Cowardly "Bonespurs" Hides, While Courageous Kids Marched for Their Lives - An Assessment Of Saturday's Events

"WAAGH! I can't handle facing a million kids when they know I bent over for the NRA"



An "officially" estimated throng of 800,000 kids  (I estimated closer to a million) marched in Washington, D.C. Saturday as our fearless,  would -be leader Donnie Dotard, aka  "Captain Bonespurs",  hightailed it out of town to Mar-A-Lago. There we presume he could hide and perhaps ponder Stormy Daniels dishing on him in a 60 Minutes segment. .So as the students gathered, Trump was whisked by motorcade to his West Palm Beach golf club where he later tweeted support for “the victims of the horrible attack in France yesterday” (sic).  But the imp never once mentioned the rallies on Twitter.

Of course, this was a deliberate, trademark (and transparent)  Trump dodge : an expedient excuse to avoid giving any acknowledgement or respect to the student marchers in D.C. -   given he'd long since bent over for the NRA. This after a meeting in the White House when he was all bravado about "not being afraid of the NRA".  As for the tweet to "support the victims in France" let's get real. This degenerate filth cares no more about them than he cared about the dead Syrian kids from a toxic gas attack last year. He merely used it to posture-  releasing a benign cruise missile attack on a Syrian base - to impress his guest, China's President Xi at Mar-a-Lago. But this is what  he knows best how to do, just as he's used the French attack as an excuse to avoid mentioning the 'March For Our Lives.'

The NRA also predictably stayed silent  (except for a pair of burps by resident hacks on NRA-TV, see below) on the student presence and passionate speeches, prompting MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews to refer to it as their typical M.O.  "They wait until all the activity has died down and then show up a few weeks later when all is quiet."   He asked a  Parkland student nearby how one might "flush them out" in real time, but the student noted the only solution is to vote out their lackeys and puppets.

 Outside the FBI headquarters in Washington, about 30  misguided gun-rights supporters staged a 'counter-demonstration" standing quietly with signs such as ‘"Armed victims live longer” and ‘Stop violating civil rights’.  Both of which are a crock  Armed victims would be just as dead going up against an active shooter with an AR-15  unless they also had ARs, and preferably SWAT training.  Civil rights aren't being violated either. No one has any intention of taking anyone's rightfully allowed, and owned guns away, only getting rid of military style weapons which aren't protected by the 2nd amendment anyway, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/sorry-you-have-no-constitutional-right.html


In one of the first speeches, Marjory Stoneman Douglas senior Delaney Tarr told the crowd of the students’ demands, including background checks and a ban on assault weapons.

“When you give us an inch, that bump stocks ban, we will take a mile. We are not here for breadcrumbs, we are here to lead.”

Parkland student Jordan Khayyami, 15, said: “I think that legislatures should be aware that the next generation of voters is right in front of them so if they don’t want to promote change then we will vote for change.”

And give the student march organizers due credit for setting up voter registration booths, to prepare as many 18-year olds and others eligible to vote this year as possible.

The scenes of thousands of students on the streets was overwhelming to many of the victims of gun violence who attended . Mark Barden, whose seven-year-old son Daniel was one of the 20 children murdered at Sandy Hook in 2012, told a reporter from the UK Gaurdian:

“I did not expect this. I’m still astounded,. To me, it looks like our entire nation is finally on board, on the right side of this issue. It’s so inspiring and encouraging and overwhelming, and beautiful to me.”

Barden has spent five years pushing for stricter gun control laws, first with the support of Barack Obama’s White House, then continuing when  gun control again dropped off the national agenda.

