Another white man with a history of domestic violence went on a shooting spree yesterday. Update!

 Courtesy of the LA Times:

A gunman's deadly rampage through rural Rancho Tehama on Tuesday was stopped when police rammed his vehicle and exchanged shots in a fierce gun battle, authorities said. 

"The suspect was actually shooting at the police vehicle, back at them, the officer rammed the vehicle, forced it off the road, an exchange of gunfire — resulting in the shooter's death," said Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston. 

The shooting ended what authorities described as a 45-minute attack through Rancho Tehama, a quiet reserve about 120 miles northwest of downtown Sacramento. 

The gunman at one point terrorized a local elementary school. Witnesses said he crashed through the school's gates with his truck and opened fire, spraying walls and classrooms with bullets. Teachers and other adults on campus frantically got the students under desks. 

Before the rampage was over, five people were dead, including the gunman, and at least 10 were wounded. 

It could have been much worse if local teachers had not been so quick to respond to the threat.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

No children were killed in the shooting spree that began at shortly before 8 a.m. PT in the community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, about 130 miles north of Sacramento, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.

The rampage could have been worse, Johnston said, had not the staff at the school heard gunshots around a quarter-mile away and initiated a lockdown.

"The shooter literally took his vehicle and rammed their fence and gate, entered the grounds on foot with a semiautomatic rifle," Johnston said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. 

"It appears that because he couldn't make access to any of the rooms — they were locked — that he gave it up and re-entered the vehicle and then went on his killing spree and took it to the streets of Rancho Tehama,” Johnston said. "So I really want to say that the quick action of those school officials, there is no doubt in my mind based on the video that I saw, saved countless lives and children."

I say it all the time, but it bears repeating, teachers are the true American heroes. And it should not take a terrible incident like this to remind us of that fact.

As it turns out this lunatic was known by police for being a very violent offender, and was about to go on trial for past crimes: 

The gunman who killed four in a sprawling rampage Tuesday before being fatally shot by police was about to go on trial for stabbing and robbing women in his Northern California community. 

Kevin Jansen Neal, 43, was charged with assault in January. Little is known about the incident, except that Neal was charged with assault for shooting at two female neighbors through a wooden fence while they were walking. Neal then "jumped the fence, confronted the women, stabbed one and took a cellphone from the other," Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen told Red Bluff Daily News. Authorities said one of the four individuals killed Tuesday was a female previously targeted by Neal in his neighborhood. 

Neal, 43, was arrested again in February for assault with a deadly weapon, battery, crimes against an elder or dependent adult and discharging his firearm with gross negligence, among other charges outlined in Red Bluff Police Department logs. Neal was scheduled to stand trial on January 11, 2018, for the assault against the neighborhood women, with trials beginning in December.

And yet he was still able to get his hands on an AR-15 Bushmaster rifle as well as several other firearms.

And why not? This is America ain't it?

Investigators later found the body of Neal's wife hidden under the floorboards in his house, which brings the death toll up to five. 

Update: Totally agree with this.

As we approach the five-year anniversary of the horrifying shooting at Sandy Hook, it’s heartbreaking that we’ve made so little progress in preventing these shootings. Elementary schools like the one in Rancho Tehama Reserve shouldn’t have to prepare for mass shootings.

— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) November 16, 2017

Mississippi school named after president of the Confederacy to be renamed Barack Obama Magnet IB Elementary School. Oh the white supremacists should just LOVE that!

Courtesy of Mississippi Today:  

An elementary school in Jackson named for the president of the Confederacy will be renamed after the nation’s first black president next year. 

Davis IB Elementary School PTA president Janelle Jefferson told the Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees at a meeting Tuesday night that the community voted to change the school’s name to Barack Obama Magnet IB Elementary School. 

In September, the board approved a policy that gave the PTA and community the option to rename Jefferson Davis, George and Lee elementary schools. Davis is named after Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. 

The current board policy on naming schools states they must be named “for persons of good character and prominence who have made outstanding contributions to the school system,” and a “facility named to honor a person shall not be renamed except for compelling reasons.”

The school is apparently about 96% black so of course attending a school named after the man who fought to keep their ancestors as slaves probably did not exactly make them feel welcome.

