If a gun toting mad-person enters a classroom in Pennsylvania's Mill Creek Township school district they'll find themselves challenged by an army of billy club wielding school teachers!

Pennsylvania will soon likely have a shortage of school teachers and a lot of extra billy clubs laying around.

Via CNN:

After the shooting in Parkland, Florida, a school district in suburban Erie, Pennsylvania, began formulating a school safety plan. Among its measures: handing out miniature wooden baseball bats to all 500 of its teachers.

In an online message, Millcreek Township School District Superintendent William Hall said the bats "could be used as a tool against an active shooter just like any other item in the immediate room," adding that they will remain locked in the classroom and "are only to be used/available in a hard lockdown situation."

On social media, however, the idea is being roundly mocked.

Watch an 11 year-old give a powerful speech. I cried. Read the rest

Highly trained with firearms, Police reservist Dennis Alexander was teaching his high school class about gun safety when the handgun accidentally went off. Splintered fragments of the bullet ricocheted off of the ceiling and hit three students.

Guns do not belong on campus.

Via SF Gate:

A teacher who also serves as a reserve police officer accidentally fired a gun inside a Seaside High School classroom Tuesday, police said, and three students were injured.

Dennis Alexander was teaching a course about gun safety for his Administration of Justice class when his gun went off at 1:20 p.m.

Teachers are not legally allowed to have firearms in California classrooms, even if they have a concealed carry permit.

Alexander, who is a reserve officer for the Sand City Police Department, was pointing his gun at the ceiling when it fired. Pieces of the ceiling fell to the ground.

A press release from the Seaside Police Department said no one suffered "serious injuries." One 17-year-old boy suffered moderate injuries when fragments from the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and lodged into his neck, the student's father, Fermin Gonzales, told KSBW.

The teacher had just told the class that he wanted to make sure his gun wasn't loaded, when the gun fired, according to Gonzales.

On March 7, the Florida legislature passed a gun control bill in a bipartisan 67-50 vote, banning bump-stocks and imposing a 3-day waiting period on long-gun purchases and raising the minimum age for their purchase to 21; the legislation is a mixed bag as it also includes millions to arm and train school employees. Read the rest

Shoppers drawing their firearms to help stop a more aggressive 2nd amendment rights enthusiast did not. Shoppers report panic, while the local police suggest the investigation was slowed up to 5hrs.

If one draws a weapon, they become a suspect and create more work for the boys in blue.

Via the Denver Post:

When a gunman opened fire inside a Walmart in Thornton Wednesday night, shoppers screamed and ran for cover — and others pulled out their own handguns.

But those who drew weapons during the shootings ultimately delayed the investigation as authorities pored over surveillance videotape trying to identify the assailant who killed three people, police said Thursday.

Although authorities said “a few” individuals drew handguns, they posed no physical hazard to officers. But their presence “absolutely” slowed the process of determining who, and how many, suspects were involved in the shootings, said Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila.

Bellevue Theatre Amsterdam's Sunday with Lubach sets their scopes on the NRA. Read the rest

A Detroit firearms enthusiast scared off an attacking pitbull by shooting its victim in the leg! Apparently the force of the impact caused ol' Cujo to run away.

The mauling/shooting victim was taken to a local hospital where the 53 year-old woman was pronounced dead.

The shooting is under investigation.

The dog is still on the loose.

Via CBS:

Police say a woman who was being attacked by a stray dog in Detroit has been fatally shot after a man fired a gun at the dog and hit her instead.

CBS Detroit cites police as saying the woman, 53, was mauled by a pit bull while walking on Monday evening, was shot in the hip and taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Her name wasn't immediately released.

Police responded and searched for the dog, but it wasn't immediately found.

Detroit police Captain Darin Szilagy says the man lived in the area. Szilagy says he was trying to be a "good Samaritan" and had a license to carry a concealed weapon. Szilagy says it's a tragic story, but notes "we're responsible for every round we fire."

The shooting is under investigation and prosecutors likely will review the case.

US Senate candidate Jason Kander was consistently trailing incumbent Roy Blunt in the Missouri race until this month. Many attribute the shift to a simple and memorable ad in response to criticism of Kander's position on gun background checks. Read the rest

Democratic lawmakers today staged a sit-in on the House floor, demanding a vote on gun control legislation. The lawmakers' dramatic action, which shut down the chamber, was a response to the June 12 mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida nightclub that killed 49 people and a response to Monday's vote that failed to advance four gun control amendments. Read the rest

Serious question: Isn't one of the primary purposes of our government to protect American lives? Because today, our government chose not to. Again.

One week after 49 Americans were shot to death in an Orlando nightclub, the Senate today voted no on four different measures to limit gun sales. At least they're consistent. Each time there's a mass shooting, and they occur with alarming frequency and regularity, our politicians do nothing. They tweet thoughts, talk on TV about prayers, and take absolutely zero action. Read the rest

Jaime Gilt, an obviously Floridian, gun-regulation-hating, 31-year-old mother, was shot in the back while driving. Her 4-year-old son whom she'd been training as a child marksman is reported to have shot her. Ms. Gilt's pistol--which was apparently ready to fire live ammunition--slid out of her purse and into her son's hands, where he put it to immediate use. Read the rest

Yesterday a Tennessee teenager didn't want to wake up and go to school. After threatening them to no avail, the 16 year old male produced a handgun and shot his 67-year-old grandmother twice. His 6-year-old nephew and 12-year-old sister were each struck once. All three are recovering. Read the rest

Has-been rock musician Ted Nugent made shockingly anti-semitic and idiotic posts to Facebook this week, spurring many pro-gun advocates to call for his removal from the board of the National Rifle Association.

