US Politics: A Post-Roe Country

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Could be 180 children and 20 adults, elected Republicans still wouldn't care. And it hasn't taken long to hear so many of them say schools need to be armed, can't touch the guns and shame on libtards for politicizing a tragedy by suggesting gun control is a solution.

Thoughts and prayers and all that bullshit from emotionless sociopaths devoid of a sense of humanity.

I missed the part of the 2A that calls for a well-regulated militia being necessary to attack the countries' own school children and church goers.  I'm sure however, the TX Gov and the NRA has that part covered.   

[Tywin et al.]

Feels like this should be on the frontpage of every paper and the headline on every online publisher:

 

[Tywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I missed the part of the 2A that calls for a well-regulated militia being necessary to attack the countries' own school children and church goers.  I'm sure however, the TX Gov and the NRA has that part covered.   

I've never understood the legal mind that concludes the Second Amendment is absolute in protecting the rights to own firearms, but the whole well regulated thing can just be disregarded as needed. Feels like a more accurate interpretation should be "cops get guns," though even then that's stretching well regulated to extreme meaninglessness. 

[ThinkerX]

30 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've never understood the legal mind that concludes the Second Amendment is absolute in protecting the rights to own firearms, but the whole well regulated thing can just be disregarded as needed. Feels like a more accurate interpretation should be "cops get guns," though even then that's stretching well regulated to extreme meaninglessness. 

I am neck deep in these sorts around here (rural Alaska). Mention the 'well regulated militia' bit and they go, no, the 'militia as national defense' went out of style most of two hundred years ago, therefore the 'well regulated' part doesn't apply. Point out that this argument weakens the who 'shall not be infringed' part and they get pissed. More than once I have pointed out that just because the 'militia's for national defense' thing are gone, does not mean the (federal) governments authority to regulate firearms and matters pertaining to them did not go away as well. At best, this leads to convoluted arguments going back to the early 19th century. More often they get all ticked off and start in with the name calling. 

[polishgenius]

Turns out there were multiple 'good guys with guns' on the scene before he ever got into the school, but he did and murdered children anyway. Won't stop the arseholes claiming they should just arm more, though.

.

[DMC]

Resounding and thorough defeat of Trump-endorsed candidates in the Georgia primary tonight.  Both Kemp and AG Chris Carr beat Trump-back candidates with 73% of the vote, and even Judas himself Brad Raffensperger avoided a runoff winning 52-33.  These victories were expected but the margins are pretty eye-popping.

[Derfel Cadarn]

But 2A…

[DanteGabriel]

13 hours ago, Zorral said:

Another school shooting.

Texas.  On the border.  An elementary school.  At least 2 dead, 14 injured.  Who was it again, scoffing at the need for children in school to learn lockdown drills and evasive action for shooters coming to their school to kill them, since the chances of a little kid getting shot in a school is soooooooooooooooooooooooo tiny?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting/index.html

      

My more forceful echo of this sentiment was deleted in mere minutes so I will settle for quoting for emphasis.

[Xray the Enforcer]

5 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Turns out there were multiple 'good guys with guns' on the scene before he ever got into the school, but he did and murdered children anyway. Won't stop the arseholes claiming they should just arm more, though.

.

Just going to quote this for emphasis. Also please note that, contrary to earlier reporting, the shooter did NOT have body armor. So all of these pointless fucking cops couldn't even do their one goddamned job. Imagine being the kind of person who effectively uses children as a human shield because you're too incompetent to do your one fucking job.

[Luzifer's right hand]

13 minutes ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Just going to quote this for emphasis. Also please note that, contrary to earlier reporting, the shooter did NOT have body armor. So all of these pointless fucking cops couldn't even do their one goddamned job. Imagine being the kind of person who effectively uses children as a human shield because you're too incompetent to do your one fucking job.

Their job is keeping minorities in their place and keeping the forced labor system running though.

[Tywin et al.]

57 minutes ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Just going to quote this for emphasis. Also please note that, contrary to earlier reporting, the shooter did NOT have body armor. So all of these pointless fucking cops couldn't even do their one goddamned job. Imagine being the kind of person who effectively uses children as a human shield because you're too incompetent to do your one fucking job.

There was one at Parkland too. Fat load of good that did.

Every school campus I attended K-12 were massive. You could have three cops at each of them and they still probably would take over a minute to respond. In that time so many can be slaughtered, and even asking to put limits on magazine sizes is too much for Republicans.

[Ormond]

6 hours ago, DMC said:

Resounding and thorough defeat of Trump-endorsed candidates in the Georgia primary tonight.  Both Kemp and AG Chris Carr beat Trump-back candidates with 73% of the vote, and even Judas himself Brad Raffensperger avoided a runoff winning 52-33.  These victories were expected but the margins are pretty eye-popping.

