Let’s Arm Teachers, They Said

Oh, what incredible irony:

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A chemistry teacher at the Florida school where 17 people were shot to death has been arrested. Authorities say he left a loaded gun in a public restroom, where a drunk homeless man picked it up and fired it.

No one was injured, but the teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is now charged with failing to safely store his weapon.

A Broward Sheriff’s report says 43-year-old Sean Simpson, who carries a concealed weapons permit, left his Glock 9 mm in a restroom at the Deerfield Beach Pier on Sunday. He told deputies he was returning to get it when he heard a gunshot, and found the man holding the pistol.

Thanks for keeping us all safe, asshole! (<—- that's an evergreen …)

A teacher at the very school which has touched off this whole “will arming teachers make kids safer” debate has proven that no, arming teachers does not make kids safe!

It’s almost as if Goddess has a sense of humor, or at the very least is screaming from the mountantop: DON’T ARM THE TEACHERS! CONTROL THE GUNS!

I don’t know why the gun loons, NRA, conservative Republicans, etc. seem to think that having a concealed-carry permit somehow makes people stop being ordinary, flawed, forgetful humans. It doesn’t. It doesn’t endow anyone with superpowers of super responsible gun ownership, as we have seen time and time again.

I don’t care how much training you get. We see stories in the paper every day about solders and police officers doing fucked up things with their guns, and they get way more training than the ordinary citizen or high school chemistry teacher. People are people and you can’t change that. The problem is the guns.

Thanks For Keeping Us All Safe, Asshole

A California high school teacher who is also a reserve police officer accidentally fired his gun during a class on gun safety. Three students were injured. The money quote:

The teacher had just told the class that he wanted to make sure his gun wasn’t loaded, when the gun fired, according to Gonzales.

So much fail.

Zombie Ideas Never Die

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: after yet another mass shooting involving an assault rifle, Republicans and the NRA come up with a brilliant idea to solve the problem: Oh, I know! Let’s arm teachers!

I know, right? We’ve certainly never heard that one before (except, well, after every single school shooting. In 2014, 2013, 2012 ….)

And of course the dim bulb in the White House thinks it’s a brilliant idea!

It’s just so perfect that after all of this national discussion and amazing student activism we’ve seen over the past week the NRA and Republicans return to their standard solution: more guns! That is how terrified they are of even the teensiest bit of restrictions on their weapons.

And the media is acting like this is some completely new idea they’ve never heard before. Guys: we’ve had this discussion a bazillion times already. We’ve already talked about how teachers don’t want this, how it’s not an effective solution, how the problem is all the goddamn guns, not the lack of guns. How we already force teachers to pay for their own school supplies, and now you’re going to ask them to buy guns and ammo and training?

Let’s remember that at Columbine High School there were not one but two armed officers on-site:

Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Neil] Gardner [the school’s community resource officer], seeing Harris working with his gun, leaned over the top of the car and fired four shots. He was 60 yards from the gunman. Harris spun hard to the right and Gardner momentarily thought he had hit him. Seconds later, Harris began shooting again at the deputy. After the exchange of gunfire, Harris ran back into the building. Gardner was able to get on the police radio and called for assistance from other Sheriff’s units. “Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me.”

An armed guard shot at Eric Harris. It didn’t work. Two students murdered 13 people and injured 21.

There’s more:

Virginia Tech, the site of the deadliest U.S. gun massacre ever committed by one person, has a police department on the grounds. According to the AP, the shootings in that incident took place over just 9 minutes — it took the campus police 3 minutes to reach the building, and five minutes to break into the building, which had been locked by the gunman.

At the Colorado cinema shootings earlier this year, it took police officers just 90 seconds to get to the scene of the shooting, but 70 people had already been shot; 12 fatally.

That’s how long we’ve been talking about this. How many more school shootings will there be before we stop rehashing the same, tired ideas?

The NRA’s answer is always ALWAYS going to be “more guns.” They don’t have any other ideas than “more guns.” But the problem isn’t that we have too few guns. The problem is too many guns.

Times’ up on these idiotic zombie ideas.

