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My daughter Kristin posted this to her own blog yesterday. I thought it deserved a wider audience, so I am posting it here, edited sightly for length, with her permission.
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It has been a little over a month since the Sandy Hook shootings, and not a day goes by that I don’t think about the 26 lives lost that day. Each day as I step foot into my workplace, my mind almost immediately goes to Connecticut, and I think of that horrible day.
Unusual, you may ask? Not if you know that my workplace is an elementary school. I am a “special area” teacher at a local elementary school, and spend my weekdays teaching students in grades K-5, working with close to 150 different kids in one day. Thirty of the kids I see each day are first graders, the same age as the 20 sweet children who lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Just days before that dreadful day in Newtown, CT, our school had a safety drill. For the protection and safety of our students, I cannot and will not give details on the actual drill or procedures, but I will tell you that every time we have this drill, at least one student asks why we have it. My answer is almost always something like, “to practice being safe” or to “help keep you safe.” Many times students will discuss among themselves before or after the drill that we have to practice “hiding from the bad guys” or to “lock the bad guys out.” Some have to be imagining what the “bad guy” looks like or what “he” might do. I’ve had first graders or kindergarten students in class during one of these drills, and I always have a few that are frightened, even though they know it is just a drill.
When I’ve had to review procedures for the drill, I’ve seen the wide eyes staring back at at me, filled with either fear or wonder. They are thinking, “What could be so bad in school that we would need to hide in the first place?” I’ve even likely said to a few of them “nothing bad would ever happen here” or similar words. After all, it isn’t likely or common for elementary students to bring guns to school to shoot other students, right? And who would shoot a bunch of elementary school kids anyway? *sigh*
I can’t help thinking that the teachers and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary had those same thoughts and uttered those same words whenever they had to reassure children during their school safety drills. I can’t let myself go to the place they might have been mentally on December 14, 2012, when “all hell broke loose.”
And then I think, “How did we get here?”
How did we get to the point where these drills are needed in the first place? Why is it that we have to teach our children to hide from “bad guys” in one of the places they should feel safest? The “real world” can be a scary one to elementary school students. Heck, the real world can be scary for students of all ages! That “big scary world” isn’t supposed to invade their schools, playgrounds or homes! They should always feel safe at home as well as to play outside or hang with friends at the local mall. And children most certainly should feel safe when they go to school every day.
I remember being in elementary school (it was just yesterday after all, right?) and the only drills we ever had were those to protect us if there was a fire or a bad storm in the area. What has become of our society that children now have to worry about being safe at school in addition to all of the other scary “real world” places? What has become of our society that when parents kiss their kids goodbye in the mornings before putting them on the bus or dropping them off at the school door, they have to hope and pray they will have the chance to kiss them again at the end of the day?
I thought about making this post about gun control, because all of the latest talk has gotten me really thinking about it again. However, I am not writing this to start a debate. Guns, after all, are just part of the problem. I want to make people stop and think, to stop arguing and to listen.
We have failed as a society when we care more about our rights to own guns and stockpiles of ammunition than we do about keeping our children safe, giving them proper health care or keeping them warm and fed. I reeeaaaalllly don’t want to make this post about gun control, but I don’t think I will ever understand why so many people are so against having tougher laws when it comes to buying and owning guns! So many times I’ve heard, “What about knives or ropes? Those things can kill people too.” Well, the last time I checked, knives and ropes are tools that were designed and are mainly used for a different purpose. Unfortunately they are also used by some people to kill – sometimes. But a gun is a weapon, not a tool, one that most people use to hunt for food or for sport, but unfortunately too often to kill people. Big difference. And what about those special guns that can kill bunches of people in a matter of seconds? Do we really need to own those? Really??
I don’t want to hear the argument that “guns don’t kill people, people do” ever again. It is true, guns don’t kill people all by themselves. However some people operating guns use the guns to kill people way too often. And many who use guns to kill people are mentally ill or just plain bad and evil and hey, they can buy guns at Walmart or on the Internet (without anyone ever checking to see who they are)! We as a society have failed them too.
We have failed as a society when we care more about ourselves than each other, and don’t want to take our noses away from our televisions, computers, video games, smart phones (guilty as charged) and other devices to notice the people around us.
When is the last time you really got to know all (or even many) of your neighbors? How many of us would even recognize a nearby neighbor if we saw them in the grocery store? When I was growing up, we didn’t know everyone, but we knew most of our close neighbors, had block parties and other get-togethers, and ran around outside for hours with our friends. It is not like that anymore.
We really fail as a society when it comes to helping each other. Sure, we are great at helping in times of disaster or sickness, but what about all the time? So many of us don’t want to help the poor, the homeless, the sick, the mentally ill, the elderly, or our children – I could go on and on – not if it means giving up some of our money. We are too selfish. This goes beyond gun control. We need to take a long hard look at ourselves, stop being such a selfish “all about me” society and start caring more about each other, just like we did in the “olden” days. Not just in times of need, but all of the time.