At the same time in New York, Paul McCartney stood in solidarity with marchers in Central Park and referred to fellow Beatle John Lennon’s fatal shooting outside his apartment building in 1980.  He told CNN:

 “One of my best friends was killed by gun violence right around here, so it’s important to me not just to march today but to take action tomorrow and to have these people to have their voices heard,"

Meanwhile, the pundits at FOX News were complaining that one of the Parkland parents,  Andrew  "I'm really pissed!" Pollack, had not been invited to speak to the throng on Saturday. Pollack, the father of  one of the victims (Meadow),  had broken off with the student activist contingent with his own ideas (voiced at a WH meet with Trump a month ago) about school security. In the CBS documentary '39 Days'  on the evolution of the  #Never Again movement, Pollack said  that while he wished the students "the best" he believed they were "wasting their  time" with gun control. This is incredibly defeatist given the movement has already played a major role in getting the first significant gun legislation passed in Florida in 20 years, enticing Oregon and Rhode Island to tighten gun restrictions, getting giant retailers like Dick's Sporting Goods to stop selling assault type rifles and long time corporate partners ending their relationships with the NRA.

The movement obviously hasn't yet achieved its primary goal - a ban on all military- style weapons- but give them time. They are playing the long game which Pollack ought to appreciate.

What then is Andrew Pollack's solution? He prefers outfitting schools like security fortresses or airports,  with special electrified gates, metal detectors, and so on  - which is plain nuts.

As one of the most passionate student speakers, Edna Chavez, 17, from Manual Arts high school in Los Angeles, declared:

"Security systems and electric barricades won't work! Metal detectors won't work! These will just criminalize students!"

She observed it will be mainly the "black and brown skinned students" singled out. Thus, it was a good idea not to  have Pollack speak, which would basically dilute and divide the message. I also believe he wouldn't want to speak because he grasped it would be like a wrong note sounding in a symphony. When he comes around, as I believe he eventually will, then he can put in his two cents and join Delaney Tarr, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, Emma  Gonzalez et al in a righteous movement that has a hell of a lot more chance succeeding than turning all our public schools into gated, high security "Super Max" prisons. (Bear in mind when you lock out bad guys you also lock in good kids.)

Then there is the other clueless NRA tool making the talk show rounds on behalf of the gunrunners and 2nd amendment phonies. That would be Kyle Kashuv, e.g.

Who actually tweeted the following ding on his fellow Parkland  students:

No one's feelings are hurt by a group of people who Don't have a basic understanding of US case law and are fighting to get existing laws passed.

Which is total balderdash.

In fact it's Kashuv who lacks a basic understanding of U.S. case law pertaining to the 2nd amendment given he is blissfully unaware there is NO  "existing law" that currently bans military grade weapons like the AR-15 which is one of the provisions his classmates want passed.

Nor is he aware of the D..C. vs. Heller  Supreme Court decision that clearly does not include ownership of  such weapons as a  2nd amendment right, see e.g. the previous link.

As conservative Joe Scarborough put it regarding those unaware of the Heller ruling:

Go back and read Heller, 2008, what Scalia and the Supreme Court said. You're right, you can have handguns in your home, and shotguns to protect your family. But the court has allowed states  - like Maryland (2017)  to ban assault style weapons.  They let this and other laws stand   - without challenge - as constitutional ."

Adding:

If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says.

Of course, Janice has a more succinct take: "He's not articulate! He just knows how to parrot what his parents told him about guns and the NRA. Big deal!"   Ouch!

Clearly, Kashuv's classmates are vastly more in tune with the actual 2nd amendment and its limits than he is. (Which is also why I suggest here the kids also demand: a) stricter gun licensing laws such as Massachusetts, which require not only passing a state -approved gun safety course first, but also being licensed - as one would if getting a car - as well as fingerprinted, and b) abolition of all state "concealed carry" laws -  which new research - reported in the latest TIME with Parkland kids on the cover-  see 13- 15 percent increased homicides within 10 years of being enacted.)

 As for Kashuv's latest prominence, hey, it was inevitable!  He realized quickly that his contrarian and conservative stance is a terrific way to grab center stage on gun issues - separating himself relative to the Parkland activists. This gets him the limelight on sundry cable shows, and even a special one- on -one with Trump in the Oval Office. Oh yeah, and with Melania too. ("Gee, she was just so maternal!") After all,  the mostly clueless media is clearly eager for "balance" and here's a willing tool...errr...kid, to provide it. What's not to like? Plus he's become as big a "hero" to the righties as Blaine Gaskill.

