(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Our Kids are Dying: It is No Time to Lose Focus [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-03-31 More guns in schools The scope and scale of yesterday’s indictment of former President Donald Trump are again grabbing the headlines. Much like his history, the Trump story to this point is vague, nasty, and undergirded by his many lies (watch this space). To the exclusion of stories that should garner much more media at this juncture of the Trump saga, it overshadows the Russian kidnapping of an American journalist and the horrific massacre just four days ago in Nashville, Tennessee. A new hero in Congress should be Rep. Jamaal Bowman(D-NY). By now, most of us have seen his screaming tirade of righteous indignation in the halls of Congress. His echoing voice boomed and rose to a crescendo with the help of the marble edifice. Representative Bowman was perfectly willing to talk to the heavens and anyone who would listen until confronted by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, co-chair of the House Second Amendment Caucus. Rep. Massie thinks the old canard about arming a teacher would be more effective than trained police and swat officers. Massie suggested that arming the teachers would have saved the kids. That logic flies in the face of the Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Florida officers who cowered in the face of a weapon of war. The year 2018 statistics show that officers in the Los Angeles Police Department had roughly a 32 percent accuracy rate in an active shooter situation. That same study in Dallas was slightly higher at 35 percent. Must one wonder if the teachers from Abbott Elementary are better than officers experienced in handling and firing a gun? Or maybe Rep. Massie wants Dean Wormer armed with the latest semi-automatic—spraying the classroom. Republicans have trouble with facts, as evidenced by Rep. Bowman repeatedly telling Mr. Massie that the states with the loosest gun laws have the highest rates of shootings. Mr. Bowman was livid at Massie’s suggestion of arming teachers. Having taught and been a school principal, Bowman asked Massie if he had ever worked in a school. The obfuscation and hoop-jumping by the GOP in defense of the gun lobby are infuriating for Democrats looking to get a Republican to acknowledge the obvious. Sen. Josh Hawley (made a pitch for making the shooting of a Christian school or Christians, in general, a hate crime. “This was a hate crime against Christian children & teachers. There is no defending it. All activist groups should condemn this hate crime, and all hate rhetoric that contributed to it,” Hawley wrote in a follow-up tweet. That might be an acceptable and reasonable position had Hawley not been the sole Senator voting against the Asian Hate Bill. “My big problem with Sen Hirono’s bill that Senate voted on today is that it turns the federal government into the speech police - gives government sweeping authority to decide what counts as offensive speech and then monitor it,” Hawley wrote. One might agree with Hawley that murder is more lethal than a free speech argument. The problem is that the Asian Hate measure was not just about speech but the intimidation, beatings, and murder of members of the AAPI community. The bending and twisting Republican politicians put themselves through to please their owners [NRA] would make a Philadelphia pretzel vendor jealous. Continue to Vote for Change [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/31/2161250/-Our-Kids-are-Dying-It-is-No-Time-to-Lose-Focus Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/