Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

sure, sure, take your time

NEW: Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) says gun control measures would likely not be taken up until after Senate Memorial Day recess

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) May 25, 2022

this country hates children and makes no effort to hide it.

was working in a primary school when sandy hook happened. they had us do a lot of extra trainings and stuff, obviously. it ranged from light self defense and hiding to how to talk to the kids if it came up.

the synopsis is basically: nobody thinks it will happen to them.

(and then when it does: jeez, sucks for those parents. we're prepared at my school.)

in the weeks after sandy hook, a group of students started a "library group" at recess and i was of course happy to accommodate. turns out, the group of kids was scared to be outside and even more defenseless than usual and going to recess was giving them nightmares. another group of "troublemakers" (i.e. otherwise great kids that had some ongoing behavior issues) started ditching school to canvas the neighborhood for suspicious people so they could then run to school and warn everyone. these were all fifth graders: between 9 and 11 years old.

maybe stating the obvious, but we're creating generations upon generations of children riddled with ptsd and we're doing absolutely fucking nothing to prevent, mitigate, or even acknowledge that it's happening.

i would have traded places with any of those kids in texas yesterday.

Yeah can we please quarantine the fantasist LARPing to a more appropriate thread. Plenty of us are suffering under the yoke of violence. That’s zero reason to assume an outbreak of increased violence will improve anything, at all. Especially when you consider how much of our body politic lives on corporate-controlled social media now which basically exists to inflame divisions. /rant

I have an appointment with an immigration lawyer in the country of my choice booked for Monday morning. I've been thinking about leaving for years and a number of factors have combined to convince me it's no longer worth waiting. Nothing is going to improve. In fact, things are likely to get substantially worse. Did you know that subsidies for health insurance are going to be allowed to expire? That means that if, like me, you have an Obamacare plan where the monthly payment is $1100 but the government pays $900 of it, it's about to go to the full $1100 by year's end.

Oh yeah I’m also actively planning my getaway (back to China) even as I take breaks to crap up this discussion.

I've thought more and more about what options I have either for relocating somewhere else in the US other than Texas or leaving altogether. It's something I really don't want to do, I'm happy where I am, and I don't know what would be a decent alternative. But I also don't want to wait it out until actual armed brownshirts are roaming the streets. It seems absurdly farfetched, but combining theocratic laws that encourage vigilante responses with massive weapons stockpiling does not leave me feeling particular secure and safe here.

one other reason attacks in schools have been allowed to slide is that the right also hates public schools and sees it as a positive that people don't feel safe sending their children there

^bingo. hate to attribute some 4-D chess to these bags of pus but I mean goddam

Intersectionality isn’t exactly 4D chess, and there is negative intersectionality just as well as positive. The military-industrial complex has been an open secret for yonks, and you can go back to the Powell memo of 1971 to see how they explicitly named schools, courts, and the media as their main targets for capture.

“Capture”, or elimination failing that presumably.

they hate schools bc they see schools as places for nerds and they are insecure & dont like things that make them feel dumb, no more complicated than that

Reminder that active shooter drills are especially worthless now because the war on elementary schoolers has been going on for long enough that the active shooters also went through active shooter drills

— moby dickgirl (@epistemophagy) May 25, 2022

xpost

Yes no doubt we can dumb any issue down to some basic insecurity on the other side’s fault. Here is an actual statement quoted in the memo I just cited though:

“Yale, like every other major college, is graduating scores of bright young men who are practitioners of ‘the politics of despair.’ These young men despise the American political and economic system . . . (their) minds seem to be wholly closed. They live, not by rational discussion, but by mindless slogans.”A recent poll of students on 12 representative campuses reported that: “Almost half the students favored socialization of basic U.S. industries.”

“fault” = part, I think. You know what I was getting at heh.

It is depressing to me to read respondent surveys about "why do school shootings occur?" and seeing that barely half of respondents in these studies cite "it is easy for them to get a gun" as being a contributing factor.

it’s the horror twin powers of “zomg woke globo indoctrination, teaching our kids slavery was bad!” of the hoopleheads and the death drive to privatize financialize and gamify literally every single aspect of our existence, courtesy of the multi-millionaire and + class and their handmaidens in both parties, activating

Speaking to a dozen senators this morning, it’s clear that the right to buy assault-style weapons will be protected by this Congress, and that many republicans have no intention of supporting any federal measures at all in response to this school shooting.

