Suicide and murder. Hunting accidents are a rounding error.
Texas is one of the most heterogeneous states in the country. Maybe the most.
There’s a lot of people dragging down the number who you don’t think exist in Texas.
I know, I’ve spent a lot of time in Houston and Austin. I still have a hard time buying their rate is ~half that of all the neighboring states.
https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1599191504735862784
On Wednesday, in conjunction with the Union County Sheriff’s Office, Sun Valley High in Monroe was chosen to have a lockdown drill with local law enforcement.
Students didn’t know at the moment if the drill was an actual situation or a practice run.
“We’re not going to tell everybody ‘Hey, this is a drill, be prepared for it,’ because quite frankly, what we’ve seen in the past is people don’t take that as seriously,” Maye said.
We have to make children genuinely fear for their lives, because if they don’t, they’re not realistic participants in our war games.
Apparently this stuff is required by North Carolina law, which is funny, because in Australia we actually require by law that you don’t do shit like this. Interesting the little cultural differences.
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I really thought this was going to be some kind of surprise with the cops showing up as Santa or something. We love that shit in USA#1.
So instead you plant doubt in their minds when there’s a real emergency that it might be a drill. Fucking brilliant.
The only good thing to come out of this is apparently these kids are growing up a) pissed off that no one seems to care about their safety more than a cosplay hobby, and b) politically active at a much younger age than previous generations.
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Honestly I think some people become school administrators because they get off on being authoritarian jackasses. There would be lawsuits if people tried this shit at any workplace but it’s okay to scare the shit out of children for bullshit reasons.
And now no one will take the next surprise one seriously, whether it’s a drill or the real thing.
Next they’ll have someone running around shooting blank rounds while actors scream. A pool of fake blood spreading under the door as you’re locked in your classroom. A barrage of gunshots in the room next door while cops chat in the hall about waiting for the coast guard.
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When I was a kid they never simulated an actual nuclear bomb strike in order to do a duck and cover drill.
There’s also a massive difference between thinking a fire drill is real and an active shooter drill is real. Even if there’s a real fire in a school, you generally aren’t going to feel like you are in immediate danger and could die any second. You typically feel like you can escape, whereas in an active shooter situation (I would assume - I fortunately have never been in a drill or the real thing), you are just hoping the guy doesn’t find you.
and how seriously did you take it?!???
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Can we talk about how hilariously ineffective “duck and cover” would be in the event of a nuclear strike?
It maybe makes sense if you’re some distance away from the blast.
I had earthquake drills at school that were basically the same: duck & cover and hide under your desk.
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10 years since Sandy Hook today. For a very short period of time after that I really thought it might prompt some change. Obviously I couldn’t have been more wrong about that hopium.
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Guns are an issue with one of the largest partisan divides. I haven’t delved into the numbers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a leftward movement on gun control among Democrats cancelled out by a rightward movement among Republicans. The pandemic has made those people even more resistant to government restrictions.
I don’t think “Can we please at least consider reviving the assault weapons ban?” to be that much of a shift left.
Even if you just look at rhetoric, in the 70s there was talk of even banning pistols and leaving only shotguns and hunting rifles legal with tons of restrictions (like a lot of countries are now). There was a whole Quincy episode dedicated to banning pistols.
Serious. Can you imagine the actual number of kids that would have to be slaughtered in a mass gun casualty event to actually prompt meaningful change?
We are talking probably hundreds of thousands to millions of kids.
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more than just canceled out, id say we have seen a pretty massive shift to the right on guns and are further away from getting any type of gun control passed than we were 10 years ago. every single school shooting just leads to the right becoming even further entrenched in their position
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They’ll build 30 foot walls around schools and hire 10 armed guards before they cave on guns.
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