school. It was a terrifying 45 minutes and halfway through a kid went nuts and I cradled him in my arms to keep him quiet! It took months for me to psychologically get over this incident. In my last teaching job, both myself and another teacher kept pistols in our cars in the parking lot because the closest police station was about 7 minutes away. Too long a time (7 minutes) for help to arrive!!
This insanity needs to stop. The US is the only industrial country with this kind of problem. In 2021 - the last date I could find data for, over 48,000 people died as a consequence of a gunshot. Now, some of them were suicides, but that is still the population of a small city getting killed every year. The modern rethuglican party is delusional and irrational. They are more concerned with making sure people can own weapons of war than they are with protecting the lives of the populace. We need to overwhelm the rethugs at the ballot box and then fix this. By the way, for the constitutional originalists out there, I have no problem with you owning as many muskets as you want to.
Unfortunately, as you saw firsthand, when this type of situation occurs, there is much confusion. Who is the shooter? How many are there? Where are they? To expect teachers to respond with weapons is ridiculous. As is the assertion that more guns in society makes it safer. We are living in the Republicans' Bizarro World.
Mark it is traumatic for students and teachers. We had shooter drills regularly toward the end of my teaching career. The children were jumpy and anxious the remainder of the day after each drill. I was the school counselor and stayed very busy. During Columbine I was a high school counselor in IA and the teens were beside themselves. We called school off early and our offices stayed open for everyone who needed to talk. Just this past year I met a woman who was a science teacher at Columbine HS during the massacre. She and fifty percent of those teachers left education within two years. These killings can be stopped. Republican leadership has neither the will nor the courage to face the truth.
My daughter stayed home on her last day of high school because she was terrified. There had been rumors of a particular student planning a shooting. This was 18 years ago. There was a shooting at a different school. Republicans and some Democrats who voted with for more gun rights will never be able to wash the blood of their hands.
A second thank you is due for your empathy. I’m glad you were there for them. I have deep respect for all teachers. Thank you.
My NIL is a teacher in OK, they all hate Ryan Walters & she has anxiety every time a school shooting occurs.
She, like most all teachers do love & care about their students. She hates the idea of armed teachers.
So...more opportunities to traumatize kids? 45 minutes of unnecessary terror should be prosecutable. "IT TURNED OUT"?? That should have been conveyed to teachers up front. Unconscionable.
So much gratitude to teachers for continuing to teach. Thank you, Mark.
You and so many others suffer from PTSD after experiencing such events. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be an educator these days.
If the teachers were reporting being horribly traumatized and then experiencing PTSD, what about the children? Do they ever, to quote the King of Disgusting, just “get over it”?
My experience from the 45-minute lockdown is that the students were jittery about it for about a week. I did have a parent conference for the student who panicked halfway through the lockdown so that he could get professional help. After about two weeks, I do not remember the students mentioning the incident the rest of the academic year!
I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been. So glad you were there to help the students. No one should have to go through that. No one.
I have to ask -- are you sure that it's a good idea to keep a loaded weapon in your car, from which it can be stolen? Especially knowing that a pistol will almost certainly do nothing against a shooter with assault weapons?
I know that you've experienced something I haven't and that you (not me) are the authority on your needs. But I'm concerned that your trauma from that event has prompted you to do something that is maybe more harmful than helpful. If I've offended you, I apologize profusely -- that's not my intention. I wish you well, and I hope you and everyone you care about stays safe.
My last teaching position was at a rural middle school and next to the school was desert. I told all of my classes that if there was a shooter that I would use chairs to break out the windows and they were to run south into the open desert covered with small mesquite trees. I would then head to my car and get my pistol. I could look out my classroom window and my car was parked about 50 yards away. I had two 15 round clips for my Glock and was not going to let a shooter slaughter kids without a fight. The school district had an off-duty police officer on duty only three days a week because of budget issues. I spent at least $300-$400 dollars per school year on school supplies. My car had an alarm and I was always one of the first teachers to school so I always parked my car in front of my classroom. I was not worried about my pistol being stolen from my car. That is the situation I am sure that many teachers face every day in this crazy gun society we live in now!
