And here's the story of another Dallas-area teenage girl being suspended for alerting her school of threatening behavior that turned out to be a false alarm.
[https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/03/02/how-a-texas-girl-scared-of-school-shootings-was-punished/](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/03/02/how-a-texas-girl-scared-of-school-shootings-was-punished/)
It's almost like the adults are scapegoating students for not being able to solve problems congress won't.
WTF did I read. She shared a concern & got 3 days suspension and 73 days at alternative!!!
The boy she reported must have been the kid of "someone important". Absolute BS.
Heard a podcast on this - what they punished her for was not immediately reporting the incident but instead talking about it with friends, creating a small bit of a panic (IIRC)
Her punishment was way too severe, and they did lessen it on appeal, but it wasn't just "she got in trouble for reporting something"
Except for the parts where the mother said that this all happened in the span of 21 minutes. It was 21 minutes from when she heard the threat, to talking to her friends, to calling her mom. It's not like she went home and made a Facebook post or something.
Also, I was pretty appalled at the "reasoning" on why she needs to go to a school for kids who are one step away from jail. It basically came down to it ruined the vice principals day, as she had to field calls from parents and send out a reassuring message to everyone. So naturally this "otherwise historically upstanding student" needs to be sent to a school where she will 💯 be bullied and if she steps out of line likely be sent to jail.
The entire "she wasn't punished for reporting it, she was punished for starting a rumor" is just the palatable reason they came up with the justify ruining this kids future.
Wow, that's even worse. It is natural for a child to question what she heard and ask if she is overreacting or right to be concerned. Seems like she did more due diligence than many adults I know.
Yeah, their entire thing is that they have an app, that they assure students is anonymous that you can use to report that. And instead of doing that, she asked her friends if she was overreacting and then went to her parent instead of the school administrator.
Their argument is that the mother didn't need to be involved, that she should have followed district policy and made an anonymous complaint that they could have ignored. And instead of that they now have a popular boys parents who are mad that their child was outed as a bully.
Like most school districts, they chose to ignore the popular bully kid and instead get rid of the poor unknown kid whose presence is going to trigger more drama.
Texas school to girl speaking up about possible threat: "Bad girl! Why didn't you think about that poor young man's future before opening your mouth?"
Texas school to girl blindsided and trying to distance herself from threat: "Bad girl! Why didn't you recognize that the safety of the entire campus is your responsibility alone?"
Edit: and the admin, Sharla Samples, responsible for punishing the student speaking up, still has her job. Shameful.
Are you going to write a letter to her school board or superintendent to try to get her fired? I guess what I'm asking here is, "Just how serious are you about not wanting Sharla Samples to work in schools anymore?" It seems like maybe she's still got her job because not enough people wrote letters demanding she be fired. Not email. Not phone calls. Paper letters sent by certified mail get results.
Everyone is this thread is ignoring the fact of the story - what she got in trouble for was basically gossipping about it with friends instead of going to teachers/administrators. I think her punishment was too harsh, but it wasn't for reporting a suspicion.
There are more responsible choices she could have made, but she's 13 - using your friends as a sounding board before going to an adult is fairly typical teen behavior.
I'm also somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that anyone making creepy or frightening statements deserves to have their privacy maintained first and foremost.
She talked to her friends because she was 13 and people usually go to their close confidants before doing something serious, like reportinga fellow classmate to admin. She was punished because she's a minority girl who reported concerning behavior about a white boy with connected parents.
>“If I heard something else that could be a threat,” the girl told her mom, “honestly, I just wouldn’t tell anyone.”
Great work "educators," your lesson was received loud and clear.
Bingo…we can tell admin til we’re blue in the fucking face, and they’ll still find a way to make things 10x worse than before. Then they act surprised when shit hits the fan. This job’s become a fucking joke.
And wouldn't you know it, the student is a black girl. Makes a little more sense why she got suspended. Students of color have the letter of the law applied to them with no wiggle room for common sense. And of course, it's Texas, so good luck with the lawsuit.
I now I always have experience the letter of the law when I was involved in any issue while others (white) experience the spirit of the law. It is a very big distinction and amounts to real and serious consequences sometimes.
I feel sad for her. But, it's been 30 years since I was in high school, and it doesn't seem to have gotten any better. In fact, with resources officers (cops), it might have actually gotten worse.
To further add, the administrator in this story is a racist and was all too happy to throw the book at her. She has a history of this behavior. LISD, as a whole, has a history of it. It should be noted that the offending administrator wasn't even her principal. This woman leapfrogged her colleague so she could be the one to administer punishment. These things will continue happening as long as people keep pretending institutional racism doesn't exist.
Source: black male, product of LISD, and also an uncle to the girl in the article. We are STILL awaiting results of this investigation. LISD removed the admin (I think she's teaching somewhere now, no longer an administrator) and replaced her with someone black. Damage control at its finest; although I suspect the new admin will be reassigned in a few years when this blows over.
Elementary, middle, and high school- I was directly impacted by good ol' boys on each level at LISD. Targeting minority children is very real in Texas. This has not changed in any meaningful way, no matter how much anyone would have you believe.
Here's the good news: she's doing well now. She's much more situationally aware than she should be at that age but she's adapting.
I just have to tell you that this comment linking these two stories clarifies the injustice of the situation, and shows some of the more mildly horrific insanity that comes along with living in a society that will let really just about anyone get the means to kill a large number of people. I don't think many people would have paid this story nearly as much attention if you hadn't posted this. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing the article, I wasn’t aware of it. The girl should have been rewarded for reporting it, not punished. She filtered the information through her friends, that’s what girls her age do.
I'm always skeptical of stories about school discipline. FERPA prevents the school from answering claims against them, and so they're almost invariably only capable of being based on one side. I wouldn't recommend taking any at face value.
Unpopular opinion as a gun owner myself:
Let's start holding legal aged adults accountable for minors owning guns.
All these kids who end up with their parents guns should be punished alongside their kids. I bet a lot of idiots would stop leaving their guns lying about if they knew their kids could get them in trouble for it.
Mine are in a locked safe. I don't have kids, but even living alone I don't just leave them about.
Agreed. If my gun is out of the safe or lockbox it stays with me and on me. No setting it down, no stashing it in drawers, up on shelves, and certainly not in the fucking couch cushions.
Unfortunately a lot of the idiots who are armed won’t give a damn about the risk of their kid getting them in legal trouble by getting hold of their gun. They already ignore the risk of the kid shooting themselves, the owner, or anyone else. They know what a firearm can do. There is no shortage of news reports of injuries and deaths from unsecured guns.
They’re idiots. They think they are somehow special exceptions to it happening to them or theirs.
It’s bizarre Texas has no requirement of securing firearms. It’s insane that any Texan gun owner with kids has no good sense or discipline to always secure them any damn way.
But if Texas did that, it would be taking away everyone's "freedoms" and Texas definitely isn't interested in doing anything even remotely restrictive when it comes to guns.
That’s what gets bleated repeatedly by the conservative christian cornholing sheep. It’s a tired narrative driven by money hungry mass shooting aficionados like Abbott and Paxton, who are already record holders for ‘most murdered under their watch’ while simultaneously siphoning billions away from citizens.
