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.
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While people around the world were inspired by the resilience, fearlessness and savvy of the students who created a national gun-control movement in the wake of the Parkland shooting, American right-wing leaders looked at these kids and saw evidence of the urgency to destroy public education and replace it with religious private schools and charter schools.
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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.
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The annual CPAC freakshow reached a new absurdist peak last week when Trump FCC Commissioner was awarded the NRA's Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award for his cowardly back-shooting of America's most beloved policy, the sweet and tender Net Neutrality.
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In 2016, the Yes Men (previously), everyone's favorite political pranksters, hoaxed the NRA: today, they've released their short documentary, which lays bare the NRA's internal culture of racist-driven fear and gun-humping murderous fantasies.
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In this video, AJ+’s Sana Saeed breaks down the long history of the NRA, from its beginnings as a post-Civil War sports club to its present day pro-gun activism. It turns out the group wasn’t always the aggressive Second Amendment defender it is today; the NRA actually used to support gun control. NPR has a similar video featuring senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving discussing the history of the NRA too:
As NPR’s accompanying article explains:
The power of the organization is legendary, especially the widely published report cards it issues giving A to F grades to lawmakers. The cards have been credited with the election (or blamed for the defeat) of many a candidate, including incumbents.
Even the nuances of the group’s affection, an A+ over an A grade, for example, can make the difference for candidates, especially in Republican primaries.
That is why the NRA has anchored the opposition in every major gun-related debate since it altered its main aim from marksmanship to hard-edged political activism. That change came 40 years ago and was related to other shifts in political sentiment, including the departure of Southern rural conservatives from the Democratic Party. All these helped elect the first presidential candidate to ever be endorsed by the NRA, Ronald Reagan, in 1980.
Read the full article on NPR’s website. Read the rest
New Jersey State Senator Jeff Van Drew wants to run for Congress as a Democrat; he visited 17-year-old Emily McGrath's school, Egg Harbor Township High, where McGrath questioned him about whether he'd taken money from the NRA; Van Drew said he hadn't, and he was lying.
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It's CPAC! The annual far-right hootenanny for preppers, false-flaggers, climate deniers, truthers, and the sort of person who closes their eyes and thinks of The Fountainhead, featuring Marion Maréchal-Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage, Sean Hannity, and mass-murder enthusiast Wayne LaPierre.
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McClatchy DC reports that the FBI is investigating whether a Kremlin-tied Russian banker illegally funded money to the National Rifle Association to help Trump win the presidency.
FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said. It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections.
AKs for everyone!
Last year, WaPo wrote about the gun-toting end of American conservatism palling around with Putin. 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.
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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.
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Grant Stinchfield thought his call for North Korea to incinerate millions of human beings was a real knee-slapper. He's sorry some people didn't find it as funny as he did.
“Let's send a note to North Korea that Sacramento changed its name to Guam!," he tweeted.
From The New York Daily News:
Internet users were quick to jump on the cavalier comment as a recommendation that North Korea try to hit a city on the U.S. mainland.
The tweet was also viewed as insensitive to the people of Guam, who recently received guidance about how to avoid being blinded by a potential attack.
Stinchfield told the Daily News Friday afternoon that he is sorry for the remark.
“It was meant as a joke and I regret it,” he said by phone.
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America's right, the source of most terrorist acts in the country, loves to see violence from the left because it justifies its thirst for more. This instinct is on full show in this NRA recruitment ad, where spokesperson Dana Loesch seethes at political protesters and promises a "clenched fist of truth" for people screaming about "racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia."
Hey, at least the NRA has a clear idea of its base, something you can't say about, say, the Democratic Party.
What strikes me, though, is a shibboleth of the NRA's totalitarian character, one usually associated with the academic left: the idea that speech is violence ("the violence of lies") as a justification for silencing it. (Some differences remain: the left's weapon of choice is, per the NRA, "political correctness," whereas the NRA's weapon of choice is rifles.)
As Black Lives Matter's Deray McKesson writes: "If I made a video like this, I'd be in jail."
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Steve Boyett writes, "The NRA sells fear because fear sells guns, and selling guns is really what the NRA is all about. For decades they've insisted that the 2nd Amendment is the buffer against governmental tyranny. Now they're literally telling members to arm themselves against resistance to an authoritarian regime. I can't think of another organization that could air this ad without public censure. Every time I think America has hit bottom, it finds a shovel."
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The Citizens United ruling says that organizations like the NRA can spend as much as they want to support political candidates, provided that they don't coordinate with the campaign, which means that it's just a happy coincidence that the day after Donald Trump called on gun enthusiasts to assassinate Hillary Clinton and federal judges, the NRA announced that it would spend $3M on the most-expensive-to-date pro-Trump ad, which would focus on Hillary Clinton's alleged plan to "leave you defenseless" by taking away your guns.
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At "Share the Safety," you can buy one of three Smith & Wesson guns, and the good folks at the NRA will send another one just like it to a lucky person in a low income, inner-city neighborhood, "law-abiding urbanites who will for the first time be able to defend themselves against those who prey on the urban poor." It's just like Tom's shoes!
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