thoughts & prayers
Enough with the thoughts and prayers, already. What's the world come to, that "thoughts and prayers" just make everyone angry?I work at various high schools and middle schools in a small town in New Mexico. Traditionally, guns have always been everywhere, but people knew how to use them, and the kids in the picture weren't really at risk for this kind of thing. Nowadays, I don't feel safe. I feel like every school is a target, and every kid has access to as many guns as they want, and lots of them are mentally unstable. We could not put armed guards or metal detectors at every door. Even the kids, who generally spend as much time on their phones as they can, are a little nervous about this; it could happen to them too.
The question really is whether your right to have a gun includes the right to bring an arsenal or an assault weapon into any elementary school or venue. To me it doesn't. You can't bring a bomb either. If you are carrying something around to "protect yourself" why does it have to be something that kills so many people?
There is an undercurrent of arming for race war in this country. Trump and the shrill arm-yourself lobby have ensured that most folks are armed to the teeth, and they are hostile and suspicious of each other. For the mentally unstable, it's a minefield, and they, too, are armed to the teeth. Schools are as likely as any place. If you're angry at the world, it might have started in the school.
But the problem is, most of us had to go to school. The private "option" is only available to the people who can spare time off work, or who have the time to figure out what they're doing. Most of us still rely on the public schools and resent Trump's undercutting of the system and taking money away from people who need it most. But if we put armed guards and metal detectors at every door, that will really undercut the system. Nothing like a five-billion-dollar security project to ensure that we fight over who gets fed, who gets educated, and who gets health care for decades to come.
And all because we're unwilling to keep track of assault weapons? Or arsenals? We want to prevent our police from knowing who's got one, or who's taking it into the elementary school? I think the gun control lobby has eased up on the right to have a gun in one's home. I'm wondering how that translates into the right to bring an arsenal into any school.
OK I get it. Somebody's making big money from every shooting. More guns are sold, more members of the NRA, more dollars floating around. It's actually in people's interest that random violence makes everyone afraid. Somebody's very rich, and very happy, and not especially upset about random deaths.
In this case, making the good guys win means making it safe to go to school.
posted by tom @ 9:46 PM
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