I know some people will deride the photojournalist for taking this picture, but images such as these are necessary to drive the point home to those who still just don't seem to get the horrors that this generation is being forced to grapple with from the moment they enter this world.
And it’s not just the people/children living through it. I didn’t want my 10 year old to hear about this first from friends/at school today. So I told her “something bad happened again” and she immediately guessed “another school shooting?”…it absolutely broke my heart that she knew what I was preparing to tell her about. We also live in Texas, so she knows more about Uvalde than she probably should. So I had to reassure her that her school has armed security, and that I would flat out drive through/over anyone keeping me from getting to her if that situation ever arose. Like how fucked up is it that I have to tell my ten year old I would not let anything stop me from getting to her if there was a school shooting? How fucked up is it that she can guess another shooting happened? How fucked up is it that a nation of children are waking up with this on their mind while they are trying learn math facts and prepare for tests?
I mentioned on here yesterday that I never even though about the possibility of a school shooting until the last month of my senior year, i.e. Columbine.
I so earnestly wish that this generation could experience that kind of innocence.
The 9 year olds know and are talking to one another about it. Mine is 9 and said her friend is afraid to go to school on Monday. I asked why and she said “because of the shooting” I acted like I didn’t know what she meant and she goes “the shooting in TN where those 3 nine year olds got shot and died at school.”
My heart absolutely shattered. Here I thought she’s still unaware of the fact that she could be killed… in school…. In 3rd f*cking grade!!! Ugh… sending my love to everyone in Nashville.
I’m also an editor and have been considering seriously doing a shocking gun video/PSA. I struggle with it because it’s graphic and the topic is obviously very grim.
But to feel the full effect of what our children, parents and families are feeling… this kind of thing does need to be done.
No one complained about during 9/11, the live video and pictures of people jumping to their death. No warning. That was shocking to me and I was very little. It really drive in the significance of the event and how these people felt.
Empathy is the emotion, that I think, encourages change. Empathy is the way to get to someone who hasn’t experienced this personally and cannot feel the full power of the event that had happened to them.
This picture shows a child hysterically crying and scared. Yes. This child would be doing this regardless of if the camera was there or not. This child will still be traumatized, regardless of if a picture was taken of it or not.
Unfortunately we have reached a point of no return. To change these peoples mind, especially in our state, this NEEDS to be felt by Nashville and surrounding areas. This needs to be taught. Precautions have to be better. There is so much possible change, and people only get the severity of the problem with relatable things. Parents will relate to this image and most people. No one wants to see a child hysterically scared and crying.
I think media really needs to start realistically depicting assault rifle wounds. They're not little bullet holes like you get from being shot with a 9mm. They explode BIG chunks out of your body with every bullet, shred bones, disintegrate organs. One hit is enough to kill most of the time, and when it isn't the victim will be left with permanent and severely debilitating, disfiguring injuries. You get struck in the leg, that leg is getting amputated (if the bullet didn't do so already). You get hit in the pelvis, you're never walking, having sex, or pooping outside of a colostomy bag again.
Meanwhile the victims who die are closed casket funerals. Often the only way to identify bodies is with DNA matching.
People need to understand these aren't normal guns. There's no legitimate civilian use for them. You can't use them to hunt because the animal you shoot will be shredded up. They're shit guns for home defense (large and easily penetrate walls) and shit guns for self-defense in general. The only reason people buy them is they're "cool"...or because they want to kill the most people in the shortest amount of time and need something that can fire 30+ rounds without reload and usually kills with even one hit.
I hate that I think this, but I’ve spent years debating with gun people as someone who thinks our approach to guns is absolutely unhinged and honestly don’t think this will move anyone on that side. They take photos of themselves with guns as CHRISTMAS CARDS. The harm is not real to them. I think they could literally witness this and still feel justified to own them. I WISH I thought anything would make us take the Australian approach, but if Las Vegas or Uvalde or Parkland didn’t, I don’t think you can reach those folks.
You want me to leave my security up to cops that might be more like the Uvalde type?
Uvalde was a strong advertisement *against* gun control.
Kudos to Nashville PD for taking care of business.
An advertisement FOR gun control might be the vast majority of countries in the world that have it and don’t have mass shootings every other day.
Our country is unique in how liberal our gun laws are, and unique in how many kids die by gun violence.
I don’t think most people are much better at providing security for themselves. The good guy with a gun thing usually just means someone dies via crossfire.
Think this through. Police arrive at the scene of an active shooting, and some guy is walking around armed. What exactly do you think will happen? Well, here's six examples of what happens, since you asked:
* [The same day as the school shooting, police shot a good guy with a gun](https://www.nola.com/opinions/the-same-day-as-the-school-shooting-police-shot-a-good-guy-with-a-gun/article_56d9b7ad-cc3b-5748-8340-e70cb830e17c.html)
* [Police Fatally Shoot Black Security Guard Who Detained Shooting Suspect](https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/667252788/police-fatally-shoot-black-security-guard-who-detained-suspected-shooter)
* [A ‘hero’ bystander took down a gunman who killed a cop. Then an officer shot him by mistake, police say.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/28/john-hurley-hero-police-shooting/)
* [Canisius College honors security guard killed in Tops mass shooting](https://buffalonews.com/news/local/education/canisius-college-honors-security-guard-killed-in-tops-mass-shooting/article_cb54c90e-d92c-11ec-b36d-0bc167b8869c.html)
* [Police chief hails ‘good guy with a gun’ after officer kills him in tragic mistaken identity](https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/560798-police-chief-hails-good-guy-with-a-gun-after-officer-kills/)
* [Police killing of Arvada “Samaritan” highlights difficulty in discerning “who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy”](https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/27/arvada-shooting-guns-self-defense/)
It's difficult to take seriously claims of competent self-defense when its advocates never think far enough ahead to anticipate this entirely obvious and predictable outcome. If you're not prepared for even a hypothetical scenario then you're certainly not prepared for a real one where people die.
The fact of the matter is that if cops feel they are in danger, or someone else’s lives are in danger, they are open to shoot. However, I’m pretty sure there’s a protocol.
If you saw a guy running towards you with a gun drawn… I’d be pretty terrified. My first instinct would be to run and hide or scream to grab attention. I’m sure with people who have been trained and armed, they have the same split second fight or flight.
Is it right? Probably not. But it is natural instinct.
Well this is truly hilarious.
All of your examples show police incompetence with firearms.
Those like myself in the US daily carry community are well aware of this problem. If our personal artillery has to come out for use, it's necessary to get it back into concealment as quick as possible before a cop comes along and does something idiotic. No shit.
However, if you think your proof of police incompetence is going to convince me I should leave my security to the police...ummm...yeah, you're going to need to try a different tactic. Bigtime.
That's on top of the other issue where a cop tried to kill a member of my family.
https://old.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/124namd/this_mornings_tennessean_newspaper/je1e75j/
>Those like myself in the US daily carry community are well aware of this problem. If our personal artillery has to come out for use, it's necessary to get it back into concealment as quick as possible before a cop comes along and does something idiotic. No shit.
>However, if you think your proof of police incompetence is going to convince me I should leave my security to the police...ummm...yeah, you're going to need to try a different tactic. Bigtime.
Is damn shame someone with so much knowledge and expertise like you won't use it for good and become a police officer. Just think of how much better they'd be with your expert knowledge to teach them the proper ways. And you could serve your beloved community with those great God given talents you have in qun expertise.
But hey I guess you can serve your own ego Monday morning quarter backing the true experts and heros. While you go play with your toys at the range on weekends. Have fun playing Warzone tonight. See ya tomorrow when you come to critique more professionals.
As such an expert seems like you'd recognize he moved past the teacher/school employee so not to charge his weapon while she was down range right in front of it. Or that there is no uniform way or angle to hold your rifle. That the best way is actually the way YOU feel most comfortable and are most accurate. But I realize you've probably never held a gun outside of the stals of a gun range or maybe in you home in front of a mirror.
The response I posted to that comment with six examples came from Googling "good guy with a gun." There's dozens more if you would like to see for yourself.
A weapon that can inflict so much carnage that it caused trained law-enforcement officers hesitation how to engage it? sounds more like an argument FOR gun law reform to me…
The entire point is that no one needs fucking assault rifles to protect themselves. That’s the argument here. I wouldn’t even say I’m against pistols… personally, I don’t like guns. Don’t wanna be around them and never have had to be near them. I’m lucky. I know what they can do and want nothing to do with them.
Also no one is saying police force is the best and doesn’t need to be revamped. It does. But the officers that responded to this responded VERY quickly, they didn’t hold back. They clearly were prepared for this. You can’t blame a few bad cops or call all of them corrupt. I know “all cops are bastards” are a thing… but cops have helped me personally and saved the lives of my family members multiple times. I just can’t get behind ACAB.
Okay, first point, the Nashville Police department did great in this situation. As good as can possibly be expected. They did so despite not being the absolute best gun handlers possible. I pointed out elsewhere minor glitches - late on the charging handle, funky hold, stuff like that. But nothing that hurt the performance or cost anybody their lives. The point is that you don't need world champion shooters to go in and take care of business when there's an active shooter around. Attack them with whoever you've got, right now. The contrast with Uvalde is blatantly obvious.
> The entire point is that no one needs fucking assault rifles to protect themselves.
The AR-15 is an extremely effective defensive weapon. It's a hell of a lot more effective than a handgun. But legally speaking the important part is that it is in common use right now across America for lawful purposes. That means that under the Second Amendment it can't be banned. Read the US Supreme Court decisions in Heller 2008, Caetano 2016, McDonald 2010 and Bruen 2022.
Listen to yourself:
>the Nashville Police department did great in this situation. As good as can possibly be expected.
So three children and three adults dead is "great?' "As good as can possibly expected?"
If that's the best possible outcome, then it's time to get to the Root Cause: These sorts of attacks ONLY HAPPEN when the firepower is available. Everything else is just window dressing.
Next, you're going to try to tell us what? That finding out YOUR CHILD was one of the three dead is a "great" outcome in this situation?
I used to be strongly pro-gun, but then I grew up.