 Hell, the kid's  singular PR "pro-gun" profile especially  works if  one day he might be looking to replace Dana Loesch as the main voice for the biggest gun lobby in the world. Just sayin'.

Loesch herself reprised her role as the heartless harpy  (as before in the CNN town hall)  when she insisted - on NRA -TV   - that the marching students were willing pawns for a "PR stunt". Well, if anyone knows PR stunts it is certainly "the beet juice lady", and maybe she could teach some of her tactics to Kashuv as her willing understudy.

Then there was the NRA's token black man, also appearing on NRA-TV,  who goes under the pseudonym, "Colion Noir" (real name: Collins Iyare Idehen Jr.) He thought he was brilliant by lashing the Parkland kids as hypocrites, e.g.:

"They hate machines that cause death except, hold on, you ain't never gonna take their cars away."

A totally imbecilic accusation that mixes apples and oranges given that cars are machines designed expressly for transport that may (in the case of accidents) incidentally result in death. Whereas military grade rifles like the AR-15 are specifically designed for mass death -- which is why they were once considered as replacements for the M-16 in Vietnam. (The M-16, as shown in the Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam War, often jammed.)

Our "brilliant" TV star Collins also failed to note that - according to the Harvard School of Public Health - it's easier to get an AR-15 than to get a license to drive a car.

"Noir" further babbled over the NRA's  airwaves:

"To all the kids from Parkland getting ready to use your first amendment rights to attack everyone else's second amendment rights at your march..."

Forgetting that the kids from Parkland were not attacking anyone's "second amendment rights". They were proposing reasonable curbs using universal background checks - which 90 percent of Americans support, limiting high capacity magazines, and banning military -grade rifles like the AR-15 which are NOT protected under the 2nd amendment, again by way of the D.C. vs. Heller SC ruling. 

He also went on to yap:

"I wish a hero like Blaine Gaskill had been at Marjory Douglas High School last month because your classmates would still be alive. And no one would know your names because the media would have utterly ignored your story."

Which is total rubbish that I already skewered in  a prior post:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/03/sorry-nra-guntards-md-school-shooting.html

In fact, the most likely outcome - had Gaskill tried the same tactic at Stoneman Douglas - is that even more kids would have been killed, most likely as collateral damage from misfires out of Gaskill's gun. There's also a high probability Gaskill himself would have ended up a statistic.

As for Andrew Pollack, I don't believe he's actually a right wing gun zealot,(though he's appeared with Kyle Kashuv on a number of cable shows) just a desperate  father seeking solutions.  I just hope he eventually grasps that converting each school into a mini-Supermax is not a solution. It never will be, any more than arming teachers. See e.g.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/kali-holloway/77917/is-the-armed-teacher-debate-americas-lowest-stupidest-media-moment


Even as scenes of the student march played out, The Denver Post Saturday edition featured two articles of note including one that cited these AP poll results (p. 10 A):

- 7 in 10 Americans want a nationwide ban on bump stocks

- 6 in 10 Americans demand a nationwide ban on Ar-15 style rifles

The same piece quoted a 50 year old Miramar FL gun owner, John Karnosh, who expressed dismay so little change has come about since Columbine, adding (ibid.):

"I see what these kids are doing. If anyone can drive a movement for change, these kids will do it."

One page later, there appeared an article on CDC findings pertaining to gun deaths, in which we learned:

- 26,000 deaths of children (under the age of 18) killed by guns from 1999- 2016

- Among the world's wealthy nations the U.S. accounts for 91 percent of all firearm deaths of children under age 15

- Factor in as well, 1, 678 children under 5 years of age killed between 1999- 2016

- The preceding include 184 infants, under one year old,  223 1-year olds, and 294 two year olds.

As Maryland student Matt Post put in an interview on 'AM Joy' yesterday morning:

"Is your love of these guns really worth all the carnage they've caused?"