Of course Mississippi is still a very racist state, so I predict there will be some substantial protests when the new sign with Obama's name is first erected.

Swedish school children are not only learning how to write computer code, but also how to identify fake news.

Courtesy of The Local: 

Along with programming, the moves to improve digital competence will also include teaching kids how to differentiate between reliable and unreliable sources, a subject that has been particularly hot in Sweden as of late, with everyone from comic book hero Bamse to the King emphasizing the importance of source criticism. 

"There has been some naivety when it comes to the information society. An idea that all knowledge is just a short click away and we don't need to know as much as we needed to before," Fridolin explained. 

"It's the exact opposite: we need basic knowledge in reading, writing and numeracy so we can’t be tricked, but we also need to advance our criticism of sources to the same level as we previously taught students about scientific theory for example. You already need to have your first taste of this today at about the age of ten." 

A multitude of sources is a reality of the modern digital age, the education minister added, so it is important to prepare kids to identify trustworthy outlets. 

"You need to know what you can trust, what the difference between a serious media outlet and a propaganda site is. And how certain can you be that your image of the truth is formed from facts, and not someone who wants you to think about things in a certain way?”

Well I think we should prioritize this in America as well. 

The idiots who believe, and share, fake news really fucked us up in this last election and educating future generations to avoid a similar outcome seems like it should be a priority.

And while we are at it perhaps we could offer online classes to those currently of voting age as well.

After all the Trump voters are still out there, waiting to manipulated in the next election cycle as well.

I am not sure that Dakota Meyer understands parenting.

I was really only able to make it to the minute mark in the video.

If I had actually seen them strike that child I would have lost my shit.

They are hitting that young boy with a paddle. Do you have any idea the psychological damage an incident like this can cause?

Well I do, because that was done to me.

In fact I was not only spanked by a school principal, I was spanked by my mother, my grandmother, babysitters, and the men who were dating my mother before she remarried.

One time I had cuts on my legs where a guy had used an electrical cord to "punish" me for not falling asleep fast enough. That school principal used half of a baseball bat sanded down with the words "Louisville Slugger" on the handle.

Five strikes, I remember every one of them.

Do you want to know how that approach corrected my behaviors?

It didn't.

But it made me an angry and violent young man, who often engaged in physical confrontations with my peers to the point where I sent more than one of them to the hospital.

I trained up to four or five hours each day, so that I would be a more effective fighter, and then I looked for trouble virtually every day so that I could punish the world that at the time I felt had horribly abused me.

Don't get me wrong I was not a bully, at least not in the classical sense. I wanted to fight tough guys who bullied or intimidated others.  But I was a raging asshole, of that there is no doubt.

This lasted into my late teens.

After that I was able to gain some perspective. which came as the result of some very caring teachers and school administrators who did not want to kick me out of school and destroy my life because, thankfully, they felt I was worth saving.

I owe them everything.

Today I care for the children who have been brutalized, neglected, and psychologically damaged by parents and others without the education or intelligence to deal with challenging behaviors.

Apparently this child was paddled for spitting and aggressive behaviors.

I have dealt with spitters before. Do you know what you do?

You get a bucket and you ask them to fill it up with all of their extra spit.

After a little bit their mouth goes dry and they ask to stop, at which time you simply say "Are you all out of spit?"

They answer in the affirmative, and you tell them "Well I am going to keep this bucket handy and the next time you need to spit we will come right back here and you can try to fill it again."

I have never had a child spit again after that.

Somebody needs to let Dakota Meyer know that there are many, many, many effective methods for teaching a child that do not involve scarring them for life.

At this point one has to wonder if Bristol Palin is ASKING to be mocked?

B.F.F. ❤️🐢

A photo posted by Bristol Palin (@bsmp2) on Apr 8, 2016 at 8:35am PDT

Bristol of course is a grown woman, chronologically at least, so she can do what she wants on social media. But encouraging Tripp to participate in her desperate attempts to emulate the Kardashians is just pathetic.

By the way Sunny Johnston sometimes shares pictures of Tripp as well, however hers are more along these lines.

Just pointing out the difference.

P.S. And before you ask me what is up with the Johnston-Palin hyphenated name, I have no idea.

New study proves that giving elementary children homework does not make them smarter, it only makes them hate school.