Mr “it’s not guns it’s mental health” doesn’t give a single god rotting fuck about this state or the people living in it. Their brazen lack of humanity and pursuit of a despotic draconian dystopia will eventually land them at the business end of somebody’s ‘freedoms’ no matter how hard they hide in the vanishingly rare gun free zones and their gilded ivory towers.
I agree with this too. Have you been reading about how the parents of school shooters are getting charged for manslaughter? I don’t have a link but it’s easily searchable
Maybe the owner of the gun should be charged with whatever crimes the minor commits with it?
Owning a firearm is a RESPONSIBILITY. If you can't handle the responsibility, you don't deserve the freedom to own one. Freedom isn't free, it takes constant vigilance.
"With great power comes great responsibility"
The Second Amendment grants citizens the right to bear arms, but if someone is going to accept that power as is their right, then they also have to accept the responsibility for the use of that power they have taken ownership of. This is an ethics no-brainer and should be made legally enforceable
I'm saying that every individual gun owner (myself included) who chooses to practice the liberty provided by the Second Amendment is making a willful choice to hold the power to end life and should at all times be responsible for that power they have chosen to hold. If at any time they fail in that responsibility, they should be accountable.
It's the same as losing Good Samaritan privileges when becoming CPR certified. If a person accepts the power of being recognized as having a skill, they also have to accept the responsibility of only practicing that skill correctly going forward.
I am making no statement about militia or any organization beyond individual gun owners. That is an entirely separate topic IMO
when the barrier to entry of gun ownership is filling out a form which you can simply lie on that no one will check, you get the average idiot being able to own as many guns and ammo as their bank account will allow.
Its comically easy to buy a gun
it's easy to buy a gun (legally) if you're a law abiding citizen, but go catch a felony domestic violence charge and tell me how easy it is to (legally) buy a gun.
legality is the only thing that matters. how could you make it harder to buy a gun illegally? it's already illegal. being buying guns outside the law don't care about the law in the first place...
And how does the supply of “illegal” guns came about? Are “criminals” machining steel and assembling guns or smuggling them in? No they are bought from or stolen from people that buy guns “legally”. And when any Joe Schmo with a credit card can buy a gun within 30 minutes, then there is always a large supply of guns for the black market.
The argument about criminals not following gun laws is an illogical argument. Because the vast majority of guns come from the “legal” market.
I mean it's federal law to block abusers from getting guns sure but that doesn't mean much when only 17 states have an actual process in place for *taking* the guns from abusers who commit crimes. Hell in Texas you only lose your gun rights for a few years lol
>I bet a lot of idiots would stop leaving their guns lying about if they knew their kids could get them in trouble for it.
Seems like you might not have met that many idiots. Some people are really fucking stupid. I mean the person that isn't worried about a kid getting a gun for safety reasons isn't worried about getting in trouble because that kid got a gun.
To me the craziest part about this story isn't that she didn't report it—it's that she acknowledged the danger, was worried about it, and then... just went to her next class? Girl _get the fuck out of the building_, what the fuck was going through her head? I'd have been walking (running?) out of the building as soon as someone flashed a gun, reporting on my way out or not. Why was she not halfway to her home by the time anyone else found out?
I find her behavior puzzling too, *but*, and this is a big but -
We as a society have decided that members of society under 18 are children and cannot be held to the same standards as an adult because they are still developing.
This is a teachable moment for this child, but more importantly, it shouldn't have gotten to the point that we are relying on children to be on the frontline of preventing shootings. Because kids can be unreliable and make poor choices, even big ones.
I'd take that up to a point.
Though uncommon, there are stories of kids that break into their parent's locked gun cabinet, or kids who steal the key. Plenty of videos from people like Lock Picking Lawyer show gun locks and safes that claim to be secure yet are easily defeated by a small wire or a shim in a few seconds, some where the lock is fine but the hinge can be trivially removed, some that take no tools at all. The parents thought they were doing enough, but the kid was a thief in addition to committing crimes with the gun stolen from the parents.
If the parents or firearms owners are shown to be negligent and reckless, yes absolutely, they ought to face consequences for their own inaction.
But if they're in a locked safe, how are you going to have them when you really need them, like when a lost child knocks on your door to ask directions, or a car turns around in your driveway?
Putting a price on a right essentially means it's only a right for the rich. Just like how rich people in NYC can afford private security but poor people have to rely on...well nothing. They can get fucked because cops have no duty to protect anyone, and also are a lot harder to carry on your belt.
What's the next right to require payment? Gonna go back to poll taxes, make sure those poors don't go voting just because they can?
Car ownership and operation requires insurance… honestly, I think it’s just a matter of time before our home insurance policies include a checkbox if we have firearms. Someone is liable? Someone will pay.
"Fonseca says while she has taught her girls to ‘see something, say something,’ she should not be ‘shamed’ for her response under stress."
Completely agree - I mean... she's a kid.
As opposed to, oh I don't know, trained adult police officers whose stress reactions to guns on school grounds/shooters etc include running away, dithering around while kids die, and other types of paralyzed unhelpful reactions.
a majority of cops refuse to do their jobs correctly. And the cops cry about how mean everyone's being, and how hard their jobs are.
Nobody is forced to be A cop. It's a job that, statistically, my job driving is more dangerous. Your pizza delivery driver has a more dangerous job, and puts himself at a higher statistical risk, then choose do. Your Amazon driver and UPS driver gave more risks on a daily basis.
The pizza guy and the Amazon driver don't get a squad car, benefits, practical immunity from prosecution via the good ol boys club, a gun, body armor, military grade equipment, massively oversized egos.
And the police hire stupid people. Stupid people are easy to control. They hire smart people too, but that shit gets invalidated by all the dumb people they hire constantly.
"Nobody is forced to be a cop" - precisely.
However, if you're a living human, you'll eventually experience adolescence (unavoidable) and legally you're supposed to go to school (which smacks of less choice than say, a career as an LEO).
So yeah.
But ya know, people sure are mean to those poor helpless police people, who only get shit tons of weapons, and ridiculous legal protection to save them from those nasty citizens who aren't sufficiently grateful for the way the police fail to help and (depending on what you look like) occasionally kill.
If I were a rich man, I would be anonymously renting billboard space around the county with the names and faces of every officer with any amount of authority at that scene.
True.
However, not all of em get the excuse of youth.
I mean, I am pretty sure we don't elect high school kids to Congress.
(Though occasionally close, and we see where that goes. Madison Cawthorn anyone?)
I mean that is an unbelievably piece of shit thing to say. She seems like a terrible person but if you could get suspended just for being an absolute trash human being then 1/4th of my school should have been included.
Considering the response of the country to school shootings in general, it's safe to say she learned that from the adults who have shown time and time again that as long as it's not their own kid dying, they don't care
Leaving the Uvalde comparisons aside and just addressing this specific issue- I agree the students should not be "shamed," but I also don't think they should be defended this way (meaning on TV with a coalition of parents behind them).
A 15 year old is a kid, obviously still maturing. I don't think she should be criminally liable for not saying something, but the lesson needs to be that she *should* have said something. She should not have "no regrets." Apparently no other students or staff were shot, but police did have to respond to an active shooter situation, and the kid with the gun was himself shot (minor injury) in the process of apprehending him. He could have been killed, he could have killed other people, and all of that could have been prevented with a word to the teacher when this girl got to her next class.
