News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

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Some Schmo
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Re: News vs. Fake News

Post by Some Schmo »

What's amazing to me is that when one of these tragedies happens, the first reaction of many Americans isn't horror or disgust but to wonder, "Does this mean I'm going to lose my gun now?"

There are days when I just can't get over how stupid and thoughtless so many people are.
Religion is for people whose existential fear is greater than their common sense.

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huckelberry
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Re: News vs. Fake News

Post by huckelberry »

"Biden desecrated"

It sounds as though for these people the deaths were a holy sacrifice in honor of American freedom.
K Graham
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Re: News vs. Fake News

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SO this morning I flip on the tube and both CNN and MSNBC are discussing the school shooting tragedy, trying to figure out ways to prevent the next one from happening. They also interviewed a law enforcement guy on the scene who said there were two armed guards at the school and they're not even certain if they ever fired their weapon at the shooter.

Seems like devastating information given the GOP's favorite talking point about how the only solution is a good guy with a gun, so I flipped on over to FOX and they're interviewing a Congressman from Texas who blames the shooting on America becoming "less spiritual" and dividing America between the Christians and those who shut God out of their lives. He also quoted a scripture from Chronicles saying God answers those who pray to him, and that kids today are playing video games that leads to these things. And both he and the "Fox & Friends" hosts were repeating the mantra about "EVIL" in the world and how there is nothing we can do to stop it. Kilmeade immediately changes the subject and berates Beto O'Rourke for having the balls to stand up to the current governor who refuses to do anything to protect the lives of children.

Jesus Effing Christ.
Speaking to Newsmax, Attorney General Ken Paxton, the top law enforcement and public safety officer in the state, said: “We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things. … We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer.”

Of course, this is Texas. It’s not like potential good guys with guns were thin on the ground in Uvalde. Law enforcement actually engaged the shooter before he got into the elementary school. Indeed, as the Austin American-Statesman reported, it was actually a school guard—a good guy with a gun—who confronted and failed to prevent the shooter’s entry. For years, though, Texas has encouraged teachers to pack heat. In the wake of a 2018 shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation that encouraged schools to do exactly what Ken Paxton now demands. It mattered little back then that Abbott was responding to killings at a school that already had two armed guards and a plan to put guns in the hands of teachers.

As Republicans like Abbott and Paxton double down on the same pro-gun proliferation response to every mass shooting, evidence accumulates that weapons are rarely effective means of deterring or stopping mass shootings.

Last year, a group of public health scholars published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association examining 133 school shootings from 1980 to 2019. An armed guard was present in about a quarter of the incidents in the study. Those schools actually suffered death rates nearly three times higher than schools without armed guards. Similarly, a 2020 review of gun policy research by the RAND Corporation think tank found no evidence that the presence of more guns had any effect on gun violence. Criminologists at Texas State University found that unarmed staff or the shooters themselves are far more likely to bring a school shooting to an end than someone with a gun returning fire.

So-called good guys with guns fail to effectively deter or end mass shootings for a variety of tactical and psychological reasons.

For one thing, it’s actually very hard to shoot straight in a situation like a mass shooting. RAND analysts have found that even highly trained NYPD officers only hit their intended target in 19 percent of gunfire exchanges. Winning a gunfight with a shooter only becomes more difficult when the perpetrator carries a semi-automatic rifle like an AR-15, as the Uvalde suspect and many others have done. These weapons have a much longer range and are far more accurate than the kinds of pistols typically used by police and civilian concealed carriers, allowing shooters to keep responders far enough away that their own weapons will be of little use. The Uvalde gunman, for instance, managed to overpower two officers whom he encountered on his way to the elementary school.

In the most extreme cases, a single gunman with a semi-automatic rifle can stymie an entire SWAT team for hours: Back in 2015, a single gunman assaulting a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood with an AK-style rifle held off police for the better part of a day before surrendering.