After the Sandy Hook shootings, I loved hearing about how so many people across the country and the world were participating in “26 Acts of Kindness,” to honor the memory of those 20 children and 6 adults taken from us way too soon. I even did some of those kind things myself. But maybe if we were a kinder, more caring society, we wouldn’t have so much “bad stuff” happening. Our children would feel safe to go to school again and no parent would ever have to worry that when they kissed their precious little ones goodbye in the morning, it would be for the last time.
And if someone was thinking of hurting our children (or any human being, for that matter), we’d recognize right away that there was a problem, we’d know the warning signs that something wasn’t quite right, get that person help right away, and maybe even prevent a tragedy! Just by caring about each other? Wow, what a thought!
As a teacher, I owe it to my students to do what I can to help keep them safe both in school and in our community. I recently made a special promise, in honor of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims and survivors, and I’d love to see you do the same. Please click here for more information, and please help spread the word. This is the least we can do. We all have to work together to stop this sort of tragedy from ever happening again!
Cross posted (with edits) from The Mom Experience
Image of Newtown ribbon, compliments of NH Labor News, via Democratic Underground
142 Comments
Good morning, everyone. FDL forgot me overnight and I had to log in.
Good morning msmolly and all firepups yet to arrive.
msmolly, your daughter Kristen is a wise woman. What a well written article.
Good morning msmolly. Thank you for cross-posting this. Your daughter is obviously bright, rational, compassionate, and dedicated.
I want to point out that the problem is deeper than she describes. She details the roots of our decaying society by pointing out the contrast between the world most of us lived in growing up, and the world our children grow up in today. No more block parties. No more kids darting about the neighborhood without fear. No more neighboring. Your daughter is spot on in her observations, but I feel that the explanation for this is not a social malady.
I think we can all agree that everything started to change in the 1970s. This was also when wages started to stagnate and Americans were forced to operate as two income households, or take on large amounts of credit. Leveraging our households into debt, or having both parents out of the home, creates a type of ‘survival’ atmosphere, where people seem to put blinders on and just focus on the next task ahead.
How many of us go about our day ignoring our neighbors and friends, not because we don’t want to take the time to know them, but because we feel we don’t have the time? And because we feel we’ve left so much of ourselves out there in the world that we don’t have enough to spread around once we come home?
This is what I mean by blinders. We as human beings have a finite amount of energy each day. Only so much emotion we can feel, and only so much output we can give the world. If all of our time, by necessity, is spent simply providing for our family, then by the very nature of our society we’ve got nothing left to give our fellows.
Living paycheck to paycheck, operating without a true safety net, has caused us to become distant from our neighbors and our communities. Most simply cannot afford those luxuries anymore.
40 years ago this country was filled with solidly middle class neighborhoods, with children who never heard about financial problems growing up, or had parents divorcing left and right because of money trouble (financial matters are the number one cited reason for divorce in the US).
I’m rambling here, but I hope I’ve made my point. The moral decay of our society is a symptom of our financial insanity. Consumerism is a huge part of it, but mostly it’s the lack of security that all of us function with each day. This permeates our every relationship and action, and cause us to isolate from our fellows. We perceive this need to survive, and disencumber ourselves of the luxuries of neighbors, friends, block parties, community, etc., because those things truly have to take a back seat to simply putting food on the table and being warm and dry.
Thank you again for the post msmolly. Please tell your daughter that I enjoyed it immensely.
Yes she is! Thanks! It must be doubly hard to walk into your elementary school following those shootings. And it must have been hard for parents to know what to say to their children who were seeing all of the TV coverage.
I was hoping your DIL would allow you to use her piece.
Very heartfelt, wise, and eloquent. Thank you for posting msmolly.
No. We destroyed society with the politics of US vs THEM. The “southern strategy” to split the country work well for the GOP. We’re so split, as a society we’re actually trying to AVOID getting back together.
Boxturtle (How do you tell a Southern Baptist redneck that we’re all “us”?)
Great comment and astute observation, Kris.
I sent her the link to the post, so she can see what I did with the original (pretty much just shortened it) and see the comments, too.
It’s my daughter, and she was happy to have me post it.
You make a number of valid points. What you posted is certainly part of the problem.
I have a commute just over an hour one way. That takes two hours out of my day, I leave before 5:30am and I’m lucky to be back by 4:30pm. Living paycheck to paycheck, I have no spare cash to go out and be social. My wife is recently on disability, so almost all the household chores are mine. And her paycheck ain’t anymore.
Boxturtle (So we sit at home with as many lights off as possible)
This is exactly my point. For many of us, survival necessitates that we isolate. Isolation is not a conscious choice, but a side effect of the other things we need to do to get by.