Courtesy of Salon: 

“There is no evidence that any amount of homework improves the academic performance of elementary students.” 

This statement, by homework research guru Harris Cooper, of Duke University, is startling to hear, no matter which side of the homework debate you’re on. Can it be true that the hours of lost playtime, power struggles and tears are all for naught? That millions of families go through a nightly ritual that doesn’t help? Homework is such an accepted practice, it’s hard for most adults to even question its value. 

When you look at the facts, however, here’s what you find: Homework has benefits, but its benefits are age dependent. 

For elementary-aged children, research suggests that studying in class gets superior learning results, while extra schoolwork at home is just . . . extra work. Even in middle school, the relationship between homework and academic success is minimal at best. By the time kids reach high school, homework provides academic benefit, but only in moderation. More than two hours per night is the limit. After that amount, the benefits taper off. “The research is very clear,” agrees Etta Kralovec, education professor at the University of Arizona. “There’s no benefit at the elementary school level.” 

Before going further, let’s dispel the myth that these research results are due to a handful of poorly constructed studies. In fact, it’s the opposite. Cooper compiled 120 studies in 1989 and another 60 studies in 2006. This comprehensive analysis of multiple research studies found no evidence of academic benefit at the elementary level. It did, however, find a negative impact on children’s attitudes toward school.

I have sat down to help children with homework more times than I can count. 

Not just with my daughter, or my step kids, but with other people's children, and most often children with learning disabilities. 

For that reason, though I disliked homework as a child, I hate it as an adult.

Especially when it interferes in a child's ability to learn the most important lesson they need to learn, how to be a child.

Yes children need to learn, but the best way for them to learn is to allow them to run, and jump, and play.

Allowing the release of their pent up energy is the best way to get their attention in the classroom.

And yet today we see schools cutting out recess, taking time away from lunch, and doubling down on homework assignments.

That does not create well educated, well rounded adults. That creates mindless cogs in a machine.

And mindless cogs do not write symphonies, create new technologies, or move this country forward.

Yes education is broken in this country.

But do you know who broke it?

The people who keep saying they are trying to fix it.

Michigan parent exercises his 2nd Amendment rights on school grounds. School exercises their right to panic.

Courtesy of the Battle Creek Enquirer:  

A hard lockdown was ordered Monday in Homer school buildings after a parent came to school with a holstered handgun, officials said. 

Homer Community School District Superintendent Robert Wright said the parent had brought a gun to school on Friday and was armed again when he returned to the school Monday to discuss Friday's incident. 

The parent of a student at Lillian Fletcher Elementary School, who Wright declined to identify, came to school Friday to sign in his son,. The man was carrying a gun in a holster. Wright said the parent was questioned by a staff member; the parent asserted "his right to have it there" and he left the school without a confrontation, Wright said.

After that incident the school notified the authorities and the police told the man that though it was his right to have the gun, that it was best not to bring it to school.

However the man was not convinced so the school set up a meeting with him, and guess how he showed up for that meeting:

"And lo and behold, he showed up with his weapon holstered ... it was never out of the holster," Wright said. "And at that point I had to inform him that our protocol is that we go into lockdown just for pure safety of all of our students and staff, and so we went into lockdown at that point." 

"They asked him to sit in the front lobby and they went into lockdown," Saxton said. "He left when he heard them go into lockdown." 

Wright said the district went under hard lockdown -- he described it as a time when instruction is halted to focus on safety precautions -- for about 10 minutes at 2:15 p.m. A sheriff's deputy was called to the school but the parent left before the deputy arrived.

So while this idiot was walking around trying to feel like a real man, he traumatized an entire school full of children.  Good job asshole.

You know what these Ammosexuals seem incapable of understanding is that them having a weapon does NOT make the rest of us feel safe. In fact just the opposite.

The reality is that when a gun shows up on school grounds, the possibility of a child being shot goes from 0 to 100% more likely.

That may not be the intention of the gun owner, but as we know guns can fall and discharge, they can be taken from their owners and used, or the owner may have something suddenly happen which angers them to the point of recklessness.

But the simple fact is, no gun, no gun deaths.

Period.

Handed out in a public elementary school in the Ohio.