Welcome to Texas. Same bullshit as Georgia.
Props to you, Mark, for being a teacher and for your concern for your students. That anyone has to endure this type of trauma is insane. Only in 'Murica
Thanks!
Just making this up, but I predict that the wing nuts will claim this school shooting was organized by the Democratic Party to help Kamala Harris win the state of Georgia.
You are probably right, I think that was the point of the "Looney" Loomer person.
Thank you for your bravery and compassion.
I clicked the "like" button but really I feel like clicking a "cry" button
it's ok to click "like," we all know what you mean
I felt the same. It's hard to "like" this.
So true. I'm grateful, though, that Jeff focused his column on this today. His words hit hard and go straight to the nub of the matter. These goddamned Republican politicians and their goddamned ignorant white rural voters who advocate for weapons of mass murder in the hands of every citizen rather than firearms solely for self defense. Winder Ga. is ground zero for this stuff. Mike Collins gets elected there by glorifying AR 15 weapons and just up the road a ways to the northwest Marjie T Greene does the exact same thing, and they vote for Kemp for governor twice after voting for him as secretary of state twice, based greatly on his advocacy for automatic weapons and no restrictions. You can't fix what's wrong with these people. I lived in Athens for a few years, it's the closest small city to Winder, and then in coastal Glynn County for 30 years, up till Oct. 2017, and white Southerners just can't be convinced that these things need to be limited or outlawed. I suspect white rural non-southerners are similar. I give up.
Well said. America’s biggest problems are cultural because as you said, politicians (overwhelmingly on the right) have exploited these disagreements and especially fears. I blame a lot on Reagan. That mofo and his minions courted the evangelical vote fervently and aggressively exploited the culture wars. Remember how he did almost nothing about the emerging AIDS epidemic, because at that time it was almost exclusively a gay male affliction? And assholes like Falwell opined that AIDS was God’s retribution for homosexuality? The Reagan era not coincidentally saw the Satanic Panic, where many innocent people were persecuted by nutty “Christians”. The rural gunnuts are also part of that culture war, stoked by racism. No end in sight for that kind of ‘Murican
Not all of us living in southern states are supporters of the right to own these fast killing machines. It’s so senseless that there are more bubbas/tRumpettes than sensible voters in too many of these united or un-united states. 😢
Agree, this is too much, too sad, the GOP is busy protecting kids from drag queens, from whom they need no protection.
They don't have to do anything that way, as you say Drag queens are no threat.
I have that problem all the time these days. So much bad news out there.
As somebody who prides herself as “not crying at the drop of a pin”, I’ve sure cried a lot in the privacy of my home lately thanks to the current abnormal politics and societal brainwashing. My prayer: dear God... “please save us from the former guy, Project 25, and all the chaos and crap the MAGATs will rain down on this country when that horrid stain on our beautiful but messy democracy looses by a landslide.”
It will be worse if he wins.
The text from the girl to her mom just destroys me, because it's so easy to think of my own kid sending it.
Your last nine paragraphs say it all. JFC.
REPUBLICANS DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT CHILDREN. Period.
Now, do VOTERS give a fuck about children???? Vote these despicable assholes OUT.
They don’t care about any of us. They only like tax cuts. They’re convinced more people are pro gun/anti-abortion than care about real children.
You're so right. It makes me sick.
^^^^^^^ever so much this!
We know it’s definitely not true that more people are pro-gun/anti abortion & they know that too; that’s why they gerrymander the fuck out of districts so that our majorities can’t win. And, of course, the anti democratic electoral college always gives the minority a huge advantage.
👆👆👆
That’s always my plan.
Mike Collins (R-Fuckwit) offered his team for any assistance. How about using your team to prevent this kind of bullshit. Hmmmmm?