Now that we’re nice and isolated, we aren’t meeting new neighbors, making casseroles for the block party, or planning July 4th barbecues. We simply do not have the resources anymore. No time. No money. No energy.
When this happens to enough of us, as it has, it results in the unraveling of entire communities. We end up living in bedroom communities where folks get up every day, leave out from there to work, and come home at night to eat and sleep, never knowing who is next door or across the way.
We fail when we can’t separate overseas feel good killing from home because that’s an impossible task. We will succeed when no will take a job making parts, bullets, guns,atomic weapons for the Magnificent Mindless ‘Merican Murder Machine .
I think some of the “uncaring” Kristin talks about in the post is rooted in the need to blame someone, anyone. Our society is full of placing blame, on individuals, political figures or movements, social or financial entities.
Yes, in many cases blame is well deserved, but it seems like a knee-jerk reaction to always go for the culprit! So we’ve reinforced the “us” vs. “them” and it makes us always see others as “them.”
Kris, You made a lot of good observations and when I read them it reminded me of things I had forgotten. Thank you.
I started teaching in 1970 and saw firsthand the changes as they developed at the high school level.
After Columbine, we had yearly safety drills on what to do if an intruder entered our school. The kids understood the reasoning and took the drill seriously. Fire drills, bus evacuation drills, earthquake drills were all a part of practicing the “what if’s” before I stopped teaching full time in 2008.
The innocence we had when I was growing up is gone forever.
Thanks for sharing your daughter’s piece with us.
I agree with Kris that there is a much deeper and complicated problem to solve. The questions go on and on.
Perhaps we can go back to the years after WWII when the US really started feeling more special, more entitled and needed to really throw her weight around in different parts of the world.
I have spent much time trying to figure out how we got here.
Spot on.
We (the general societal WE) live with an inherent resentment, it seems. When something bad happens, we sling that venom out from ourselves like Spider Man slinging a web on the ‘bad guy’. As if blaming or hating are contributions to society.
Folks gather round the water cooler and blame the bad guy, feeling like they’re being constructive or sharing something. In actuality, they’re contributing to the growth of the problem.
Good morning all and thank you, msmolly for sharing this thoughtful well written piece.
It should be noted that I grew up in a world where grade school children practiced getting under our desks and not looking at the “flash.” (just saying)
I blame Obama.
Boxturtle (Well, somebody had to say it)
Don’t you recall ” duck and cover’ as if that would have amounted to a hill of beans at the end. We were told, by such drills, we were expendable for the Generals best intentions for “Us”.
You’re cracking me up, bubba-loo.
Knee Jerk reactions happen, yes. I think I said that the other day, didn’t I?
Nevermind.
What’s worse, the Duck & Cover for incoming Nukes that we all drilled for in the 1960′s or the Dodge and Duck that they teach now for random shooters?
*sigh*
The frustrating thing to me is that for all the recent shootings, a shrink would have seen ‘em coming if the shooter had just talked to one.
Boxturtle (You get a yearly physical. You see a dentist twice. Is sanity worth less than those?)
I forgot that one.
11-22-’63 the Generals , with their murderous attitude, took over.
13 trillion dollars since WW2 spent on our “security”. Are you feeling safer now with the Generals in charge than back in the early sixties ?
Yes, I remember air raid drills in elementary school (late 40s, early 50s). We all filed into the hall and crouched ourselves into a ball with our heads covered by our arms, in a row along the hallways under the lockers. Practicing what we’d do if a bomb hit.
Why, no. No I’m not feeling safer.
But, then, in 1963 I was eleven years old and I wasn’t looking forward to the responsibilities of being an adult either.
I once got in trouble in elementary school by calculating the “size” of the hit our school would take, based on where the Soviets would logically nuke.
I discovered that we would get roughly 800mph winds from three different directions and enough heat energy to vaporize 100lbs of water in about 5 seconds. So I told the teacher we were basically just kissing our asses goodby.
Boxturtle (Which got my ass in detention)
So what you’re saying is that you’ve always been this cool.
I remember riding the city bus downtown with my friends on Saturdays (this was before “malls” — I iz old) and hanging around in the department store and having lunch at the store lunch counter, going to Woolworths and poking through their doo dads, then riding the bus home.
When Kristin was in middle school and bored on a Saturday, I suggested she do that. We lived in a pretty safe city (Grand Rapids, MI), but not one of her friends was allowed to ride the bus downtown with no adult.
And her kids are NEVER outside alone, except in their fenced back yard. We used to hell around the neighborhood until after dark, playing hide and seek and catching lightning bugs. Experiences today’s kids won’t ever have.
Yep, in retrospect those air raid drills look pretty silly, don’t they?
He should have gotten a science award instead of detention.
Just 20 years ago my friends and I were doing the same outside. Hell, at 6 and 7 years old we’d walk a couple miles across town to the lake to fish for crawdads.