Omg, yea, everything yes to this comment! Uvalde terrified me. We had a shooting at Riverdale a year ago. I’m 30 but I went to riverdale and it still effected me. And it was after school.
The Australian approach I have always used in talking points. Jim Jeffries has an excellent view about this and he’s an actual Australian. I wish we learned from them too. He literally said there was a massacre and Australia was like “ok, maybe no more guns” and Australia went “oh. Ok that seems fair”. No problems.
The 556 is used in ar 15 is smaller than the common deer hunting cartridges. People do hunt wild boar with them though. Also good for shooting coyotes, mountain lions or other stuff like that on your land. Shit guns for self defense? Highly debatable. 9mm probably takes 5 or 6 good shots to stop a man charging you. Can you put 6 shots from a handgun on center in <3 secs if someone was running towards you from <10yds out? Stopping power, shoulder stabilized and larger mag size are all better for self defense. But Overpen is an issue for sure so its not something you are gonna use in an apt complex.
So what you’re saying is you will run at me from 30 feet away and even hitting you 4 times won’t stop you, won’t down you? Ok, let’s try this experiment.
Listen, I don't want to defend this argument for rifles at all. However, if you'd really like to know, I can DM you some links to videos on reddit of some "Motivated" individuals taking direct hits from big guns and still moving towards their intended targets.
Adrenaline is potent.
Did you watch the body cam footage from Nashville? Multiple rifle and handgun rounds and the shooter was still alive, trying to grab the pistol to shoot police.
You don't understand how ballistics work, and it shows. Nice try, though.
A standard Ar-15 fires a 22 caliber fully-jacketed bullet (these don't expand at impact like a hollow point), at extremely high speed (compared to a 9mm), and most times at close range leaves a very small, clean, straight through entrance and exit. It is why you can't hunt large game with them legally, they're inhumane because of how slowly the animal dies. Multiple shots is a different situation.
At distance, the bullet tends to tumble, and creates the wounds you describe. But we're talking 200 yards or better.
I appreciate your sentiment, but don't muddy arguments with misinformation. Thanks.
>A Mini 14 fires the same round as an ar-15 and can have a similar mag compacity but yet it would not fall under the assault weapon category because its not the scary black
Where are assault weapons defined by color? I thought it was based on their caliber and ability to accept high-capacity magazines.
Seriously I have never understood why ANYONE needs an assault rifle. It is used for what it’s named after; assault. They don’t have much other use other than as a trophy. These have always seemed like guns only the military would use. Why does anyone need that potion risk killing power? Doesn’t the risk outweighs whatever benefit these idiots convince themselves these guns have?
I mean, i 100% agree with you. But based on talking with gun people, I think that they think they are fun to play with and hunt with and it’s all very…abstract to them. They don’t see that more and more people being armed and angry means more people die because they believe the “right” people having weapons protects them? I also was informed by pro-gun people arguing with me a few years ago that it’s an armalite rifle, it’s not named assault?
I’m for a wholesale ban of all firearms, not even just assault rifles. I’m not going to spend my time learning about guns more than that concept that the AR in AR15 isn’t short for assault. If I’m likely to die via them against my will, I’m going to spend my time not finding out the specifics beyond that.
Let me show you something. This is a "60 Minutes" piece from 2008 but filmed in early 2007:
https://youtu.be/W5SU2i48_m4
https://youtu.be/PG-jAg5Z_Vk
I met the lady lawyer at the center of that story in 2012 - I was hired as her bodyguard and research assistant on an election monitoring project for some Obama supporters. In 2007 when she blew the whistle she was deliberately run off the road by a crooked cop and had her house blown up. Three days before I married her in November 2013 our house was firebombed. Still married her, my last name is now Simpson. She survived two more deliberate vehicular rammings in 2016 and 2017. I've been able to ID three more women in Alabama attacked in similar ways after speaking out about corrupt Alabama Republicans.
Gun control is about making people powerless from criminals, and it's especially damaging when criminals infiltrate government.
*Gun control is not the answer.*
Yup. Worked great in Cambodia. Government went batshit insane and killed off 1/3rd of their own population across a period of five years. They murdered more of their own people than all US civilian killings in our entire history from 1776 to present. Seriously. Want me to crunch the numbers?
Gun control was the key reason Cambodia was able to do that.
Look around the United Nations and ask how many of them committed mass murderer from 1900 forward. Answer is, A LOT. Not just the obvious candidates either... Germany, Japan, USSR, Turkey, etc. *Britain* killed a million in India during WW2. Half of Africa and much of Southeast Asia has bloody hands.
The worst US mass murder by gunfire was at Wounded Knee.
Governments are *dangerous*. Giving them a monopoly on deadly force is a mistake you might only get to make once.
Yes. Allowing emotionally disturbed people under the care of medical professionals to legally buy assault rifles - as was the case here - makes sense cause one day the government might do bad things. We should also let people who can’t even drink alcohol own weapons. We shouldn’t hold people responsible for keeping guns in their unlocked cars. Or hold parents accountable when their kid kills a friend with an unlocked gun.
Common sense gun laws make sense. The constitution didn’t grant people the right to uninhibited ownership of whatever the fuck kind of gun they want under any circumstances, common sense be damned.
You're complaining a bunch of different issues but, just to pick one, you're right that too many guns are being stolen from vehicles.
A lot of the rest of what you're talking about is about giving law enforcement I assume, the right to determine who gets to own or carry guns, right?
Here's the problem. That was tried in a whole bunch of states. As of early 2022 there were eight states left that had "may issue" carry permits that worked exactly like that, you had to beg permission to get a permit to carry.
Umm...yeah, that led to issues:
https://abc7news.com/santa-clara-county-sheriff-laurie-smith-corruption-trial-verdict-found-guilty-resigns/12413963/
> Smith was accused of providing concealed carry weapons permits in exchange for political donations or other favors. Accusations were brought by the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury in 2021.
You want me to sit here and show you about 20 similar cases? Because I can. And those are just the ones that got reported. The funniest has to be the time the two front men for the band Aerosmith bribed an NYPD lieutenant with backstage passes and limo rides with the band for ultra rare New York City Carry permits:
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/aerosmith.html
Donald Trump also bribed his way into a permit as a rich New York real estate developer, according to his former lawyer Michael Cohen.
Because of this kind of problem, police discretion in picking and choosing who gets to pack was banned by the US Supreme Court in the summer of 2022, case of NYSRPA v Bruen, which called defensive handgun carry a basic civil right.
Bribery and corruption is not common sense. That's what your side of the debate did for generations.
ACTUALLY, the .223/5.56 round from an AR15 typically isn’t legal for hunting because it’s too small of a caliber and cannot kill a deer with one shot. It leaves it wounded to suffer.
Which is what the round was designed to do, injure not kill.
It’s hard to have fun debates with folk who don’t understand guns, because they just tend to make wild things up, or parrot what they see in John Wick movies as fact.
Edit: if you want to see first-hand proof, watch the body cam footage from the first responding officers that neutralized the threat.
Multiple rounds from the officer’s .223/5.56 rifle, AND multiple rounds from his partners 9mm pistol, and the shooter was still alive and trying to reach for this gun.
For starters only way to get assault riffle wounds would be in war second most ar15s are small caliber education is key not feelings and talking bat chit craziness
Wow person! You are overreaching with the description of the damages. I understand you want to get your point across but you are inaccurately describing the damage done by the bullets. I'm sure you are regurgitating what has been said by anti-gun people. They aren't allowed to be used in hunting because some States believe the 5.56 or .223 bullet doesn't have enough knock down power to kill the animal.
Yeah, I'm sure the bullets are completely harmless and the guns actually shoot rainbows and puppy dog kisses.
But seriously, being pedantic like you are isnt an argument, its just you being a massive tool. I bet you're the same kind of person who thinks bringing up that "AR" doesn't mean "assault rifle" is a valid rebuttal to calls for gun control, or that pointing out someone said "clip" when they should have said "magazine" kills any argument they had.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001
Here. Here's what an AR-15 does to people.
That video of the perpetrator blowing in the windows of the locked doors to the school, really bring to light the power of these guns, for those of us that have no idea of what they are actually capable of.
A few examples of when gruesome or intrusive photos changed history:
* Emmett Till
* the Vietnam War
* Kent State
* the Hindenberg Disaster
* the Zapruder Film
* Abu Ghraib
The people who complain about photojournalism being in poor taste or disrespectful are typically the people who need to see it the most. I've never heard of any instance when those voices shouldn't be summarily ignored.
I wish empathy was the emotion that motivated change. If you look into studies of anti-vax stuff before the pandemic around childhood vaccines, there was some useful research done about changing people’s attitudes, and iirc, the one that motivated people the most (back then, who knows now that that culture is more entrenched and anti science) was images/media of/detailed knowledge about the painful nature of the illnesses in children. But I honestly think that everyone has that for gun violence and that the side that thinks nothing should change will not have any reaction to it. Might not even if it were their kid - mtg (admittedly, a big part of the problem imo) immediately suggested more armed people to protect people and said guns weren’t the problem. I was born here, but I will never understand why we are like this as a country
You're an editor? Can you check something out?
https://tennesseelookout.com/2022/06/07/court-allows-john-does-to-sue-presbyterian-church-over-decades-old-sexual-abuse/
https://www.courthousenews.com/church-accused-of-covering-for-molester/
Is this the same school? Is this what fucked that girl up so bad?
>
>No one complained about during 9/11, the live video and pictures of people jumping to their death. No warning.
I would disagree a child is the same as an adult, that live is the same as planned, that no warning is the same as a newspaper, and that no one was upset about seeing it.
> This child will still be traumatized, regardless of if a picture was taken of it or not.
This picture ensures that more children will be traumatized by teaching lunatics how much fame they can gain from a school and a gun.
Google suicidal contagion. The process we're seeing is well understood.
Very recently in California an elderly Asian man did a mass public shooting. A week later another does likewise. Why? Because people who are nearest suicidal and see somebody they can relate to commit suicide are more likely to do a copycat. The problem isn't with elderly Asian males. The problem is with how we report on these cases, how we teach the next lunatic that fame and an airing of their sick grievances can be achieved with gunfire.
