After mass shooting, Florida House declares a serious public health risk
Florida House declares a public health risk — from pornography (not guns)
Sherl Acquarola, a 16-year-old junior from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is overcome with emotion in the east gallery of the House of Representatives after the representatives voted not to hear a bill banning assault rifles and large capacity magazines.
Acquarola was one of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that left 17 dead, who were in Tallahassee on Feb. 20, 2018 to meet with Florida lawmakers. (Photo: Mark Wallheiser, AP)
The resolution was introduced just after the House voted 71-36 against a motion to open debate on an "assault weapons" ban. Democratic state Rep. Kionne McGhee proposed the motion as students from Stoneman Douglas came to the Capitol demanding action on gun control. (Link)
They didn't vote against the assault weapons ban-- rather, they voted against even considering it! Then they took up what they considered to be the real threat to public health & safety-- pornography!
They didn't vote against the assault weapons ban-- rather, they voted against even considering it! Then they took up what they considered to be the real threat to public health & safety-- pornography!
This whole notion of danger being posed by children-- even emotional disturbed children-- having easy access to assault weapons is highly exaggerated! Astute Florida politicion, in their great wisdom, know what the real threat to student's lives and safty is-- pornography! They should be praised for their brilliant insights!
And I imagine they will next leap into action against another extremely serious threat-- The Devil's Flower!
IMO, Mr. Sunshine and his Guitar Pickers don't get nearly the credit they deserve-- for waking up the nation to this horrible threat!
Well done GOPERS. Nobody, and I mean nobody knows more about the 'dangers and risks' of pornography than the GOPERS. Stormy seas ahead. Button up the fly and batten down the hatches.
Republicans will defend Trump having an affair with a porn star while they try to claim that porn is the problem.
The ACLU will have the Florida GOP for lunch if they try to censor porn.
Florida likes porn,
"Everybody knows" that if you watch porn you will go blind. So the Florida GOP is doing us a valuable service in doing this. They should be praised, not criticized!!!
Hypocrite seems like a fitting term for them...
One mass shooting a flag was blamed.
Here we have another mass shooting and porn is blamed.
And the real problem STILL escapes them.
The deputies that were assigned to protect the school ran outside and took cover, but the idiots of the GOP expect the lunch lady, the janitor and the kindergarten teacher to exchange fire with a mass shooter armed with an AR-15 if they are given 9mms.
Republicans can't be bothered to see that teachers have necessary school supplies but they don't have a problem giving them guns. Can the teachers sell the guns for pencils, books, crayons and other school suplies?
You really don't know too much about the ballistics do you? At those ranges, a 9mm is just as effective as an M4. In fact a 9mm would be the better choice of weapon for close quarters like that.
You know very well that no rational human is going to stand there in the open with a 9mm and exchange fire with someone with an AR15. That is not a rational response that even the military can train someone to accomplish. When someone is firing at you you take cover and fire from a protected position, unless you are working as a team, which won't happen in a school. The trained deputies ran for cover when this kid showed up so we cannot expect lightly trained teachers and support staff to act like Rambo when confronted with someone who has an AR.
The best weapon for this kind of fighting would be a shotgun but even with that weapon, you would run the risk of hitting innocent people with the pellets that ricochet off of concrete block walls and lockers.
With training. It's very easy to do.
That IS training I received in the military. An M4 / AR15 is too bulky to really be effective in a closed quarters scenario like that.
This I do agree with you on. But it does bring to mind why that single SRO is being drug through the mud because he was alone and didn't enter the school? Could it be that people are looking for an excuse for the shooting other than this kid? Now as far as the other deputies that didn't enter; I don't know why they didn't enter and I'm not going to speculate on it either.
A shotgun wouldn't be the best and you state exactly why it's not the best. The pattern of the pellets leaving the muzzle put many at risk unnecessarily.
At what ranges?
Across a classroom?
The length of a school hallway?
Across a gym with two or three full-size basketball courts?
Across a cafeteria or atrium?
They knew that they were hopelessly outgunned with a 9mm against an AR-15 and opted to save their lives instead. It is a natural human response. In the military, if your enemy is 300 yards away in an armored bunker with a 20mm cannon you do not try to take them out with M16s. You wait for mechanized reinforcements or you call in air support and hope a gunship or an A10 responds quickly.
Anyone who is willing to invade a school with a semi-automatic rifle cannot be intimidated with superior firepower because they are not thinking rationally.
If the students are in the classroom and the battle is between 2 armed people alone in the hallway then the shotgun is the best weapon. If the battle happens in a crowded room then there is no good weapon because innocents will be caught in any crossfire. Even the NYC cops only hit their targets 20% of the time.
Obviously, the best response would be to prevent these situations from happening. The GOP isn't willing to take those steps because of their re-election support by the NRA.
Works great in action movies. Other then that, not so much. Besides Trump seems to think there are hundreds of thousands of retired cops and military personnel teaching in schools today. Where is he coming up with that? Also does he not know that a lot of military personnel rarely handle weapons once they are out of training?
Trump couldn't be bothered to do his civic duty and complete basic training and neither could Wayne LaPierre, but they both love to act like John Wayne.
He's watched too many war movies and thinks everyone in the military walks around base with a sidearm strapped on and an automatic rifle over their shoulder. Perhaps if he actually spent some time on military bases he would realize that almost no one (except Security Guards and Law Enforcement) who is not actively training carries any weapons at all. I trained on an M16 in Basic Training, but after that never carried or fired a military weapon again for my 4 years in and neither did just about anyone I knew. The only person I knew who did was a 3 stripe Sergeant who worked as Security Guard for the Launch Control Facilities and even he checked his weapons out at the base armory as he got on the bus to head out for his 3 days duty at the missile sites and checked them back in before going home when he got back. Except for on duty LEOs I never saw anyone on base carrying weapons.