Nugent, an outspoken Second Amendment advocate, posted a photo on Facebook earlier this week calling Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), “Jew York City Mayor Mikey Bloomberg,” former senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, among many others, “punks” who would “deny us the basic human right to self defense and to keep and bear arms while many of them have paid hired armed security.”

The Israeli flag appears over or next to each of the 12 faces in the photo, which is the same one that has been shared many times in white suprema­cist cir­cles, according to the Anti-Defamation League....

Nugent later posted a photo of Nazis rounding up Jews during the Holocaust and described gun-control advocates as “soulless sheep to slaughter.”

And there's more.

"Ted Nugent digs in amid anti-Semitic accusations — and calls for his NRA ouster" (Washington Post)

Read the rest

New Jersey governor Chris Christie used to be a supporter of gun control measures. But he is running for president, and the only way he can get the Republication nomination is to win over conservatives who can't forgive him for shaking hands with President Obama a few years ago. His latest stunt was vetoing a bill that would have prohibited "persons who have been convicted of carjacking, gang criminality, racketeering, or terroristic threats from purchasing, owning, possessing, or controlling a firearm." Not a single member of the Senate or Assembly voted "no" on the bill.

NJ.com reports that Christie initially denied that he'd ever supported gun control, but eventually conceded, "I've changed my mind" on guns:

After having first denied he ever supported a measure to repeal New Jersey's semiautomatic weapons ban, Gov. Chris Christie conceded Wednesday night he's changed his mind since supporting the measure in the mid-1990s. The governor also boasted using his position as New Jersey's executive to loosen New Jersey's gun laws after the Democratic-controlled state Legislature refused to do so, similar to something he's assailed President Obama for doing.

Appears the new open carry laws in Texas, which have expressly allowed guns onto College campuses and into psychiatric hospitals, are back firing against open and concealed carry enthusiasts. Private business and property owners can ban firearms from their property by either posting signs, or verbally informing armed people they are not welcome to carry their weapons. Firearms enthusiasts are finding a lot of new signs around Texas.

The Trace has observed a wonderful exchange on a Texas gun rights forum:

Others had a more measured responses. “I would LOVE to OC everywhere I go,” Lynyrd wrote. “The fact is, it makes some people uncomfortable. Time may change that, but it will take years.” He cautioned his fellow gun owners to remember that “most all of the places we go outside our homes is still PRIVATE PROPERTY.” (Business owners can verbally notify open-carrying customers that they are not welcome in their establishments, regardless of whether a sign is posted or not.)

Weighing in again, the original poster, LTUME1978, felt that for Texas’s concealed carriers, the damage had been done. “The lid is off this can of worms and it will never go back,” reads a later post in the thread. “I hope the right to walk around looking like Wyatt Earp is worth it to the open carry folks because a lot of us are loosing our right to concealed carry and it may cost some of us our lives for your privilege to play cowboy.”

An unintentional oversight in a new Texas law, enabling open-carry advocates to make the world even more dangerous, has opened up Texas state run psychiatric hospitals to guns. Formerly even law enforcement officers would lock up their guns before entering, now everyone is free to defend themselves.

This from the Austin American-Statesman:

Licensed gun owners can now bring their firearms into Texas’ 10 state psychiatric hospitals.

Before the state’s new open carry law went into effect, guns were banned at those state facilities. No one — visitors, deliverymen and the like — could bring firearms anywhere on campus. Even local law enforcement officers, who were already allowed to bring their weapons into the facilities, regularly lock up their guns before entering Austin State Hospital out of an abundance of caution.

Now visitors can bring guns into the buildings where patients live. Employees are still prohibited from bringing them on campus.

The stars at night, are big and bright. Makes it easier to aim. Read the rest

This year in America, people are being shot by toddlers on a weekly basis. Check out this infographic on 2015 U.S. shooting stats, from the Washington Post's grim data-crunchers.

From The Washington Post's Wonkblog:

This week a 2-year-old in South Carolina found a gun in the back seat of the car he was riding in and accidentally shot his grandmother, who was sitting in the passenger seat. This type of thing happens from time to time: a little kid finds a gun, fires it, and hurts or kills himself or someone else. These cases rarely bubble up to the national level except when someone, like a parent, ends up dead.

But cases like this happen a lot more frequently than you might think. After spending a few hours sifting through news reports, I've found at least 43 instances this year of somebody being shot by a toddler 3 or younger. In 31 of those 43 cases, a toddler found a gun and shot himself or herself.

Gun law reform now.

[HT: Kashana Cauley]

A young NRA member, gets her photo with a non-toy rifle at an NRA convention [REUTERS]

A man shows a boy how to sight down an electronic rifle at an NRA meeting. [Reuters]

A young girl with a working handgun at an NRA convention. [REUTERS]

Read the rest