Gun Violence Part 2: Thoughts and Prayers STILL Don't Work

[AmazonGrace]

But, but, we need guns to protect our kids

  

[AmazonGrace]

How is this involuntary manslaughter?

 

[onekidanddone]

27 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

How is this involuntary manslaughter?

 

This smells rotten. What kind of cop plays roulette? I have a feeling this isn't the whole story.

[Ozlsn]

Five women shot on Wednesday in a bank in Florida, and it's so normalised I don't even hear about it until now. Just another mass shooting by yet another disaffected young white man. How many victims do there have to be for it be shocking these days? What proportion of the victims have to be male? Why is there not more outrage - are we all so tired?

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, Ozlsn said:

Five women shot on Wednesday in a bank in Florida, and it's so normalised I don't even hear about it until now. Just another mass shooting by yet another disaffected young white man. How many victims do there have to be for it be shocking these days? What proportion of the victims have to be male? Why is there not more outrage - are we all so tired?

It is a combination of white male victims and brown shooters. Shooter is white = crazy loner.  Shooter is brown = TERRORIST CLOSE THE BORDER

[smittykins]

Shooter is black—PUT A SLUG IN A THUG

[candygirl200413]

We should really make a border for the white men that commit these crimes, until you know we are able to get a handle on it ?

[fraurosena]

*takes deep breath and pats around for tissues*

 

[fraurosena]

Appalling conduct by Repugliklans. Unsurprising, but appalling.

 

[LeftCoastLurker]

From my hometown newspaper on the gun background check bill. Proud to say my rep is co-author of the bill. They've been trying to get it passed since Sandy Hook!

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9246515-181/thompsons-gun-background-check-bill

 

[Howl]

For those of you not on twitter, the thread is unrolled here. 

Spoiler

 

Have you ever wondered what goes on in those school shooter trainings your child’s teacher is required to undergo?

…as it turns out, I took extensive ethnographic field notes of the one I did.

Want to know some of what's in them?

The start of the day:

Our principal made a big show of welcoming the officers to the building, laughing & greeted them by their names like they were old friends. 

We had never seen them before. And the officers never introduced themselves to the group, never told us their names

The whole thing turned out to be facilitated by an LLC run by former law enforcement who perceived a business opportunity in the private sector.

From the sterling client roster they rattled off at the beginning of the session, there’s $$$ to be made

Reinforcing this perception: we were forced to sign waivers absolving the company of any responsibility for any & all harm we might experience during the scenarios.

A fellow teacher looks uncomfortable: “I didn’t expect we’d be at any risk,” he says quietly.

He still signs

The day was dedicated to normalizing.

The officer told us, “Citizen preparation for danger is nothing new. We’ve been doing these for years: fire drills, earthquakes, tornadoes.”

She paused in a practiced way & said, “As teachers, you guys are really the first responders”

The intro talk had almost no sociological data, no research from psychology, no real information at all.

Instead, each powerpoint slide was riddled with acronyms:

4E: “Educate, Engage, Escape, Evade.”
RP: “Rally Point”
RUP: “ReUnification Point”

One slide had a toolbox with 4 golden Es in the lid & the text: “Not a single solution approach. Flexible. Use what you believe works. Tools for your toolbox”

The slides weren’t just cheesy – they were designed to cut off critical thinking. Substantive Qs were "unprofessional"

They showed us a surreal video of shootings, all set to an instrumental version of “Say Something I’m Giving Up On You.”

Gradually building synth chords:

?“I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you"?
?“You’re the one I love and I’m saying goodbye”?

Faces of victims fade out

We get divided into groups. My group goes into a classroom and is told to wait, that there will be a scenario of some kind starting soon.

A colleague whispers to me, “We’re just sitting here waiting to get shot at.”

She looks ashen, wants to start prepping the classroom now

We hear them shoot blanks in the hallway. The gun sounds like a really bad prop for a school play.

People spring into action, trying to push tables against the door.