My girls play outside sometimes. Not often, as there aren’t many kids in the neighborhood who will socialize with them on a regular basis.
When I was little, we went out the front door every day knowing that there would be other kids outside. Now, my kids head out, look around, get bored, and come back in.
I think the point he made was that even Then he knew it. Many of us did. Don’t need no retrospection.
If by cool you mean uncooperative, sarcastic, disobedient, and disrespectful of authority, yes.
Boxturtle (It ain’t like the math was tough. As long as you remember Newton was right…)
The Newtown shootings seem to have vanished from the news. I haven’t seen anything on it for awhile. Has the investigation just come to an end because the shooter and his mother are dead, the father and brother live elsewhere, and there’s nothing more to say?
That is exactly what I mean by cool.
Scientific results that disagree with political orthodoxy have always been punished severely. Dunno why people are suddenly getting upset by it now.
Boxturtle (Ask any climate scientist)
Saw the photo of your three beauties. Man, Chuck sure looks like you, doesn’t she Kris? That’s cool.
Since we’re sharing from family today, here’s my wife’s blog post from this morning. A short poem.
I think she does :) But only in the good ways. She didn’t get any of my uglies.
And, your disrespect for authority was more important to them than encouraging an obviously “brilliant” young mind. :)
Check the time stamps. (How do we do that?)
Al Gore didn’t call it “An Inconvenient Truth” for nothing. Pesky truth, that…
We must be psychotic.
Very nice, Kris. Tell her I liked it a lot. Your girls look to be about the ages of my granddaughters, who are 10 and 12 (I have two other granddaughters, too, and 4 grandsons).
Yes, and you know that I knew you were going to say that. Ha.
I’ll pass that on :)
Kiddos are 11 and 7. Just far enough apart that I’ll have to endure 14 consecutive years of teenage daughter.
The drama begins in 3…2…1!
Oi. It’ll only be about 12 years.
I guess I was lucky. Hardly any drama with my daughter. We always got along. Hardly ever had a tiff even.
The boys brought a lot more drama into my life.
((my daughter))
Encouraged?!? I needed repressed! That half page of math caused trouble for the Duck & Cover drills the rest of the year. Classmates would ask questions like “Why try to get our ashes in a neat pile when the wind is going to scatter them anyway?” or “if we’re going to be vaporized anyway, I wanna see the bomb go off!”.
Boxturtle (knowing what I know now, I’d have suggested they just like seeing kids butts in the air)
Kris, enjoy it they will grow up way too fast.
My girls are 42,39, and 37 and I truly do not know where the years went.
Even though I have never been the sciency-type, I admitted that to you, I knew that the duck and cover was a joke. But, I do remember having some strong nightmares about the big explosion that could happen. And, somehow knew that the teachers and the government were instilling the whole Fear Factor in us.
Then, after I watched the Fog of War, I realized how close we came.
Nice. And, you have grandchildren too, don’t you? I’ve heard that’s almost nicer, because you can send them home at the end of the visit.
I would also add, after we spoil them rotten.
Then we get the “you were not that nice when I was growing up” from the daughters.
We have 11 grandchildren between my wife and I.
Yes, I hear that is one of the perks.
When my daughter was young, 3 or 4 maybe, my sister often accused me of spoiling her. Ha, I said, when you have children you can do it your own way. As it turned out, she never had any. Whatever choices I made with the way I raised Katie, it all has seemed to work out beautifully.
Just back from getting my young son’s senior picture proofs back.
I also told my classmates that SAC headquarters were in Omaha and that the fall out would hit us 300 miles away if the blast allowed us to survive.
(I believe the term I used in high school about those elementary school drills was”Bend over and Kiss Your AS% goodbye”)
I told my classmates not to worry about fallout. Assuming the Soviets didn’t schedule a followup strike, We would get three missiles, two of them big enough to smear hardened locations (The local Air base and Mound Lab) and one city buster (Dayton at the time was one of the 50 largest cities).
We were toast.
Boxturtle (We’d probably only have one flung at us today. Maybe D&C would save us!)
Good morning, and kudos to msmolly for posting this piece.
Air raid drills go back to WWII. We practiced them when I was in grade school.(1942 on)And not just in schools. The military did practice bomb runs on Chicago on a regular basis.
As for the loss of innocence, well, we can continually go back and find similar periods throughout our history. Manifest Destiny (go west, young man) had us pushing the frontiers and with it, pushing out the native Americans, who responded with deadly force, in many cases, wiping out entire families. The settlers had their own survival drill and it usually wasn’t enough. And why? Because we believed in Manifest Destiny and believed the native population to be savages and had to be quelled, which we did by any means possible.
Of course, guns were critical.
The enemy was them, now it is us.
http://thecinemasochist.wordpress.com/tag/kiss-your-ass-goodbye/
Thanks for the good company, as Ruth usually says, and now to get some stuff done.
Thanks, for the post, Molly.