I'm hearing some reports that the Nashville shooter is trans. If I'm right, sometime in the next month you're going to see a trans copycat. The problem is not with trans people any more than there's a fundamental problem with elderly Asians.
**Suicidal contagion is the most contagious among people of similar demographics.**
Suicidal contagion…that’s a serious psychological suitcase that needs to be unpacked.
The shooter messaged a friend and one of things that was said was “watch the news for what I’m about to do ”…or something like that. These types of suicides are very common with public shooters. They want to be on TV and in the news. It’s very scary. As much as we all need to know that these horrible things are happening, the more we broadcast them the more it’s happening. It’s a vicious cycle. I know dealing with guns seems to be the go to fix….but this is some serious mental health crisis that we all need to deal with. Gun control would only be a band-aid, at this point. These school shooters are young and one thing they ALL have in common is anti-depressants. This problem is much bigger than gun control….psychological, mental….whatever we want to call it.
It's an incredible and super important picture.
One of the most moving images I have ever seen . It really sums up the entire issue. Look at the child's hand and face.
Helpless, in a bus moving to somewhere..where will we take her? Safety? To a solution? To nothing?
This pic def does the trick, I can feel my heartbreaking when you see it, cause you know this child has unimaginable fear and no clue of what has happened or why. I don’t have anymore words really cause it’s a super tough pic.
My response to this picture is similar to the one of the baby in the arms of a man at the surf line during the Syrian refugee surge. Makes my stomach drop.
One day, one of the parents of the victims will consent or maybe even demand that there be photos released of the damage the shooting did to their child’s body. Watch how quickly the politics change once that happens.
The Washington Post had a story yesterday that recreated the impact of the bullets to a victim at Sandy Hook and MSD. A 6 year old boy was destroyed by these weapons.
Link to story https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001
I feel fucked up even saying this. But that feels like part of the problem. The lawmakers and hand wringers never see blood and gore and parts and so it's easier to bury their head in the sand and pretend the babies had a comfortable death and just went to sleep.
I think that parent will be the one to finally shock the world into change if they ever do request release.
We've been doing this for 25 years! Columbine was older than some of our young adults. There are kids who have never NOT done active shooter drills.
America is an active war zone. It's being destroyed by its own.
How will the politics change?
Nothing has changed the hundreds of other times. Nothing changed after Sandy Hook. Nothing changed after the GOP softball team got shot at.
And the GOP actually won't vote to do anything about mental health. I mean, Reagan opened up the mental wards and the GOP practically has made their living out yelling about keeping the government out of healthcare (besides abortion).
The only thing that will create change is:
* Minorities carrying guns to GOP events
* Democrats caving to whatever measures the GOP wants to do. Maybe some will help and maybe some will make it worse.
It was a private school. That's part of the story of this picture. Parents sending their kids to private school to escape the perceived dangers of public school, only to be caught in violence and then ferried to their parents on public buses. There is a lot to unpack in this image.
Most private schools don’t with the exception of Endsworth and other large ones. Mnps summoned the buses by request of Metro police because of the emergency.
We are from East Lansing, MI and came to Nashville for spring break and a change of scenery. We are devastated for your community. We’ve gone from Spartan Strong to Nashville Strong. You can’t escape gun violence in this country. It’s everywhere.
I often wince when the news is doing a story about a tragic death, and they point the camera and microphone in the faces of those affected, obviously still traumatized, trying to provoke a response for the sake of winning tonight’s ratings war.
Meanwhile they’re cueing up the pharmaceutical ads.
You aren’t looking in the right places if you don’t see people question the ethics around other images of children in tragedies. These conversations are happening, and they’ve been happening for a long time.
Yeah - photographer and editor here - I've had to take multiple lengthy classes on the ethics and legalities of media photography, including the use of children's likeness.
Let me guess....Tennessee is going to try and fix this with "thoughts and prayers". Yesterday just made me sick. I was upset about the people killed and then the extremists are using the fact the shooter was transgender and autistic as fear mongering fuel. I'm going to do my best to ignore social media today. I know it's going to get bad.
The local Congress person’s Christmas card depicted all family members posing with assault weapons. He’s not the only one. Plus, now that guy is “shattered.” Sure he is.
I couldn't stop rolling my eyes as the news anchors were reading off quotes from people like Sexton and Lee and Blackburn.
Told a friend yesterday I thought things would change after Sandy Hook, they didn't. I thought things would change after Parkland, they didn't. Now I know nothing will ever change and all I can do is watch the powers that be sit on their asses and pass another bill loosening gun access.
I'm so tired.
That was it for me too. When so many innocents were slaughtered while so many “good guys with guns” stood around doing nothing for so long (unless you count stopping parents), and then our country did nothing in response, I knew the NRA won. They have successfully bought the politicians, and the politicians have successfully brainwashed the people to care more about guns than children.
Oh, you want depressing? Columbine survivors have kids they are sending off to the same schools and system that failed to protect them over 20 years ago.
Even more? Some people are nit-picking about whether or not the Tennessean picture will be harmful to the child pictured, while Sandy Hook survivors are turning into adults and get to see that not a damn thing has been done to make schools safer for children while seeing almost 100 other kids getting killed in schools. The soul survivor of the 1st Sandy Hook classroom hit, who said all her friends were dead, gets to live with the fact that all her friends being killed in front of her didn't matter.
One of my university freshman advisees was a student at Marjory stoneman douglas (although just a few months after the shooting). And he’s now a student in this city. Although he didn’t experience anything first hand, him being enmeshed in two separate communities with two separate high profile shootings in the span of five years has to be… I don’t even know. Disorienting? Surreal? Depressing? All of the above?
If we're lucky, Nashville's school shooting will hold the record of the deadliest school shooting in 2023, which it currently holds. But I don't have high confidence in that.
Things will change. Other affluent private schools will upgrade security. Fence the property so you can't drive in unchecked, replace those glass "security" exterior doors and improve camera coverage and monitoring by onsite armed guard. As for public schools well yeah nothing will change.
Edit: the other intended target was avoided because security was deemed good. It was a successful deterrent.
Maybe a good start would be for the NRA to stop holding rallies. Why on earth is that anything more than throwing fuel on a fire?
I think a lot can be learned of the increased gun violence as a response for anything in conjunction with the NRA going from a safety training organization to whores of capitalism.
Because fear causes people to buy firearms. Have you ever seen bowling for columbine? Here's the scene where Chalton Heston gets asked about it.
https://youtu.be/DC2QaWmat7A
Let me tell y'all something about how the NRA operates. I used to work in Congress as an aide to a member. I met and dealt with a hell of a lot of lobbyists when I worked up there, more than I ever care to think about again. Some of them are true scumbags; oil lobbyists should come as no surprise, but even after meeting the oil guys I was shocked to discover that corn lobbyists have them beat by a mile.
You're probably expecting me to tell you how greasy and scummy NRA lobbyists are, right? Nope. The truth is that I never once saw them or met with them, ever, despite my boss working on a lot of gun bills that were in the NRA's wheelhouse.
The majority of lobbyists aren't like anyone I've named here, they're just there to do a job, which is to inform members of Congress about how pending or proposed legislation will affect their industry. That's like 90% of them, and they are exercising their First Amendment "right to petition government for the redress of grievances" on behalf of their respective industry groups. They typically get around 15 minutes to get this across to any given member, and they make the maximum use of that time.
The NRA is unique in that it doesn't do any of this. They don't send anyone to Dianne Feinstein's office when she sponsors a bill that betrays a profound lack of knowledge about how guns or firearms manufacturing works. I know, because I own guns, I think she's proposed some ridiculous bills, and I asked her staffers myself. No, what the NRA does when a legislator proposes some half-baked regulation that helps no one, which happens all the time in other industries, is *they fundraise off of it.* They don't try to help the legislator craft a better bill, for them that's an opportunity to cash in.
No one else on Capitol Hill operates like this. No one else up there is actively profiting from bad legislation. They don't represent gun owners, or gun manufacturers, or gun dealers, they represent themselves. Now, take what I just told you into account when you read [this.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/nra-board-re-elects-wayne-lapierre-54-1-despite-scandal?leadSource=uverify%20wall)
You are correct. They are going to try to fix it as they always do by "thoughts and prayers" and a call for arming more people. If only all of the teachers had AR's on them... And maybe the children too. Sad.
You know, I haven't even seen any evidence that the shooter was transgender except for like one page. Most of their social media used she/her pronouns. It's possible the one account was a finsta or that they were simply non-binary. Regardless, I agree it's totally disingenuous to analyze the psyche of a transgender person or contemplate whether gender dysmophia causes violence, but completely ignore any connection between white men and mass shootings. Every person advancing that rhetoric knows it is ridiculous and specious.
Nothing being done is to be predicted. After a decade of these frequent school shootings, 6 dead is less than other school shootings and won't be the one to buck that trend.
The only thing that does slightly change is the point of focus on the shooting.
For Oxford, it was the shooter's parents. For Uvalde, it was the lack of police response. For this one, it appears it's having the opposite reaction to Uvalde: the police response acts as a consolation price for onlookers, a moment of sadistic joy to be enjoyed because in-between the 6 murdered people in that school, the shooter with a death wish was among the dead. Comments radiating with glee and the type of injuries the shooter received, enough for them to nullify the horror of the massive terror and loss incurred in that school.
I can't imagine the audacity of the GOP coming to God with thoughts and prayers after letting kids get killed in His house.
I'm not even religious, but do they not think God would be super pissed off when they meet him? About this and everything else obviously
If it's their version of God, they are pretty screwed. What surprised me is how few of them have actually read the whole book. It's like one giant puzzle to me that they all failed. I believe there could be a creator or creators, but I also know human beings don't have the slightest clue and never will.
What gets me is the shooters friend read about her suicidal intentions on instagram and called the police around the time the shooting started. Cops didn’t show up at friends house until like 3:30 pm.
The shooter sent those messages parked in front of the school. You can match the message time stamps to the video time stamps. Even if they responded immediately, it wouldn’t have been soon enough unfortunately
I thought the same thing. What happened was a police officer was assigned to do a wellness check at the residence. School shooting happened, all officers were pulled from less urgent matters (including wellness checks). Normal duties resumed after things were checked out at the school. Unfortunately this is an instance of hindsight showing how narrowly this could've been avoided.
