There Was Armed Staff At Nashville School But Gun Massacre Still Happened? That's Unpossible!
Republicans will still keep pushing this myth.
Last Monday, during the latest gun massacre at Nashville's The Covenant School, an employee hid under her desk and called 911.
"We do have a school person, or two ... I'm not sure ... who would be packing, whose job it is for security," the woman said. "We don't have security guards, but we have staff."
It's unclear if those staffers "packing" heat were at the school the day, but we now have an example of armed school staff ready (or not, more "not" in this case) to repel a school shooter. That's been the Republican "solution" to gun violence since 2018's massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Donald Trump was president and bad ideas just sort of flew around all over the place. This was the same fool who wanted to nuke a hurricane.
PREVIOUSLY:
Donald Trump Wants Miss McGrory, Third Grade Teacher, Packing Like Rambo
Armed Teachers Update: Are We Safe Yet?
Arming teachers and school staff is a stupid idea. I can't believe I have to say this, but an active shooter situation involving goddamn children is not an ideal scenario for amateur, part-time vigilantism. Maybe Republicans watch too many action movies and don't think any special skills are required — although, Liam Neeson's "particular set of skills acquired over a long career" were a major plot point in the movie Taken . He wasn't just a PE teacher with a gun he dusted off to confront the bad guys.
During a shouting match with Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman from New York, a former school principal, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky declared, "You know, there's never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry."
“An "I said what I said" moment from Dem Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a former teacher in the Bronx, who gave GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, whose Christmas card last year was his family with assault rifles, a lesson in caring about murdered children over guns. Watch: https://t.co/kCXprwMEhR”
— Victoria Brownworth (@Victoria Brownworth) 1680179185
Republicans are nothing without their logical fallacies, and Massie is guilty of confusing correlation with causation. It's a classic for the dunce-hat wearing set. If I bothered to look it up, I could confirm that there's no record of mass shootings at schools with regularly scheduled drag queen story hours. Maybe that's the trick.
Bowman responded to Massie that "more guns lead to more death! More guns lead to more death." There is data supporting Bowman's argument. Republicans are also fully committed to ensuring random people have easy access to weapons and tools of war. This means it's not difficult for someone who wants to shoot up a school to arm and outfit themselves so they can inflict maximum damage before the willing teachers can find and load their own weapons, which we hope are safely secured. After all, schools tend to have kids running around.
Over the past decade, mass shooters are also more likely to wear body armor, putting them at a distinct advantage over an armed teacher. The white supremacist shooterin Buffalo last year stated in his manifesto that he wore a plate carrier vest to “minimize the chance of instant death” from a security officer. (Really not sure why we sell these to civilians.) Unfortunately, mass shooters rarely give enough notice for teachers to change into battle gear.
Massie insisted that “we have guns here to protect us, and [Bowman] doesn’t believe that kids should have somebody to protect them.” This is the "False Dilemma Fallacy." Massie's really good at this, which means he's very bad at reasoned debate.
Meanwhile, "red flag" laws might've prevented the latest massacre, as the Nashville shooter's own parents thought the 28-year-old shouldn't have owned weapons. The shooter was able to legally purchase seven guns from five different stores. That doesn't seem like normal behavior. It seems like someone about to go on a murder spree.
[ Tennessean / MSNBC ]
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It's just logic that more guns = more gun violence and deaths, which is of course also backed up by the data. It's pretty hard to shoot yourself or others without a gun. If being awash with easy-to-obtain guns actually made us safer, we'd be the safest nation on the fucking planet.
Very true, along with the "good guy" potentially shooting someone else on accident and the cops not knowing who the "bad guy" is when (if) they show up.
Re: their insistence we can't have opinions on guns unless we know literally everything about them, maybe we should try that on the (mostly) men who are legislating against abortion because I doubt any of them could pass a basic test on women's anatomy, reproductive process, or the effects of pregnancy and child birth on a woman's body.
I've seen adult men who think women can hold in their periods like urine, or that we pee out of our vaginas.