Yesterday, there was a shooting in Iowa. Two women were killed and their murderer shot himself. This took place at a church event. This shooting took place just three minutes after President Biden ended his speech to the American People about the need for reasonable gun control.
In Racine, WI there was another mass shooting that took place at a cemetery. This took place during the funeral for Da’Shontay L. King Sr., who was fatally shot by Racine police May 20. At least 20 – 30 shots were fired. No suspects have yet to be arrested. Though several people were wounded. We don’t know how serious the injuries are yet.
In South Carolina a man was arrested for attempted murder and weapons charges. The man stood in the woods near his house and randomly shot at passing vehicles. During his rampage, he killed an 8 year old boy and wounded the boy’s father. The charges were upgraded to murder after the boy died. The suspect expressed claims of paranoia and told the judge: “Every device I have has been hacked. Every device, my cell phones. My TV. I can’t even get a signal at my home to watch TV. I have been a total victim for well over two years. And I said over and over and over I did not want anyone to get hurt.” Sounds like something a “red flag” law would have help prevent. But Republicans don’t want such a law and are fighting against it in Congress as we speak.
In St. Louis, a man left a grocery store. He was carrying an AR-15. It is legal to openly carry firearms in Missouri. As he left the store, another man placed a gun to his head and stole his rifle. The victim then went to his car and pulled out another weapon and opened fire on the thief. During the “shootout” two women who had just arrived at the store were both wounded. The thief was hit multiple times and taken into custody. The “victim” left the scene and we don’t know who he is or if police intend to charge him.
All of this happened in the last week. It is sample of the sickness that has infected our nation. There are so many guns on our streets, that we have no defense against such activities. Whenever someone thinks they are being “victimized” or losing an argument, their first choice is to pull out a weapon and start shooting.
In Congress yesterday, there was a hearing by Judicial committee on legislation for reasonable gun control. This legislation would make the age for owning a gun at 21, ban high capacity magazines and give us a “red flag” law to report anyone like the man in South Carolina who may be a danger to himself or others.
But, Republicans on the committee were having nothing to do with that legislation. They came up with all kinds of excuses. Matt Gaetz even said “red flag laws” was an infringement on an individuals “due process rights” and therefore illegal. One GOP Rep. attending the hearing from home, it was a virtual meeting, even waived three different handguns to prove his manly man image. When one member of the committee said “I hope those are unloaded” he responded with “I can do whatever I want with my guns”.
To show that Republicans really care about people’s lives and the gun problems in our country, the Ohio State Legislature passed a “major” bill that will protect everyone. They passed a bill that bans all transgender students from playing high school and college sports, and requires genital exams in any disputes. Calling the bill “state sponsored bullying” one Democratic lawmaker said: “This is truly bizarre medically and nonsensical, but looking at it practically, this bill means that if anyone decides to question a child’s true gender, that child must undergo a sensitive exam. I struggle to understand why we keep discussing bills focusing on children’s genitals.”
Now we come to the Republican’s call to “arm teachers”. We must remember this is nothing new. States like Texas already have laws on the books to “arm teachers” in schools. But, even though it has been in effect since 2013, the number of teachers wanting to carry arms in school are very small.
But, let’s look at these laws. What happens if there is another school shooting, and our record says there will be, and one of these armed teachers tries to intervene. What happens and who is liable if innocent children or teachers are wounded in the shootout? Is the teacher going to be held liable or is the school district or the state? What happens when police finally get up the courage to enter the school and sees that teacher with a gun and opens fire on the teacher.
Remember, in these kinds of situations, police do not hesitate to shoot anyone with a gun. In this scenario, an innocent teacher would be killed by police and the police would get away with it because that teacher had a gun. The list of what can go wrong with too many guns in schools is too long to list. But, you can bet that if this happens, the teacher will be blamed.
Teachers are supposed to teach our children. They already face budget problems, too many students in a class, not enough supplies, and constant beratement from Republican lawmakers and right wing nut jobs. Now, Republicans want to add to their problems by making them “armed security” guards and take on the added liability of doing that. It is no wonder it is getting harder and harder to find qualified people to be our teachers.
The idea of gun-toting teachers promises to harness renewed political urgency in the school safety debate, as a top Texas law enforcement official on Friday acknowledged failures in a plodding police response to this week’s violence. But, instead of addressing that “plodding response” and making sure police and schools have the resources to protect our children, they want to “save money” and arm teachers instead. That is an easy choice because Republicans are already targeting teachers for every ill in our country including mass shootings. So, if an armed teacher screws up in their “response” they will surely become the favorite target of Republicans and be blamed for all of the deaths.
Finally in yesterday’s hearing, Rep. Swallwell actually went “scorched earth” on his Republican colleagues. He said: “Are you here for our kids, or are you here for the killers? Because if you were here for the kids, you would do all you could to protect the next school shooting that’s about to happen, and we know it’s gonna happen in America. You would vote to raise the age on purchasing an assault rifle, you would vote to ban high-capacity magazines, you would vote to require safe storage and you would vote to address ghost guns, which are ravaging communities across America. But if you’re here for the killers, you would do everything to make it easier for the next school shooting to happen.”
Wow! Well, Crazy Uncle Louie Gohmert seemed to get, let us say miffed. He screamed: “How dare you? You think we don’t have hearts. We care about people. We care about their lives and lives that have been so trivialized. We care deeply. How dare you? How dare you? You arrogant people attributing murder to those of us who want to do something to stop it.”
You will notice that he NEVER gave one example of what Republicans are doing to “stop it”. It was just talk, again. They have no plans to address the growing murder of our people due to easy access to guns. More than one Republican have already said “no laws would have stopped these shootings, so why bother”.
That is the answer Republicans want us to swallow. They claim criminals will break the laws anyway, so why bother to pass them. If that is the case, why pass any law? Won’t people just break them anyway? Is that what our country has become? Have we become so passive that we don’t want laws passed because “someone will break it anyway”?
What a pathetic group of lazy assholes. That is exactly what Republicans have become and they seem very proud of that fact. We desperately need them voted out of office this November for the sake of our nation and the lives of our children.
Lean Left World 