Shooting Tourists Three Years In A Row

Happy July Fourth, Nashville! Our responsible gun owners accidentally shot at least two people celebrating the Fourth in the only way your well-regulated militia can: by forgetting about gravity, gun safety, and all the rest of that gun-grabbing libtard nonsense:

Amberly Buckner said she is relieved her 7-year-old son wasn’t home Tuesday night when a bullet came flying into her bedroom in Hermitage.

“It was probably 11-ish when I went to lay down,” Buckner said. “I laid down on my bed, looked up and there was a hole in my ceiling.”

She had spent the evening watching television behind the noisy backdrop of neighborhood fireworks.

“I didn’t really hear anything out of the ordinary. It just sounded like Fourth of July,” Buckner said.

She had no idea some of those noises were actually gunshots until she saw the bullet beside her bed.

[…]

While watching the mammoth fireworks show on 5th and Broadway, a tourist from Michigan, 48-year-old Paul Lickteig, felt pain in his chest. Police say he thought he’d been hit in the chest with a water bottle. It turns out he’d been shot by a falling bullet. He was treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and released on Wednesday.

Another woman who drives for both Uber and Lyft said she was stuck in traffic watching the show when a bullet flew threw her front windshield.

“All of a sudden, I hear this loud pop and the glass shattered, and I looked down and glass was all over me and then I see blood on my hand,” said the woman who did not want to be named or pictured.

“I got so lucky,” she added, pointing to the bullet hole just inches from her seat. “My head, I was driving. My head was here and you see where that’s at.”

This is the third year in a row that tourists attending Nashville’s massive Fourth of July celebration downtown were hit by “celebratory” bullets. A 2015 effort by Democratic legislators to ban celebratory gunfire was rebuffed by gun lobbyist John Harris, however:

“It’s perfectly acceptable conduct,” said John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association.

[…]

“Because it’s their right to do it if they want to,” said Harris.

Harris says if someone wants to celebrate that way, the government shouldn’t stop them.

Got that? Shooting your guns into the air willy-nilly like a crazy idiot is perfectly alright, according to the gun extremists who own our Republican supermajority.

Who does this make sense to, exactly?

TN Had 5 Accidental Shootings This Week

Hello, America. There were five accidental shootings during a 7-day period in Tennessee this month. Most involved “responsible” gun owners who should have known better. So let’s dispense with the bullshit that gun owners are the “safest, most responsible citizens EVAH” who should be allowed to carry everywhere and anywhere to keep us all safe because calling 911 is useless.

Get over your damn selves.

The Tennessee Gun Report used to be a regular feature over here but it fell victim to my work schedule, along with everything else on this blog. However, five accidental shootings in one week is just too obvious to let pass.

All of this comes as Middle Tennessee cities like Murfreesboro and Nashville attempt to tackle gun violence.

It’s like saving a sinking ship with a bucket, guys. The problem is a culture that glorifies guns, views guns as the solution to every problems, and people who mindlessly repeat NRA propaganda without stopping to think what they’re even saying. “Ah have a raaaght to protect mah self and mah fambileee.” Yes, and of course a gun is the only way to do it, too. Meanwhile, these 2nd Amendment heroes are leaving their guns lying around for kids to find, shooting themselves and others while at the Walmart, or else their weapons become easy targets for thieves, who sell them to gangs.

Yesterday I had an argument with a friend who is an NRA supporter. He got so angry with me that he said he was going straight to the shooting range to let off some steam. Just as the Founders intended, amiright? I mean, that tells you everything you need to know about gun culture and the guys who love it. Saying you’re going to the gun range to let off some steam pretty much negates every single pro-NRA argument we’ve heard, but he was too stupid to see it.

As for those 5 accidental shootings in one week? Here they are:

• May 22, 2017:

18 year old Murfreesboro teenager accidentally shot himself in the foot.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) – Police now say an 18-year-old who suffered a gunshot injury to his foot accidentally shot himself in Murfreesboro not too far from Middle Tennessee State University.

It happened at University Gables on South Rutherford Boulevard just after midnight.

According to a police report, the victim initially said he was at a party at the apartment complex when shots were fired while he was by the basketball court and that he was struck in the foot when he began to run.

He was taken to St. Thomas Rutherford with minor injuries and police later determined it was an accidental shooting.

