C’est normal
More people killed in a school shooting in Texas.
Between eight and 10 people have been killed in a shooting at a Texas high school, say police.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters the majority of the dead at Santa Fe High School were students.
A student is in custody after the attack at the school, which is about 40 miles (65km) south of Houston.
The death toll makes this the deadliest school shooting since the one in February at Parkland, Florida.
We rank them now. They’re so regular and frequent and routine that we rank them by body count and don’t bother with the ones that kill only two or three. Shootings in schools are just a US thing now, like hot dogs and racism and corruption.
President Donald Trump, speaking at a prison reform event at the White House, described the attack as “absolutely horrific”.
“My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools, and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves, and to others,” he added.
But of course it’s not. He’s not. He just gave a speech at the NRA convention two weeks ago.
Your Second Amendment rights are under siege, but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I’m your president.
“Your Second Amendment rights”=absolutely no gun control of any kind…except of course inside the White House and anywhere else Trump is. He’s protected but the rest of us just have to take our chances.
Democrats and liberals in Congress want to disarm law-abiding Americans at the same time they’re releasing dangerous criminal aliens and savage gang members onto our streets.
It’s not guns, it’s those dangerous foreign brown people.
But thoughts & prayers.
“The death toll makes this the deadliest school shooting this month.”
“The death toll makes this the deadliest school shooting since last Thursday.”
“The death toll makes this the deadliest school shooting since the weekend.”
“The death toll makes this the deadliest school shooting today.”
It’s well established that these shooters crave notoriety and like breaking records, so it is irresponsible for the media to feed into it.
Dave Cullen wrote a book and many articles about Columbine, with a focus on the media’s poor coverage of it, and it’s clear nothing’s been learned. He said the media always wants to have the perpetrator be a bullied loner, and that narrative is already forming, despite some students saying he was friendly and not unpopular.
Early reports are the killer used a shotgun and a handgun, not an assault weapon, so all but the most radical gun control proposals wouldn’t have helped. He also used pipe bombs and bombs made from pressure cookers, probably all made from readily available non-weapon parts. Probably no simple law change, short of banning all guns, would have helped. The only thing that stands out is maybe prosecuting the parents who owned the guns for not keeping them locked up.
Maybe there were clear mental health problems, but that usually turns out not to be the case (the Parkland shooter was an exception).
It’s very discouraging, and I’m actually surprised it’s not even worse. The original Columbine killers wanted to kill 2,000 and thought they could kill at least 600. Several copycats have tried to reach similar levels, and I’m relieved but somewhat surprised nobody’s pulled it off. Hopefully nobody ever will.
Santa Fe means holy faith. They will soon be screaming: Not enough faith. Not enough guns. It’s Texas. It’s where I am from. It’s where a lot of people think the Grand Canyon is 6000 years old and God shines on football teams…but I think may not the one’s who kneel.
re: Skeletor #3 This comment brought to you by the NRA.
(and to use an idiom from another blog, I filled a bingo card from that single comment)
Well, apparently it serves them right, because they have way too many entrances.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dan-patrick-too-many-entrances-texas-school-shooting_us_5aff51a4e4b0463cdba1e09d
The NRA gun culture is more dangerous than any specific weapon. Yes, AR15s, M16s, AK47s have no legitimate civilian use. But most of them sit in cabinets and closets except for occasional shooting-range outings.
But the deranged culture of ‘good guy with a gun’ fantasies, as ridiculous as it is, has helped saturate the country with unnecessary weaponry. We used to dread handgun crime, which was essentially sponsored by the gun industry.
But above that, the NRA and co. teach a nihilist, libertarian dream of state overthrow. The Bundys, all those Posses and Militias from the 70s forward. A ‘well regulated militia’ was supposed to protect the state from such movements; Shay’s Rebellion, the Whisky Rebellion etc. The current crop of 2nd Amendment nuts dream of themselves as the Confederate Army, or the Mad Max/Turner Diaries.
Countries that actually HAVE ‘well regulated militias,’ Switzerland and Israel come to mind, actually REGULATE the hell out of them.