Source

If you go to the source you will see that the parent has already contacted the Freedom from Religion Foundation and those folks don't play around.

Hard to believe this is still happening in this day and age, but there you have it.

Things will not change unless people stand up and force them to change.

Two young elementary school children bring handguns to Kentucky school thinking them toys.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

A first-grader and his brother in kindergarten took two handguns, one of them loaded, on a bus to a Kentucky elementary school Thursday morning after apparently thinking they were toys, authorities said. They said no one was hurt and the firearms were seized when the boys reached school. 

The boys, ages 6 and 7, had a gun each in their school backpacks and showed them to some other pupils on a bus headed to Dewitt Elementary School in Flat Lick, said Kentucky State Police Trooper Shane Jacobs. He said one student alerted a teacher and the eastern Kentucky school was briefly locked down and the guns were confiscated. 

"We never felt that the kids' intent was to hurt anyone at the school," Jacobs said by phone. "We feel the kids didn't know that they were actually a firearm. They thought they were toy guns."

Even though the children did not seem to know better each was charged with possession of a firearm on school property.

The parents have also been charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, and even the school bus driver was charged, because he knew about the weapons and did not contact the school.

Obviously this could have been so much worse.

But it also goes to show that when you make your toys look like real guns, and real guns look like toys, you are asking for trouble.

This school knows how to educate young children.

Courtesy of DNA Info:  

A public elementary school is abolishing traditional homework assignments and telling kids to play instead — outraging parents who say they may pull their kids out of the school. 

Teachers at P.S. 116 on East 33rd Street have stopped assigning take-home math worksheets and essays, and are instead encouraging students to read books and spend time with their family, according to a letter the school’s principal, Jane Hsu, sent to parents last month. 

“The topic of homework has received a lot of attention lately, and the negative effects of homework have been well established,” Hsu wrote in her letter, which was sent home with students. 

“They include: children’s frustration and exhaustion, lack of time for other activities and family time and, sadly for many, loss of interest in learning.” 

Hsu explained that the school spent more than a year "analyzing studies focused on the effects of traditional homework" and decided that it was more important for the Pre-K through fifth grade students to do activities that “have been proven to have a positive impact on student academic performance and social/emotional development” such as reading at their own pace and playing. 

"In fact, you may be surprised to learn that there have been a variety of studies conducted on the effects of homework in the elementary grades and not one of them could provide any evidence that directly links traditional homework practices with current, or even future, academic success."

How can it be so hard for people to understand this? 

If you push children too hard, too early, they will simply end up dropping out of school before they can graduate from high school. Which is what we are seeing now.

Remember this?

This is one of the most spot on quotes I have ever seen concerning children.

Mr. Rogers understood children on a fundamental level, and HE understood that you want to raise fully realized and well developed adults you let them learn through play as children.

If you want to create mindless, uninspired cogs in a machine, you force them to sit in desks and teach to the test.

My hope is that other schools will see the success of this New York school and follow their example.

Texas fourth grader suspended for threatening to magically make a fellow student disappear.

One Ring to rule them all, One ring to find them; One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A fourth grader in Kermit, Texas was suspended for making “terroristic threats” after allegedly telling a classmate that he had a “magic ring” that could make the boy disappear, the Odessa American reports. 

According to Kermit Elementary School officials, 9-year-old Aiden Steward told a classmate that he possessed a magic ring forged in Mount Doom — a fictional location from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series. 

Aiden’s father, Jason, told The Daily News that his family had just watched The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies earlier that week, and that his son “didn’t mean anything” when he told his classmate he was in possession of the “one ring to rule them all.” 

“Kids act out movies that they see. When I watched Superman as a kid, I went outside and tried to fly,” he said. 

“I assure you my son lacks the magical powers necessary to threaten his friend’s existence,” he added. “If he did, I’m sure he’d bring him right back.” 

Kermit Elementary Principal Roxanne Greer told the Odessa American that she could not comment on the suspension, because “all student stuff is confidential,” but Steward said that she told him that any and all threats to a child’s safety — including magical ones — would be taken seriously by the school.

So to be clear, in Texas guns good, magic bad.

What can actually cause you harm is considered safe, and what can never cause you harm is something to be feared.

I think I just invented the new Texas state motto.