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 25, 2022

i'm shocked.

well, not that shocked

firearm manufacturers must be doing gangbusters on the Street today, bless

Had the rare opportunity to walk my son (the exact same age as most of those kids form yesterday) to school this morning, so we were talking a little about this because he'd already heard snippets from older kids at an after school activity yesterday. After we were both quiet for a little bit he goes, "it sucks that school is probably the least safe place for me to be". I didn't even know what to say in response to that, just hugged him extra tight.

I fucking hate this miserable country.

maybe they can send out mental health tests like the free covid tests

jon that's awful

Somebody made the comment yesterday about holding classes at the airport... a joke, but jesus at least they don't let armed nutcases in there

I have a feeling the gun lobby is working on that too.

never stopped madison cawthorn

so when would you guys say the war against children began in this country?

The second they're forced out of the womb.

I mean ...

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15909630/2022/05/snapshot-1-6.jpg

I just did a quick check of several publicly traded gun and ammo companies, and you will all be glad to know that their stocks are taking a beating.

Ha, no, just kidding. They are up by 5 to 10%.

I was going to say, it's been pretty continuous in America for black, brown and poor children. The willingness to also sacrifice white, middle class kids to make sure they can keep their guns is new within the last two decades I would say.

and now the demonic cabal of globalist hollywood democrats are doing their bit

to viborg's point upthread:

Tragedies Like The Texas Shooting Make A Somber Case For Homeschoolinghttps://t.co/yXCXcz28Qj

— The Federalist (@FDRLST) May 25, 2022

(not that I clicked the link mind you)

just . . . your post about your son, jon. thank you for sharing. it's necessary to hear those kinds of things, even when they hurt to hear. kids (especially now) are smarter than they'll ever be given credit for. and they just get continually berated and abused for it.

what they want is religious school for people who are rich and/or white and nothing for everyone else

Set the clock back to 1750.

Beto O'Rourke confronts Abbott and Texas Republicans during press conference after Texas tragedy. "You're a sick son of a bitch," a man yells at O'Rourke. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick later says there will be "plenty of time" to assess what needs to be done pic.twitter.com/GxVDVbkyMb

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 25, 2022

lol @ Ted Cruz not moving a facial muscle.

call it grandstanding, but he got more time up in Abbott's face than anyone else could. A normal person would be dragged away immediately and booed by the audience. it takes bravery to stand up a bunch of white supremacists

I hope Beto had COVID and passed it to Abbott.

Wish he had an IED strapped to him.

Sorry, this shit is just enraging.

After Parkland, @SenRickScott & a GOP-led state leg-- not usually candidates for a profile in courage award-- passed a red flag law + raised the age of purchase to 21. Nobody paid a price. A more instructive case study for Dems than ballot initiatives. https://t.co/DQDihLnCQE

— Carlos Odio (@carlosodio) May 25, 2022

xp I had the same thought tbh

I might be wrong but I think the man swearing about not making this political is the mayor of Uvalde, a past Tucker Carlson guest: https://www.uvaldeleadernews.com/articles/mayor-returns-to-national-tv-to-decry-illegal-immigration/

earth was a mistake.

sorry i'm so incensed by this i forgot to make that a link.

earth was a mistake.

suddenly, i remembered the existence of the 1994 tv show Earth 2

xp

That’s a real Boss Hogg-style line reading on “You’re a sick son of a bitch.” It’s going to stick with me.

quick question, why does Abbott wear lone ranger style shirts all the time? I didn't realize there was a gubernatorial uniform

I recognize that flavor of angry white upstanding citizen energy, and it makes my blood run cold. Impressed by Beto, who surely realized there was a very good chance he'd get his ass kicked or get shot by doing that.

I'm glad he ruined their fake ass solemn photo-op

Good on Beto. Harness that anger.