They always initially blame it on some drive-by or non-existent assailant. Of course it was an accidental shooting. They usually are.

• May 19, 2017:

2 injured in reported accidental shooting at gun store

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) – Two people were shot in what appears to have been an accident at a Madison gun store.

The incident happened just after 11 a.m. at nRange on Gallatin Pike North.

One person was shot in the ankle. The other was shot in the finger.

Police are continuing to investigate the situation.

At a gun store. You’d think people who handle firearms for their goddamn job would know what they were doing. You would be wrong.

• May 18, 2017:

Man’s gun goes off while shopping at Clinton Walmart

An off-duty employee of the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department accidentally caused quite a bit of a scene inside an East Tennessee Walmart when his gun discharged during a shopping trip. 

According to an incident report from the Clinton Police Department, on May 18 Brian Ball told authorities he had just made his purchase at the Clinton Walmart and was walking past the restrooms when he heard a loud bang. Ball then realized his gun had gone off.

He told responding officers that the bullet blew a hole through his shorts and grazed off the inside of his foot, but he wasn’t severely injured. 

According to Chief Deputy Mark Lucas, Ball is an employee of the jail.

Ball explained to officers that the firearm wasn’t holstered and was loose in his right shorts pocket when it went off, according to the report.

Another customer standing across from the bathrooms reported hearing a loud bang and then “a small sting on her foot.” She then noticed a small scratch bleeding from one of her toes “that possibly came from the bullet fragments,” the incident report noted.

Ball said that right after the incident he checked to make sure he wasn’t hurt, then sat down on a bench inside the store and cleared the firearm and took out the magazine.

Investigators found that the gun that discharged was not his service weapon, but was one he had registered with a Tennessee handgun carrying permit.

Ah, a CCW holder, one of our “safest, most responsible NEVER” citizens. I’m so glad our state legislature elevated CCW holders to near holy status, making sure they can carry everywhere and anywhere, as if they’ve got some kind of damn superpowers, even though this dufus had a gun loose in his shorts pocket.

Let us dispense with the assumption that these idiots are any safer or more responsible than your average Walmart redneck.

• May 16, 2017:

Police report: 10-year-old in Bradley Co. accidentally shot himself with his parents’ gun

BRADLEY COUNTY, Tenn. — A ten year old boy accidentally shoots himself in Bradley County, and according to an incident report he used his parent’s gun.

Family says the boy is ok and now out of the hospital.

[…]

According to a police report, the 10-year-old was in his bedroom when he accidentally shot himself in the arm.
His parents told officers that he was talking to his friend on the computer when they heard a gunshot.

His parents also told police they didn’t know he had gotten a hold of the gun they’d “put up in a safe place.” The police report doesn’t specify if it was locked up.

Warren Duncan owns a gun shop.

Dad owns a gun shop. You’d think people who handle firearms for their goddamn job would know what safe gun storage is all about. But I repeat myself.

• May 16, 2017:

Teen accidentally shot after home burglary

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) – Video helped Memphis police chase down a 15-year-old, who they say accidentally shot a 14-year-old right after a burglary.

Using video from a camera inside the home, police instantly recognized the two teens. They knew where they hung out and quickly left to find them.

An alert of an intruder on Rhonnie Brewer’s phone Saturday afternoon warned she and her daughter about the two teens inside their home.

Brewer called police as her daughter watched the teens rummage through their East Memphis home looking for valuables.

“They had pretty much pulled out every drawer, every (sic) clothes from out of the closet, I mean just deeply looking at things,” Brewer said.

An alarm triggered by Brewer’s phone scared away the two boys before police arrived.

Two iPads, about $500, her daughter’s backpack with a library book inside, and Brewer’s hand gun were all taken that afternoon from her Leatherwood home.

“I wasn’t so much worried about myself and my own safety as much, as it was what he would do while he was afraid with a loaded weapon,” Brewer said.

That loaded weapon was fired accidentally not long after the burglary, hitting a 14-year-old boy.

I love that Rhonnie Brewer has a sophisticated in-home security system with video cameras and cell-phone alerts but doesn’t have a goddamn gun safe in her house. Lock your fucking weapons up, lady. What the hell is wrong with you?

People are just too stupid to own guns.