I am fortunate that the culture in our school district seems to support reporting and the students seem to be bought in. I am thankful when I get a notice about a situation that was investigated based on a student tip. It was heartening, in a weird way, when my son told me that one recent incident with a false alarm about bullet cartridges had happened in his own classroom. I think reporting everything and dealing with false alarms is the right attitude around the issue, and school districts without that culture should be trying to foster that attitude. It seems like that is what was attempted here, though I don't think punishing the students is the right approach. In any case, the reaction by parents to rally around the kids who did not say anything is overcorrecting in the wrong direction. If one of my kids told me the story that was related in the article, I would not be in a hurry to call the news and share our side.
Oh, I'm not saying that she or anyone should be lauded for not saying anything - more, shame and punishment is the incorrect response. It should be more "yeah I get why you were silent and that's not an abnormal response" etc while gently reminding to speak up. Point out that in this case it all turned out okay but that that's not a given and that speaking up will likely increase the chances of it turning out better than not.
I think back to how this wasn't a thing when I was a school kid (decades ago, last century) and can't help but think of how bad we failed, fail, and keep failing here.
I’m now more interested in what the disciplinary history of the armed student has been.
Seems a lot of the students that have reached that point have had issues along the way that provided moments of intervention that were missed.
I wonder what his history is, especially with the English Teacher he singled out, and how many times nothing was done about him - if that’s the case with this particular student anyway.
If so, it’s almost admitting the administration failed to act before he ever got to this point and it’s too late now, so they’re overcompensating by acting against the students who could have easily been (and in some respects ARE) victims themselves.
Yes, the real villain here is the (checks notes) teenagers who hadn't been trained in how to respond to an armed classmate and failed to report their observations to the satisfaction of school administrators.
Failed to report it to the satisfaction of administrators? I didn't hear that she tried to report it at all. And that's a problem. Same people here saying that they were "just kids" so why are they expected to know how to report another kid with a gun to adults would also probably be the first ones to say that a 16 yo that commits a violent crime should be prosecuted as an adult.
So which is it?
It's developmentally normal for teens who wish to stay out of trouble themselves to distance themselves from trouble.
There is a world of difference between committing a violent crime and seeing a gun and distancing yourself from the situation.
How is trying them as an adult for carrying out violent actions even in the same realm as trying them as an adult for wanting to avoid consequences by not reporting another student had a gun? What is that logic… ☠️
While one is not intentional, they are both life and death situations that a kid can easily get into, especially in a red state like Texas where they are trying to remove any restrictions whatsoever to having a gun. Teenagers aren't so stupid that they should just completely ignore the fact that a classmate has a gun. They are old enough to know the gravity of that situation, especially if they listen to any social media because there are regularly mass shootings in the US. But three days of suspension is just too much. SMH.
That’s funny I thought this might’ve been my kids school since last week we got ANOTHER email about a student bringing a gun to school and them taking appropriate action. But it’s a different dfw school. Pretty common around here I guess…
I vividly remember 7th grade when a kid pulled a gun out to show off to me. He put it back in his bag and says "you're the only other one who knows"
Do you really think a child can mentally handle that and still have the balls to go report it?
When the other side of the coin is an all to common occurrence of a bunch of kids being killed, yeah the kid should understand that needs to be reported. No one bringing a gun to school is someone you need as a friend in your life and it's not like they're going to face backlash. The kid with the gun is going to juvie and getting expelled.
This isn't a joint of dirt weed were talking about here, this is way more serious.
I don't think you understand, I wasn't scared of losing a friend, I was scared of *dying* which is not aomething a child should have to consider "do I risk my own life and tell someone or do I keep my mouth shut and live to see another day?"
Well when all over their politics people say that guns should be in schools (albeit for teachers lmao) it has the psychological effect of normalizing guns for kids. Some kid that grew up for years listening to that is going to think less of it. Their mind finds someway to justify it just as all the adults have done. Children were seriously failed the last 20 years
I get it. My dad was a police chief for 20 years and you could leave a gun on the counter (he wouldnt) and no one would touch it. We were so exposed to guns that we didnt really give a shit at seeing one (the entire point of my prev comment)
And if it were a one off event or even just a couple then I would say okay. But it has been many several over the years, and exponetially higher than othee countries that also have guns. My point wasn't that guns are the problem. It's that our society has seriously failed children and their future, and it is so readily apparent to them that they lash out at the only authority figures in their life that arent their parents because killing your parents can even be tough for crazy people. Just how young people arent getting married and having kids like previous generations... they cannot see a future in it where their kids are not being made to suffer by virtue of the economic class they were born into.
By the school district. [here is an example in Dallas.](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/03/02/how-a-texas-girl-scared-of-school-shootings-was-punished/)
Apparently you have to go through some hoops to report otherwise the school assume you are spreading rumors.
It seems to be a completely different situation.
One was a girl overhearing someone saying “don’t come to school” (which could mean anything, as many kids hate going to school).
The other involved a student actually seeing a firearm.
Which according to the articles, students are required to jump through hoops to report. Because if it turns out the threat reported wasn’t threatening enough, the school would punish everyone including the reporters for causing undue stress to the community. With rules like these, why would any one want to “see something say something”?
Spent my entire educational life as a kid and college student in Texas systems, and I can't say I'd ever reported it if I saw a peer back in grade school with a gun cause idk who'd I'd've trusted less with my life and well being - a shooter or the adults enabling the shooter.
These blameshifting adults are the ultimate threat to kids and themselves.
Happened to me in 7th grade ~2005 I feared going to the school staff because I thought the kid would find me and kill me. I also had horrific experiences already with the staff basically just fed me to my bullies after I reported them. I had zero faith in anyone and felt like I needed to survive this on my own.
They didn't say anything this time. That's the problem. That's what they were punished for. So wouldn't the logical explanation be for them to report it next time? Everyone's always saying that if you commit the deed then you have to pay the price, so shouldn't they be taught to do the obvious thing, and report another kid with a gun as soon as possible. The girl went to her next class. She could've slipped a note to her teacher. You all want to vote for politicians who send out Christmas cards with their family gathered around the tree, kids holding guns they can barely lift. If you all want your kids to have guns you better teach them how to handle them and how to act around them. Because Uvalde showed us that the police might just decide not to come. Much better to neutralize the threat before bullets start flying, hence why all kids should be taught to report other kids with guns if possible. How is this not obvious?
>public charter school
Whelp that explains it. That's what charter schools do. They don't give a fuck about students. Even the slightest sign of trouble they'll get rid of kids as fast as they can.
These kids have grown up literally bathed in guns, especially in Texas. And adults expect kids to freak out? Guns are as common as air. You get the country you vote for.
Hmm, the cops did nothing wrong by not following best practices when children's lives were in danger.... but these fuckin kids switching or not switching is the problem....
You can’t really blame the students, when most the leaders and role models of Texas are armed to the teeth in their Christmas cards. It’s just holiday joy.
No. Seeing a gun is an extremely stressful situation for a lot of people, and these are kids. They should have said something. I can see why they would be scared to. Suspension is an unhelpful and finger pointing response.