LOL. Thanks.
Have a great day everyone.
The atomic weapons were the first to carry the fight forward with birth defects for the unborn or not even conceived. Up till then there was a person behind and in control of the weapons and there was humanity involved. When we made the murder machines fail proof after triggering and intent on wiping out the last human it was the “end game” .
I’m feeling less safe every year.
There still is a person behind and in control, just less of them with greater firepower than ever.
Atomic weapons are a logical outcome.
It’s your own fault for not owning enough guns.
Boxturtle (I mean, cripes, surely you can afford just a couple Bushmasters?)
Thanks tjbs,
Our non-stop world-wide imperialistic ventures of destabilize, extract wealth and leave the aftermath, sets neither a good example nor profers any respect or hope. No excuses justify it.
I remember that, including those desks. But I also remember filing into the hall and crouching into a ball like that on the hallway floor. Must have been both ways, over the elementary years.
msmolly,
thank your daughter for me please. Mr hopeless, changeless can’t even figure out that education policy doesn’t equal evaluation and testing results, so my heart goes out for all teachers who have learned what matters, despite the obvious deliberate obstructions.
For those who remember my post about football and Lizzy Seeberg, here are two interesting columns on the subject of football, specifically the uproar over Manti T’eo’s SUPPOSED hoax girlfriend.
The Lessons of the Manti T’eo Scandal
and
At Notre Dame, a fake tragedy gets more tears than a real one
Thanks, nonquixote. I sent her the link to the post so she can come read comments if she wants to. I warned her that we wander off topic and chat, but she’s blog-savvy so she probably knows. She teaches technology, after all.
Hoping she’s pleased with the comments.
I’d love to see her story on every op-ed page in the country. But it wouldn’t shock me to see it get banned in the places that need it most.
Boxturtle (We’ll have to let the south live in their own little gun filled world)
I’m pretty far north and see/hear the same crazy from many people around here. Our Republican state legislators for one group in particular fit the description. Campaign money, the internets and ease of travel have spread the “word,” in some unfortunate ways, too.
Banned, or panned.
I guess MyFDL is sorta an op-ed page, but the ones who need to see it aren’t reading FDL.
msmolly, please thank your daughter for the very fine post and your taking time to edit it.
Have a great weekend everyone.
I keep going back to Mitt’s victory party. When CNN called Ohio for Obama, the crowd was calling for the TV’s to be switched to Fox. Did they think that would change reality? I think that they did.
The entire GOP seems to reject information that doesn’t fit in their world.
Boxturtle (I can’t be the only one who enjoyed Karl’s meltdown when Fox called Ohio)
I’m so glad you wrote this comment. I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ll add that the cult of the individual conditions us to put ourselves at the center of the universe, apart from community. Radical individualism paired with economic stress has caused (1) alienation from the community and (2) sense of helplessness when the individual cannot effect economic change in her own life. It’s not a stretch to see how mass killers feel like they are taking control against the forces that they believe (wrongly) have kept them down.
The second element in the culture of mass shooting is guns. In case anyone has missed the Thom Hartmann piece about the link between slavery and guns.
http://mobile.alternet.org/alternet/#!/entry/thom-hartmann-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery,50f65a66d7fc7b5670f08e34
Note also that the second amendment’s roots are found in another economic system of exploitation. I’d like to see some hard numbers about race and gun deaths, but don’t we all intuitively know that there are waaaay more working class minorities who die by gun than ruling class whites? There aren’t slave patrols now, but there are many cases of police violence with guns.
I don’t have time to contrite more, but it’s also obvious that mass shootings are a crime of wires, mostly. And it is the killing of whites who were meant to be protected by guns that may eventually change some laws.
I have to scoot out to a lunch appointment soon, but I will check in later. Thanks much for the good comments this morning. My daughter wrote from the heart, and I’m sure she will be pleased by the response.
I’m about 50 miles north of Philly and it’s where the Alabama part between Pittsburgh and Philly really gets rolling. Gun nuts everywhere and VERY possessive about their little babies. Kids next door blew off over hundred rounds in twenty minutes a weekend ago. First day of hunting season…lay low.
B.T. to an earlier Q my gunning it up, I’ll stick by what Dick Gregory said about a man needing a gun or a bible in his house but he don’t need both .
I have read the Hartmann piece, and I have bookmarked it to trot out the next time my former co-worker trots out his second amendment business. It didn’t mean what he thinks it meant.
need to go back and catch up on comments, but I’d add:
We’ve failed as a society when the pro-life crowd zealously protests at clinics, traumatizing a Mom carrying a dead fetus inside her, but stands not at all with the children of Sandy Hook, the people of Aurora, the students of Virginia Tech…
Idolatry for the gun, idolatry for one’s own blind hatred and judgement…it’s all of a piece.
Great piece by your daughter, msmolly. Plus Kris’s thoughtful comment, and subsequent discussion.