He’s too much of an asshole to help anyone but himself and gun manufacturers.
That's why they pay him the big bucks... to do nothing. The gun lobby has made a great investment in him.
That wouldn’t fit his narrative though. How could he ever expect to do that? Dear Leader would chastise him if dear leader could round up enough brain cells to complete said chastisement, that is.
Once again your writing exceeds my expectations. Thank you for being in America during a time I would not wish on anyone. We’re not going back!
All the way off. Off the fucking planet.
Wonder if all of these asshats would feel the same way if this happened in their kid’s schools?
Oh, no, they would just respond like Tim Burchett did when asked about the Nashville school shooting : "We homeschool our daughter". Thank you, Tim! Mr. "Pro life"!😤😤😤 Vote for Jane George 2nd District Tennessee!
Yes, they allow this because they WANT public schools to fail! Then their donors can suck all the money out via charter/religious schools. They have been starving Public education, since Reagan.
This☝️☝️☝️
Tennessee Republican governor Bill Lee continues to push school vouchers! He's big friends with Hillsdale College people!
Oh, take it from a Michigander -- Hillsdale is the absolute worst. It cranks out the worst possible people -- dimwitted theocrats.
I used to think Hillsdale was neutral - they always tout the fact that they don’t take fed $, but I found out their big donors include tfg! They support the Federalist society, too. 😠
Oh no, they are big time wingnuts
Yes, as always follow the money.
Hillsdale College is horrible as is Prager U
Probably, they would just force themselves on someone poor “breeder” and just make more. They seem to hate their kids too. Remember to a republican the only good kid is an unalive one unless it’s giving them sexual pleasure.
I believe you are correct. The extent that they "protect" children is only that they are guarding property, what they consider their own, what serves them. You can be sure they won't hesitate to destroy even those carrying their "superior genes" in their sick need for dominance. I see this in families passing as the most "upstanding". It is sick. And, yeah, it is a sexual thing. People getting their rocks off on control, desecrating innocence, preying on the most vulnerable. If you can be ok with violence against any children, there is little in the way of any line to protect any life.
That is an excellent of the summation. Sick.
Great question... if a MAGA had one of their kids shot dead in their classroom, maybe they would feel differently...or are they just that callous?
I’m not so sure, Susan. They would blame someone or something else. It’s never the guns to these people.
See: ‘Steve Scalise’ - that says a lot… :/
"Mental health," dontcha know? Not that they will do anything to expand access to mental health care.
You got it. 100% accurate. Sickening.
It makes no difference to them. God's will and all that shit.🤮👏😡🤬
That kind of fatalism drives me nuts. If they feel that way, why do they look both ways before crossing the street?
Excellent point.
Rethugs don't care about societal problems until one happens to them personally.
Not even then when it comes to gun violence.
Just that callous
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was killed at MSD, is not big on gun control -- AND he voted for djt in 2016 (before the shooting) and supported him in 2020, after, despite djt's appalling record on guns.
Sadly and shockingly, some (many) people who are jerks and / or who lack empathy are unchanged even by deep personal tragedy; in some cases, that tragedy makes them double down on their jerk-ness. Humans are complicated, and many are really shttty.
Reminds me of Covid denying people who literally died of Covid and insisted to the very end that they didn't have it because it was just a plot to take away their "freedom".
It seems that straight up sociopaths are over represented in politics. No empathy.
No kidding.
I doubt any of their kids go to public schools.
Surely they have “friends” whose children have experienced this. They clearly just don’t give a fuck. 🤬
Also they’re ok with their children going through shooter drills also. What these do to the psyche of children is just more than they can comprehend or give a damn about. It disgusts me to my soul.
And yet they wonder why there is a mental health crisis among the youth (though not just the youth). I'm over 30 and we had active shooter drills even when I was in high school. Generations of kids traumatized by the fear of getting shot at school, and Republicans think that's just fine.
