Nineteen children. 6-8 years old. The age of my youngest grandnephew, Sam. It hasn’t even been two weeks since I wrote about the last “mass shooting” in Buffalo. But 19 kids between the ages of 6-8? And three teachers? 22 people? 19 kids between the ages of 6-8!
I have never discharged a firearm. I don't WANT to discharge a firearm. I figure if you've managed to avoid something of which you fundamentally disapprove for 73 years, it's probably a terrible time to start. yet I have an old friend (from graduate school in English Literature) who's become an avid gun collector, who especially loves his automatic weapons. "For all your talk," he told me once, "I guarantee that the first time you fire an AR-15, you'll immediately become addicted to the incredible power it gives you." he's trying to overcome his nice Jewish boy background, but I consider that if you have to that far, your fundamental assumptions (and the emotions that motivate them) are, shall we say out of politeness, fundamentally flawed. if I'm buffering this post with a little wit, it's because I'm in despair over this issue, especially today) the insane conspiracy nuts who maintain--beyond obscenity--that Sandy Hook was a hoax maintain that it was a plot to get gun control legislation passed. "if so, it were a grievous fault, and grievously hath...[those scumbags]...answered it." in other words, when the fuck has a school shooting ever accomplished getting ANYTHING passed?
I think that for both of us (and a bunch of other people reading this) RAGE seems to be an excellent motivator for us to sharpen up our prose.
Your friend. Speaking of firing an AR-15 the first time. “You’ll become immediately addicted to the incredible power it gives you.” That’s where the Second Amendment has led us. Acquisition of personal power through the thrill of shooting a weapon designed for military use but now unleashed upon children.
There was a time, for many years, that I felt safe every day in a classroom. The drills we practiced were training for the event of a fire and getting away from that threat to safety. And then that changed. But there isn’t an emergency drill training that children can practice or the presence of resource officers at school that allowed nineteen kids to get away from the bullets that seared and ravaged their bodies as a shooter felt the addictive power of an AR-15 in his hands yesterday. Little bodies that required DNA testing for identification instead of their lunch pass used to get their tray in the cafeteria. Their teachers dead while trying to get them away or shield them from the bullets. I guess it’s the luck of the “draw” that teachers now hold onto in hoping it will keep their school building, their site, out of a killer’s gun site.
Rage. Rage against rage. More rage.
Will it be different “this time”? That the question is even asked gives us the answer. That a President who speaks to a nation last night spoke to parents 10 yrs ago as Vice President about losing a child to gun violence while in school. There is your answer.
I loathe those that bend the knee to the NRA. Think they will cancel their convention this weekend?
Terminal.
Steve Kerr set things right. “I’ve had enough.” And then walked out.
I totally agree with your post, Christine. I throat just closed up in grief reading about the little bodies. Forty-four years ago I taught first and second graders in a small NC city. My students were this same age! The old school was built in wings with covered walkways. The locks on one of my doors could easily have been kicked in. I did not even have a closet to hide my kids in! But that was before school massacres.
The Republican cult has the blood of so many innocents on its hands. My God!!! These are the people who vote against feeding babies and protecting children!!!! I have voted against their sorry asses since I could vote! This country is becoming more barbaric by the minute.
Thank you, TC, for calling this horror what it is- a massacre. Mass shooting is a sterilized euphemism.
There are those for whom empathy for strangers is not a thing..... Texas just confirmed the political power of the incumbent state attorney general, giving him the Republican nomination to run again, even though he is currently under indictment for securities fraud and under FBI investigation for corruption in office.....
I can tell you that virtually ALL the Youtube videos you can find of people firing these things are of shooters playing with toys, especially the new triggers that convert legal rifles into functional machine guns. A favorite activity seems to be the "mag dump", where they fire off a whole magazine in one or two long bursts - absolutely functionally the same as a purpose-built automatic weapon..... No doubt local police will cheer this development.....NOT. Here is an example, comparing two (soon to be illegal) "auto-fire" triggers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID72rCA-QZc
Thank you TC for telling it like it is. I am so disgusted with our government and everyone that is complicit in these massacres. I am ashamed to be an American right now if we can continue living in a society that lets these massacres happen, and so someone says a stupid prayer like it will make any difference, and then go on to the next massacre.