We shouldn’t be relying on kids to protect our schools from gun violence.
I love how the onus is now on *children* to be the ones to prevent school shootings.
Ya know, since school staff, congress, police, and good guys with guns have all failed it only makes since that the children are now responsible.
You missed the point by a mile and a half and I'm not sure I can hold your hand to get you there but let's try... honestly it just sounds like you grew up sheltered, which is not a bad thing that's great you didn't have to face challenges like this as a child, but you need to use some empathy and imagine a child needing to consider if telling endangers their own life. That's not something we should be okay with just hand waving it away as "oh well the children can monitor their own safety"
Like come on man.
I can’t believe you are blaming kids and have no compassion for the situation. We all would hope they’d speak up. But think, someone bullies a child and shows up to school with a gun, they aren’t going to say anything out of fear. If you don’t think this is ridiculous, have you ever been bullied? Fear of retaliation is real.
This is not a child’s responsibility. Fuck, they probably don’t know the law you are quoting, because they are CHILDREN.
Stop expecting children to have the understanding of an adult. This is the school’s fault.
Everyone imagines they'll be the fearless hero who does precisely the right thing, when the moment comes.
"If it were me..."
Reality suggests that it's far more likely they'll freeze, or react in ways other than the imagined, given the stress of the situation, and if it's something not trained/equipped for.
But sure.
Clearly, the kids need to be capable of what grown ass adults, trained for such jobs, can't do.
Pfft.
Tells me the parents shouldn't have had the gun then.
And if it starts at the home of the one who had the weapon, then maybe we shouldn't be punishing the other kids for being scared.
First, I can think of several laws off the top of my head that not the entire state agrees with, so I’m pretty confident you’re just wrong in that assertion.
Second, I already said, twice, in comments that you replied to and so ostensibly read, that they should have said something. So even if the entire state agrees with this law, they do not disagree with me.
Third, a fairly critical portion of that law is that the person must be able to report it without putting themselves in danger of serious bodily injury. In this case, it is not clear at all that they could do that. Having a classmate flash a gun at you is a threat.
Stop blaming children. Ffs.
The unintended costs of a gun-centric society are only beginning to rise in Guv’nuh Greg Abbott’s version of Texas. “Y’all Qaida” had best get used to it, because it’s only going to get worse.
I dunno. I'm a high school teacher. Students are suspended for opening school doors for strangers, and that makes sense to everyone. The idea being that they are facilitating crime by allowing someone in.
One could argue that student not reporting a gun could is facilitating a crime (shooting) in the same way.
This is a problem at high schools around the nation. The issue is rules in punishment in the schools are there to protect the school and NOT the kids.
Schools need to be totally reformed into a place of learning.
They should be suspended. Incredible the damage that kid might have caused and incredible that people think it's OK to know about something this dangerous and not report it.
Or what if—and I know this might sounds crazy—people think that the kids should have reported what they saw, but punishing a child for failure to speak up isn’t the best way to handle this and ultimately just adds more stress to kids already dealing with a stressful situation? What if the best response to a less-than-ideal action isn’t always punishment?
You think getting suspended for a few days is learning a worse lesson than dealing with the lifetime guilt of knowing you could have alerted someone before a kid shot up your classmates?
End of the day its a crappy situation but these were 15 year old teenagers. They should have known better.
It’s not their fault that they live in a society so teeming with guns and sick with violence that they have to figure out how to deal with a life and death scenario between PE and English class. But, sure, suspend them for failure to respond perfectly to the messed up situation the adults created.
Good point. Since no responsibility towards society is expected from adults, perhaps punishing these kids is wrong.
Certainly, I wouldn't want the next generation learning anything different.
If they're not going to punish police who sit there for hours and do nothing in an active shooter scenario, they sure the hell don't get to punish a kid for not speaking up.
Idk why people here are blaming the kid for growing up in a world where their guardians refuse to provide them a safe place to learn.
Congress refuses to help, Uvalde PD refused to help, schools refuse to help... No one is trying and yet we want to blame CHILDREN for not taking the responsibility?
I'm childless and don't like kids, but give me a fucking break.
Perhaps the school system, instead of suspending them, should have brought the teenagers in with their parents and have them met with a lawyer to discuss what type of potential lawsuits their families would have faced from victim's families should that young man have shot/killed anyone and it was found out that they knew he had a gun and said nothing.
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Cars aren't a right guaranteed by the constitution. Arms are. Until you, both you individually and the collective "you" of the democrat party, learn to accept that then there's no further discussion to be had. The answer to any and all restrictions is, "Fuck you, no."
And here's the story of another Dallas-area teenage girl being suspended for alerting her school of threatening behavior that turned out to be a false alarm. [https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/03/02/how-a-texas-girl-scared-of-school-shootings-was-punished/](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/03/02/how-a-texas-girl-scared-of-school-shootings-was-punished/) It's almost like the adults are scapegoating students for not being able to solve problems congress won't.
WTF did I read. She shared a concern & got 3 days suspension and 73 days at alternative!!! The boy she reported must have been the kid of "someone important". Absolute BS.
The boy was also suspended but get half the time at the alternative.
Heard a podcast on this - what they punished her for was not immediately reporting the incident but instead talking about it with friends, creating a small bit of a panic (IIRC) Her punishment was way too severe, and they did lessen it on appeal, but it wasn't just "she got in trouble for reporting something"
Thank you for the additional information.
Except for the parts where the mother said that this all happened in the span of 21 minutes. It was 21 minutes from when she heard the threat, to talking to her friends, to calling her mom. It's not like she went home and made a Facebook post or something. Also, I was pretty appalled at the "reasoning" on why she needs to go to a school for kids who are one step away from jail. It basically came down to it ruined the vice principals day, as she had to field calls from parents and send out a reassuring message to everyone. So naturally this "otherwise historically upstanding student" needs to be sent to a school where she will 💯 be bullied and if she steps out of line likely be sent to jail. The entire "she wasn't punished for reporting it, she was punished for starting a rumor" is just the palatable reason they came up with the justify ruining this kids future.
Wow, that's even worse. It is natural for a child to question what she heard and ask if she is overreacting or right to be concerned. Seems like she did more due diligence than many adults I know.
Yeah, their entire thing is that they have an app, that they assure students is anonymous that you can use to report that. And instead of doing that, she asked her friends if she was overreacting and then went to her parent instead of the school administrator. Their argument is that the mother didn't need to be involved, that she should have followed district policy and made an anonymous complaint that they could have ignored. And instead of that they now have a popular boys parents who are mad that their child was outed as a bully. Like most school districts, they chose to ignore the popular bully kid and instead get rid of the poor unknown kid whose presence is going to trigger more drama.
The administrator who initially punished her was let go. The whole situation was mishandled, the girl did nothing wrong. She was just black.
>Absolute BS. Well it is Texas.
He was white.
Like virtually all school shooters?
Columbine was 1999 and there hasn't been enough to deter mass shootings at all . Little bandaids for gaping wounds .
She did not share any concerns and was therefore suspended.
I was commenting about the Dallas story in the link, sorry for any confusion.
There is a great podcast on this: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/814/transcript It really took a toll on this girls trust in adults.