Post-birth abortion is a made-up thing that is literally impossible, but to the extent it exists as a concept, it's school shootings. Funny (horrifying and sociopathic) how they don't give a single fuck about kids once they're born.
No child should have to ever think about someone shooting them. This insanity is so sad. It really hurts my heart to once again know that children were killed.
My niece has been a teacher for 25 years. She has told me how awful it is, for both her and her children, to have to practice these drills. (I had commented about how young people don't seem as big into protests re climate change, as my generation was re the VN war. She wrote back: "They have more immediate things to worry about." And then told me the horrors of knowing that you could be killed by a monster with an AK-47 just for being at school. It broke my heart.
Yes sadly.
Either their kids are already grown, are home schooled or go to a rich private school that bans guns.
^^^And they think it will never happen in their religious schools.
Of course they wouldn't. They might actually get off the pot and do something.
Yes, yes they would and that’s another layer of the insanity. I think one time a parent came out with a change of stance on guns..just once.
I think even losing their *own* child to a school-shooter wdn't make a difference to these jerks. Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was killed at MSD, is not big on gun control -- AND he voted for djt in 2016 (before the shooting) and supported him in 2020, after, despite djt's appalling record on guns.
Sadly and shockingly, some (many) people who are jerks and / or who lack empathy are unchanged even by deep personal tragedy; in some cases, that tragedy makes them double down on their jerk-ness. Humans are complicated ...
Fuck them all…and make ALL their pissin’ tongues stop working. Makes me sick to my stomach. Your March 30,2023 summarizes the republican party to a tee. 😭
And the Republican party, such as it is now, will never change. They are the worst of the worst. All they do is double down on the worst of their policies...that's what makes them so dangerous and stupid. Do any of them never, in times like these, just stop and think, even if they don't say it out loud...maybe we should do something about the FUCKING GUNS!!!
"Today is not the day for politics or policy." That is SO far beyond despicable -- no words. Question: WTF do "thoughts" do for children who are dead? WTF do "prayers" do for dead children. They're already dead. Your "prayers" are just meaningless gobbledygook.
A bullet traveling at 1000 m/s will blow through any thought & prayer no matter how sincere. Substance, not words.
And has been since Columbine. Worthless words ; just as they are worthless as human beings.
2nd Amendment— you can thank the SCOTUS for “interpreting “. a modern
version. The children’s blood is on their hands!!!!
Fucking Fat Tony Scalia, just because he loved blasting small animals in staged, "canned" hunts inflicted this hell on us. The fucking sadistic sociopath continues to inflict violence on society even from beyond the grave.
And to think they have the ears of Mrs SCOTUS GINNY.
She has even less scruples than her hubby.
They aren't extending authentic comfort, regret, or intention to change. They are comforting & justifying themselves that children are acceptable casualties in their war for dominance. It doesn't matter if they believe their own gobbledygook, either. Children are dead. That's the fact. No gobbledygook changes the concrete fact. I don't have children but I'm not going to stand by & let it continue, the murder of children for sick people's gobbledygook. This is a war on all of us. You said it well, all the bullshit words in the world don't change their actions. They are perpetuating the murder of children with their gobbledygook & we're not going to stand for it. Nothing can bring these children back or make this right.
They know that ‘thoughts and prayers’, delivered in a sincere tone, will be enough to quiet their evangelical followers. You know, those hateful sheep. I’m DONE.
DONE!!
It’s never the hour, day, week, month, year, decade etc.
It allow them to pretend to have the compassion they lack. And act all superior because "religion". And fools will buy into it, because they are sheep.
FOOLS, at best.
Just another day in the good ol’ USA, where every sperm is sacred ‘cause we need lots of babies to be born do that our well armed mass murderers can shoot them.
As Lawrence O'Donnell says after every mass shooting, "[Republicans] want to continue to make sure that American mass murderers are the best equipped mass murders in the world."
Gini 🎯
Sadly too true.