Does New Gun Bill Nullify All Other Gun Bills?

Surprising absolutely nobody, Republican House Rep. Micah Van Huss of Jonesborough has filed a bill allowing the open carry of handguns without a permit.

The problem with this idea, of course, is that all of the other pro-gun legislation pushed through recently has been predicated on the logic that those with carry permits are the safest, most responsible citizens evah. So if you eliminate the carry permit requirement, then what does that do to those laws? Since they only apply to those with carry permits, I guess that means that it won’t apply to these other people, right? So, what’s the point?

For example:

Guns in restaurants:

Democratic Sen. Doug Jackson, the main sponsor of the bill, said state Safety Department records show handgun permit holders in Tennessee are responsible.

This is debatable but regardless, if there’s no permit required to carry in a restaurant, then any irresponsible yahoo can carry and, well, who’s to be the wiser?

Guns in trunks:

In summary, an employer may prohibit guns anywhere on company property, but an employee with a handgun-carry permit may keep a gun out of sight in a locked vehicle in the parking lot. All other possession of weapons on company property may still be banned, and employees may still be terminated for violation of an employer’s weapons policy. Employers with operations in Tennessee will need to become familiar with the new law and evaluate their weapons policies in light of the real world facts concerning gun ownership and possession.

So, if carry permits are no longer required …. what does this mean for guns in trunks?

Gun-free business liability:

Last year the NRA fever swamp coughted up this particular piece of nuttery: any gun-free business can be sued by a concealed carrier who got injured in an incident where a gun might conceivably have been used to protect them:

The new law, SB 1736, dictates that should any concealed carry permit holder’s safety be threatened after disarming themselves to enter their place of business, then the business will be held liable.

So, pack of wolves stampedes down the aisle at the gun-free grocery? If you have a CCW permit you can try to argue that your gun would have saved you. Trying to unpack the legal logic here seems problematic (wouldn’t you have to prove you’re a good shot, for example?) but regardless, this law was definitely based on the assumption that concealed-carriers are all excellent shots who are ready to jump in and save the day. Get rid of permits and this law means what, exactly?

Guns in parks:

“My son has a concealed carry permit,” said Susan Shelton, who was at the playground with her daughter Kira Shelton and 15-month-old grandson James. “My son in-law is a corrections officer. He has a concealed carry permit.”

Susan Shelton said she trusts her son and son in-law and others who have carry permits.

“They are trained,” Susan Shelton said. “They are responsive adults. Frankly, I feel safer knowing that somebody like that is here. Bad guys are more likely to go to a gun-free zone.”

But, eliminate the permits and … what, exactly?

We are literally on the brink of making gun ownership a requirement in this state, all because of some misguided notion from the rural folk in the hinterlands that guns are these benign instruments of self-protection. That might work in East Jesus, Tennessee but it sure as all doesn’t make sense in Memphis or Nashville, and the callous disregard our rural legislators have for people in urban areas is something with which I will no longer put up. Especially considering these same people actually live and work in urban Nashville when the legislature is in session.

Congratulations, Adam Tingle! You’re Our 2nd Amendment Hero Du Jour

Armed Bardstown, Kentucky responsible citizen fires his AR-15 at a creepy clown terrorizing his neighborhood, turns out it was just a lady walking her dog. Slow clap for the well-regulated militia in action:

A man used his AR-15 gun to scare a woman wearing a white afghan Monday after mistaking her for clown, according to a citation from the Bardstown Police Department.

According to the citation, a woman was walking her dog down Burlington Court wearing a white afghan when a man yelled at her and then fired an AR-15.

The man, Adam Tingle, said his wife was outside when she thought she saw a clown, so Tingle came out and yelled at the individual, according to the citation. The woman did not move after being yelled at, so Tingle fired one shot from his AR-15 rifle in an attempt to scare her. Tingle’s wife then called 911 to report the incident.

According to the citation, Tingle said he was scared for his family because of recent criminal activities involving clowns.

I doubt the Founding Fathers anticipated this many morons would populate our great nation when they wrote the Second Amendment.