 There is something seriously wrong with any nation bearing these stats. It leads me to quote a former soldier (Army sergeant)  who had a letter published in the local Indie paper after the Parkland massacre. Paraphrasing his words:

"Okay, let's say the military-  style weapons are not the cause of the mass shootings. But we have to at least admit they are the means.  So let's deal with controlling the means right now and we will deal with the cause later."

In other words, cease the endless back and forth about  the 2nd amendment  - when it emphatically excludes owning military style rifles as a special right.  So, we ban these weapons like the UK did after the Dunblane (Scotland)  massacre, and Australia did after their Port Arthur massacre. (Note: it is true these weapons are responsible for only 5 percent of all homicides, but given each mass murder event is the de facto equivalent of a terror attack - and indeed instills terror - it is not overreach to ban these rifles.)

It's time this nation take similar steps now. The previous stats cited are a blight not only on our history but on our people and their understanding of the Second Amendment and the nature of rights.  Which entail responsibilities as well as the exercise of limited rights.

I suspect it also means the gunnies cease "wearing their guns on their sleeves" to use Denver Post editor Chuck Plunkett's phrase from his column yesterday.  What Plunkett was arguing for is altering one's identity in the use of guns - especially long rifles - to what it was a generation ago, i.e.

"If you went hunting you were praised for how few rounds you used to bring down a wild turkey, not how many."

Indeed. And if you used more you'd be encouraged to take up a different pastime.  But as he also notes, in today's warped cultural environment everything is based on excess  and worse for 2nd amendment absolutists this excess becomes a matter of identity, e.g.

"Gun ownership has become a religion, it's in our faces everywhere, on hats, T-shirts, bumper stickers, flags and social media profiles."

This is what the student movement's leaders must grasp: they are facing not only recalcitrant politicians - who btw are more terrified of the voting power of NRA members than the money they receive or don't- but also those afflicted with the gun identity syndrome.

The students have to figure out how to break that tribal identity connection to guns, especially the military assault variety. One recent letter writer to The Colorado Springs Independent  proposed the following quirky solution predicated on diluting the hyper-macho B.S. associated with gun ownership, especially of assault weapons:

https://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/reader-a-proposal-to-stem-gun-violence-without-taking-away-anyones-second-amendment-rights/Content?oid=10816601


Somehow, I don't believe coloring all these rifles pink will quite work. Anyway these kids are energized and organizing a call for Town Halls on April 7, as well as another mass walkout on April 20th and an ongoing voter registration campaign.  

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gary-leupp/78329/the-children-s-crusade-against-early-death-by-school-shootings

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/henry-giroux/78344/education-as-a-weapon-of-struggle-rethinking-the-parkland-uprising-in-the-age-of-mass-violence

Seriously? WSJ's McGurn Attacks Stoneman Douglas #Never Again Students

It was bad enough some months ago when WSJ columnist William McGurn was attacking Special Prosecutor Bob Mueller in his Main Street column ('Bob Mueller's sideshow, Oct. 31, p. A15.).  Mr. Mueller is a big guy and fearless prosecutor who can take care of himself (He also may want to check out McGurn's role in journalistic obstruction of justice on behalf of Donnie Dotard for consistently spinning bunkum on the Russia probe..)

Now, however, McGurn has come after the Parkland FL kids for their bravery and activism in confronting the maggots of the NRA. ('Our Childish Gun Debate', Feb. 28, p. A15)  McGurn began his attack  and I don't mince words - that's what I call denigrating the credibility of survivors and  activist students attempting to change the gun dynamic-  by defending the NRA's new queen of spin, Dana Loesch. This was when she - and fellow NRA slush fund taker Marco Rubio - appeared at a CNN Town Hall in Parkland.

The students singled out for McGurn's initial attacks were not named, but were identified by the questions asked one or both of the NRA tools, e.g.

A freshman had asked Loesch:

"Was the blood of my classmates and my teachers worth your blood money?"

And:

One Junior who survived the shooting dared to tell Rubio:

"When I look at you it's  difficult not to see Nikolas Cruz."