Paper handed in by 2nd grader with Autism.

Well, he's not wrong.

Woman gets 14 months in jail after 9 year old son took handgun to school that accidentally wounded 8 year old.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

A Washington woman has been sentenced to jail for her part in a shooting at an elementary school after a handgun her son had in his backpack went off, wounding a classmate.

 Jamie Lee Chaffin was sentenced to 14 months in prison after pleading guilty to unlawful weapon possession charges, reports the Kitnap Sun. 

On Feb. 22, 2012, Chaffin’s then 9-year-old son took a loaded handgun to school in his backpack, which went off wounding 8-year-old classmate, Amina Kocer Bowman, shattering her elbow and damaging her internal organs before the bullet came to rest in her spine. 

According to Chaffin’s son, he took the gun to school to protect himself from classmates.

Which is exactly the message that we keep sending to our children through video games and movies.

Without a gun we are vulnerable. With a gun...invincible. 

Apparently the boy also said that there were a number of unsecured weapons around the boyfriend's home for him to choose from.

I think it is very good news that a parent is being help responsible for this accidental shooting, however it is truly unfortunate that the boyfriend's charges were dismissed by the state Supreme Court.

In my mind if you own a gun you are responsible for any damage, injury, or death that is the fault of that gun.

After all what would have happened if that eight year old girl had died? Or if other children had also been injured?

Salt Lake City elementary school snatches lunches from children throws them away for having no money in their accounts.

Courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune:  

Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts — a move that shocked and angered parents. 

"It was pretty traumatic and humiliating," said Erica Lukes, whose 11-year-old daughter had her cafeteria lunch taken from her as she stood in line Tuesday at Uintah Elementary School, 1571 E. 1300 South. 

Lukes said as far as she knew, she was all paid up. "I think it’s despicable," she said. "These are young children that shouldn’t be punished or humiliated for something the parents obviously need to clear up." 

Jason Olsen, a Salt Lake City District spokesman, said the district’s child-nutrition department became aware that Uintah had a large number of students who owed money for lunches. 

As a result, the child-nutrition manager visited the school and decided to withhold lunches to deal with the issue, he said. 

But cafeteria workers weren’t able to see which children owed money until they had already received lunches, Olsen explained. 

The workers then took those lunches from the students and threw them away, he said, because once food is served to one student it can’t be served to another. 

Children whose lunches were taken were given milk and fruit instead.

I can in no way find away to justify what these workers did to these children.

To snatch the food right out of their hands, in front of their peers, is abusive behavior and if I were a parent of a child it had happened to I would be demanding that the person be fired immediately.

Some of you may remember the story of the principal of the charter school who lost her  job for standing up for children who were marked with a stamp as a message to their parents that their lunch accounts were empty.

What is happening to the country that adults believe that it is okay to embarrass and humiliate, not to mentions starve, children like this?

Is this the result of teachers being vilified and conservatives attacking public education at every opportunity? Or is it something else?

I swear I just don't get it.

The three R's now being taught in at least one Arkansas public school is reading, 'riting, and return fire.

Courtesy of The Star:  

When classes at Clarksville High School resume in August assistant principle Cheyne Dougan will be among the more than 20 teachers, administrators and other employees in the school district carrying concealed weapons. 

After a school shooting in Connecticut last December that left 20 children and six teachers dead, the idea of arming schoolhouses against gunmen was hotly debated across the country. 

The National Rifle Association declared it the best response to serious threats. But even in the most conservative states, most proposals faltered in the face of resistance from educators or warnings from insurance companies that schools would face higher premiums. 

Making use of a little-known Arkansas law that allows licensed, armed security guards on campus, Dougan and other teachers at the school will be considered guards. 

Why anybody would take school safety advice from a lobby that represents gun manufacturers is beyond me. You know if they had solicited advice from a lobby representing guard dog companies, every child would now be provided a German shepherd or rottweiler.

Which, by the way, would be infinitely more effective than giving old Mrs. Lundquist down the hall a Beretta, with the instructions "Don't shoot any of the kids."

However not EVERYBODY in Arkansas embraces the Wyuatt Earp  teaching model.

State officials are not blocking Clarksville’s plan, but Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell is opposed to the idea of arming teachers and staff. He prefers to hire law enforcement officers as school resource officers. 