John Wayne Bobbit
Exactly. Good point!
And what you stated is exactly why, in this case the shooter-- (armed only with a AR-15 which is of course totally ineffective in closed quarters such as this school) wasn't able to cause any deaths at all.
And of couyrse the few injuries caused by the ineffective AR-15 turned out to be relatively minor!)
I've worked in several schools-- and have never met a teacher who was a retired cop or who had been in the military. While there might be a few who go into teaching public school, people who go into teaching have very different values and goals than those who choose to go into the military. (I'm not judging either group-- but they have very different values).
In addition, my guess is that the vast majority of teachers not only wouldn't want to personally carry gunny in school but in addition would be opposed policies allowing any teachers to be armed. (Of course I could be wrong, but as time goes on I think we will see more and more teachers opposing arming staff-- and major teachers unions will probably oppose the idea as well).
I agree. It also seems to directly undermine the trust we want to encourage kids to have for their teachers.
You obviously have no idea what I'm talking about.
Do me a favor and just move along.
Not necessarily. If they were properly trained an M9 is the better weapon.
You are comparing two completely different scenarios.
It's not a matter of intimidation. It's a matter of stopping the shooter.
The GOP and NRA had nothing to do with stopping or preventing this. The ineffectiveness of the county and federal law enforcement had more to do with that.
So, you don't have an answer, huh?
Do all shots which might be fired in a school, or all areas which might involve confrontation, cover the same distance? Of course they don't. But rather than acknowledge that, you resort to insults, because it's all you have.
Given that you don't know what I'm referring to and talking about, you didn't have a question to answer.
We're talking about the ranges at which one might engage inside a school, unless you decided to change the subject, in which case you r comment is off topic.
If your assailant is two basketball courts away from you, do you think he'll have a better chance of surviving a confrontation with his AR-15, or you with your 9 mm?
You're assuming that any confrontation inside a school will be at close range. That's a pretty big assumption, and I pointed it out. Most schools have several large, open areas as part of their design - cafeteria, gym, lobby, hallways. If classrooms are locked, as they should be, that leaves a shooter with access to those areas. If that didn't occur to you, well, don't sign up to be a school guard, ok?
The blame was appropriately put on white supremacy. The Dixie Swastika is just the flag that white supremacists use to label themselves.
It wasn't white supremacy that pulled the trigger. Banning a flag is a COWARD move that did absolutely NOTHING to resolve the problem.
And it scares the shit out of the thin skinned ignorant fools that think it only served one purpose
Your Dixie Swastika isn't banned since you're still free to fly it on your private property and from the bed of your pickup truck. But your state will no longer endorse or honor foreign losers and traitorous white supremacists. It was rather weird that they ever did, much like Hawaii erecting a giant statue to honor emperor and living god Hirohito.
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That's an odd claim. Wasn't Dylann Roof inspired by the notion of a "race war" which is advocated by the League of the South, a white supremacist group which neoconfederate loons like Roy Moore support? And wasn't it the notion of a "race war" espoused by the Turner Diaries which inspired Timothy McVeigh to bomb a building and murder 168 people? Same thing with the white supremacist kook who shot up a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Seems like right wing white supremacy is at the core of most domestic terrorism in the US.
Plus many of the kids who knew Nicolas Cruz said that he constantly spoke in racist and anti-Semitic language. Most of them said it was well know that he is a racist.
Quit making excuses and offer a solution to the problem.
Isn't that one solution to the problem which even the GOP supports, to prevent mentally ill people from having guns? Clearly white supremacists are mentally ill.....the wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead.
I've thought the same thing. I always thought it strange the U.S. has so many statues honoring people who have committed treason! (Confederate Generals).
I wonder-- is the U.S. the only country that does that???
Because it's part of American history. Not that you'd understand.
Nope. It was a part of the segregationist South's way of rising again via the KKK. Not that you'd understand.
It's not a part of American History. It's a part of Confederate history. A self declared country who separated themselves from the United States of America in a traitorous act of treason. The Confederates engaged in a war with America in order to hold on to their evil belief that they had the right to own other human beings as property and lost. As such the symbols of their defeat belong in museums to be explained as what they did wrong and why and how they were defeated, not to honored in public.
Just stay in your cave.
These children haven't been tainted by personal greed and power. They are able to see the corruption of money in politics play out before them. I am hoping this is a lesson they embrace at the voting booth.
I'm pretty sure they will.
This generation seems to be different than most of the preceding ones-- instead of merely talking about serious issues or merely posting things online-- they are actually willing to take effective action!!!
It does my heart well to hear these young people speaking out the way they are and taking the actions that they are. They are masters of social media in ways that an old computer operator like me (61 years old) will never be and they are using it as a tool and weapon for their cause. I say more power to them! I haven't felt this hopeful because of the movement of young people since the late 1960's and early 70's. They have it in their grasp to reshape our country in very good ways and they are just beginning to realize it. What they need most is our support and encouragement! Just when I was starting to despair for our nation because of the idiots in power now, they come along and restore my hope for the future of our country, of our democracy, of America.
Well, we all know the casualties as a result of a "mass shooter" in their bedroom are incomprehensible.
Ah-- the great wisdom of the Florida House of Representatives.
Just remember folks:
GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE-- PORNOGRAPHY KILLS PEOPLE!