And yet I bet Trump will declare himself victorious because Walker won the Senate primary. 

[DanteGabriel]

2 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Just going to quote this for emphasis. Also please note that, contrary to earlier reporting, the shooter did NOT have body armor. So all of these pointless fucking cops couldn't even do their one goddamned job. Imagine being the kind of person who effectively uses children as a human shield because you're too incompetent to do your one fucking job.

"Blue Lives Matter" really means "Blue Lives Uber Alles."

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

35 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

"Blue Lives Matter" really means "Blue Lives Uber Alles."

Unless they are defending the US Capitol… of course.

[Martell Spy]

Republican senator warns against curbing gun rights in wake of Texas school shooting

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/texas-elementary-school-shooting-05-24-22/h_592bff3fbe029d950d319bf34f79d7bd

Quote

 

GOP Sen. Thom Tillis warned Democrats against having a “reflexive reaction” in the wake of the Texas school shooting that left 15 people dead, by trying to pass laws that would impinge on Second Amendment rights, saying he is confident in the coming days it will be learned that there were “signs” the 18-year-old shooter was “at risk.”

“It's horrible. And you know what we need to avoid is the reflexive reaction we have to say this could all be solved by not having guns in anyone's hands. We can always talk about reasonable measures, but we also have to talk about better situational awareness. I'm almost certain that in the coming days or weeks, we're going to find out that there were signs that this person was at risk, and we need to have an equal or greater attention on prevention and that's a key part of it,” the North Carolina Republican told CNN.

Asked if there was a component of guns that could be part of the solution for the problem of mass shootings in the country, Tillis said “no.”

 

 

[Ran]

Who reads about 19 dead students and 2 dead teachers and goes, "Yep, if only they did lockdown drills." (NB: They do. By law, Texas schools are required to do at least two lock down drills per year, and some do them more often.)

Taking the lesson from this tragedy that in fact what primary schools need is more lockdown drills, or that somehow this event proves the efficacy of lockdown drills in primary schools (???), or worse yet that in fact the chances of children being harmed in a school shooting is so dangerously high that lockdown and active shooter drills are urgently necessary (in fact since Columbine, 300,000 students have had a shooting at their school... which amounts to something like 3 in 1,000 -- or .003% 0.3% -- of students from K-12 even being present at a school where a shooting takes place, and of course the odds of individual injury and death is much, much smaller),  frankly falls right into the hands of those arguing that teachers should be armed.

Rather, I would suggest that one should listen to what teachers and child psychologists and understand that lockdown drills are largely security theater to make adults feel better while giving little measurable benefit. Maybe if more attention was paid to mental health in schools, as the writer of the latter op-ed suggested, this shooter would not have gone on his rampage. Who knows? But this focus on security theater, IMO, is counter-productive and directly helps the NRA and 2nd Amendment advocates in preventing meaningful change. 'More security theater', they'll be happy to do -- harden schools, surround them with barbed wire, armed guards at all entrances (provided, naturally, by security firms who lobby for this sort of thng), armed teachers, more and more drills -- but I think people should instead take the tack of rejecting all this security theater as meaningful, and take the lesson of Robb Elementary that security theater is clearly not a solution to the problem.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Ran

[Ormond]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

3 in 1,000 -- or .003% --

I agree with the conclusions of your post, but if "3 in 1,000" is correct that's 0.3%, not .003%.  .003% would be 3 in 100,000. 

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I agree with the conclusions of your post, but if "3 in 1,000" is correct that's 0.3%, not .003%.  .003% would be 3 in 100,000. 

You are correct. I keep forgetting to adjust the decimal after checking with the calculator.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I just heard a reporter on NPR refering to the “Georgia Democrat Primary”.  Is this really taking hold.  It is the “Democratic Party” not the “Democrat Party”.  My Dad says that just to irritate me.

[karaddin]

It's possible lockdown drills might help in some cases, but what's guaranteed is that they are directly traumatizing a considerable portion of entire generations of kids. Not to mention their parents etc who receive text messages from their kids saying goodbye in case it's not a drill and thanking them for being good parents. That's atrocious for mental health.

And sure, that's not going to be all kids and their families reacting like that, it's not even going to be most. But when you're applying it to the entire school going population of a country as large as the US it's still an awful lot of families being traumatized.

I just have nothing, it's so fucked up that the security theatre is the only thing that changes.

ETA: Saw this video of an NBA coach going off about it and the rage and the futility are so intertwined

https://www.reddit.com/r/sports/comments/ux8ozy/nba_coach_steve_kerr_comments_on_gun_violence_in/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by karaddin