There are other dissenters, too. Donna Morey, former president of the Arkansas Education Association, called the idea of arming teachers “awful.” The risk of a student accidentally getting shot or obtaining a gun outweighs any benefits, she said.

Gee ya think?

Well I foresee a definite upsurge in purchases of these things.

Oh yeah, that should keep the kids safe while their teachers open fire on every unfamiliar face that walks down the school hallway.

And THESE are the people we are trusting to educate our children.

I hate to say this but if your children are attending this school, or one that follows suit, I totally support your choice of placing them in a private school, or, and I can't believe I am saying this, homeschooling them.

After all being raised in ignorance beats being shot in the head by your educator any day.

Bulletproof backpacks gain popularity as American politicians do NOTHING to protect our children from gun violence.

Courtesy of God Discussion:

Producers of bullet-proof backpacks are seeing sales of their children's line of backpacks surge, Jewish News One reports. 

With gun-control reform going nowhere in Congress, a growing number of American schools and parents are encouraging children to wear bullet-proof backpacks while outside to help protect them from potential gun attacks. The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last December, in which 20 children died, has created a climate of fear that is contributing to the wider use of bullet-proof backpacks. Gun control advocates say the trend is a sad one.

I don't think I have the words to adequately express my disgust with people who would pray on the fears of parents to sell a product that clearly has no value, and CANNOT do what it is advertised to do.

There is NO way that in the middle of  a school shooting an elementary age child will have the presence of mind to defy the teacher's direction of getting down under a table, walk to their cubby, grab their bulletproof backpack and hold it in front of them to deflect incoming fire from a lunatic.

And even if they could perform those steps it will simply not work as a form of protection.

But do you know what would work? Keeping those weapons out of he hands of people how might use them to do harm to ourselves or our children.

Fewer guns mean fewer bullets. Fewer bullets mean fewer deaths. It is the kind of simple mathematical formula that you would think that most people would learn in elementary school.

Or perhaps they were too busy cowering in a corner, while hiding behind their backpacks, to pay attention to the lesson.

Ohio school board considers mandating that Creationism be taught alongside Evolution in science classrooms. Here we go again!

I find the idea of introducing Creationism into a science classroom in an effort to get students to "think critically" to be so absurd that it should not be uttered by ANYBODY living in 2013.

However this is obviously yet another attempt by those who place faith over intelligence to undermine learning in the hopes that they can keep the populace uneducated enough to buy their bullshit.

I am also once again enraged by the fact that these idiots keep misrepresenting the definition for a scientific theory, and instead mix it up, possibly on purpose, with a hypothesis. (You can read the definitions here.)

By the way Americans United has warned this Ohio school board that they are risking a lengthy court case: 

Any public school contemplating teaching creationism might as well just hang up a giant banner that reads “Sue Us Now,’” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Courts have been very clear about this: creationism is fundamentalist religion, not legitimate science, and it has no place in science classrooms.”

Don't forget that Americans United were instrumental in keeping Intelligent Design (Creationism in sheep's clothing) out of Kansas elementary schools.

Father of Newtown victim gives heartbreaking testimony as to why we need more gun control laws.

Courtesy of CBS News:  

During emotional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the father of a first grader slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School fought back tears as he stressed the need to ban weapons like the assault rifle that a gunman used to kill his son, 19 other children, and 6 educators in Newtown, Conn. 

Neil Heslin described how his son Jesse "was brutally murdered at Sandy Hook school on December 14, 20 minutes after I dropped him off." 

"He said 'It's all going to be OK'," Heslin recalled his son saying as he was dropped off at school. "And it wasn't OK." 

"Jesse was the love of my life. He was the only family I have left. It's hard for me to be here today, talking about my deceased son," Heslin said. But he added, "I have to. I'm his voice. I'm not here for the sympathy...I'm here to speak up for my son." 

"There's many changes that have to happen to make a change effective," he continued. "Mental health issues, better background checks, bans on these weapons, bans on high capacity magazines - they all have to come together and they all have to work effectively...common sense tells you that."

I have watched this testimony  about three times now but I still cannot get through it without tearing up. And I doubt that any person with any feeling of empathy toward their fellow human beings could.