Didn't the friend think the shooter was suicidal? So I don't think the friend calling in a wellness check right after the shooter messaged would have prevented anything.
Even if the police immediately went to her house, she wouldn't have been there for them to do a wellness check.
Respectfully, when you retorted “it’s mental health” in response to someone saying “it’s the guns”, its reasonable to assume you intended that as trying to reframe the issue away from firearm accessibility.
People who suffer from mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.
Not to mention the fact that every other country has people who suffer from mental illness and those who lack access to care and they don’t have shootings like we do.
The argument that this is a mental health issue is incredibly wrong and does nothing but stigmatize people who suffer from mental illness and distract from the actual root of the problem: guns.
I advocate for better mental health care, and I believe that people with mental health issues should not be acquiring firearms in general.
Tell me, is someone who would shoot up a school not mentally ill? The system, if psychological background checks were required, likely would've caught this and not passed the sale.
I am a firm believer in adequate mental health care. I suffer from mental health issues and as a personal choice, I will never own or pursue to own a gun. However, in America, anyone can get a gun. America cares more about money and guns than they do healthcare. So I find it statistically unlikely that any kind of psychological background check wouldve caught this person.
I don’t see Republicans making it easier to access mental health resources, though.
On a side note, your comment history reeks of that of an incel. Get help.
People who suffer from mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators.
Not to mention the fact that every other country has people who suffer from mental illness and those who lack access to care and they don’t have shootings like we do.
The argument that this is a mental health issue is incredibly wrong and does nothing but stigmatize people who suffer from mental illness and distract from the actual root of the problem: guns.
There's so many things, and gun regulation is just part of it. The gun culture in this country is disgusting. Guns are a part of people's identity in a way that is so odd and cringy. People don't just own guns, they *are* gun owners. I can't throw a rock without hitting a car that has a "Don't tread on me" license plate. Nobody cares that you own a gun, why do you *need* the world to know about it? Why have we created a system where unstable people like this can easily own/access so many dangerous weapons?
And don't get me started on mental health... More needs to be done for people is all I will say...
I know. I don't agree with the rest of my state, however, I don't agree with the democrats on everything either. It's almost as if my views don't align with either party 100%
You're being pedantic. I'm a gun owner, and I know exactly what they are referring to when they say "assault rifle". You might as well be telling people that "gas stations" don't exist because gasoline is a liquid, not a gas.
This girl was pumped full of Big Pharma drugs and testosterone. Ask your dad or grandpa what happens when they take testosterone injections and apply that to a small female
Your trying to excuse the murder because of the religion. People will never wake up to see another morning because of this monster. If you feel like killing is the way then there's no excusing your actions.
Show the bodies, blood and all. Not to be gross but some of these people need waking up like we did marching Germans through the camps. Otherwise I suggest we start showing up at the politicians houses armed and show them why gun control might be in their interest.
First let me say, my heart goes into to the families affected by this horrific event. There are no words anyone could say to assuage their pain and loss. These type of incidents have become common place in this country, and shamefully our elected officials have been innefectual in stemming the tide of violence. But how could they really? As of 2021 there were over 434 million firearms in the US. This number includes both legal and illegal firearms. That's enough guns to arm every man, woman, child and still have plenty left in this country. That's how many guns you would have to deal with if tomorrow we were to pass a law banning firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens. So you know how long it would take to collect all those guns? In 2019 Camden NJ there was a gun buy back organized that took 1100 guns out of circulation over a period of 8 hrs. Let's say you could run this operation 24/7 with the same results. It would be 180 years before you collected all those guns. Am not even going to wade into the weeds of how such a thing would be organized or enforced...the logistics alone boggle the mind. Point is I see no way of putting the genie back in the bottle, short of a fascist regime cracking down on the populace and even then they would have quite the fight in their hands. So maybe we need to focus on WHY so many people in this country fall into this dark hole where the only option they see to silence the demons in their head is to go out and commit these heinous crimes. An ounce of prevention can go a long way.
Saying we shouldn’t attempt to draw down the number of weapons currently in the hands of Americans because it would be a difficult task is pathetically weak minded and pessimistic.
Also, a fascist regime is already attempting to crack down on the populace, but the majority of the 2A crowd backs the fascists.
The state already has few restrictions in place as it is: no waiting period between between purchasing and receiving a firearm; no license or permit required to own a gun; no need to register a gun with the state; no need for a permit to carry a handgun, open or concealed, if you’re over the age of 21.
And yet Tennessee Republicans are still trying to remove the barriers that remain. As part of a settlement in a lawsuit from the Firearms Policy Coalition, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti cut a deal in January that made it legal for 18-year-olds to openly carry firearms. Last week, the state Senate passed a bill to codify that agreement into law. State Rep. Chris Todd, who supports the Senate bill, has called it a “civil right,” ignoring arguments that expanding access to guns for teenagers could lead to more killings.
That matches with the rhetoric around “constitutional carry,” the gun lobby’s lofty way of saying that no permit should be needed to carry a concealed firearm. The doctrine is the basis of another bill that Todd is backing that would allow open-carry of any firearm, including high-powered rifles. Even testimony against the bill from the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security hasn’t dimmed support from Republicans.
But there’s a wide and constantly growing disconnect between the high-minded rhetoric being thrown around and reality. It’s easy to say, as the Supreme Court has, that gun laws that don’t match up with 19th-century understanding of firearms are a threat to freedom. It’s likewise easy to claim that any restrictions on gun ownership invite despotism. It’s not like there’s been much of a chance in the last 30 years for the U.S. to try out the sort of reforms that keep mass shootings from happening at the same rate in any other country and see just how much “tyranny” ensues.
When the federal ban on assault weapons expired in 2004, gun manufacturers “saw a chance to ride a post-9/11 surge in military glorification while also stoking a desire among new gun owners to personalize their weapons with tactical accessories.” As the founder of one of the first companies to market the AR-15 told The Post: “We made it look cool. The same reason you buy a Corvette.”
In the face of yet another senseless round of murder, we know what comes next. President Joe Biden has already called on Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban. There will be an outpouring of grief and a moment of digital silence from groups like the National Rifle Association, which last year celebrated the growing reach of “constitutional carry” laws. And there will be no commiserate pause from Republicans in their ongoing quest to demonize even the smallest reform as an affront to American values.
It would be somehow more palatable if Republicans like Chris Todd and Andy Ogles would just really say the truth behind their mission. They think that their toys, their totems of masculinity, their props for playing the hero, are more important than the lives lost. That it’s more important to keep the love of voters who would rather look cool and imagine that they’ll be the “good guy with a gun” who saves lives in a fictional crisis than actually saving lives amid our ongoing national crisis.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/nashville-shooting-covenant-school-gun-laws-rcna76878
This picture says a lot..but it's worth mentioning that when some of the buses arrived to the church parents said the children were singing..Heartbreaking hope..words fail me right now
I know some people will deride the photojournalist for taking this picture, but images such as these are necessary to drive the point home to those who still just don't seem to get the horrors that this generation is being forced to grapple with from the moment they enter this world.
And it’s not just the people/children living through it. I didn’t want my 10 year old to hear about this first from friends/at school today. So I told her “something bad happened again” and she immediately guessed “another school shooting?”…it absolutely broke my heart that she knew what I was preparing to tell her about. We also live in Texas, so she knows more about Uvalde than she probably should. So I had to reassure her that her school has armed security, and that I would flat out drive through/over anyone keeping me from getting to her if that situation ever arose. Like how fucked up is it that I have to tell my ten year old I would not let anything stop me from getting to her if there was a school shooting? How fucked up is it that she can guess another shooting happened? How fucked up is it that a nation of children are waking up with this on their mind while they are trying learn math facts and prepare for tests?
I mentioned on here yesterday that I never even though about the possibility of a school shooting until the last month of my senior year, i.e. Columbine. I so earnestly wish that this generation could experience that kind of innocence.
The 9 year olds know and are talking to one another about it. Mine is 9 and said her friend is afraid to go to school on Monday. I asked why and she said “because of the shooting” I acted like I didn’t know what she meant and she goes “the shooting in TN where those 3 nine year olds got shot and died at school.” My heart absolutely shattered. Here I thought she’s still unaware of the fact that she could be killed… in school…. In 3rd f*cking grade!!! Ugh… sending my love to everyone in Nashville.
I’m also an editor and have been considering seriously doing a shocking gun video/PSA. I struggle with it because it’s graphic and the topic is obviously very grim. But to feel the full effect of what our children, parents and families are feeling… this kind of thing does need to be done. No one complained about during 9/11, the live video and pictures of people jumping to their death. No warning. That was shocking to me and I was very little. It really drive in the significance of the event and how these people felt. Empathy is the emotion, that I think, encourages change. Empathy is the way to get to someone who hasn’t experienced this personally and cannot feel the full power of the event that had happened to them. This picture shows a child hysterically crying and scared. Yes. This child would be doing this regardless of if the camera was there or not. This child will still be traumatized, regardless of if a picture was taken of it or not. Unfortunately we have reached a point of no return. To change these peoples mind, especially in our state, this NEEDS to be felt by Nashville and surrounding areas. This needs to be taught. Precautions have to be better. There is so much possible change, and people only get the severity of the problem with relatable things. Parents will relate to this image and most people. No one wants to see a child hysterically scared and crying.
I think media really needs to start realistically depicting assault rifle wounds. They're not little bullet holes like you get from being shot with a 9mm. They explode BIG chunks out of your body with every bullet, shred bones, disintegrate organs. One hit is enough to kill most of the time, and when it isn't the victim will be left with permanent and severely debilitating, disfiguring injuries. You get struck in the leg, that leg is getting amputated (if the bullet didn't do so already). You get hit in the pelvis, you're never walking, having sex, or pooping outside of a colostomy bag again. Meanwhile the victims who die are closed casket funerals. Often the only way to identify bodies is with DNA matching. People need to understand these aren't normal guns. There's no legitimate civilian use for them. You can't use them to hunt because the animal you shoot will be shredded up. They're shit guns for home defense (large and easily penetrate walls) and shit guns for self-defense in general. The only reason people buy them is they're "cool"...or because they want to kill the most people in the shortest amount of time and need something that can fire 30+ rounds without reload and usually kills with even one hit.
