Documentary worth checking out
This was a real eye-opener for me. Especially when it comes to mental illness and suicides in our country. The leading causes of gun violence in our country? Alcohol abuse and Domestic violence, not mental illness.
This was a real eye-opener for me. Especially when it comes to mental illness and suicides in our country. The leading causes of gun violence in our country? Alcohol abuse and Domestic violence, not mental illness.
Well, we all knew it was coming, eventually, some po-dunk school in South Dakota would take up the state legislature on the School Sentinel law;
The Tri-Valley School District is considering a policy that could change the look of school safety in South Dakota.
On Monday night, the school board passed the first reading of a school sentinel policy that would allow the district to arm certain employees.
I guess I never expected a school that large to take up the suggestion. Either way, whether you are for or against this (I’m against it) it seems the school board was being sneaky about the way they went about it.
Like I said, there is mountains of evidence why this is a very bad idea, but let’s not talk about that.
The school board decided to try to sneak this under the radar;
The second and final reading of this policy will be on April 11, which is open to the public.Â
Yes, they mentioned it in some agendas, but notice they took the first reading without any input. It should have not gotten to first reading if the media would have known about their intentions ahead of time.
Cory also points out the continuing secrecy;
The icing on this bad policy is the secrecy clause. Parents will have no right to know which staff are carrying deadly weapons in school. Parents get no check on the board’s decision, no opportunity to say, “Good grief! They let that yahoo carry a gun? I don’t think so!†Parents get no opportunity to pull their children from an armed teacher’s classroom and demand that their children be placed in classrooms where no guns are present.
I’m willing to bet that most parents would be against an armed sentinel at Tri-Valley, but I guess we will wait and see.
I usually don’t blog about crimes on my blog, I have said before I believe everyone deserves their day in court and until the verdict drops, people deserve due process. Mason Buhl deserves this. But there are some interesting side stories here that the local media isn’t digging into. Obviously, the first question the media needs to be asking, how and why did a 16 year old have a handgun, and what were his parents role in this. His father said this to AP;
Buhl’s father told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he doesn’t know what led his son to the shooting. He said his ex-wife, with whom his son lives, called to tell him that their son had been arrested following the shooting. He said his son’s been quiet over the past year.
“Something’s just going on inside of him and he’s just mad at everybody, I think,” Rodney Buhl said. “I don’t know what would’ve made him do something like this.”
He didn’t say where his son got the handgun, but said that he and his son would regularly target shoot outside and that his son had taken gun safety courses. Wollman would not say where the student got the gun.
While I think it is perfectly fine to go hunting with your father, under supervision, or practice shooting, the bigger question is was Mason allowed to keep a handgun without the supervision of his parents. I think this will come up in court. There is absolutely NO REASON a parent should allow their teenage children to own a handgun and have access to it on their own.
I also see another story here, the irony of a peace rally in Sioux Falls just a few days ago;
Lauren Townsend was one of 12 students killed in the columbine massacre 16 years ago.
Since her passing, her mother, Dawn Anna, has traveled across the country speaking at events about keeping children safe from guns.
“I seriously thought that Columbine was going to be it. It had to be it. There were 13 murdered in columbine – 12 students and a teacher. The world was brought to its knees,†says Anna.
She believed that a senseless act of violence like that would bring about some bigger changes – and put gun violence further in the spotlight.
“If this isn’t going to promote discussion, what is?”
Who would have imagined just 4 days later this would happen in Harrisburg? I have to be truthful with you, I wasn’t shocked or surprised when I heard the news, but grateful no one got seriously hurt or killed.
Until we address how easily it is for people to obtain guns in this country, this story will continue to play out in every nook and cranny of our country. Let’s face it, easy access to guns isn’t making us more safe, and if you believe that, you truly are an ignorant human being.
Seven years ago, I did the above cartoon that printed in a couple of college newspapers. The colleges opposed the law then and still do;
“It’s something we all grew up with in high school and middle school that guns and schools don’t go together and so when we came to public institution, that same philosophy applied,” said Caleb Finck, SDSU Student Body President.
Did Stalzer even bother to talk to the college’s student body about this? Probably not, I’m not sure if Stalzer knows how to communicate without grunting like a caveman.
I care about children, but only the unborn with genetic disorders that are either a male or female and come from the hand of God, not a monkey. After they are born, they are on their own.
Every year, Pierre changes it’s name to ‘Guns & Abortion, SD’ for about 40 days, and our legislature wastes time on guns and abortion legislation. Their reasons? They care about children. Really?
Well this year, as in the past, they had a chance to tell us just how much they do care about kids, you know, the ones that are born and living already. Some of them failed.
You would think after watching this year after year a group that large couldn’t be that ignorant. I must clarify, some Republicans get it, I am talking about the extreme right that think the earth is 6,000 years old and evolution isn’t based on science.
So let’s look at their failures;
• Supporting anti-science, secular education while censoring evolution science. The right wingers think they are doing the children of the state a favor by teaching them anti-science supported creationism, while instilling theological ideas into the public schools ignoring separation of church and state. This is a civics and science lesson gone awry. It goes against everything the 1st Amendment is about, and is more harmful to children then helpful.
• Legislating and teaching Hate. This one speaks for itself, making it legal to discriminate against a person based on their sexual orientation. This one thankfully failed, but that it even came up as legislation is pretty scary.
• Full Medicare expansion. This isn’t rocket science. Not only would it help a lot of children and keeping their working parents healthy it would put $200 million into the state economy. Of course some of legislators, like Isaac Latterell believe that the Federal Government is broke and a day of reckoning is coming where we won’t be getting money from the Feds anymore. Yup, Isaac, Ronald Reagan was using that talking point before you were born. As one of the legislators said in the last coffee, “If you have concerns as a constituent of how the Federal government is spending Federal funds, you need to bring it up with your Washington delegation, not state representatives.â€
• Removing the sales tax on food. Democratic representative Marc Feinstein has been trying to remove the tax for years, unsuccessfully. For obvious reasons, removing this tax would help children. I have suggested instead of raising the taxes on other things – three adjustments could be made. 1) Remove the tax from raw, preparable and fresh foods only 2) Tax all products at the same rate-4% 3) Tax advertising.
• Denying counties a share of state sales tax revenue while voting against more lenient enforcement of non-violent offenders, like marijuana users. Why is the county getting further and further behind? Crime and the clogged court system. This also has to do with the safety of our children. When we simply just fine non-violent offenders instead of incarcerating them, we free up law enforcement and the courts to handle the more violent and serious crimes. This makes our community safer, and ultimately children safer.
So while the Right Wingers are busy talking about abortion and guns to keep our children safe and healthy, the work that actually that should be done is going straight over their heads . . . as usual. Some things never change in Guns & Abortion, SD.