But nobody shut the door first, & it’s left open

A brief debrief in which the officer repeatedly emphasizes there are no wrong answers, it's just completely up to us, the important thing is to do something.

As she leaves, she adds, "You did good!”

A teacher says quietly, “It didn’t feel like it.”

Then comes the “engage” scenario where an intruder gets into the room with a gun.

My colleagues throw blue tennis balls at him, dancing around the classroom like they’re doing a basketball drill.

"Keep your feet moving, keep moving around the room!" we were coached

In the debrief for that one I realized: my colleagues think they’re being taught how to survive.

They don’t know this technique is intended to slow down our deaths, to give law enforcement more time to respond

It’s between scenarios that convos happen.

“All I know is, if they come in the kitchen then we can throw knives,” says a cook.

A teacher points at a bottle of bleach in the corner of the science lab, says we could use that chemical to burn them.

(Against an assault rifle?!?)

Another scenario. The officers start having this conversation that feels fake to me. Sure enough, suddenly one pulls out a gun, points it.

Teachers throw tennis balls at him & then time is called.

“We just wanted to show you how fast someone can pull a gun on you” they explain

So, so much gets normalized.

We’re in a room, waiting for a scenario to start when we hear more gunshots. 

They sound more faraway than usual.

(Note: there is now a “usual.”)

“Is that us? I think it’s the classroom downstairs.”

We don’t react

There was a CYA first aid bit at the end. No training on what to do, just you got a card with “your” victim & had to say verbally what you might do.

There was a lot of vague talk about amputating legs. How any of tht was supposed to prevent someone frm bleeding out, I don't know

The end: the principal sweeps into the room, leads an ovation. Trills off some platitudes about how it’s just SO good that now we’re “knowing what the options are”

And - despite her own lack of participation or even observation - she gushes abt how “reassuring” she found the day

So look, that’s really what the training was about IMHO: appearances.

Because that’s pretty much what we have when we refuse to enact meaningful gun control legislation.

It’s a theatre-prop gun when we’re talking about automatic rifles.

Maybe it’s different at other schools, I don’t know.

Maybe there’s a way to do it better. (There surely has to be.)

But we shouldn’t accept the easy normalization of this idea that a school shooting is somehow the same as a fire, earthquake, or tornado.

And we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the only reason schools are doing it at all is because we’re so desperate to try to make some difference, any difference.

We subject children to the lesser trauma of drills, hoping it will prevent the greater trauma of death.

But honestly?

These school shooter trainings seem like what you’d get if you translated thoughts and prayers into a ritual sacrifice for teachers & students to enact periodically throughout the year.

No matter how much this is normalized, it’s not normal.

And the sad resignation that so many seem to adopt as the “mature” response? Doesn’t seem fitting if we're supposed to be the adults in the room

#EndGunViolence #GunControlNow #NeverAgain#NotOneMore #March4OurLives

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 Cool, kids who want to shoot up classmates don't have to bring their own gun now.

[AmazonGrace]

Good thing he was armed otherwise someone could have attacked the birthday party. 

 

[fraurosena]

There's been a shooting in a tram in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Not much is known about what exactly has happened/is happening, or if it's a terrorist attack or something drug-related. I haven't seen anything on english-language sites yet, but for those of you who can read Dutch, here's a link to a liveblog. While I'm typing I notice CNN has posted this on the incident: Utrecht tram shooting: Multiple people hurt in Dutch incident

A planned protest by police for higher pension pay has been broken off in order to assist. Multiple trauma helicopters, ambulances and other aid workers have been sent to the scene. Police have stated there are multiple people wounded and that there is a possible fatality. Eye-witnesses have said there is a body in the street covered with a white sheet. Prime minister Rutte has suspended coalition talks and has stated his deep concern at the incident.

 

 

[fraurosena]

Update.

The threat level in the whole province of Utrecht has been raised to level 5, the highest level possible, which might indicate a perceived terror attack.

Police and Public ministry are searching for those responsible. The perpetrator is on the run. Police are looking for a red Renault Clio. At the moment a house in Kanaaleiland (a district in the city of Utrecht) is being held under siege by anti-terror agents. 