Last night I went on a FB rampage, calling out every rethug in my small world as complicit in murder. I have been a fourth-grade teacher and an elementary school principal. The pain I felt was so overwhelming, I simply didn't care whose filthy toes I might trod upon. They deserved it - they still do.
TC, what the media isn't able to describe or show is what happens when little bodies are riddled with hundreds of bullets - they disintegrate. They can't even be identified, even though their names are on school rosters and records. They have ceased to be, not only as lovely little persons but as human bodies. They are no more.
I hate Republicans. I hate Cruz and Abbott, who with their pre-written pathetic "so sad thoughts and prayers" speeches, are preparing to head to Houston and puff out their teeny chests at an NRA convention. What I wish for them I dare not even write, much less think.
"IT WAS A MASSACRE." Thank you for the truth, TC. A southern (Republican) friend who is a teacher wrote on her facebook page, "My heart is just sad." I replied, "Sadly, we have to vote for Democratic candidates for office now, or the slaughter of our children will not stop."
She responded, "Calm down. Not what this post was for."
One of the responses to me was, "What does politics have to do with mental sickness". I assumed the writer had to delete "the hell" before "does", and decided it wasn't worth it to respond. But my new mantra is to "convert good moderate Republicans to democracy", so I chanced losing a friend or 3 and replied:
"... thank you for that important question. Mental sickness has everything to do with politics. I am a community health nurse and RN patient advocate. For the past 10 years I have worked for our 6 county community mental health department. I also served on our county social services board for 8 years. I ran for that office as a Republican. I also voted for Republicans and supported our Republican governor's efforts to promote and support our small businesses. I was a lobbyist and got the full support of my wonderful Republican state senator to fund Maternal & Infant Support Services to provide home visits to families and children at risk, to prevent mental as well as physical illness. Plus I make pies for a group of hunters in exchange for venison and grouse, so I am not at all opposed to guns, but I know that the issue of control of who can have them is political. I also have first hand experience: I was working with a very unstable mother of 2 disabled children, who became so angry she told me she was going to buy a gun and shoot everyone in the school. I tried to talk her down, but she was vehement. I called my supervisor who said, "Tell her she must store her ammunition in a safe place separate from her guns." I said by law I had to report her to the police. My supervisor said No, there is no law that says she can't have a gun. (Laws are political). I then called the school principal who locked down the school and called the police.
My wonderful Republican Senator has retired. In his and in other good Republican legislators' places, we now have Republicans who limit community mental health funds at the same time they want no limits on gun ownership. Sadly, I have to vote for Democrats now to get financing to prevent mental illness and gun violence, as well as to get laws that prevent access to deadly weapons by these patients."
It's much more lively here than on the motherboard (forum) today, MaryPat, I hear a song in your spiel. It goes something like this: "There used be niiicce Republicans here, now I'm stuck with the Democrats. I'll to anything to help the sick. P.S. The Republicans are all nuts, NUTS, N U T S!
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that it is in the interest of those in power - those who make the laws of this land - is to keep us living in fear. It's easier to control people who are afraid. "Be afraid of losing your freedom"
"Be afraid of being shot at school or at the mall"
Salvador Rolando Ramos was the shooter. (excerpts from The Washington Post)
'Using weapons purchased this month, days after his 18th birthday, authorities said, Salvador Rolando Ramos shot and critically wounded his grandmother. He then went on a shooting rampage at Robb Elementary School near his home in Uvalde, Tex., killing at least 19 children and two adults and injuring others.'
'Santos Valdez Jr., 18, said he has known Ramos since early elementary school. They were friends, he said, until Ramos’s behavior started to deteriorate.'
'They used to play video games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty. But then Ramos changed. Once, Valdez said, Ramos pulled up to a park where they often played basketball and had cuts all over his face. He first said a cat had scratched his face.'
“Then he told me the truth, that he’d cut up his face with knives over and over and over,” Valdez said. “I was like, ‘You’re crazy, bro, why would you do that?’”
'Ramos said he did it for fun, Valdez recalled.'
'In middle school and junior high, Ramos was bullied for having a stutter and a strong lisp, friends and family said.'