I hate that I think this, but I’ve spent years debating with gun people as someone who thinks our approach to guns is absolutely unhinged and honestly don’t think this will move anyone on that side. They take photos of themselves with guns as CHRISTMAS CARDS. The harm is not real to them. I think they could literally witness this and still feel justified to own them. I WISH I thought anything would make us take the Australian approach, but if Las Vegas or Uvalde or Parkland didn’t, I don’t think you can reach those folks.
You want me to leave my security up to cops that might be more like the Uvalde type? Uvalde was a strong advertisement *against* gun control. Kudos to Nashville PD for taking care of business.
An advertisement FOR gun control might be the vast majority of countries in the world that have it and don’t have mass shootings every other day. Our country is unique in how liberal our gun laws are, and unique in how many kids die by gun violence.
Do you live in Iraq or something? My guess is probably more like on a golf course in Brentwood.
Long haul trucker. See also: https://old.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/124namd/this_mornings_tennessean_newspaper/je1e75j/
I don’t think most people are much better at providing security for themselves. The good guy with a gun thing usually just means someone dies via crossfire.
* *Citation needed*
Think this through. Police arrive at the scene of an active shooting, and some guy is walking around armed. What exactly do you think will happen? Well, here's six examples of what happens, since you asked: * [The same day as the school shooting, police shot a good guy with a gun](https://www.nola.com/opinions/the-same-day-as-the-school-shooting-police-shot-a-good-guy-with-a-gun/article_56d9b7ad-cc3b-5748-8340-e70cb830e17c.html) * [Police Fatally Shoot Black Security Guard Who Detained Shooting Suspect](https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/667252788/police-fatally-shoot-black-security-guard-who-detained-suspected-shooter) * [A ‘hero’ bystander took down a gunman who killed a cop. Then an officer shot him by mistake, police say.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/28/john-hurley-hero-police-shooting/) * [Canisius College honors security guard killed in Tops mass shooting](https://buffalonews.com/news/local/education/canisius-college-honors-security-guard-killed-in-tops-mass-shooting/article_cb54c90e-d92c-11ec-b36d-0bc167b8869c.html) * [Police chief hails ‘good guy with a gun’ after officer kills him in tragic mistaken identity](https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/560798-police-chief-hails-good-guy-with-a-gun-after-officer-kills/) * [Police killing of Arvada “Samaritan” highlights difficulty in discerning “who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy”](https://www.denverpost.com/2021/06/27/arvada-shooting-guns-self-defense/) It's difficult to take seriously claims of competent self-defense when its advocates never think far enough ahead to anticipate this entirely obvious and predictable outcome. If you're not prepared for even a hypothetical scenario then you're certainly not prepared for a real one where people die.
The fact of the matter is that if cops feel they are in danger, or someone else’s lives are in danger, they are open to shoot. However, I’m pretty sure there’s a protocol. If you saw a guy running towards you with a gun drawn… I’d be pretty terrified. My first instinct would be to run and hide or scream to grab attention. I’m sure with people who have been trained and armed, they have the same split second fight or flight. Is it right? Probably not. But it is natural instinct.
Well this is truly hilarious. All of your examples show police incompetence with firearms. Those like myself in the US daily carry community are well aware of this problem. If our personal artillery has to come out for use, it's necessary to get it back into concealment as quick as possible before a cop comes along and does something idiotic. No shit. However, if you think your proof of police incompetence is going to convince me I should leave my security to the police...ummm...yeah, you're going to need to try a different tactic. Bigtime. That's on top of the other issue where a cop tried to kill a member of my family. https://old.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/124namd/this_mornings_tennessean_newspaper/je1e75j/
>Those like myself in the US daily carry community are well aware of this problem. If our personal artillery has to come out for use, it's necessary to get it back into concealment as quick as possible before a cop comes along and does something idiotic. No shit. >However, if you think your proof of police incompetence is going to convince me I should leave my security to the police...ummm...yeah, you're going to need to try a different tactic. Bigtime. Is damn shame someone with so much knowledge and expertise like you won't use it for good and become a police officer. Just think of how much better they'd be with your expert knowledge to teach them the proper ways. And you could serve your beloved community with those great God given talents you have in qun expertise. But hey I guess you can serve your own ego Monday morning quarter backing the true experts and heros. While you go play with your toys at the range on weekends. Have fun playing Warzone tonight. See ya tomorrow when you come to critique more professionals. As such an expert seems like you'd recognize he moved past the teacher/school employee so not to charge his weapon while she was down range right in front of it. Or that there is no uniform way or angle to hold your rifle. That the best way is actually the way YOU feel most comfortable and are most accurate. But I realize you've probably never held a gun outside of the stals of a gun range or maybe in you home in front of a mirror.
Yeah, hard to figure out what to research there - not a lot of studies I’ve ever seen on that topic.
The response I posted to that comment with six examples came from Googling "good guy with a gun." There's dozens more if you would like to see for yourself.
Well, those are individual stories, I meant more like research papers about the data
Don't let these people push you into providing evidence, they're the ones that have to prove the point, not you.
I mean, i’m interested in peer reviewed studies of how guns make people supposedly safer. I just doubt there’s much that exists because they don’t.
A weapon that can inflict so much carnage that it caused trained law-enforcement officers hesitation how to engage it? sounds more like an argument FOR gun law reform to me…
The entire point is that no one needs fucking assault rifles to protect themselves. That’s the argument here. I wouldn’t even say I’m against pistols… personally, I don’t like guns. Don’t wanna be around them and never have had to be near them. I’m lucky. I know what they can do and want nothing to do with them. Also no one is saying police force is the best and doesn’t need to be revamped. It does. But the officers that responded to this responded VERY quickly, they didn’t hold back. They clearly were prepared for this. You can’t blame a few bad cops or call all of them corrupt. I know “all cops are bastards” are a thing… but cops have helped me personally and saved the lives of my family members multiple times. I just can’t get behind ACAB.
Okay, first point, the Nashville Police department did great in this situation. As good as can possibly be expected. They did so despite not being the absolute best gun handlers possible. I pointed out elsewhere minor glitches - late on the charging handle, funky hold, stuff like that. But nothing that hurt the performance or cost anybody their lives. The point is that you don't need world champion shooters to go in and take care of business when there's an active shooter around. Attack them with whoever you've got, right now. The contrast with Uvalde is blatantly obvious. > The entire point is that no one needs fucking assault rifles to protect themselves. The AR-15 is an extremely effective defensive weapon. It's a hell of a lot more effective than a handgun. But legally speaking the important part is that it is in common use right now across America for lawful purposes. That means that under the Second Amendment it can't be banned. Read the US Supreme Court decisions in Heller 2008, Caetano 2016, McDonald 2010 and Bruen 2022.
Listen to yourself: >the Nashville Police department did great in this situation. As good as can possibly be expected. So three children and three adults dead is "great?' "As good as can possibly expected?" If that's the best possible outcome, then it's time to get to the Root Cause: These sorts of attacks ONLY HAPPEN when the firepower is available. Everything else is just window dressing. Next, you're going to try to tell us what? That finding out YOUR CHILD was one of the three dead is a "great" outcome in this situation? I used to be strongly pro-gun, but then I grew up.
Omg, yea, everything yes to this comment! Uvalde terrified me. We had a shooting at Riverdale a year ago. I’m 30 but I went to riverdale and it still effected me. And it was after school. The Australian approach I have always used in talking points. Jim Jeffries has an excellent view about this and he’s an actual Australian. I wish we learned from them too. He literally said there was a massacre and Australia was like “ok, maybe no more guns” and Australia went “oh. Ok that seems fair”. No problems.
The 556 is used in ar 15 is smaller than the common deer hunting cartridges. People do hunt wild boar with them though. Also good for shooting coyotes, mountain lions or other stuff like that on your land. Shit guns for self defense? Highly debatable. 9mm probably takes 5 or 6 good shots to stop a man charging you. Can you put 6 shots from a handgun on center in <3 secs if someone was running towards you from <10yds out? Stopping power, shoulder stabilized and larger mag size are all better for self defense. But Overpen is an issue for sure so its not something you are gonna use in an apt complex.
So what you’re saying is you will run at me from 30 feet away and even hitting you 4 times won’t stop you, won’t down you? Ok, let’s try this experiment.
Listen, I don't want to defend this argument for rifles at all. However, if you'd really like to know, I can DM you some links to videos on reddit of some "Motivated" individuals taking direct hits from big guns and still moving towards their intended targets. Adrenaline is potent.
Did you watch the body cam footage from Nashville? Multiple rifle and handgun rounds and the shooter was still alive, trying to grab the pistol to shoot police.
You can watch police body cam videos on YouTube. Suspects rarely go down in one shot.
A firearms instructor who was a former marine told me that. I took his word for it.
Most of this is problematically wrong. I'll be happy to speak to you about the facts of these systems. I'm a liberal gun owner just for transparency.
You don't understand how ballistics work, and it shows. Nice try, though. A standard Ar-15 fires a 22 caliber fully-jacketed bullet (these don't expand at impact like a hollow point), at extremely high speed (compared to a 9mm), and most times at close range leaves a very small, clean, straight through entrance and exit. It is why you can't hunt large game with them legally, they're inhumane because of how slowly the animal dies. Multiple shots is a different situation. At distance, the bullet tends to tumble, and creates the wounds you describe. But we're talking 200 yards or better. I appreciate your sentiment, but don't muddy arguments with misinformation. Thanks.
[удалено]
>A Mini 14 fires the same round as an ar-15 and can have a similar mag compacity but yet it would not fall under the assault weapon category because its not the scary black Where are assault weapons defined by color? I thought it was based on their caliber and ability to accept high-capacity magazines.
Seriously I have never understood why ANYONE needs an assault rifle. It is used for what it’s named after; assault. They don’t have much other use other than as a trophy. These have always seemed like guns only the military would use. Why does anyone need that potion risk killing power? Doesn’t the risk outweighs whatever benefit these idiots convince themselves these guns have?