Congratulations, Claud “Tex” McIver! You’re Our 2nd Amendment Hero Du Jour

[UPDATE]:

Dear gun loons: please stop telling me McIver is an “anti-gun activist,” simply because he served on the American Bar Assn.’s  Standing Committee on Gun Violence. He’s donated thousands of dollars to the Republican Party and Republican candidates, all of whom were endorsed by the NRA.

————————————————————–

 

A prominent Atlanta, Ga., businesswoman was accidentally shot dead by her husband trying to protect the couple from suspected carjackers:

Atlanta lawyer Claud “Tex” McIver accidentally shot his wife in the back when their car hit a bump near Piedmont Park late Sunday night, a family spokesman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Diane McIver was taken to Emory University Hospital on Clifton Road and died in surgery several hours later.

The incident unfolded after the McIvers vehicle was approached by several individuals near the intersection of Peachtree and Pine streets in Midtown, spokesman Bill Crane, a McIver family friend, said.

The McIvers retrieved their gun from the center console of the 2013 Ford Expedition, alarmed about recent unrest surrounding several Black Lives Matter protests in the area and fearing a carjacking, Crane told The AJC.

The couple, who were being driven by an unidentified individual, left the area unharmed. But several blocks later on Piedmont Ave. near the park, the SUV hit a bump and Tex McIver accidentally fired the gun, Crane said. It was still wrapped in a plastic Publix bag in which it had been stored, Crane said.

That gun sure kept everyone safe, though!

Accidental Shootings Are So Embarrassing

News that Tennessee leads the nation in fatal accidental shootings has prompted the TN Dept. of Health to “correct” the data, from 105 to… wait for it…. five.

While 105 may indeed be wrong, five defies credibility. Especially when looking at previous years’ numbers:

2010 — 31

2011 — 31

2012– 24

2013 — 19

2014 — five…?

Safe Tennessee says they tracked 13 for 2015 and 12 so far this year. So five fatalities in 2014 is clearly bogus.

I started the Tennessee Gun Report in 2013, never intending to create a data base and research tool, but rather to highlight the public safety costs associated with Tennessee’s pro-gun policies. However, the tool is there. It’s imperfect: links to many news stories are now dead, there’s a lack of follow-up (too many reports of a victim “fighting for their life,” not enough updates on the outcome of that battle), too many weeks where I was too busy to track the local papers.

Still, I spent last night going through the 2014 archive and found 13 accidental gun fatalities. Definitely more in line with the numbers we’ve been seeing. And again, even this is imperfect.

There’s a real story here, and it’s just as embarrassing as the TN Dept. of Health revising a ridiculously off-base number with one equally incredible. It’s that nobody knows what the hell is going on because ignorance is more politically tenable than facts. The state legislature has unleashed a rash of liberal gun laws on the public: anyone wanting to avoid being around firearms is now forced to interact with gun owners in public places like restaurants, parks, the workplace, etc.

Shouldn’t we be interested in knowing what the public health and safety repercussions of that are?

Clearly, the state is unable to accurately track this data. And I can attest that the job is too big for one private citizen to do, too.

We need real data, of the kind funded by the Federal government. It’s long past time for people to grow a pair and stand up to the NRA and TN Firearms Assn. on this issue.

Tennessee Finally #1 At Something

Congratulations, Tennessee!

Tennessee now ranks first in the nation for fatal unintentional shootings according to the most recent data from The Centers for Disease Control. Previously, Tennessee ranked 9th based on statistics from 2013, when 19 Tennesseans died in accidental shootings. In 2014, the number jumped to 105. Unintentional shootings involving adults most often occur when gun owners fail to clear the chamber before cleaning or handling firearms or when loaded guns are dropped. Unintentional shootings involving children most often occur when children gain access to unsecured, loaded guns that have not been safely stored

[…]

“We’ve actually been aware of the new numbers for several months, but the increase was so dramatic that we wanted to confirm the numbers before reporting them,” said Beth Joslin Roth, Policy Director for The Safe Tennessee Project. “We reached out to the CDC who explained that the numbers in their national database were uploaded directly from the state health departments. We then reached out to the Tennessee Department of Health who checked their records and verified that the numbers were in fact correct.”

From 9th to #1 in just a couple years. It’s almost as if allowing guns in more places and telling everyone they need to get a handgun permit was a stupid idea.