'Stephen Garcia, who considered himself Ramos’s best friend in eighth grade, said Ramos didn’t have it easy in school. “He would get bullied hard, like bullied by a lot of people,” Garcia said. “Over social media, over gaming, over everything.”
“He was the nicest kid, the most shyest kid. He just needed to break out of his shell.”
'Two months ago, he posted an Instagram story in which he screamed at his mother, who he said was trying to kick him out of their home, said Nadia Reyes, a high school classmate.'
“He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there and he’d call his mom a b---- and say she wanted to kick him out,” Reyes said. “He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.”
'Ruben Flores, 41, said he lived next door to the family on Hood Street and tried to be a kind of father figure to Ramos, who had “a pretty rough life with his mom.”
'He and his wife, Becky Flores, would invite Ramos to barbecues at their house and for sleepovers with their son, who was a few years younger. Ramos went by the nickname “pelon,” Spanish for bald, because his hair was often cut so short when he was younger, Flores said.'
'As he grew older, problems at home became more acute and more apparent to neighbors, Flores said. He described seeing police at the house and witnessing blowups between Ramos and his mother.'
'Multiple people familiar with the family, including Flores, said Ramos’s mother used drugs, which contributed to the upheaval in the home. Ramos’s mother could not be reached for comment.'
'Ramos moved from the Hood Street home to his grandmother’s home across town a few months ago, Flores said. He said he last saw the grandmother on Sunday, when she stopped by the Hood Street property, which she also owned. The grandmother told him she was in the process of evicting Ramos’s mother because of her drug problems, Flores said.'
***
Call this guy what you like. You know that if it is a 'worthless piece of shit', I won't like it. These excerpts would not be here if Salvador was all about expletives, while his life might be called abominable or execrable.
Universal health care, including mental health. Universal background checks, including mental health. 18-year-olds should not be able to buy guns or be drafted.
It sounds as though his life was the mess that produced the results that happened yesterday, that in and of itself is a tragedy, that he was allowed to slip through the cracks until he ran a mock yesterday speaks to our society and it’s failure to protect the innocent. Some gentle guidance with compassion a long time ago might very well have prevented yesterday’s horror.
Yes, guidance and compassion. He probably also really needed early placement in a good foster home then adoption, too. It does not sound like his mother was capable of any decent parenting. When I consider how hard we have had to fight in Michigan for early childhood and school age support programs in mental health, public health and social services, I can't imagine how bad it must be in Texas to get them.
This explains why he chose this elementary school, He wanted others to be in as much pain as he was suffering. Definitely a failure of our social services system.
'Oh', oh was in my mouth as I read your reply Lois. I think there was utter failure in his life and believe you are expressing that, too. It is part of the American Story. How many children in our country are living in comparable circumstances to those of Salvador?
Read the argument for the Second Amendment, contained in Federalist Paper #29, written by Alexander Hamilton..... See his arguments, and note the conditions he describes. The Second Amendment has NOTHING to do with individual firearms ownership, and EVERYTHING to do with serving in a state-organized militia, which is why Hamilton used the term "keep and bear arms" - that referred to possessing and presenting a weapon for service in a militia, for training and service when the militia was called out. Note that service in a militia was expected and usually required, as was the possession of a suitable weapons for service - that was the "keep" part of "keep and bear arms". The original draft of the Second Amendment contained a third clause that exempted conscientious objectors from having to serve in a militia, but it was dropped before ratification. Ironically, since that clause was about exemption from service, it would have made it clear that "bearing arms" was for the purpose of serving in a militia and not for personal use. So here we are.....
Counting up the Originalists and Textualists on the Supreme Court, you've got made Bruce. I'm sure many of us would like to hear the argument. Anything you can do for abortion?
Unfortunately, the "originalists" and "textualists" on the current Court seem to have their own "original" copies of the Constitution, which may or may not be the same as the one we studied in school..... They will interpret their copies and judge from on high, and they won't let history or the expressed original intent get in the way of a good story.....
