TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: school shootings

  • Close but no cigar

    School shootings show shortcomings of American society:

    This is an editorial from a student at the University of Maine about how the signs were ignored from school shooters Asa Coon and Cho Seung-Hui. It’s a really good article up until this point…

    Apparently, both of these tragedies, along with countless others, point to flaws in not just the school system, but in society as well. Are Americans so blind and selfish that they cannot learn from the past, and reach out to those who feel insignificant and hopeless? Maybe if we stepped outside of our comfort zone and lent a helping hand to “troubled” people like Asa Coon and Seung-Hui Cho, we could prevent school violence.

    So close.

    What the question should be is are American kids so blind and selfish that they think that mass murder is the way to solve their problems? Instead of “society” stepping out of its comfort zone maybe it should be parents that step out of their comfort zones and be parents again and not just baby makers. Maybe then their kids wouldn’t be so “troubled”.

  • Bulletproof Backpack Video

    I’ve already mentioned that I think the idea is profit through fear mongering but am I the only one who thinks this video is distasteful?

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1iJRDffNMc]

    Your thoughts?

  • Books are not bulletproof

    Books are not bulletproof

    Candidate: Use Textbooks As Shields From School Shooters:

    Ok, I’m officially convinced that the Republican Party has gone batshit crazy. Not that the Democrats are any better. This was sent to me by Joker…

    MINCO, Okla. — One of Oklahoma’s nominees for state superintendent of education has proposed a unique idea for protecting students from outbreaks of violence.

    Bill Crozier, a Union City Republican going against incumbent Democrat Sandy Garrett, said he believes old textbooks could be used to stop bullets shot from weapons wielded by school intruders.

    Yes, you read that right…

    If elected, he said he would put thick used textbooks under every desk for students to use in self-defense.

    He had a videotape showing him and others shooting weapons, such as an AK-47 and a 9 mm pistol, at books in a field. They conducted the experiment to see how far bullets would penetrate the books.

    Crozier’s experiment began with shots fired at a calculus textbook from an AK-47 Russian-style assault rifle. The shot penetrated two textbooks at once.

    “We need to look at protection of young people that sometimes people may think you are a little smarter than everybody else or a higher IQ or whatever. They need to look at what the end result would be,” Crozier said.

    However, when the shooters took aim at textbooks with handguns, the books stopped bullets. Crozier said he acknowledges his idea might seem a bit unusual, but he’s sticking with it.

    “This would be to protect the children in an immediate situation. This is something that any student, any classroom in the country could do immediately,” he said.

    Crozier acknowledged his test was not scientific. Instead, he said, he wanted to demonstrate what might happen if a student used a textbook as protection in the event of a school shooting.

    “Not everybody would be saved in that situation, of course. But many of them would, and instead of running away or being lined up … this is a way for the children to fight back,” he said.

    Here’s a thought, Bill. How about trying to stop the school shootings before they happen? Did you ever think of that? Dumbass.

  • Interview with TheTrench

    Interview with TheTrench

    I want to thank author Sandra Ruttan for conducting an interview with me over at her blog.

  • So What?

    So What?

    Deadly revenge for bullied kids an absurd idea:

    This is a great editorial from the Miami Herald by a man named Leonard Pitts Jr., who writes what I’ve been saying for years, bullying is no excuse to shoot up a school…

    We have become sadly experienced with school massacres in recent years. We have seen many disaffected loners turn campuses into killing grounds. And then comes the inevitable explanation.

    He was an outcast.

    He was jilted by a girl.

    The other kids bullied him.

    And I repeat: So what?

    And just like myself, Mr. Pitts has also been accused of not knowing what it’s like to be bullied…

    My wife, who I’ve known since fifth grade, once had to run and get my folks after some boys jacked me up and tried to inject me with hypodermic needles they’d found in the trash behind a medical clinic.

    Now that’s hardcore. How many of these Harris and Klebold wannabes have been harassed to the level of their tormentors wanting to inject them with medical waste? I can almost guarantee you not one of them. Did Mr. Pitts plan to shoot up a school? Not according to his article…

    So yeah, I know a little something about being bullied. And yeah, too, I know something about wanting to mash the face of some jerk who’d made my days miserable.

    There is, however, a gulf of difference between wanting to do that and wanting to indiscriminately massacre a schoolyard full of people.

    It takes a special kind of arrogance, self-absorption and entitlement to believe that your humiliation and pain merit the lives of a dozen strangers.

    Mr. Pitts also disagrees with the criminal as victim mentality and sums things up with an obvious question…

    So to say a child killed people because he was bullied or ostracized is to dignify the act with false rationality — and to shift the onus for the crime to its victims.

    I get impatient with hearing that because it explains everything and explains nothing, because it does not help me understand how a child can become so alienated from his own humanity and finally, because it does not address, much less answer, a question that ought to be painfully obvious.

    Kids have been bullied and ostracized from the beginning of time. Why is it they are just now picking up guns?

    Why indeed, Mr. Pitts. Why indeed.

    I’m not doing the piece justice at all. So click on the link at the top.

    I’m not familiar with the rest of Mr. Pitts’ work, but after reading this I think he deserves a Pulitzer.

  • CDC School Shooting Study

    CDC School Shooting Study

    CDC: Most school shooters get guns from home:

    Your tax dollars at work, people. This is all well and good. Parents should keep their guns locked up and away from children. On the other hand, it’s not addressing the underlying problem. Why are these kids grabbing the guns in the first place? Not until the parents and the schools address this problem will school shootings stop.