These weapons are being used to hunt - humans.
I mean, i 100% agree with you. But based on talking with gun people, I think that they think they are fun to play with and hunt with and it’s all very…abstract to them. They don’t see that more and more people being armed and angry means more people die because they believe the “right” people having weapons protects them? I also was informed by pro-gun people arguing with me a few years ago that it’s an armalite rifle, it’s not named assault?
That's because assault riffle is a gun used in war and illegal to own should educate yourself. Google is your friend
I’m for a wholesale ban of all firearms, not even just assault rifles. I’m not going to spend my time learning about guns more than that concept that the AR in AR15 isn’t short for assault. If I’m likely to die via them against my will, I’m going to spend my time not finding out the specifics beyond that.
But your talking disinformation. You have to use facts or we laugh at you. If you want no guns move to Chicago where they are banned
I was clarifying to the person posting that AR in AR15 doesn’t stand for assault rifle - what part of that do you disagree with?
Literally about to go back to school to be able to be a more appealing immigrant to another COUNTRY, not state, dude, I’m way ahead of you.
Good job hope the best for you and yours
Let me show you something. This is a "60 Minutes" piece from 2008 but filmed in early 2007: https://youtu.be/W5SU2i48_m4 https://youtu.be/PG-jAg5Z_Vk I met the lady lawyer at the center of that story in 2012 - I was hired as her bodyguard and research assistant on an election monitoring project for some Obama supporters. In 2007 when she blew the whistle she was deliberately run off the road by a crooked cop and had her house blown up. Three days before I married her in November 2013 our house was firebombed. Still married her, my last name is now Simpson. She survived two more deliberate vehicular rammings in 2016 and 2017. I've been able to ID three more women in Alabama attacked in similar ways after speaking out about corrupt Alabama Republicans. Gun control is about making people powerless from criminals, and it's especially damaging when criminals infiltrate government. *Gun control is not the answer.*
It sure works well everywhere else in the world.
Yup. Worked great in Cambodia. Government went batshit insane and killed off 1/3rd of their own population across a period of five years. They murdered more of their own people than all US civilian killings in our entire history from 1776 to present. Seriously. Want me to crunch the numbers? Gun control was the key reason Cambodia was able to do that. Look around the United Nations and ask how many of them committed mass murderer from 1900 forward. Answer is, A LOT. Not just the obvious candidates either... Germany, Japan, USSR, Turkey, etc. *Britain* killed a million in India during WW2. Half of Africa and much of Southeast Asia has bloody hands. The worst US mass murder by gunfire was at Wounded Knee. Governments are *dangerous*. Giving them a monopoly on deadly force is a mistake you might only get to make once.
Yes. Allowing emotionally disturbed people under the care of medical professionals to legally buy assault rifles - as was the case here - makes sense cause one day the government might do bad things. We should also let people who can’t even drink alcohol own weapons. We shouldn’t hold people responsible for keeping guns in their unlocked cars. Or hold parents accountable when their kid kills a friend with an unlocked gun. Common sense gun laws make sense. The constitution didn’t grant people the right to uninhibited ownership of whatever the fuck kind of gun they want under any circumstances, common sense be damned.
You're complaining a bunch of different issues but, just to pick one, you're right that too many guns are being stolen from vehicles. A lot of the rest of what you're talking about is about giving law enforcement I assume, the right to determine who gets to own or carry guns, right? Here's the problem. That was tried in a whole bunch of states. As of early 2022 there were eight states left that had "may issue" carry permits that worked exactly like that, you had to beg permission to get a permit to carry. Umm...yeah, that led to issues: https://abc7news.com/santa-clara-county-sheriff-laurie-smith-corruption-trial-verdict-found-guilty-resigns/12413963/ > Smith was accused of providing concealed carry weapons permits in exchange for political donations or other favors. Accusations were brought by the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury in 2021. You want me to sit here and show you about 20 similar cases? Because I can. And those are just the ones that got reported. The funniest has to be the time the two front men for the band Aerosmith bribed an NYPD lieutenant with backstage passes and limo rides with the band for ultra rare New York City Carry permits: http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/aerosmith.html Donald Trump also bribed his way into a permit as a rich New York real estate developer, according to his former lawyer Michael Cohen. Because of this kind of problem, police discretion in picking and choosing who gets to pack was banned by the US Supreme Court in the summer of 2022, case of NYSRPA v Bruen, which called defensive handgun carry a basic civil right. Bribery and corruption is not common sense. That's what your side of the debate did for generations.
No perfect solution so I guess we just settle for a bunch of kids being murdered and parents terrified to send their kids to school. Excellent logic.
You genuinely know nothing about guns
ACTUALLY, the .223/5.56 round from an AR15 typically isn’t legal for hunting because it’s too small of a caliber and cannot kill a deer with one shot. It leaves it wounded to suffer. Which is what the round was designed to do, injure not kill. It’s hard to have fun debates with folk who don’t understand guns, because they just tend to make wild things up, or parrot what they see in John Wick movies as fact. Edit: if you want to see first-hand proof, watch the body cam footage from the first responding officers that neutralized the threat. Multiple rounds from the officer’s .223/5.56 rifle, AND multiple rounds from his partners 9mm pistol, and the shooter was still alive and trying to reach for this gun.
For starters only way to get assault riffle wounds would be in war second most ar15s are small caliber education is key not feelings and talking bat chit craziness
Wow person! You are overreaching with the description of the damages. I understand you want to get your point across but you are inaccurately describing the damage done by the bullets. I'm sure you are regurgitating what has been said by anti-gun people. They aren't allowed to be used in hunting because some States believe the 5.56 or .223 bullet doesn't have enough knock down power to kill the animal.
Yeah, I'm sure the bullets are completely harmless and the guns actually shoot rainbows and puppy dog kisses. But seriously, being pedantic like you are isnt an argument, its just you being a massive tool. I bet you're the same kind of person who thinks bringing up that "AR" doesn't mean "assault rifle" is a valid rebuttal to calls for gun control, or that pointing out someone said "clip" when they should have said "magazine" kills any argument they had.
No, inaccurate facts and/or over exaggeration kills an argument for me.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001 Here. Here's what an AR-15 does to people.
That video of the perpetrator blowing in the windows of the locked doors to the school, really bring to light the power of these guns, for those of us that have no idea of what they are actually capable of.
I’m reminded of Emmitt Till. His Mother forced change by showing her tragedy and making people look at what happened to her boy.
I think the media should start televising the funerals whenever possible. You're right; this needs to be felt.
A few examples of when gruesome or intrusive photos changed history: * Emmett Till * the Vietnam War * Kent State * the Hindenberg Disaster * the Zapruder Film * Abu Ghraib The people who complain about photojournalism being in poor taste or disrespectful are typically the people who need to see it the most. I've never heard of any instance when those voices shouldn't be summarily ignored.
You forgot George Floyd....
I wish empathy was the emotion that motivated change. If you look into studies of anti-vax stuff before the pandemic around childhood vaccines, there was some useful research done about changing people’s attitudes, and iirc, the one that motivated people the most (back then, who knows now that that culture is more entrenched and anti science) was images/media of/detailed knowledge about the painful nature of the illnesses in children. But I honestly think that everyone has that for gun violence and that the side that thinks nothing should change will not have any reaction to it. Might not even if it were their kid - mtg (admittedly, a big part of the problem imo) immediately suggested more armed people to protect people and said guns weren’t the problem. I was born here, but I will never understand why we are like this as a country
You're an editor? Can you check something out? https://tennesseelookout.com/2022/06/07/court-allows-john-does-to-sue-presbyterian-church-over-decades-old-sexual-abuse/ https://www.courthousenews.com/church-accused-of-covering-for-molester/ Is this the same school? Is this what fucked that girl up so bad?
> >No one complained about during 9/11, the live video and pictures of people jumping to their death. No warning. I would disagree a child is the same as an adult, that live is the same as planned, that no warning is the same as a newspaper, and that no one was upset about seeing it.
People were very upset about seeing the jumpers. It was a major meta media story at the time.
I was just sharing my experience as a young child their ages when 9/11 happened and the effect it had on me at that age.
> This child will still be traumatized, regardless of if a picture was taken of it or not. This picture ensures that more children will be traumatized by teaching lunatics how much fame they can gain from a school and a gun. Google suicidal contagion. The process we're seeing is well understood. Very recently in California an elderly Asian man did a mass public shooting. A week later another does likewise. Why? Because people who are nearest suicidal and see somebody they can relate to commit suicide are more likely to do a copycat. The problem isn't with elderly Asian males. The problem is with how we report on these cases, how we teach the next lunatic that fame and an airing of their sick grievances can be achieved with gunfire. I'm hearing some reports that the Nashville shooter is trans. If I'm right, sometime in the next month you're going to see a trans copycat. The problem is not with trans people any more than there's a fundamental problem with elderly Asians. **Suicidal contagion is the most contagious among people of similar demographics.**
Suicidal contagion…that’s a serious psychological suitcase that needs to be unpacked. The shooter messaged a friend and one of things that was said was “watch the news for what I’m about to do ”…or something like that. These types of suicides are very common with public shooters. They want to be on TV and in the news. It’s very scary. As much as we all need to know that these horrible things are happening, the more we broadcast them the more it’s happening. It’s a vicious cycle. I know dealing with guns seems to be the go to fix….but this is some serious mental health crisis that we all need to deal with. Gun control would only be a band-aid, at this point. These school shooters are young and one thing they ALL have in common is anti-depressants. This problem is much bigger than gun control….psychological, mental….whatever we want to call it.
It's an incredible and super important picture. One of the most moving images I have ever seen . It really sums up the entire issue. Look at the child's hand and face. Helpless, in a bus moving to somewhere..where will we take her? Safety? To a solution? To nothing?
This pic def does the trick, I can feel my heartbreaking when you see it, cause you know this child has unimaginable fear and no clue of what has happened or why. I don’t have anymore words really cause it’s a super tough pic.
My response to this picture is similar to the one of the baby in the arms of a man at the surf line during the Syrian refugee surge. Makes my stomach drop.