Any of you all that think Donnie’s ear was actually hit by a bullet from an AR15 should look at what one bullet does to that voting machine. And then think about what it would do to one of your children.
That thing was so obviously staged. Then they all got to murder the perp and feel like Big Men. Sickening.
I worked in surgery, as I understand it bullets tend to flatten out, and fragment on impact, so as to do more damage, that's what they are designed to do in these type of weapons which was designed for a battlefield (and copied for sale to civilians which I've never understood). So, no.
Exactly what I thought!
Kemp should be recalled for his asinine law (yes his and the other republican fuckwits) for the law he proudly passed and signed giving any citizen of Georgia permission to walk into a gun shop and not need a permit to buy any weapon.
And give it a fucking pass on saying “evil” took these four innocents as if it was just that screwed up kid. The evil lies at the feet of gun manufacturers who sell AR15 type weapons as hunting rifles. Unless they admit those hunted with it are usually kids.
Pure and simple, they are killing machines.
The most popular brand of the AK-15 is made in Georgia. While I can’t remember the name - and refuse to look it up - you can rest assured that that company is one of Kemp’s largest donors.
Yes, yes and yes. Such a sick law that literally promotes making targets of all of our school children.
For hunting humans, in general
And let’s not forget those things (I don’t know what they are called) that convert a regular rifle into automatic weapons that shoot like a weapon used by armies in a war.
"bump stocks"
i’m a little bit confused by this in My Home state of North Carolina when you want to purchase a firearm from a gun-shop… There is no permit required, but a background check is required, and you have to be of legal age. They perform the background check while you wait, it takes about 30 minutes. So my question is.. in GA is a background check not required?
Someone needs to tell these despicable gun nuts that “abortions after birth” are called a school shootings.
Great turn of phrase, Stephanie. Wish that “abortions after birth” = school shootings could be implanted in Kamala or Tim’s brains for debate time.
Maybe we can get a message to her!
I’m definitely adopting that phraseology every time I see a post about post birth abortions or when Trump says that in 6 states, you’re allowed to kill the baby after it’s born.
Stephanie, you are absolutely correct.💯
This^^^^
Vance! This was a despicable act!….what he needs to add is…yet we encourage it by repeating and promoting NRA propaganda and putting a SCOTUS in place to solidify the ability to murder, anywhere, anytime. The US is the ONLY developed country…on planet earth!, to allow these extraordinarily loose gun rights. And we watch children get murdered on a daily basis, including mass murder in overwhelmingly white, christian, suburban areas of our country! The Democrats have been disgustingly complicit in doing little to make meaningful changes. So, we will be electing a Democratic President and we WILL turn Congress reliably BLUE. We must rid this society of guns! Australia did it, Scotland made changes after ONE mass murder!
We continue to witness a multitude of children get slaughtered at SCHOOL! Disarm the American public! It is long past due!
The gun worshippers blame these acts on "mental illness". As though all of the other countries in the world don't have mentally ill people - and somehow those countries don't have endless mass shootings. They act as though human sacrifice is normal as long as it's to appease the God of Guns.
Or ‘… just gotta get through an inconvenient news cycle or two…!?’😡
Exactly!🤬
It is long past due. It's our responsibility, as a nation of representative government of adults, to stop people profiting from the destruction of the most vulnerable. We will elect those most aligned with the welfare of the citizens that they represent & hold that leadership accountable. It's time the U.S. grows the f*ck up.
Lawrence O’Donnell said on his show last night that Republicans want to insure that our mass murderers have top-of-the-line equipment to carry out their bloodbaths.
Gotta love Lawrence O!
God dammit it hurts! Especially seeing that text thread.
I cant even imagine getting a text like that from my kid. 😭
I saw a text last night from a girl to her mother that said something like: 'I know I'm not a perfect kid. But I love you and I'm sorry.'
I had to get off Xitter after that. I couldn't read any more, because that's the kind of text I would have sent to my mom if I was in that position!😭
That broke me 😢.