Around the 5:50 mark Mr. Heslin makes a very important point about the 2nd Amendment:  

"They warn you about the 2nd Amendment. Well the 2nd Amendment says a well regulated militia. Bear arms, freedom of state...It HASN'T been well regulated. It's not being well regulated."

That is a very important observation. The 2nd Amendment may provide the right to "keep and bear arms" but it does NOT afford that right free of government regulation.

And that is all anybody is asking for here. The right to protect our babies from the fanatics who stockpile weapons and may someday use them on their fellow citizens, or worse yet, a classroom full of innocent children.

And if you don't agree with that then perhaps you need to watch Mr. Heslin's testimony again.

In the end your right to bear arms is secondary to our right to protect our children. Period!

Doing it right, Pennsylvania Gun Show bans assault weapons.

Courtesy of TPM:  

With the debate over gun control raging in Washington, the organizers of a major gun show in Harrisburg, Penn., have banned assault weapons at their February event, Lancaster Online reports. 

The organizer of the annual Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in Harrisburg apparently is banning so-called assault weapons from this year's show. 

Reed Exhibitions has informed some exhibitors -- including Kinsey's Outdoors in Mount Joy and The Sportsman's Shop in New Holland, representatives of both stores said -- that AR-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines capable of holding 30 rounds or more may not be sold or displayed at the show, scheduled for Feb. 2-10 at the State Farm Show Complex on Cameron Street.

Nice to see that SOME people are getting the message and making changes.

However as you would expect not everybody is so quick to recognize the writing on the wall.

This from Think Progress:

A small Wisconsin town school board will vote Monday night on whether or not to grant the Indianhead Rifle and Pistol Club access to the local elementary school this April for its annual gun show. 

Spooner Elementary School has hosted the show without much objection for the last two decades. But less than a month after the mass shooting at Newtown elementary school that claimed the lives of 20 first graders and 7 others, some community members are raising objections to the idea of welcoming hundreds of guns and gun owners into a public elementary school. 

Tim Brabec, a member of the club and organizer of their annual gun show, told ThinkProgress that the decision to use the elementary school is one of convenience. 

“Who doesn’t have sympathy with the families in [Connecticut]?” said Brabec when asked about whether the visual of a gun show at an elementary school was appropriate so soon after the deadly shooting in Newtown. “But we don’t associate one with the other. We don’t go there for the shock value.” 

Shock was but one reaction to the news that the town was considering granting the show permission to use the school. “I do not agree with it at all,” said one commenter online. “I was shocked to hear about it last year, and can’t believe they would even consider it this year after the shooting in CT.”

Personally I find this almost impossible to digest, considering the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, and that the type of weapons used there may be on sale in this place that used to be the very definition of a safe place for children.

In other news today the parents of Newtown, Connecticut announced the organization of violence prevention effort:    

Nelba Marquez-Greene put her two children on the school bus on the morning of Dec. 14. Only one came home. Nicole Hockley still finds herself reaching for her son’s hand in parking lots, or expects “him to crawl into my bed for early-morning cuddles before school.” 

“It’s so hard to believe he’s gone,” she said. 

The grieving mothers and other parents and relatives of victims killed in the Dec. 14 elementary school massacre gathered here at a news conference on Monday to help begin a campaign intended to prevent the kind of bloodshed that has turned this quiet New England community into a national symbol of grief. 

In some of their first public statements since the shooting, which killed 20 children and 6 staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the families of 11 of the victims called for a national dialogue on issues of mental health, school safety and what their nonprofit group, called Sandy Hook Promise, described as “gun responsibility.”

You know perhaps the people thinking of holding that gun show in Wisconsin would like to see the autopsy pictures of these poor innocent victims in Connecticut.

Perhaps THAT would provide some context for them so that they could come to understand that these weapons are not simply for show, or target practicing, or making a pansy ass feel like a real man. They are for killing, in a way that tears human bodies into chunks of meat and rips loved one out of the arms of their families forever.

Just a thought.

Nothing says "freedom" like armed guards and metal detectors.

You know I worked in a school for troubled kids that was much like the one pictured in this cartoon.

There was not a lot of educating going on there, and the behaviors increased to match their prison like environment.

Our children deserve better.