At 11:03 AM 3/15/2018 -0500, Mitchell Berg wrote:
>Kids have every right to speak and protest.
Seems like what you are really saying is the
opposite of this. You want young people to shut up (and listen to trump?).
I think the arguments below miss the point. Yes,
statistically the chance of being shot to death
in a public school is less than the chance of
death in a car accident, etc. But the mass
school shootings, and the publicity
they receive, and the obvious inability of the
US political system to respond rationally, is
creating a profound sense of unease. And rightly
so. I am sooo thankful for the young people who
are asserting themselves. I wish all the
right-wing gun-nut people could somehow be
induced to shut up and listen. Really listen.....
am
>And adults - and other kids - have a right to
>tell them exactly where and why they're
>wrong. (Or they should. Anyone want to bet on
>whether a kid could actually speak out for 2nd
>Amendment in school without being denounced and
>sent to the Gulag...er, I mean, subjected to
>punitive discipline?). And so I will.
>
>Kids - nothing âÂÂyouâ are proposing would
>have prevented the Parkland shooting. Or any
>other other spree shooting. Much less any of
>the 99-odd percent of other murders that happen
>in this country. You (or at least those among
>you that are going to these âÂÂprotestsâ to
>protest, rather than get a free day of of
>school) are being used by cynical adults who
>donâÂÂt give a ratâÂÂs ass about dead black or
>brown kids, but who DO want to punish
>law-abiding people of all races for the sins of
>the insane, the depraved, and the criminal.
>
>And many of you will eventually figure that out.
>
>But letâÂÂs stop pretending this is something
>the kids are organizing. Forget for a moment
>that it was adults leading last week's
>"march". Forget that at some schools, the
>emails urging kids to walk out are coming from
>school staff (that's right - school officials
>advocating political causes. Isn't there supposed to be a law against that?)
>
>No, the BIG reason you can tell it's about as organic as a bag of Cheetoz?
>
>A few of you have said the kids are
>âÂÂoutragedâ about kids âÂÂlike themâÂÂ
>getting kililed. But the kids arenâÂÂt
>âÂÂprotestingâ about the kids actually getting killed out there.
>
>ItâÂÂs a fact that schools are 75% LESS VIOLENT
>now than 20 years ago, *even counting horrific but rare mass shootings*.
>
>http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/
><http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/>
>
>The kids *are* seeing classmates killed - in
>ones and twos, out on the streets, shot by drug
>dealers and gangs and thugs and, occasionally,
>the police. They're being killed - dozens,
>maybe hundreds a year nationwide. They're
>disproportionally black, Latino, and poor.
>
>And theyâÂÂre dying in places that the
>gun-control movement - Everytown, Moms Demand
>Action and âÂÂProtectâ Minnesota - will never
>be seen; Detroit, Chicago, Newark, Camden,
>Baltimore, New Orleans, Cleveland, Saint Louis,
>Oakland, Stockton, North Minneapolis, DaytonâÂÂs
>Bluff. You will *never* see âÂÂMoms Demand
>Actionâ or âÂÂProtectâ Minnesota, with their
>orange t-shirts and ELCA hair, marching in North
>MInneapolis. They gather in places that are
>safe for upper-middle-class white people with
>Urban Progressive Privilege gather.
>
>More children are killed in gang crossfires,
>robberies, mistaken identity drive-by murders
>and the like *in Chicago alone* every year than
>in a couple of Parkland massacres. And while
>thereâÂÂve been no mass shootings in the Twin
>Cities, itâÂÂs not hard to come up with a few
>dozen cases of school-age kids being killed and mained
>Â
by criminals, gang members and the like.
>
>But somehow, the are "outraged" about the *very
>rare* crime that kills, statistically, a tiny
>fraction of the kids who are killed in mundane
>crime (to say nothing of car accidents and dumb
>experiments with alcohol). They are "outraged"
>at what the class with Urban Progressive
>Privilege wants them to be outraged at; not
>criminals, but at the law-abiding citizen that
>makes Urban Progressive Privilege
>uncomfortable. They *demand* action, not
>against the criminals that kill 80-90% of the
>non-suicide gun victims in this country, but at
>the people and groups that have actually had an
>impact in *lowering* gun deaths and violent crime 50% in the past 20 years.
>
>They're "demanding" things that will have, and
>can have, no effect on violent crime, much less spree killings.
>
>Waiting periods? Spree killers plan their crimes for months, often years.
>
>Banning "assault weapons?" We've tried that;
>even its proponents admit that that was useless
>security theater. And for all of the hype
>around AR15s and AK47s, they are used in a tiny
>minority of murders - *even spree killings*
>(Columbine, Virginia Tech, San Bernardino, Red
>Lake and many others were carried out with
>mundane handguns and shotguns). And when spree
>killers have between six minutes and four hours
>to carry out their atrocities, a âÂÂlarge
>magazineâ is irrelevant. As, indeed, it was
>with Nik Cruz; he used 10 round magazines.
>
>Raising the age to purchase to 21? Quick - name
>a teenage spree killer other than Nik Cruz that
>*bought* his gun, rather than stealing or killing for it.
>
>Oh, yeah - and they *demand* you rebuke the one
>single option that has ever affected spree
>killings in schools - dropping schools' "gun
>free zone" status - because while the Privileged
>Urban Progressive class can't tell you why in
>terms that'd pass a decent high school writing
>teacher's muster (ask someone over 45 what that
>means), they just plain can't stand the idea. [1]
>
>They jabber about a 'Right to be Safe" - which
>is an abdication of moral responsibility. Do
>you have a "right . to not get hit by a
>tornado?" A "right to not get into a crash?" A
>"right to not get mugged?" No. You have a
>responsibility to protect yourself, your
>community, and especially those in your charge
>FROM the vagaries of nature, including human nature.
>
>And Urban Progressive Privilege *hates* responsibility.
>
>As to most of the comments on this thread? They
>speak to why itâÂÂs impossible to have a
>meaningful âÂÂconversationâ about the
>issue. Nearly everything that was said about
>law-abiding gun owners, legal guns and the NRA
>was either erroneous or fabricated. And I
>*could* go through every single post and point
>it out as such - but really, in this forum, whatâÂÂs the point?
>
>I had the great good fortune to grow up at a
>time when the adults told the kids âÂÂhaving
>people pay attention to your opinion is
>something you earnâÂÂ. ItâÂÂs a shame nobody
>gave todayâÂÂs kids that vital lesson.
>
>Mitch Berg
>The Midway
>
>[1] And it HAS worked. In Israel in the 1970s,
>the PLO briefly took to carrying out mass
>shootings at schools, killing 42 kids and a few
>dozen adults within a year, in a nation whose
>population was about the same as MInnesotaâÂÂs
>today. Then they told teachers to start
>bringing guns to school. The massacres ended.
>
>And here in the US? Nearly every spree killing
>happens in a âÂÂgun free zoneâÂÂ. You can name
>a few that donâÂÂt - but youâÂÂve got to work at it.
>
>ThereâÂÂs a reason for that.
>
>mitch berg
>The Midway, Saint Paul