I would hate to be a grade school teacher now. Of course they are going to think about Newtown every day. Kristin explains it very well. Too bad the “put armed guards in school!” crowd won’t read it. Or if they do, I suppose they’d double down on their preferred “solution.”
They seem to want us to live in a modern Wild West (and I bet they don’t know that Wyatt Earp, for one, required guns to be turned into his office on arrival in town. He knew what having everybody armed would result in.)
I absolutely agree that it’s the 40 years of greed, lower wages, corporations becoming people and outsourcing, leading to economic insecurity, that has had a large part in turning people resentful and frightened. Plus, of course, the diligent efforts of the Republicans to gin up those very reactions.
It’s very sad.
Idolatry, period.
Your daughter sparked a hell of a comment thread here msmolly. I hope she stops in to read it.
They seem to want us to live in a modern Wild West (and I bet they don’t know that Wyatt Earp, for one, required guns to be turned into his office on arrival in town. He knew what having everybody armed would result in.)
That was Dodge. Tombstone was a different story.
He, like many other gunfighters turned lawmen, turning back to gunfighter, was a situational ethics sort of person. But then perhaps you needed to be that.
Ah.I defer to your superior knowledge. After all, I learned my western history from ’50′s tv westerns. ; )
Tombstone had a surrender law after the Earps took over law enforcement. I believe Virgil put it in place, weeks before he deputized his brothers.
You were not allowed to carry in town.
I enjoyed seeing your other type of shoot, by the way. Very nice.
Contrite should be comment and wires should be whites. DYAC.
“DYAC.”
heh. I kinda figured that’s what happened. Although I guessed “contribute” for “contrite.”
That Thom Hartmann article must be getting a lot of clicks – can’t get it to load. Unless the nuts have discovered it and are doing a denial-of-service thing. But, then, most of them are no Anonymous, right?
Heheh. Rabblerousing from an early age, eh?
I hope she comes by to talk about her post.
The Hartmann article was totally new news to me, and when I read it, I had an aha! moment. Doesn’t the slavery connection explain the culture of the gun on so many levels? Also, with gun as protection for slavery in mind, gun ownership becomes enforcement or threat of enforcement of an economic system that exploits. If there were no guns, would our capitalism look the same? I think it’s an interesting question…
My first spanking was in 1st grade for calling the principal an idiot. When ordered to apologize, I said “I’m sorry you’re an idiot” just like I did when forced to apologize to my younger sister.
I told him afterward that the spanking didn’t change anything, he was STILL an idiot. They sent me to the school psychologist (do those still exist?) who tried to explain to me that even if the principal was an idiot, I still couldn’t say so.
Boxturtle (for the record, the principal was, is, and always will be an idiot)
Anonymous is actually pro gun (!!). I’ll see if I can root around for the official Anon statement on guns. Yeah, I was surprised.
Smart counselor. Haha. That’s a brilliant story.
OK, this statement is not correct. The anon twitter account that posted a pro gun statement now has a correction notice. The pro gun statement was false.
Whew! I’m glad to read that.
I do too. I warned her that she’d have to register to comment but she could read everything. It would be fun to have her drop in.
But she is horrendously busy, with her teaching and driving her girls to their ballet classes, and a husband with a two hour (each way) commute that doesn’t get him home until 7:00 IF he isn’t delayed leaving work.
In any case I’m sure she’ll tell me what she thought about the discussion.
Whew! Glad I scrolled down, and that you found the correction.
msmolly – your description of how busy your daughter’s life is fits well with kris’s observation above.
I keep thinking of a graf in a book about how to run a business that were so big in the ’80′s…it told managers/bosses that if your employees have time to participate in little theater or run for school board, you’re not working them hard enough.
I didn’t read further. It’s stuck with me for years, because it’s so antithetical to the kind of society a democracy needs. If you experct to be self-governing, you gotta be able to participate. To me, it kind of encapsulates the wrong path we all got onto.
I forgot to say that I love Box Turtle’s story about his calculation about the effects of a bomb during the “duck and cover” days.
My schools drilled us by crouching in the hallways, too. Can’t remember if we ever had under-the-desk drills, but I have clear memories of lining up against the corridor walls, crouching down, and folding arms over heads. I don’t recall haviing profound thoughts. But in early grades, as the cold war got going, I did have bad dreams about atomic war and becoming a refugee.
For a couple years I kept my little girl’s traincase (small suitcase) packed with a couple changes of underwear and stuff so I could grab it and run if needed.
Still, I don’t think that ever felt as immediate as what kids must feel now that they know schools just like theirs have been places where little kids like them have actually been murdered.
I’d love to know what book that is in. There’s a doctoral thesis in the topic.
That may depend on whose guns one might be referring to. The “I need an AR crowd,” is certainly not doing anything to protect themselves from being economic slaves to the system or throwing off repression of any kind presently.