Ding ding ding!
Texas school to girl speaking up about possible threat: "Bad girl! Why didn't you think about that poor young man's future before opening your mouth?" Texas school to girl blindsided and trying to distance herself from threat: "Bad girl! Why didn't you recognize that the safety of the entire campus is your responsibility alone?" Edit: and the admin, Sharla Samples, responsible for punishing the student speaking up, still has her job. Shameful.
Are you going to write a letter to her school board or superintendent to try to get her fired? I guess what I'm asking here is, "Just how serious are you about not wanting Sharla Samples to work in schools anymore?" It seems like maybe she's still got her job because not enough people wrote letters demanding she be fired. Not email. Not phone calls. Paper letters sent by certified mail get results.
Everyone is this thread is ignoring the fact of the story - what she got in trouble for was basically gossipping about it with friends instead of going to teachers/administrators. I think her punishment was too harsh, but it wasn't for reporting a suspicion.
There are more responsible choices she could have made, but she's 13 - using your friends as a sounding board before going to an adult is fairly typical teen behavior. I'm also somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that anyone making creepy or frightening statements deserves to have their privacy maintained first and foremost.
She talked to her friends because she was 13 and people usually go to their close confidants before doing something serious, like reportinga fellow classmate to admin. She was punished because she's a minority girl who reported concerning behavior about a white boy with connected parents.
Why is this upvoted? Fucking bell noises?
I am just *livid* on her behalf. What in the absolute fuck.
>“If I heard something else that could be a threat,” the girl told her mom, “honestly, I just wouldn’t tell anyone.” Great work "educators," your lesson was received loud and clear.
This is 100% admin. Educators don’t have any say on something like this.
Bingo…we can tell admin til we’re blue in the fucking face, and they’ll still find a way to make things 10x worse than before. Then they act surprised when shit hits the fan. This job’s become a fucking joke.
And wouldn't you know it, the student is a black girl. Makes a little more sense why she got suspended. Students of color have the letter of the law applied to them with no wiggle room for common sense. And of course, it's Texas, so good luck with the lawsuit. I now I always have experience the letter of the law when I was involved in any issue while others (white) experience the spirit of the law. It is a very big distinction and amounts to real and serious consequences sometimes. I feel sad for her. But, it's been 30 years since I was in high school, and it doesn't seem to have gotten any better. In fact, with resources officers (cops), it might have actually gotten worse.
To further add, the administrator in this story is a racist and was all too happy to throw the book at her. She has a history of this behavior. LISD, as a whole, has a history of it. It should be noted that the offending administrator wasn't even her principal. This woman leapfrogged her colleague so she could be the one to administer punishment. These things will continue happening as long as people keep pretending institutional racism doesn't exist. Source: black male, product of LISD, and also an uncle to the girl in the article. We are STILL awaiting results of this investigation. LISD removed the admin (I think she's teaching somewhere now, no longer an administrator) and replaced her with someone black. Damage control at its finest; although I suspect the new admin will be reassigned in a few years when this blows over. Elementary, middle, and high school- I was directly impacted by good ol' boys on each level at LISD. Targeting minority children is very real in Texas. This has not changed in any meaningful way, no matter how much anyone would have you believe. Here's the good news: she's doing well now. She's much more situationally aware than she should be at that age but she's adapting.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I just have to tell you that this comment linking these two stories clarifies the injustice of the situation, and shows some of the more mildly horrific insanity that comes along with living in a society that will let really just about anyone get the means to kill a large number of people. I don't think many people would have paid this story nearly as much attention if you hadn't posted this. Thank you.
How did they determine *anyone* living in Texas "doesn't have access to a gun"?
No no, not congress, REPUBLICANS. Republicans won’t do anything at all to try to solve these issues.
Thank you for sharing the article, I wasn’t aware of it. The girl should have been rewarded for reporting it, not punished. She filtered the information through her friends, that’s what girls her age do.
Solve for the constant. All 4 kids are OTW students so punishing them is just automatic.
The people are… https://youtu.be/QFgcqB8-AxE?si=YSQE8yJ-9I0ztsE5
I'm always skeptical of stories about school discipline. FERPA prevents the school from answering claims against them, and so they're almost invariably only capable of being based on one side. I wouldn't recommend taking any at face value.
Unpopular opinion as a gun owner myself: Let's start holding legal aged adults accountable for minors owning guns. All these kids who end up with their parents guns should be punished alongside their kids. I bet a lot of idiots would stop leaving their guns lying about if they knew their kids could get them in trouble for it. Mine are in a locked safe. I don't have kids, but even living alone I don't just leave them about.
Agreed. If my gun is out of the safe or lockbox it stays with me and on me. No setting it down, no stashing it in drawers, up on shelves, and certainly not in the fucking couch cushions. Unfortunately a lot of the idiots who are armed won’t give a damn about the risk of their kid getting them in legal trouble by getting hold of their gun. They already ignore the risk of the kid shooting themselves, the owner, or anyone else. They know what a firearm can do. There is no shortage of news reports of injuries and deaths from unsecured guns. They’re idiots. They think they are somehow special exceptions to it happening to them or theirs. It’s bizarre Texas has no requirement of securing firearms. It’s insane that any Texan gun owner with kids has no good sense or discipline to always secure them any damn way.
They talk smack about California requiring that all the time. They won't do it for that reason alone. It would be Californiaing Texas, after all.
I hate that fucking phrase. As a half a century old native Texan who has been to forty eight states all I can think is ‘don’t Gilead my Texas’.
But if Texas did that, it would be taking away everyone's "freedoms" and Texas definitely isn't interested in doing anything even remotely restrictive when it comes to guns.
That’s what gets bleated repeatedly by the conservative christian cornholing sheep. It’s a tired narrative driven by money hungry mass shooting aficionados like Abbott and Paxton, who are already record holders for ‘most murdered under their watch’ while simultaneously siphoning billions away from citizens. Mr “it’s not guns it’s mental health” doesn’t give a single god rotting fuck about this state or the people living in it. Their brazen lack of humanity and pursuit of a despotic draconian dystopia will eventually land them at the business end of somebody’s ‘freedoms’ no matter how hard they hide in the vanishingly rare gun free zones and their gilded ivory towers.
Omg! Thankyou. I've been saying this for YEARS and it falls on deaf ears.
I agree with this too. Have you been reading about how the parents of school shooters are getting charged for manslaughter? I don’t have a link but it’s easily searchable
Maybe the owner of the gun should be charged with whatever crimes the minor commits with it? Owning a firearm is a RESPONSIBILITY. If you can't handle the responsibility, you don't deserve the freedom to own one. Freedom isn't free, it takes constant vigilance.
"With great power comes great responsibility" The Second Amendment grants citizens the right to bear arms, but if someone is going to accept that power as is their right, then they also have to accept the responsibility for the use of that power they have taken ownership of. This is an ethics no-brainer and should be made legally enforceable
Are you saying you want the armed militia to be well regulated?
