Kathy....school shooting in Atlanta
- Thread starter Nancy
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PatriotsGirl
Well-Known Member
One middle school student shot in the head - miraculously, he is alive and breathing....sounds like it was another kid that shot him. Ugh. I don't know what is wrong with world today.... 
Thanks for thinking of me but this was nowhere near where I teach. The shooting happened in the Atlanta City Public School system and I teach in northern suburban school district. It is on the news right now. The student that was shot was just grazed in the head and is alert and talking. A teacher was hurt in the resulting stampede but was not shot. The shooter has been apprehended.
Of course, any school shooting hits too close to home.
~Kathy
Of course, any school shooting hits too close to home.
~Kathy
PatriotsGirl
Well-Known Member
We are talking about an area where the kid could probably get one off the streets...I wouldn't be so quick to blame the parents. The problem is not guns. Guns have been around forever. The problem is the mental health issues that seem to be just rampant in our world today...really makes me wonder if there is something in our foods our what, but something seems to be really wrong...
I'm sorry I made that statement only because I do not want to get into another gun debate but in Cleveland last week we had two awful tragedies. The first was a three year old girl died from a self-inflicted????? gunshot wound to her face when her father said he toold her to go upstairs to get something while he was dealing with his drug dealer downstairs and he "forgot" the gun was there. She is dead. The second was two days later when a six year old boydied from a gunshot wound to his head after the shotgun his father had in the car went off, hit the roof and landed in his head. The father said the boy shot it accidently??????
Two children 3 and six are dead from guns that their fathers had in their presence. I am so thoroughly disgusted with these events and so are many people in my city. Gun are most certainly the problem. by the way both parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Two children 3 and six are dead from guns that their fathers had in their presence. I am so thoroughly disgusted with these events and so are many people in my city. Gun are most certainly the problem. by the way both parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Nancy, you know that I am totally on your side on the gun control issue. We just don't know the facts yet on this case. There are also people jumping to conclusions about bullying but it is too soon to tell what happened except that a child was very lucky today to walk away from a gun shot with a minor injury. His mother told the news reporters that he will be probably be released from the hospital tonight.
PatriotsGirl
Well-Known Member
As well they should. I blame the carelessness of the parents. If the child fell into a pool and drowned, I would blame the carelessness of the parents, not the pool.
Nancy?
I will agree that guns are PART of the problem.
But not THE problem.
OK, I'm Canadian. But from an area where hunting is important, and many people significantly supplement their diet from the land (and need to). For the record, our family does not have guns.
The two cases you mentioned?
First rule of responsible gun ownership is that you NEVER leave the gun loaded, except when it is in your own hands. If you are going to own a gun, you take the onerous responsibility of ALWAYS following the rules - ammo and gun locked up, in separate locations, with separate keys not stored together. Ammo never in the gun except in active use. Gun in vehicle ONLY in secure locked rack. And on and on.
We don't have the rate of gun violence that you have. But our rate of violence - and homicide in particular - is HIGH. Less guns, more knives, but we do get cases like the two you mentioned, or cases where the kid is in another room, and a drug deal gone bad results in a gunfight... and the kid gets killed through the wall (not intended). First tragedy is that kids are growing up in that environment at all. (no easy solutions to that either)
In theory, all sharp knives should be handled like guns - but we don't think that way (unless you raise a difficult child with certain issues... it would never cross a person's mind to do so).
Get rid of semi- and automatic guns, and you reduce the carnage of a single incident (for the most part). Get rid of ALL guns... and the rates of violence and homicide won't go down. (accidental homicide might go down a bit)
The problems are complex. There's no way the solutions will be simple.
buddy
New Member
I dont usually get too into gun debates, I do understand people wanting them, I even think target shooting would be fun. But our situation??? no way. Unlocked guns, no way. Just not in my life.
THEN, I hear about this guy holding that poor kid with autism (age five) in a bunker. He has had guns forever as well as a known history of aggression and mental health issues. THAT kind of person should NOT own guns. HE shot and killed the bus driver when he took this boy. I know it is hard to regulate but everyone knew he had issues and he was already involved in a court case involving guns (which they think may have been the tipping point for this) ..... I dont understand....I am so sad for these parents I'd be FRANTIC
THEN, I hear about this guy holding that poor kid with autism (age five) in a bunker. He has had guns forever as well as a known history of aggression and mental health issues. THAT kind of person should NOT own guns. HE shot and killed the bus driver when he took this boy. I know it is hard to regulate but everyone knew he had issues and he was already involved in a court case involving guns (which they think may have been the tipping point for this) ..... I dont understand....I am so sad for these parents I'd be FRANTIC
donna723
Well-Known Member
I've tried to stay out of the gun control debates as much as I could. I do have my own opinions on it, as we all do, but so much of it is politics when it shouldn't be. It's ridiculous to argue that people need assault weapons and have a "right" to own them. And certainly better background checks need to be put in place. But we all know too that there are "guns" and then there are "guns" and it's like comparing apples and oranges. There are the guns that responsible hunters use, with safety as their main concern. And there are the handguns that some responsible law-abiding people keep in their homes to protect themselves and their families from all the craziness that goes on today. And then there are the guns that criminals use, the ones available on the street to people who care nothing about any gun control laws. Two completely different things.
I live right in the middle of the deer hunting culture where elementary school kids are taught how to handle guns. They teach hunters safety courses in the schools and the rangers teach the courses in the state parks. They stress safety and respect for what the weapon can do and they have to pass the course to get their hunting license. This is a far different thing than the kid who picks up the gun that his drug dealer daddy carelessly left lying around and shoots himself or someone else!
There are no easy answers. I keep thinking of a thing that was going around on Facebook a while back, supposedly a quote from Samuel L. Jackson. I can't find it right now but paraphrasing, he said that he didn't think the problem was really guns themselves. He said that he grew up in the South where everybody had guns and people were not running around shooting each other. He said the problem is that we have created a whole generation, a whole class of people who basically have no respect for human life. And I think he's got it exactly right.
I live right in the middle of the deer hunting culture where elementary school kids are taught how to handle guns. They teach hunters safety courses in the schools and the rangers teach the courses in the state parks. They stress safety and respect for what the weapon can do and they have to pass the course to get their hunting license. This is a far different thing than the kid who picks up the gun that his drug dealer daddy carelessly left lying around and shoots himself or someone else!
There are no easy answers. I keep thinking of a thing that was going around on Facebook a while back, supposedly a quote from Samuel L. Jackson. I can't find it right now but paraphrasing, he said that he didn't think the problem was really guns themselves. He said that he grew up in the South where everybody had guns and people were not running around shooting each other. He said the problem is that we have created a whole generation, a whole class of people who basically have no respect for human life. And I think he's got it exactly right.