Militarization of the domestic police forces is akin to the field boss with the, pistol or whip or the noose the forced separation (selling) of family members from their children/spouses.
Forced separation of the family unit,(reading msmolly @89) takes on new dimensions, for what, a solid decade or two now?
I’m late to the meeting and have to leave quickly, but I wanted to say that your daughter’s essay is very thoughtful and well written. Since I can’t read the comments fast enough, I’ll just make mine now. I hope I’m not treading on anyone’s earlier post. If you want to take issue with me, I’ll be back later today.
I made essentially this comment at fatster’s thread, but I want to get it out as much as possible. I am in no way defending multi-shot semi-automatic weapons, but there is much more that is seldom included in the reports. So many mass shootings and attempted shooting are drug related. Some involve drug dealers, but not all. Many of the shootings involve people on medications that are supposed to help them and society. I would like to have this investigated. You can see how many were on big pharma prescriptions and psychiatric care at the time of the shootings. Here is the list.
Sorry (msmolly @ 95 )
Really? You mean, on the effects of spending so many hours working on participation in self-government?
I’m afraid I have no memory of who the author was. I was skimming it in a bookstore near my work, more than twenty years ago. You know, there are so many of those how-to-run-a-busines-and-get-rich books. This one was during the big spate of books written by (in)famous executives. Seems like those are fewer lately.
I’d love to know more about the thesis, if you have the info.
And now, I’m going to try to break loose from the keyboard and get some work done. BBL, no doubt.
Aren’t the bulk of those NRA types white males? My theory is that there is an (somewhat unconscious) element of connection to the gun in a lot of white people that harkens back to the days of the slave patrol.
…so those NRA types are still clinging to a false sense of self protection by use of the gun. It’s not reality based, it’s perception.
I figured, since I didn’t say anything worth responding to at #89.
Sigh. Back to the vacuum.
Follow up from yesterday on WI mining bill, as bad as we thought it would be coming from WI Republicans.
As a matter of fact, that is a point that Professor Wolff touches on in his lectures. If there are businesspeople writing advice books about the benefits of working people so hard that they are alienated from democratic participation–let alone social life in the community–that is a powerful critique of capitalism as we are living it. Right?
I tend to agree with your, who owns those guns, assessment. I was just indicating they don’t even comprehend their own servitude in most cases, both to the gun selling lobby and to an economic system that is trickling down very lightly.
Good afternoon ysd,
Now that comment could have several meanings. (((msmolly))) ;^)
We just got a much needed couple inches of snow this morning. Our predicted high temps Mon, Tues and Weds of next week were reduced to 6°F and some snow would help prevent the ground from freezing to greater depths. Ah winter!
On the positive side, the link on WI mining above mentions the WI League of Conservation Voters. Hunters to bird watchers to canoeists, campers, hikers, cyclists, farmers and clean industry, etc taking positive action for all outdoor enthusiasts. Though many hunters and gun owners likely are members, it would (guessing) not include too many of the AR crowd.
Molly,
Thank you for sharing your daughter’s thoughtful essay.
I enjoyed that she addressed Sandy Hook on the human scale as opposed to the meta-political.
We’re going to have nearly those temps — Tuesday’s high is to be 9º. But not much snow in the forecast. I don’t think we’ve had more than — maybe — 6″ so far this winter.
Teehee. Still vacuuming. In the vacuum.
Thank you, oldgold. I did too. She’s a very warm and caring person, and really dislikes politics.
Oops!
Now I defer to KrisAinTX.
(Reminder to me: Check facts first!)
Thank you. It was particularly nice to do as I was a volunteer firefighter for 4 years.
Happy Friday everyone. I’ve only got an hour and a half of work left. Sweet!
This is front paged now, kiddos. Everyone behave.
Retitled – Sandy Hook: The Promise
Hey Firepups of Fire:
Slightly off-topic…or maybe not, but worth passing along.
Tavis Smiley hosted a symposium on poverty yesterday. Pretty good except for the incessant logorrhea spilling from the piehole of Newt Douchebag Gingrich.
Kristi is ecstatic! Not for herself, but what her post was trying to say. She texted, “Oh, the pressure!”
The post deserved it, obviously. Glad the editor that FP’d it realized it :)
She did a great job. I know she a very busy, working mom, and you say she avoids politics, but she has a wonderful voice and I hope we will hear it often. Thanks for bringing it to us.
Does she realize that she’ll now have to contend with all the notoriety that front page postings will bring, the paparazzi popping off flashbulbs in her face every time she leaves the house? These guys will stop at nothing…chasing her down in traffic, bothering her in the supermarket or when she’s trying to enjoy a quiet meal out. It’s a lot of pressure… heh…
Heh. She may pick up a white NSA van following her around for rubbing virtual elbows with the likes of us, though. We only get booby prizes around here.