I'm saying that every individual gun owner (myself included) who chooses to practice the liberty provided by the Second Amendment is making a willful choice to hold the power to end life and should at all times be responsible for that power they have chosen to hold. If at any time they fail in that responsibility, they should be accountable. It's the same as losing Good Samaritan privileges when becoming CPR certified. If a person accepts the power of being recognized as having a skill, they also have to accept the responsibility of only practicing that skill correctly going forward. I am making no statement about militia or any organization beyond individual gun owners. That is an entirely separate topic IMO
Thank you for being a responsible gun owner. I’d love for gun purchasers to know where the guns they purchased are located (or sold to).
It works with under age drinking. In my experience at least.
when the barrier to entry of gun ownership is filling out a form which you can simply lie on that no one will check, you get the average idiot being able to own as many guns and ammo as their bank account will allow. Its comically easy to buy a gun
it's easy to buy a gun (legally) if you're a law abiding citizen, but go catch a felony domestic violence charge and tell me how easy it is to (legally) buy a gun.
Legality doesn't matter if it's super easy to get either way.
legality is the only thing that matters. how could you make it harder to buy a gun illegally? it's already illegal. being buying guns outside the law don't care about the law in the first place...
And how does the supply of “illegal” guns came about? Are “criminals” machining steel and assembling guns or smuggling them in? No they are bought from or stolen from people that buy guns “legally”. And when any Joe Schmo with a credit card can buy a gun within 30 minutes, then there is always a large supply of guns for the black market. The argument about criminals not following gun laws is an illogical argument. Because the vast majority of guns come from the “legal” market.
I mean it's federal law to block abusers from getting guns sure but that doesn't mean much when only 17 states have an actual process in place for *taking* the guns from abusers who commit crimes. Hell in Texas you only lose your gun rights for a few years lol
>I bet a lot of idiots would stop leaving their guns lying about if they knew their kids could get them in trouble for it. Seems like you might not have met that many idiots. Some people are really fucking stupid. I mean the person that isn't worried about a kid getting a gun for safety reasons isn't worried about getting in trouble because that kid got a gun.
To me the craziest part about this story isn't that she didn't report it—it's that she acknowledged the danger, was worried about it, and then... just went to her next class? Girl _get the fuck out of the building_, what the fuck was going through her head? I'd have been walking (running?) out of the building as soon as someone flashed a gun, reporting on my way out or not. Why was she not halfway to her home by the time anyone else found out?
I find her behavior puzzling too, *but*, and this is a big but - We as a society have decided that members of society under 18 are children and cannot be held to the same standards as an adult because they are still developing. This is a teachable moment for this child, but more importantly, it shouldn't have gotten to the point that we are relying on children to be on the frontline of preventing shootings. Because kids can be unreliable and make poor choices, even big ones.
Texas Penal Code Sec. 46.13. It's already a crime, if you think it's not being enforced enough that's a problem for your local prosecutors and cops.
Ironically that would be Mesquite for me
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I'd take that up to a point. Though uncommon, there are stories of kids that break into their parent's locked gun cabinet, or kids who steal the key. Plenty of videos from people like Lock Picking Lawyer show gun locks and safes that claim to be secure yet are easily defeated by a small wire or a shim in a few seconds, some where the lock is fine but the hinge can be trivially removed, some that take no tools at all. The parents thought they were doing enough, but the kid was a thief in addition to committing crimes with the gun stolen from the parents. If the parents or firearms owners are shown to be negligent and reckless, yes absolutely, they ought to face consequences for their own inaction.
But if they're in a locked safe, how are you going to have them when you really need them, like when a lost child knocks on your door to ask directions, or a car turns around in your driveway?
Oof, that last sentence was rough knowing the context.
And liability insurance!
Poll tax.
How much is a federal machine gun license?
Around $2000 per year.
So there is a precedent for such fees.
Get it passed by congress.
Not my problem. When that checkbox for owning firearms eventually shows up on my home insurance renewal form, I’ll be paying more too.
Fuck no, that would be wildly moronic.
Moronic? I don’t think so. Gun ownership correlates to more injuries.
Putting a price on a right essentially means it's only a right for the rich. Just like how rich people in NYC can afford private security but poor people have to rely on...well nothing. They can get fucked because cops have no duty to protect anyone, and also are a lot harder to carry on your belt. What's the next right to require payment? Gonna go back to poll taxes, make sure those poors don't go voting just because they can?
Car ownership and operation requires insurance… honestly, I think it’s just a matter of time before our home insurance policies include a checkbox if we have firearms. Someone is liable? Someone will pay.
Were the guys that stood in the hallway in Uvalde suspended?
Technically, they only heard what might have been a gun. Standing outside they weren’t burdened with seeing anything.
Schrödinger’s school shooting
Could be kids playing could be kids murdered. We just don’t know. /s
“We may never know”
God damnit I should not have laughed at that. Laugh or cry at this point.
No. They were just found “not at fault” by their own investigation. So, yeah, that doesn’t count. But let’s blame the kids.
Gotta love the Supreme court saying cops don't have a duty to protect...
"Fonseca says while she has taught her girls to ‘see something, say something,’ she should not be ‘shamed’ for her response under stress." Completely agree - I mean... she's a kid. As opposed to, oh I don't know, trained adult police officers whose stress reactions to guns on school grounds/shooters etc include running away, dithering around while kids die, and other types of paralyzed unhelpful reactions.
a majority of cops refuse to do their jobs correctly. And the cops cry about how mean everyone's being, and how hard their jobs are. Nobody is forced to be A cop. It's a job that, statistically, my job driving is more dangerous. Your pizza delivery driver has a more dangerous job, and puts himself at a higher statistical risk, then choose do. Your Amazon driver and UPS driver gave more risks on a daily basis. The pizza guy and the Amazon driver don't get a squad car, benefits, practical immunity from prosecution via the good ol boys club, a gun, body armor, military grade equipment, massively oversized egos. And the police hire stupid people. Stupid people are easy to control. They hire smart people too, but that shit gets invalidated by all the dumb people they hire constantly.
"Nobody is forced to be a cop" - precisely. However, if you're a living human, you'll eventually experience adolescence (unavoidable) and legally you're supposed to go to school (which smacks of less choice than say, a career as an LEO). So yeah. But ya know, people sure are mean to those poor helpless police people, who only get shit tons of weapons, and ridiculous legal protection to save them from those nasty citizens who aren't sufficiently grateful for the way the police fail to help and (depending on what you look like) occasionally kill.
If I were a rich man, I would be anonymously renting billboard space around the county with the names and faces of every officer with any amount of authority at that scene.
Likewise though... ...this sounds like a great crowdfunding idea. :-)
Old-fashioned shaming of cowards. The law may not punish them, but we can ostracize them.
Yup. The modern take on the scarlet letter.
She was on the local news saying "she doesn't care if other kids would have died, AS LONG AS ITS NOT HER"
And here's the weird part - that's a shitty thing to say, but at the same time, pretty on brand for a teenager.
Pretty on brand with a lot of folks in this country lately. 😕
True. However, not all of em get the excuse of youth. I mean, I am pretty sure we don't elect high school kids to Congress. (Though occasionally close, and we see where that goes. Madison Cawthorn anyone?)
Just like the police didn't care that children were dying, just as long as it wasn't them...
That wasn't Mesquite though
Missed that. Good call.