Let's take each of these in turn, and process they are coming from students at the school   who either lost classmates in the massacre   or survived themselves. This confers on their words special gravitas and meaning not available to anyone not there..  Given Loesch's role as a PR front person and spin meister, whose main job is to tamp down outrage by shifting blame - the freshman's question was totally justified. Hell, I would've asked it had I been in the frosh's place!

So also was the statement of the shooting  survivor at Rubio.  Given all Rubio has done is support AR-15 purchases in Florida, why would a victim not see Cruz in him, especially a traumatized victim?

Then Sheriff Scott Israel took fire because "he pointed fingers at everyone but himself".  Nope, he pointed them mainly at the gun sellers, the NRA (who prepped the AR ad "You are now issued your man card!")  and the ease with which a murderous assault weapon like the AR-15  could be purchased in his state and by someone as young as 18.

Anyway, McGurn concludes from this that the current debate in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting is "guided by two broad principles":

1) The idea that the most important thing is to "do something".

2) That we ought to look to high schoolers for the answers.

Notice that no account is take whatsoever of the sophistication or knowledge level of these "high schoolers" which is arguably surpassing that of most adult Americans (generally found to read at about the 6th grade level if they read at all.)

McGurn then rubs rhetorical salt into the wounds when he continues:

"Quick show of hands: How may of you look to your teens for political wisdom? Say whether it's that daughter obsessing over Snapchat streaks or the son spending his days eating Doritos and binge- gaming 'Grand Theft Auto'"

But see, he's conflating the politically adept and savvy Parkland students with the knuckle dragging trolls who have attacked them  as "crisis actors."  THOSE are the sorry lot ensconced in their parents' basements munching Doritos and swigging Mountain Dew while they rape fifty virtual women on Grand Theft Auto.

Then McGurn goes from frying pan into fire when he  writes this codswallop about the Stonemn students:

"As terrible as their experiences were, the attack gives  them no special insight into the complex array of public policies that might have prevented the disaster.".

On the contrary, their experience -  especially the immediate survivors - gives them the deepest insight into exactly what the primary cause of the slaughter was: the too easy access and wide availability of the AR-15 and other assault weapons. The key factor- after you subtract the psychos, the background checks, the waiting times and all other secondary issues - is always the lethal weapons. Just ask Scotland after the Dunblane massacre  and Australia after the Port Arthur massacre -  both occurring in 1996.

In each case, the nation in question immediately could cut through the clutter and dross and see that the overwhelming factor was the weapon. Control the weapon and you control the carnage This is not rocket science.   Those Parkland students then, contrary to McGurn's spin,  have the most intimate insights into the events and from that know exactly what needs to be done:banning all assault rifles nationally like Maryland did last year at state level.

McGurn's most offensive and egregious spin came next when he appeared to put down the Rightist loons who were "missing the point' by accusing the students of being "actors" or using "scripted" remarks, i.e.presumably handed them by real liberal anti-gun activists. He wrote:

"These teens do not need to be scripted. Their youth and earnestness makes it all but impossible for any counter argument without looking indifferent to the horror  these kids have been through. If you don't agree with what they want they seem to suggest you are OK with mass shootings."

So McGurn damns them with a kind of faint praise (or fake pity) on account of their "violent experience", But he  also suggests no argument can be made against them because -  they have too much sympathy?!  This is a cop out only a toad like McGurn could make, especially when he actually followed it up by the earlier quoted BS, e.g. "Quick show of hands...how many of you look to teens for political advice etc."

In other words, McGurn isn't the least bit phased by the "earnestness" of the #NeverAgain students.  He just finds their arguments too intense, real and unchallengeable for his liking, so better to first suggest there are no counters that can be advanced, and second...hell they're mostly just teens playing video games and stuffing their faces with Doritos in their parents' basements - so why take advice from them? Transl. Why take their movement seriously at all, it could well as be a Tide pods eating contest. Besides it won't last. (Which is the take of way too many adults).

