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.

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.

The REAL Victims (Sarcasm Alert)

Aren’t school shootings a big bummer? Yes! They are! But, dear readers, be sure to save a few of those Thoughts’n’Prayers® for the real victims of this week’s school shooting in Florida: Michael and Lisa Morrison, owners of Sunrise Tactical Supply of Coral Springs. That’s right, the people who sold Nikolas Cruz his AR-15:

The shop, whose displays had been stripped of any rifles or other guns Thursday evening, will remain closed indefinitely.

Its owners, who live in Coral Springs, are distraught, Rudman said.

“The tremendous sense of responsibility in this situation and just horribleness that they feel that one of their weapons fell into the hands of this maniac,” Rudman said. “They are scared — not just for their safety — but more importantly about how the reaction is going to be for the rest of the community as they try to reenter it.”

They are scared for their safety, you guys. As they try to “reenter” the community.

Give me a fucking break.

They sell weapons to people but they are scared for their safety? Oh boo fucking hoo. Conservative tears, you guys. What, thoughts and prayers aren’t good enough for you? Amazing.

Let me also add, one of their weapons did not “fall into the hands of this maniac,” as the lawyer says. They sold it to him. It was a retail transaction. Maybe you guys should think about opening an ice cream shop next time. Something a little less lethal.