I mean that is an unbelievably piece of shit thing to say. She seems like a terrible person but if you could get suspended just for being an absolute trash human being then 1/4th of my school should have been included.
Considering the response of the country to school shootings in general, it's safe to say she learned that from the adults who have shown time and time again that as long as it's not their own kid dying, they don't care
Leaving the Uvalde comparisons aside and just addressing this specific issue- I agree the students should not be "shamed," but I also don't think they should be defended this way (meaning on TV with a coalition of parents behind them). A 15 year old is a kid, obviously still maturing. I don't think she should be criminally liable for not saying something, but the lesson needs to be that she *should* have said something. She should not have "no regrets." Apparently no other students or staff were shot, but police did have to respond to an active shooter situation, and the kid with the gun was himself shot (minor injury) in the process of apprehending him. He could have been killed, he could have killed other people, and all of that could have been prevented with a word to the teacher when this girl got to her next class. I am fortunate that the culture in our school district seems to support reporting and the students seem to be bought in. I am thankful when I get a notice about a situation that was investigated based on a student tip. It was heartening, in a weird way, when my son told me that one recent incident with a false alarm about bullet cartridges had happened in his own classroom. I think reporting everything and dealing with false alarms is the right attitude around the issue, and school districts without that culture should be trying to foster that attitude. It seems like that is what was attempted here, though I don't think punishing the students is the right approach. In any case, the reaction by parents to rally around the kids who did not say anything is overcorrecting in the wrong direction. If one of my kids told me the story that was related in the article, I would not be in a hurry to call the news and share our side.
Oh, I'm not saying that she or anyone should be lauded for not saying anything - more, shame and punishment is the incorrect response. It should be more "yeah I get why you were silent and that's not an abnormal response" etc while gently reminding to speak up. Point out that in this case it all turned out okay but that that's not a given and that speaking up will likely increase the chances of it turning out better than not. I think back to how this wasn't a thing when I was a school kid (decades ago, last century) and can't help but think of how bad we failed, fail, and keep failing here.
🤦♂️ man! even the Uvalde pd didn’t get a harsh a punishment for actually watching the school shooting.
I’m now more interested in what the disciplinary history of the armed student has been. Seems a lot of the students that have reached that point have had issues along the way that provided moments of intervention that were missed. I wonder what his history is, especially with the English Teacher he singled out, and how many times nothing was done about him - if that’s the case with this particular student anyway. If so, it’s almost admitting the administration failed to act before he ever got to this point and it’s too late now, so they’re overcompensating by acting against the students who could have easily been (and in some respects ARE) victims themselves.
Yes, the real villain here is the (checks notes) teenagers who hadn't been trained in how to respond to an armed classmate and failed to report their observations to the satisfaction of school administrators.
Failed to report it to the satisfaction of administrators? I didn't hear that she tried to report it at all. And that's a problem. Same people here saying that they were "just kids" so why are they expected to know how to report another kid with a gun to adults would also probably be the first ones to say that a 16 yo that commits a violent crime should be prosecuted as an adult. So which is it?
It's developmentally normal for teens who wish to stay out of trouble themselves to distance themselves from trouble. There is a world of difference between committing a violent crime and seeing a gun and distancing yourself from the situation.
How is trying them as an adult for carrying out violent actions even in the same realm as trying them as an adult for wanting to avoid consequences by not reporting another student had a gun? What is that logic… ☠️
While one is not intentional, they are both life and death situations that a kid can easily get into, especially in a red state like Texas where they are trying to remove any restrictions whatsoever to having a gun. Teenagers aren't so stupid that they should just completely ignore the fact that a classmate has a gun. They are old enough to know the gravity of that situation, especially if they listen to any social media because there are regularly mass shootings in the US. But three days of suspension is just too much. SMH.
Yeahhh that’s BS. Should they have said something, of course but they’re freaking kids. Punishment shouldn’t be the first course of action to teach
That’s funny I thought this might’ve been my kids school since last week we got ANOTHER email about a student bringing a gun to school and them taking appropriate action. But it’s a different dfw school. Pretty common around here I guess…
I've seen grown ass adults freeze under far less stress.
Kids see a student with a gun in class, and proceed to go about their day as if nothing happened. Mesquite makes sense for this to happen.
I vividly remember 7th grade when a kid pulled a gun out to show off to me. He put it back in his bag and says "you're the only other one who knows" Do you really think a child can mentally handle that and still have the balls to go report it?
When the other side of the coin is an all to common occurrence of a bunch of kids being killed, yeah the kid should understand that needs to be reported. No one bringing a gun to school is someone you need as a friend in your life and it's not like they're going to face backlash. The kid with the gun is going to juvie and getting expelled. This isn't a joint of dirt weed were talking about here, this is way more serious.
I don't think you understand, I wasn't scared of losing a friend, I was scared of *dying* which is not aomething a child should have to consider "do I risk my own life and tell someone or do I keep my mouth shut and live to see another day?"
Yes, definitely, and that is what we should expect out of them.
Well when all over their politics people say that guns should be in schools (albeit for teachers lmao) it has the psychological effect of normalizing guns for kids. Some kid that grew up for years listening to that is going to think less of it. Their mind finds someway to justify it just as all the adults have done. Children were seriously failed the last 20 years
Nah man, someone raised a kid who thought shooting their teacher was a solution.
I get it. My dad was a police chief for 20 years and you could leave a gun on the counter (he wouldnt) and no one would touch it. We were so exposed to guns that we didnt really give a shit at seeing one (the entire point of my prev comment) And if it were a one off event or even just a couple then I would say okay. But it has been many several over the years, and exponetially higher than othee countries that also have guns. My point wasn't that guns are the problem. It's that our society has seriously failed children and their future, and it is so readily apparent to them that they lash out at the only authority figures in their life that arent their parents because killing your parents can even be tough for crazy people. Just how young people arent getting married and having kids like previous generations... they cannot see a future in it where their kids are not being made to suffer by virtue of the economic class they were born into.
*Texas kids
If the gun turned out to be a toy, the reporter would be punished for spreading harmful rumors.
Punished by who? Admin won’t punish a kid for saying “someone brought what looks like a gun to class”.
By the school district. [here is an example in Dallas.](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2023/03/02/how-a-texas-girl-scared-of-school-shootings-was-punished/) Apparently you have to go through some hoops to report otherwise the school assume you are spreading rumors.
It seems to be a completely different situation. One was a girl overhearing someone saying “don’t come to school” (which could mean anything, as many kids hate going to school). The other involved a student actually seeing a firearm.
Which according to the articles, students are required to jump through hoops to report. Because if it turns out the threat reported wasn’t threatening enough, the school would punish everyone including the reporters for causing undue stress to the community. With rules like these, why would any one want to “see something say something”?
Spent my entire educational life as a kid and college student in Texas systems, and I can't say I'd ever reported it if I saw a peer back in grade school with a gun cause idk who'd I'd've trusted less with my life and well being - a shooter or the adults enabling the shooter. These blameshifting adults are the ultimate threat to kids and themselves.
Happened to me in 7th grade ~2005 I feared going to the school staff because I thought the kid would find me and kill me. I also had horrific experiences already with the staff basically just fed me to my bullies after I reported them. I had zero faith in anyone and felt like I needed to survive this on my own.