[CarrotCake]

Its scary that this is happening to 'us' now for the first time.

I have quite a few friends that are on lockdown now: not allowed to leave their office building.

 

[fraurosena]

18 minutes ago, CarrotCake said:

Its scary that this is happening to 'us' now for the first time.

I have quite a few friends that are on lockdown now: not allowed to leave their office building.

 

Schools are also in lockdown. Mosques are closed and threat levels in Amsterdam, Den Haag and Rotterdam have been heightened too.

[fraurosena]

Another update.

Three people were murdered. Nine others were injured in the attack. Three of those are in critical condition.

The perpetrator has been named as 37 year old Gökmen Tanis, and he is still at large. The home I mentioned in my earlier post has been entered and searched. The red Renault Clio has been found abandoned nearby. There continues to be a lot of police present in the neighbourhood. Everybody in the city has been advised to stay indoors as the possibility of more attacks have not been ruled out.

The mayor of Utrecht has said that he's treating it as an act of terrorism, and the counter terrorism authority has stated that this attack has all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack.

[fraurosena]

Latest update.

They've finally caught the suspect. He has a criminal history -- petty theft, burglary, attempted manslaughter, dui's, and an aggravated rape, the trial for which was starting in two weeks. Friends and family have stated that he has psychological problems, but that they don't believe he was radicalized. 

At this point in time, It's not clear what motivated his attack. There are rumours going around that it might not have been a terrorist attack, but rather that it was based in relationship troubles (some say he was out to kill his SIL or his ex). An eyewitness who was on the tram during the attack said it seemed as if the suspect was after one woman in particular, and that the other victims were shot because they were attempting to help her or got in the way.

However the authorities have not ruled out terrorism as a motive.

A second suspect has been taken into custody, although it's not clear what, if anything, they have to do with the attack.

. 

[AmazonGrace]

[Ozlsn]

17 hours ago, CarrotCake said:

Its scary that this is happening to 'us' now for the first time.

I have quite a few friends that are on lockdown now: not allowed to leave their office building.

I am so sorry this has happened - it's so horrible when you're not sure if it's an attack, and equally horrible when you're relieved that it's 'only' mental illness-related, or 'domestic'. And it sucks that such a small group of people cause us to feel like that, that they can sow enough fear that we are wary. 

[CarrotCake]

15 hours ago, fraurosena said:

At this point in time, It's not clear what motivated his attack. There are rumours going around that it might not have been a terrorist attack, but rather that it was based in relationship troubles (some say he was out to kill his SIL or his ex). An eyewitness who was on the tram during the attack said it seemed as if the suspect was after one woman in particular, and that the other victims were shot because they were attempting to help her or got in the way.

Latest news is that there was no relation between the shooter and any of the victims, making terrorism more likely now...

Although it does not make a difference for the victims, I notice that the idea of it being terrorism makes me more scared than if it was domestic. The fact that we were on high risk for terrorism for a while without anything happening made me feel very safe, as if our government had control on things and could stop attacks before they happened (which I am sure happened a lot). Thinking that now something slipped through their radar is scary. More scary than when some crazy guy decides to kill his ex.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

9 minutes ago, CarrotCake said:

Latest news is that there was no relation between the shooter and any of the victims, making terrorism more likely now...

Although it does not make a difference for the victims, I notice that the idea of it being terrorism makes me more scared than if it was domestic. The fact that we were on high risk for terrorism for a while without anything happening made me feel very safe, as if our government had control on things and could stop attacks before they happened (which I am sure happened a lot). Thinking that now something slipped through their radar is scary. More scary than when some crazy guy decides to kill his ex.

It's the same reason for the remote possibility of "stranger danger" is scarier than all the statistics that clearly affirm that if you're going to be assaulted the culprit is nearly certainly your significant other or your ex or someone you know well. In the first case the randomness makes us feel impotent, in the second case we feel we have a possibility of controlling the situation. It's just a instinctive feeling and mostly unjustified, but still there.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]