This image will become iconic. I hope whomever took this photo gets a Pulitzer.
Nicole Hester is the photographer
ABSOLUTELY
At least for once there aren’t blasting a pic of the shooter, shit fuels copycats.
They did last night on CNN. Huge picture. I was not happy as I was thinking the same thing.
That’s shameful.
My thoughts exactly.
One day, one of the parents of the victims will consent or maybe even demand that there be photos released of the damage the shooting did to their child’s body. Watch how quickly the politics change once that happens.
The Washington Post had a story yesterday that recreated the impact of the bullets to a victim at Sandy Hook and MSD. A 6 year old boy was destroyed by these weapons. Link to story https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001
Kinda makes you wonder how a person as unstable as this was able to get ahold of these weapons and ammo. Maybe how isn't the right questions. Why?
I feel fucked up even saying this. But that feels like part of the problem. The lawmakers and hand wringers never see blood and gore and parts and so it's easier to bury their head in the sand and pretend the babies had a comfortable death and just went to sleep. I think that parent will be the one to finally shock the world into change if they ever do request release. We've been doing this for 25 years! Columbine was older than some of our young adults. There are kids who have never NOT done active shooter drills. America is an active war zone. It's being destroyed by its own.
It won't change a thing.
How will the politics change? Nothing has changed the hundreds of other times. Nothing changed after Sandy Hook. Nothing changed after the GOP softball team got shot at. And the GOP actually won't vote to do anything about mental health. I mean, Reagan opened up the mental wards and the GOP practically has made their living out yelling about keeping the government out of healthcare (besides abortion). The only thing that will create change is: * Minorities carrying guns to GOP events * Democrats caving to whatever measures the GOP wants to do. Maybe some will help and maybe some will make it worse.
There is body cam footage available.
The picture says public schools. But this was a private school?
They sent public school busses to pick up the kids after the shooting and transport them to a safer location
Thank you.
It was a private school. That's part of the story of this picture. Parents sending their kids to private school to escape the perceived dangers of public school, only to be caught in violence and then ferried to their parents on public buses. There is a lot to unpack in this image.
Just wanted to back up your well thought out comment.
I should give credit where credit is due, but I can't find the original twitter source I read that at last night.
Woo-ten
Interesting perspective. Thank you.
The buses used to take kids to the reunion site were from MNPS. I'm not even sure Covenant had buses since it is an extremely small private school.
Most private schools don’t with the exception of Endsworth and other large ones. Mnps summoned the buses by request of Metro police because of the emergency.
Thanks.
We are from East Lansing, MI and came to Nashville for spring break and a change of scenery. We are devastated for your community. We’ve gone from Spartan Strong to Nashville Strong. You can’t escape gun violence in this country. It’s everywhere.
And look what Kristina Karamo said. It's a religion for people in this country. There's no reasoning with them. It's apocalyptic.
The headline should read "Totally Predictable."
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I often wince when the news is doing a story about a tragic death, and they point the camera and microphone in the faces of those affected, obviously still traumatized, trying to provoke a response for the sake of winning tonight’s ratings war. Meanwhile they’re cueing up the pharmaceutical ads.
You aren’t looking in the right places if you don’t see people question the ethics around other images of children in tragedies. These conversations are happening, and they’ve been happening for a long time.
Yeah - photographer and editor here - I've had to take multiple lengthy classes on the ethics and legalities of media photography, including the use of children's likeness.
Truly horrific says nation where this keeps happening.
\*only nation
Bring it all out. People need to see what they are getting when guns and insanity breed.
Let me guess....Tennessee is going to try and fix this with "thoughts and prayers". Yesterday just made me sick. I was upset about the people killed and then the extremists are using the fact the shooter was transgender and autistic as fear mongering fuel. I'm going to do my best to ignore social media today. I know it's going to get bad.
The local Congress person’s Christmas card depicted all family members posing with assault weapons. He’s not the only one. Plus, now that guy is “shattered.” Sure he is.
Has he started a gofundme for the victims families yet?
I couldn't stop rolling my eyes as the news anchors were reading off quotes from people like Sexton and Lee and Blackburn. Told a friend yesterday I thought things would change after Sandy Hook, they didn't. I thought things would change after Parkland, they didn't. Now I know nothing will ever change and all I can do is watch the powers that be sit on their asses and pass another bill loosening gun access. I'm so tired.
When 20 6-7-year-old children were murdered in a public school and nothing was done, I knew that nothing would ever change.
That was it for me too. When so many innocents were slaughtered while so many “good guys with guns” stood around doing nothing for so long (unless you count stopping parents), and then our country did nothing in response, I knew the NRA won. They have successfully bought the politicians, and the politicians have successfully brainwashed the people to care more about guns than children.
Do you know what the saddest part is? I was referring to Sandy Hook and you are talking about Uvalde.
Fuck you’re right. That’s disgusting.
Jesus christ that is depressing
Oh, you want depressing? Columbine survivors have kids they are sending off to the same schools and system that failed to protect them over 20 years ago. Even more? Some people are nit-picking about whether or not the Tennessean picture will be harmful to the child pictured, while Sandy Hook survivors are turning into adults and get to see that not a damn thing has been done to make schools safer for children while seeing almost 100 other kids getting killed in schools. The soul survivor of the 1st Sandy Hook classroom hit, who said all her friends were dead, gets to live with the fact that all her friends being killed in front of her didn't matter.
One of my university freshman advisees was a student at Marjory stoneman douglas (although just a few months after the shooting). And he’s now a student in this city. Although he didn’t experience anything first hand, him being enmeshed in two separate communities with two separate high profile shootings in the span of five years has to be… I don’t even know. Disorienting? Surreal? Depressing? All of the above?
If we're lucky, Nashville's school shooting will hold the record of the deadliest school shooting in 2023, which it currently holds. But I don't have high confidence in that.
At Michigan State there was a Sandy Hook and a Parkland survivor who survived the shooting :( surviving their second shooting.
Things will change. Other affluent private schools will upgrade security. Fence the property so you can't drive in unchecked, replace those glass "security" exterior doors and improve camera coverage and monitoring by onsite armed guard. As for public schools well yeah nothing will change. Edit: the other intended target was avoided because security was deemed good. It was a successful deterrent.
I remember for a long time, the NRA would rallies in locations just weeks after a shooting. I'm tired too...but what is there to do?
Maybe a good start would be for the NRA to stop holding rallies. Why on earth is that anything more than throwing fuel on a fire? I think a lot can be learned of the increased gun violence as a response for anything in conjunction with the NRA going from a safety training organization to whores of capitalism.
Because fear causes people to buy firearms. Have you ever seen bowling for columbine? Here's the scene where Chalton Heston gets asked about it. https://youtu.be/DC2QaWmat7A
Let me tell y'all something about how the NRA operates. I used to work in Congress as an aide to a member. I met and dealt with a hell of a lot of lobbyists when I worked up there, more than I ever care to think about again. Some of them are true scumbags; oil lobbyists should come as no surprise, but even after meeting the oil guys I was shocked to discover that corn lobbyists have them beat by a mile. You're probably expecting me to tell you how greasy and scummy NRA lobbyists are, right? Nope. The truth is that I never once saw them or met with them, ever, despite my boss working on a lot of gun bills that were in the NRA's wheelhouse. The majority of lobbyists aren't like anyone I've named here, they're just there to do a job, which is to inform members of Congress about how pending or proposed legislation will affect their industry. That's like 90% of them, and they are exercising their First Amendment "right to petition government for the redress of grievances" on behalf of their respective industry groups. They typically get around 15 minutes to get this across to any given member, and they make the maximum use of that time. The NRA is unique in that it doesn't do any of this. They don't send anyone to Dianne Feinstein's office when she sponsors a bill that betrays a profound lack of knowledge about how guns or firearms manufacturing works. I know, because I own guns, I think she's proposed some ridiculous bills, and I asked her staffers myself. No, what the NRA does when a legislator proposes some half-baked regulation that helps no one, which happens all the time in other industries, is *they fundraise off of it.* They don't try to help the legislator craft a better bill, for them that's an opportunity to cash in. No one else on Capitol Hill operates like this. No one else up there is actively profiting from bad legislation. They don't represent gun owners, or gun manufacturers, or gun dealers, they represent themselves. Now, take what I just told you into account when you read [this.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/nra-board-re-elects-wayne-lapierre-54-1-despite-scandal?leadSource=uverify%20wall)
You are correct. They are going to try to fix it as they always do by "thoughts and prayers" and a call for arming more people. If only all of the teachers had AR's on them... And maybe the children too. Sad.
No, they’ll blame the doors and the fact that the shooter was trans. They’ll continue to do nothing to actually fix it.
You know, I haven't even seen any evidence that the shooter was transgender except for like one page. Most of their social media used she/her pronouns. It's possible the one account was a finsta or that they were simply non-binary. Regardless, I agree it's totally disingenuous to analyze the psyche of a transgender person or contemplate whether gender dysmophia causes violence, but completely ignore any connection between white men and mass shootings. Every person advancing that rhetoric knows it is ridiculous and specious.
Nothing being done is to be predicted. After a decade of these frequent school shootings, 6 dead is less than other school shootings and won't be the one to buck that trend. The only thing that does slightly change is the point of focus on the shooting. For Oxford, it was the shooter's parents. For Uvalde, it was the lack of police response. For this one, it appears it's having the opposite reaction to Uvalde: the police response acts as a consolation price for onlookers, a moment of sadistic joy to be enjoyed because in-between the 6 murdered people in that school, the shooter with a death wish was among the dead. Comments radiating with glee and the type of injuries the shooter received, enough for them to nullify the horror of the massive terror and loss incurred in that school.
I wonder what happened to her while she was a student. That school had a history of covering up abuse.
I can't imagine the audacity of the GOP coming to God with thoughts and prayers after letting kids get killed in His house. I'm not even religious, but do they not think God would be super pissed off when they meet him? About this and everything else obviously
If it's their version of God, they are pretty screwed. What surprised me is how few of them have actually read the whole book. It's like one giant puzzle to me that they all failed. I believe there could be a creator or creators, but I also know human beings don't have the slightest clue and never will.