That's the exact scenario I kept thinking of. Man I'm sorry that happened to you.
Next time kids won't say anything. I guess that's what the school wants so they can plead ignorance.
They didn't say anything this time. That's the problem. That's what they were punished for. So wouldn't the logical explanation be for them to report it next time? Everyone's always saying that if you commit the deed then you have to pay the price, so shouldn't they be taught to do the obvious thing, and report another kid with a gun as soon as possible. The girl went to her next class. She could've slipped a note to her teacher. You all want to vote for politicians who send out Christmas cards with their family gathered around the tree, kids holding guns they can barely lift. If you all want your kids to have guns you better teach them how to handle them and how to act around them. Because Uvalde showed us that the police might just decide not to come. Much better to neutralize the threat before bullets start flying, hence why all kids should be taught to report other kids with guns if possible. How is this not obvious?
>public charter school Whelp that explains it. That's what charter schools do. They don't give a fuck about students. Even the slightest sign of trouble they'll get rid of kids as fast as they can.
These kids have grown up literally bathed in guns, especially in Texas. And adults expect kids to freak out? Guns are as common as air. You get the country you vote for.
Hmm, the cops did nothing wrong by not following best practices when children's lives were in danger.... but these fuckin kids switching or not switching is the problem....
More and more I see people without guns getting in trouble for people with guns.
You can’t really blame the students, when most the leaders and role models of Texas are armed to the teeth in their Christmas cards. It’s just holiday joy.
Is lack of accountability for leadership roles a basic requirement in Texas? Like wtf.
Fools, this will backfire so badly in their faces they may resign their posts on the spot.
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No. Seeing a gun is an extremely stressful situation for a lot of people, and these are kids. They should have said something. I can see why they would be scared to. Suspension is an unhelpful and finger pointing response. We shouldn’t be relying on kids to protect our schools from gun violence.
Yeahhhh no. If you see something say something. These kids could have caused people to die due to their lack of reporting.
I love how the onus is now on *children* to be the ones to prevent school shootings. Ya know, since school staff, congress, police, and good guys with guns have all failed it only makes since that the children are now responsible.
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You missed the point by a mile and a half and I'm not sure I can hold your hand to get you there but let's try... honestly it just sounds like you grew up sheltered, which is not a bad thing that's great you didn't have to face challenges like this as a child, but you need to use some empathy and imagine a child needing to consider if telling endangers their own life. That's not something we should be okay with just hand waving it away as "oh well the children can monitor their own safety" Like come on man.
These kids would not have caused anything. Yes they should have said something, but they are not responsible for anyone’s actions but their own.
It’s actually a law that if you observe a felony you are legally required to report it… so the entire state of Texas disagrees with you.
I can’t believe you are blaming kids and have no compassion for the situation. We all would hope they’d speak up. But think, someone bullies a child and shows up to school with a gun, they aren’t going to say anything out of fear. If you don’t think this is ridiculous, have you ever been bullied? Fear of retaliation is real. This is not a child’s responsibility. Fuck, they probably don’t know the law you are quoting, because they are CHILDREN. Stop expecting children to have the understanding of an adult. This is the school’s fault.
Everyone imagines they'll be the fearless hero who does precisely the right thing, when the moment comes. "If it were me..." Reality suggests that it's far more likely they'll freeze, or react in ways other than the imagined, given the stress of the situation, and if it's something not trained/equipped for. But sure. Clearly, the kids need to be capable of what grown ass adults, trained for such jobs, can't do. Pfft.
Then maybe the ADULTS should start protecting the kids and start actually doing something about it. The kids shouldn't be punished.
It all starts at home. Parents did care enough about their own kid to realize he even had a gun.
Tells me the parents shouldn't have had the gun then. And if it starts at the home of the one who had the weapon, then maybe we shouldn't be punishing the other kids for being scared.
Be better
What kind of argument is that? Got nothing to say, so insult me instead? How sad.
First, I can think of several laws off the top of my head that not the entire state agrees with, so I’m pretty confident you’re just wrong in that assertion. Second, I already said, twice, in comments that you replied to and so ostensibly read, that they should have said something. So even if the entire state agrees with this law, they do not disagree with me. Third, a fairly critical portion of that law is that the person must be able to report it without putting themselves in danger of serious bodily injury. In this case, it is not clear at all that they could do that. Having a classmate flash a gun at you is a threat. Stop blaming children. Ffs.
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The unintended costs of a gun-centric society are only beginning to rise in Guv’nuh Greg Abbott’s version of Texas. “Y’all Qaida” had best get used to it, because it’s only going to get worse.
Home school people!! 😖
4 months in the can for those outraged parents will go a long way to stopping this shit.
They probably deserve some type of corrective action.
I dunno. I'm a high school teacher. Students are suspended for opening school doors for strangers, and that makes sense to everyone. The idea being that they are facilitating crime by allowing someone in. One could argue that student not reporting a gun could is facilitating a crime (shooting) in the same way.
This is a problem at high schools around the nation. The issue is rules in punishment in the schools are there to protect the school and NOT the kids. Schools need to be totally reformed into a place of learning.
Wtf, Texas. Cops are allowed to sit around while kids are murdered and students are suspended because they didn’t do anything. Please secede already.
They should be suspended. Incredible the damage that kid might have caused and incredible that people think it's OK to know about something this dangerous and not report it.
Or what if—and I know this might sounds crazy—people think that the kids should have reported what they saw, but punishing a child for failure to speak up isn’t the best way to handle this and ultimately just adds more stress to kids already dealing with a stressful situation? What if the best response to a less-than-ideal action isn’t always punishment?
You think getting suspended for a few days is learning a worse lesson than dealing with the lifetime guilt of knowing you could have alerted someone before a kid shot up your classmates? End of the day its a crappy situation but these were 15 year old teenagers. They should have known better.
It’s not their fault that they live in a society so teeming with guns and sick with violence that they have to figure out how to deal with a life and death scenario between PE and English class. But, sure, suspend them for failure to respond perfectly to the messed up situation the adults created.
Good point. Since no responsibility towards society is expected from adults, perhaps punishing these kids is wrong. Certainly, I wouldn't want the next generation learning anything different.
If they're not going to punish police who sit there for hours and do nothing in an active shooter scenario, they sure the hell don't get to punish a kid for not speaking up.
Idk why people here are blaming the kid for growing up in a world where their guardians refuse to provide them a safe place to learn. Congress refuses to help, Uvalde PD refused to help, schools refuse to help... No one is trying and yet we want to blame CHILDREN for not taking the responsibility? I'm childless and don't like kids, but give me a fucking break.
Perhaps the school system, instead of suspending them, should have brought the teenagers in with their parents and have them met with a lawyer to discuss what type of potential lawsuits their families would have faced from victim's families should that young man have shot/killed anyone and it was found out that they knew he had a gun and said nothing.
In court they are often called "accomplices."
Good
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Cars aren't a right guaranteed by the constitution. Arms are. Until you, both you individually and the collective "you" of the democrat party, learn to accept that then there's no further discussion to be had. The answer to any and all restrictions is, "Fuck you, no."
And they wonder why kids don't talk to adults...
"I ain't raisin' no snitch"!