Disgusting, and the students themselves ought to be enraged  by this display of yellow op-ed journalism as well. But hey, for McGurn it's par for the course - especially when he's raging about how many fetuses need to be saved. (But evidently he doesn't care too much about the already born).

At the end, McGurn tries to turn the tables on all progressive opponents of these weapons by citing a Guardian UK writer (a "liberal",  of course) who:

"conceded she was shocked by how little evidence there was behind gun control policies."

But  he (and she)  may have missed the memo that there's a good reason for "little evidence" in circulation.. It has to do with the N.R.A.-backed Dickey Amendment, which was passed in 1996- named for the congress critter  who sponsored it, former Representative Jay Dickey, an Arkansas Republican..

It reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”. In other words, actual research was to be suppressed in the interest of the NRA gun lobby and culture.  Reinforcing this, reporter Sam Roberts wrote last year in The Times, that the legislation “stripped $2.6 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the precise amount budgeted for a study of the health effects of shootings.”

Had the Guardian liberal reporter not been hobbled and blinded by this reason for deficient information she'd have learned of a CDC finding from the early 90s that there are three times more homicides in families that own  guns than those that don't.

In the meantime, William McGurn at the very least owes those students at Stoneman an apology for the disparaging and vile way he put them down.

On the positive side of the news, Dick's Sporting Goods stores have now ceased all sales of assault style rifles.  On the negative side, we learned this a.m. (CBS) the guntards are again freaking out that their precious kill weapons will be seized so sales of AR-15s have now increased by threefold since the Parkland FLA shooting.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/miles-mogulescu/77940/gun-control-legislation-is-constitutional

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jan-dizard/77939/prayers-and-sensible-gun-regulations

Excerpt:

Let's be honest with one another. The sensible thing to do is to ban the private possession of high capacity, semi-automatic assault weapons and high capacity semi-automatic pistols. Ban new sales and launch an aggressive program to buy back these guns. The deranged 19 year old who killed seventeen people did so in four minutes, getting off at least 100 hundred rounds. These weapons have no place in civil society. They are designed to inflict maximum damage to an enemy--they need to be restricted to the military and law enforcement personnel. Banning them won't stop suicides or "ordinary" homicides but experience shows that a ban will make mass shootings rare and less lethal.

I'm an avid bird hunter and have several shotguns, a couple of deer rifles, and a couple of handguns. I enjoy target shooting with friends. I am not anti-gun. But I am appalled by the NRA's and Republican allies' refusal to get assault weapons off the street. Sure, it's about mental illness but it's also about the GUN.

Easy access to these weapons of mass murder have nothing to do with insuring our freedom. In fact, they make us less free. The mass shootings of the past decade have blighted a generation of youngsters who have had to endure active shooter drills. When I was a kid, fire drills were occasions of levity, almost as good as recess. Ask yourself in which nation do school children feel freer from the specter of mass murder: Denmark or England or the U.S.?

Teacher Who Cracked Up In GA Again Shows The Lunacy Of Arming Teachers. DOH!

Teacher Randal Davidson cracked up yesterday, firing a shot from his .38 and sending panicked students running through hallways

It really ought to be a no brainer not to add nearly a million guns to our schools to address the  problem of active shooters with high powered AR-15s or similar assault style weapons. But we've seen the gunnies, or guntards, are incapable of thinking things through. Up to now they haven't even spelled out just how their teacher hero fantasies will play out in RL. I.e. Teacher in her classroom, armed only with a concealed handgun, is suddenly confronted by an active shooter with an AR-15 firing 30 rounds a minute at 2800 feet per second.  Exactly how does she bring the killer down, especially after the rounds have already taken the legs, heads, arms, faces off a half dozen kids and each semi-automatic round is like a "knife stabbing you in the ear" - the sound is so unbelievably ear splitting.  This from former CIA security specialist Malcolm Nance.  I guess the guntards will suggest she just nicely ask: "Uh, sonny, could you please stand still and put that AR down so I can get a few rounds off? Huh? Pretty please?"