Thanks Shoto,
Tavis gave a clear preview of the summit on Democracy Now, laying out his expectations for Obomba, without the newty one breathing any drivil, yesterday.
Tee hee! She’d probably make one of them drive the girls to ballet and another one cook dinner!!
I just hope that tonight she has time to read all of the comments.
I’m not sure she realizes what a buncha DFHs her mom hangs out with. (Oh wait, maybe she does!)
Your daughter should be very proud. She speaks with a soft but strong voice and with great heart. Thank her for sharing with us. Hope she will write many times at FDL.
I heard that’s why Dave Dayen left.
There’s your proof, right there. Those flashbulbs can really sting after awhile…
Get involved here.
Front-paged! (scrolling up to make sure I didn’t say anything embarrassing).
No, seriously, this is such a thoughtful post with thoughtful responses. Good to see it on the front page. Kudos to Kristin, daughter of Molly.
I’m pretty sure she hasn’t come here to read yet. She’s just really busy. They’re coming up tomorrow, so she should have time then if not before. I will be interested in her reaction to the comments. All have been good, some very thoughtful in their own right.
“You get a yearly physical. You see a dentist twice. Is sanity worth less than those?”
You’re assuming that mental health professionals have some power that they don’t. I have a PhD in clinical psych and spent several years evaluating incarcerated offenders for the parole board. But, predict what someone with no history of violence might do in the future? No way…. the science simply isn’t there.
I’m hoping she will have time to read them. One of the things I’d like to hear from her is what she things about the proposals to 1) Arm teachers 2) Armed security guards 3) Police officers resource officers.
I’ve talked to teachers about this in the past but I’m disturbed that the idea of the NRA to put more armed guns in schools is getting both money and traction.
I would like to know how to convince school board (and parents) that all these armed people are a bad idea.
Thank you, Linn. I will be sure to share that with my daughter. And I knew one could not predict with accuracy, but it is good to know that we can’t expect too much. I do think we could be doing more than we are doing at present, though.
As I mentioned upthread, I don’t know if she’s even had time to read the post as I edited it (the original is at her blog I linked to, and it is very, very long), much less the comments.
But she and her family will be here for the weekend, so I will be sure to pass along her comments once I have them.
I can almost certainly say that she would be against #1 and #2, but I don’t know about #3. We never had real guns in the home, and I discouraged gun “play” during their growing up years. I can’t say we never had a toy gun in the house, but it would have been seldom. I’m sure the kids had water pistols, but the play was pretty harmless. I don’t think Kristin’s school has a resource officer assigned, I’ve never seen one when I’ve visited the school, but I really don’t KNOW. Good question to ask her.
Hello everyone! I am Molly’s daughter and just wanted to stop in and say “hi,” and to thank you for reading my blog post. I really appreciate all of the comments and feedback, and also enjoyed reading all of the banter between everyone.
I do tend to shy away from political talk, but as my Mom @msmollynd knows, when I have something on my mind, I have no problem stepping on my soapbox and speaking out about whatever is troubling me. And all of the gun control panic talk is getting on my nerves! Just now on the news they were showing people lined up at a gun show, ready to stock up on guns before the laws change. Then the very next story was one about a teenager who was shot.
I am not against all guns, just don’t see the need for the assault weapons.
And to answer @spocko‘s questions: I am against armed teachers in schools. I really don’t see how that would help anything – our first instinct is to shield kids from harm, not to pull out a gun and start firing. Not to mention the danger of having guns hanging around in school. A whole new set of problems could stem from that. Can you imagine the first time a kid got ahold of a teacher’s gun?
Armed guards might seem like a great idea, but would be way too expensive. Our schools already do have resource officers and I think that is fine. The HS and MIddle schools have them in the building full time and there are a few that make regular rounds of all of our elementary schools. I think resource officers make sense because they are there for many purposes other than just to guard the schools.
Sorry I am late to the commenting party. I am definitely a busy parent and didn’t get a chance to read all of the comments until now. Thanks again for all of the nice comments. I love to write and have so much to say – just wish I had more time to do it.
Enjoy your weekend!
momexperience,
Thank you for your thoughtful and powerful piece. Clearly many here were moved by your quiet yet strong informed voice.
Congratulations are also in order for being promoted to the front page. If our beloved mom of momexperience hasn’t told you yet, that is a big deal. While Jane has strict rules regarding reader diaries and the front page, she has also always been very clear that deserving writing would be promoted. Well done.
Never. Give. Up.
Damn it. Just saw two really pretty songbirds beyond my back fence, sitting on a phone line. Couldn’t identify them, went upstairs to get my binocs, came back down to check them out and they were gone.
Yes indeed, and the hysteria is so unnecessary, but so prevalent today.
I enjoy the “free range kids” blog: http://www.freerangekids.com/
I was too late for “duck and cover”, but not too late for the 60s let’s practice going and hiding in the locker room in case of a nuclear war stuff.