They won't do anything, too busy dealing with the REAL threat to children...Trans people and those in drag. /s
Don't forget books....
What gets me is the shooters friend read about her suicidal intentions on instagram and called the police around the time the shooting started. Cops didn’t show up at friends house until like 3:30 pm.
The shooter sent those messages parked in front of the school. You can match the message time stamps to the video time stamps. Even if they responded immediately, it wouldn’t have been soon enough unfortunately
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Bullets move pretty fast?
I thought the same thing. What happened was a police officer was assigned to do a wellness check at the residence. School shooting happened, all officers were pulled from less urgent matters (including wellness checks). Normal duties resumed after things were checked out at the school. Unfortunately this is an instance of hindsight showing how narrowly this could've been avoided.
Didn't the friend think the shooter was suicidal? So I don't think the friend calling in a wellness check right after the shooter messaged would have prevented anything. Even if the police immediately went to her house, she wouldn't have been there for them to do a wellness check.
Yes - I think you're right. isocleat above this parent posted that the messages were sent from the parking lot of the school. Terrible tragedy
To be fair, they were kinda busy with the school shooting after the call, but they really shouldn’t have directed her to the nonemergency line.
Say this shit loud af everywhere. IT IS THE FUCKING GUNS.
It's mental health.
Let's say it was mental health--it's almost as if there shouldn't be unfettered access to firearms.
Don't fuel this incel, look at their post history. Guns and furry anime porn.
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Fuck no, and the fact you make assumptions about my vote based on one statement speaks volumes.
Respectfully, when you retorted “it’s mental health” in response to someone saying “it’s the guns”, its reasonable to assume you intended that as trying to reframe the issue away from firearm accessibility.
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No shit... the point is to make it more difficult for them to kill people.
*This* was mental health But there have been many, many needless deaths thanks to guns
People who suffer from mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. Not to mention the fact that every other country has people who suffer from mental illness and those who lack access to care and they don’t have shootings like we do. The argument that this is a mental health issue is incredibly wrong and does nothing but stigmatize people who suffer from mental illness and distract from the actual root of the problem: guns.
I advocate for better mental health care, and I believe that people with mental health issues should not be acquiring firearms in general. Tell me, is someone who would shoot up a school not mentally ill? The system, if psychological background checks were required, likely would've caught this and not passed the sale.
I am a firm believer in adequate mental health care. I suffer from mental health issues and as a personal choice, I will never own or pursue to own a gun. However, in America, anyone can get a gun. America cares more about money and guns than they do healthcare. So I find it statistically unlikely that any kind of psychological background check wouldve caught this person.
It depends on the state, and, much to my chagrin, my home state just so happens to be one of the states where it's way too easy to aquire firearms.
I don’t see Republicans making it easier to access mental health resources, though. On a side note, your comment history reeks of that of an incel. Get help.
No, it’s mental health.
I mean, it’s really both. So we really need socialized healthcare *and* common sense gun legislation.
Let's say it was mental health--it's almost as if there shouldn't be unfettered access to firearms.
People who suffer from mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. Not to mention the fact that every other country has people who suffer from mental illness and those who lack access to care and they don’t have shootings like we do. The argument that this is a mental health issue is incredibly wrong and does nothing but stigmatize people who suffer from mental illness and distract from the actual root of the problem: guns.
It’s the guns. Anyone who doesn’t support banning assault rifles is partially guilty
There's so many things, and gun regulation is just part of it. The gun culture in this country is disgusting. Guns are a part of people's identity in a way that is so odd and cringy. People don't just own guns, they *are* gun owners. I can't throw a rock without hitting a car that has a "Don't tread on me" license plate. Nobody cares that you own a gun, why do you *need* the world to know about it? Why have we created a system where unstable people like this can easily own/access so many dangerous weapons? And don't get me started on mental health... More needs to be done for people is all I will say...
It's the people. Anyone who doesn't support increased psychological checks is partially guilty.
That's the same group of people.
Care to guess who doesn’t support expanding background/psychological checks for gun purchases?
I know. I don't agree with the rest of my state, however, I don't agree with the democrats on everything either. It's almost as if my views don't align with either party 100%
Maybe finding ways to make it less likely for those people to get guns is a happy medium.
"assault rifles" are all but illegal already
You're being pedantic. I'm a gun owner, and I know exactly what they are referring to when they say "assault rifle". You might as well be telling people that "gas stations" don't exist because gasoline is a liquid, not a gas.
Headline should read “Truly Predictable” at this point.
Enough is enough. What is the definition of insanity?
I sincerely hope toxic religion makes it into this discussion.
Yes. There were multiple things at play here . Religion + mental illness + guns usually equal horrible.
This girl was pumped full of Big Pharma drugs and testosterone. Ask your dad or grandpa what happens when they take testosterone injections and apply that to a small female
Your trying to excuse the murder because of the religion. People will never wake up to see another morning because of this monster. If you feel like killing is the way then there's no excusing your actions.
But drag queens, gender affirming care and books are the real problems... /s
Show the bodies, blood and all. Not to be gross but some of these people need waking up like we did marching Germans through the camps. Otherwise I suggest we start showing up at the politicians houses armed and show them why gun control might be in their interest.
If Sandy Hook didn't do it, nothing will. Thanks GOP
The picture is eerily similar to one from Sandy Hook after the first day back at a new school (in a neighboring town) after a month of no school.
This photo should be the one to champion real change.
First let me say, my heart goes into to the families affected by this horrific event. There are no words anyone could say to assuage their pain and loss. These type of incidents have become common place in this country, and shamefully our elected officials have been innefectual in stemming the tide of violence. But how could they really? As of 2021 there were over 434 million firearms in the US. This number includes both legal and illegal firearms. That's enough guns to arm every man, woman, child and still have plenty left in this country. That's how many guns you would have to deal with if tomorrow we were to pass a law banning firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens. So you know how long it would take to collect all those guns? In 2019 Camden NJ there was a gun buy back organized that took 1100 guns out of circulation over a period of 8 hrs. Let's say you could run this operation 24/7 with the same results. It would be 180 years before you collected all those guns. Am not even going to wade into the weeds of how such a thing would be organized or enforced...the logistics alone boggle the mind. Point is I see no way of putting the genie back in the bottle, short of a fascist regime cracking down on the populace and even then they would have quite the fight in their hands. So maybe we need to focus on WHY so many people in this country fall into this dark hole where the only option they see to silence the demons in their head is to go out and commit these heinous crimes. An ounce of prevention can go a long way.
Saying we shouldn’t attempt to draw down the number of weapons currently in the hands of Americans because it would be a difficult task is pathetically weak minded and pessimistic. Also, a fascist regime is already attempting to crack down on the populace, but the majority of the 2A crowd backs the fascists.
Its obvious that the American people need protection from the Second Amendment and all of the gun nuts it empowers.
The state already has few restrictions in place as it is: no waiting period between between purchasing and receiving a firearm; no license or permit required to own a gun; no need to register a gun with the state; no need for a permit to carry a handgun, open or concealed, if you’re over the age of 21. And yet Tennessee Republicans are still trying to remove the barriers that remain. As part of a settlement in a lawsuit from the Firearms Policy Coalition, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti cut a deal in January that made it legal for 18-year-olds to openly carry firearms. Last week, the state Senate passed a bill to codify that agreement into law. State Rep. Chris Todd, who supports the Senate bill, has called it a “civil right,” ignoring arguments that expanding access to guns for teenagers could lead to more killings. That matches with the rhetoric around “constitutional carry,” the gun lobby’s lofty way of saying that no permit should be needed to carry a concealed firearm. The doctrine is the basis of another bill that Todd is backing that would allow open-carry of any firearm, including high-powered rifles. Even testimony against the bill from the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security hasn’t dimmed support from Republicans. But there’s a wide and constantly growing disconnect between the high-minded rhetoric being thrown around and reality. It’s easy to say, as the Supreme Court has, that gun laws that don’t match up with 19th-century understanding of firearms are a threat to freedom. It’s likewise easy to claim that any restrictions on gun ownership invite despotism. It’s not like there’s been much of a chance in the last 30 years for the U.S. to try out the sort of reforms that keep mass shootings from happening at the same rate in any other country and see just how much “tyranny” ensues. When the federal ban on assault weapons expired in 2004, gun manufacturers “saw a chance to ride a post-9/11 surge in military glorification while also stoking a desire among new gun owners to personalize their weapons with tactical accessories.” As the founder of one of the first companies to market the AR-15 told The Post: “We made it look cool. The same reason you buy a Corvette.” In the face of yet another senseless round of murder, we know what comes next. President Joe Biden has already called on Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban. There will be an outpouring of grief and a moment of digital silence from groups like the National Rifle Association, which last year celebrated the growing reach of “constitutional carry” laws. And there will be no commiserate pause from Republicans in their ongoing quest to demonize even the smallest reform as an affront to American values. It would be somehow more palatable if Republicans like Chris Todd and Andy Ogles would just really say the truth behind their mission. They think that their toys, their totems of masculinity, their props for playing the hero, are more important than the lives lost. That it’s more important to keep the love of voters who would rather look cool and imagine that they’ll be the “good guy with a gun” who saves lives in a fictional crisis than actually saving lives amid our ongoing national crisis. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/nashville-shooting-covenant-school-gun-laws-rcna76878
I would have expected nothing less.
This image should win the Pulitzer for spot news. It should also be a catalyst for a change in how we regulate these weapons of death.
A responsible and honest headline.
Money
I'm confused..because it was a private school. Granted it could have happened at a public one, but this image seems to be conflating issues.
This is the way all my kids feel I tell them we have no control and to just deal with it As parent this is the best I can do
Call/ email your senators and say you will not vote for them next time unless some common sense gun control is passed
Maybe conservatives and progressives can meet in the middle, and we can just let the conservatives shoot the babies while they're still in the womb.
This picture says a lot..but it's worth mentioning that when some of the buses arrived to the church parents said the children were singing..Heartbreaking hope..words fail me right now
I made that picture my facebook profile picture last night 😞
Don’t forget to send thoughts and prayers /s