The idea that armed guards and teachers could deter shootings in the first place presumes mass shooters behave rationally, weighing risks, when in fact the opposite is true. As the JAMA authors noted, “many school shooters are actively suicidal, intending to die in the act, so an armed officer may be an incentive rather than a deterrent.”

Considering the long odds of taking down a determined shooter equipped with an assault rifle, armed police and bystanders sometimes have difficulty motivating themselves to actually engage at all, as happened so infamously in the Parkland shooting when two sheriff’s deputies apparently hid from the gunman.

So Republicans’ preferred response to mass shootings operates in the realm of fantasy. The standard-issue liberal response—to ban guns in a country where they outnumber people—is at this point not much more realistic. That’s not to say there is no way to prevent a lot of mass shootings, however.
The GOP’s Only Answer to School Shootings Didn’t Help in Uvalde
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K Graham
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Re: News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

Post by K Graham »

Texas Shooting Onlookers Say Police Were 'Unprepared,' Didn't Go Into School

This is not a good look for the police. I mean, it utterly destroys the GOP talking point about how to solve these problems. The fact is most people don't have the training to be put into these kinds of situations. If we cannot even expect our trained law enforcement to be willing to risk their lives in saving our children from slaughter, what makes you think any common "JOE" with a gun is going to as Atlantic Mike recently suggested?
"I am not an American ... In my view premarital sex should be illegal" - Ajax18
K Graham
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Re: News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

Post by K Graham »

OMG it gets even worse. Cops were tasing parents who were trying to storm the school to save their kids.

https://www.Facebook.com/watch/?v=12175 ... ef=sharing
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Chap
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Re: News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

Post by Chap »

K Graham wrote:
Thu May 26, 2022 1:07 pm
Texas Shooting Onlookers Say Police Were 'Unprepared,' Didn't Go Into School

This is not a good look for the police. I mean, it utterly destroys the GOP talking point about how to solve these problems. The fact is most people don't have the training to be put into these kinds of situations. If we cannot even expect our trained law enforcement to be willing to risk their lives in saving our children from slaughter, what makes you think any common "JOE" with a gun is going to as Atlantic Mike recently suggested?
C'mon now, let's get real. The boys in blue are always ready to shoot a black guy who is running away holding a deadly weapon like a coke can or similar. That's the job they are paid to do. They didn't sign on to risk their lives against an armed white shooter just for a bunch of kids.
Maksutov:
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Re: News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

Post by K Graham »

As a legit news agency, CNN reports on the dereliction of duty that took place outside the school.
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Meanwhile, FOX dismisses it as "evil" and says absolutely nothing about the cops' inaction, but is instead making much ado about Obama tweeting about the anniversary of George Floyd's killing.
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fox.jpg (172.68 KiB) Viewed 638 times
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Re: News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Chap wrote:
Thu May 26, 2022 2:03 pm
K Graham wrote:
Thu May 26, 2022 1:07 pm
Texas Shooting Onlookers Say Police Were 'Unprepared,' Didn't Go Into School

This is not a good look for the police. I mean, it utterly destroys the GOP talking point about how to solve these problems. The fact is most people don't have the training to be put into these kinds of situations. If we cannot even expect our trained law enforcement to be willing to risk their lives in saving our children from slaughter, what makes you think any common "JOE" with a gun is going to as Atlantic Mike recently suggested?
C'mon now, let's get real. The boys in blue are always ready to shoot a black guy who is running away holding a deadly weapon like a coke can or similar. That's the job they are paid to do. They didn't sign on to risk their lives against an armed white shooter just for a bunch of kids.
The shooter wasn’t huwite.

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Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
Chap
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Re: News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

Post by Chap »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Thu May 26, 2022 6:29 pm
The shooter wasn’t huwite
Sorry for the confusion - he looked on the pale side in the photo I saw.

But then I am not a connoisseur of such things ...
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: News vs. Fake News - School Shootings

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Chap wrote:
Thu May 26, 2022 8:21 pm
But then I am not a connoisseur of such things ...
-_-
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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