But let's leave that question which obviously is too difficult for them, because it requires logical and strategic thinking including actually analyzing the  real time scenario without stuffing in NRA bullshit. (Like from top spin queen, Dana Loesch).  The real issue here is they fail to appreciate: a) teachers are humans with limitations, addictions, mental problems just like everyone else, and b) teachers can and will go haywire from time to time - with the potential of becoming active shooters themselves.

The case in point occurred yesterday with teacher Randal Davidson suddenly having a breakdown at Dalton High, 91 miles north of Atlanta.  Though weapons are not allowed in the school, this former "top teacher" smuggled in a snub nose .38 and let fire at least one round sending students scampering for safety. The bullet went through a window of his classroom, where he had hunkered down, and then outside. Any student passing could have been shot but fortunately that didn't happen. 

Officers arriving on the scene evacuated and then secured the areas. Davidson was later arrested and charged with aggravated assault, carrying a weapon on school grounds, terroristic threats, reckless conduct, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and disrupting a public school.

He had apparently been teaching at the school since 2004, and in 2012 was recognized as the school's top teacher. 

I point this out to show even the best teachers, apparently mentally sound - can crack up and then, who knows what? Who's to say some future teacher, at the end of his or her tether, won't bring a Glock 9mm to their school and - after breaking down - erupt with multiple rounds fired, even killing students. This is not a wayward fantasy either, though the guntards might try to portray it so.

The fact is that teachers in today's American classrooms are under enormous pressure, and working - slaving in a profession that's barely given any respect at all.  Imagine then the added pressure of being given the power of life and death and then having to use a limited handgun against a likely AR-15 active shooter. Oh sure, the gunnies are quick to cite all the states that already allow teachers to have guns in their possession -  like here in Colorado- but the true fact is none of those teachers have really been put to the test yet. 

By that I mean they haven't had to face an active shooter barging into their classroom firing rapid rounds with thunderous, ear splitting noise and taking off limbs with  efficiency of a military kill machine And one wonders if any of those teachers have even observed the nature of wounds left by an AR-15 which one doc in Parkland FLA described as "organs looking like they been smashed with sledge hammers".

That't the next thing the guntards who hype this BS won't tell you:  an AR round passes through a human body in tumbling fashion - the better to damage and destroy as much tissue as possible. This being distinct from a regular handgun - or even a Glock - which round passes through in linear trajectory (no tumble) from point A to B so there's a chance it will enter and then exit cleanly. 

The other unstated aspect is now teachers are also falling to the opioid epidemic and this was presented in the recent TIME issue headed 'The Opioid Diaries'.    They are thereby prone to addiction too, and this can leave them less able to handle the already existing stresses of teaching kids who really would rather be anyplace else - well, in most cases. 

Arming teachers, as this Georgia incident shows - or should show  - is still a terrible idea. The only reason it's embraced by the NRA is because it would mean hundreds of thousands of more gun sales for them - and hell, they can never have enough profits - we call it blood money.

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/kali-holloway/77917/is-the-armed-teacher-debate-americas-lowest-stupidest-media-moment

Except:

"Numerous educators have mishandled guns and shot themselves, often while classes are in session, over the last few years. That includes the Idaho State University chemistry professor who shot himself in the foot, the Utah elementary school teacher who shot herself in the leg and the Long Island University professor (and ex-cop) who also shot himself in the leg. An Atlanta high school teacher intentionally shot himself in the face last year, and since studies show the presence of a gun increases the chances of suicide, that’s something to consider when you start suggesting schools stockpile weapons.

But these teachers will be trained—we’ll just take the money out of children’s health insurance or something, some partisan hack is yelling at this very moment. That will ensure they’ll avoid those kinds of sloppy mistakes! First of all, an NRA employee accidentally shot himself at the group’s headquarters last year, and once you get past the staggering irony of the story, you note that training is no guarantee against mistakes. (Or fear: Recall that four sheriff's deputies cowered in the parking lot as the Parkland shooting went on.) A 2008 Rand Corporation study of New York City police officers found their “average hit rate in situations in which fire was not returned was 30 percent.”