From what I have read, at worst, the standard for abortions was to restrict them at the "quickening" (about 15 weeks or so), but before that, the fetus was not considered to be alive. The biological fact is that life does not start at conception, or fertilization, or implantation - life is a continuum, an unbroken stream that is at least a billion years old on this little blue marble. The gametes (sperm and egg) are not independently alive, but they contain the essentials for life to continue when they are joined..... This is one of those arguments that cannot ever be solved - it is a binary disagreement, and so one side or the other will always be disappointed that the decision went the other way. The real crime is that so many states essentially ban serious health and reproductive education and support - the conservative deep south has the highest rates of teenage pregnancies and abortions in the country, and the worst sex and health education.....
Bruce, I appreciated your explication. We do part ways, however, with you calling their story 'good'. 'Old hat', would, at least, stamp it as familiar baggage.
"good story" was just an ironic figure of speech on my part - I have always considered the phrase "a good story" as referring to stories that are plainly false or exaggerated. Sorry about that, chief.....:-)
Again - if you really want to move gun control legislation along, you must show the public the reality of shootings - photos of bodies in place, with the blood and wounds not blurred, so people can see what these weapons do. What do you think those little kids in Uvalde looked like, when they had to be identified by DNA and photos of their clothes? Unrecognizable, that's what they looked like. One description said they couldn't be entirely sure how many kids were in the classroom. That's because some of the kids were literally shot to pieces.....
And the "debate" goes on..... What has happened on the right is that guns morphed from being tools used for certain functions - hunting, pest control, target shooting, etc. - and became synonymous with masculinity and male identity. That's why they fight so hard against any gun control measures - because if you take away their guns, they aren't "real men" anymore.....
I didn’t read this Tuesday. I couldn’t. I didn’t read it yesterday. I was neck deep in peer support activities , (meeting/training/, dealing with anniversary trauma from our local school mass shooting (Thurston High, Springfield, OR 1998), routine tasks, and reaching out to my teacher friends. Today I was fielding questions on the law enforcement “tactics” displayed yesterday. I mustered up the energy to read it today.
It was a massacre, with the most vulnerable of victims, perpetrated by someone whose life was altered by the lack of resources for marginal youth.
We are going to do something, if you watched the voter participation numbers yesterday here in GA, unless I am wrong we had a much larger turnout than we did in 2020 and that was to throw the insipid imbecile out of the WH. I believe that the unspeakable horror that was visited upon those innocent children yesterday, as well as the upcoming SC decisions will create a tsunami that will remove enough of the GQP from office that the government will be able to start acting in the interests of the people and not the goddamn gun lobby. I held my nose and voted in the Republican primary yesterday to help ensure that Perdue and Hice did not advance to the mid-terms this fall, I loathe both of them, it seems to have worked.
'We' must coalesce. Who thinks that the majority of the Donor Class and Republican Party are playing wolf? How many suckers have died? Take a look at the of deaths due to COVID in Trump country. Which states have the most gun deaths? Take a look. How many innocent Americans have died, gone hungry and gone homeless? How's life in the USA, folks? You all happy are you? Mental health -- want some?
Your voting in the Republican primary was a good strategy, Dick. I hope there is hope that the blue turnout in November will be incontrovertibly overwhelming.
You make the reality of what an automatic weapons does to living things and it's real purpose visceral. I wish more could feel what I felt by reading your words as if I were the 6 year old in that classroom. I found myself like a caricature of the victim in a video war game; I was terrified and bleeding and torn up and just before my eyes closed from the pain that come in the end, I whimpered "mom." Game over. Thanks.
I fear it will be a generation before anything is done at all - the Supreme Court we have now will protect the right of people to arm themselves like the 3rd Infantry Division until they are replaced - not in my lifetime.....
I quibble with this excellent piece only in two particulars:
1) The shooter doesn't "For a few minutes, hold.... of life and death." The life is already there, the shooter has only the power to inflict death.
2) It's only terminal if we allow it to be although I'll readily admit that the means of changing it escape me at the moment. Perhaps there is a deeper thinker than I am who has some ideas. If not, it's after 5 somewhere.
I have never discharged a firearm. I don't WANT to discharge a firearm. I figure if you've managed to avoid something of which you fundamentally disapprove for 73 years, it's probably a terrible time to start. yet I have an old friend (from graduate school in English Literature) who's become an avid gun collector, who especially loves his automatic weapons. "For all your talk," he told me once, "I guarantee that the first time you fire an AR-15, you'll immediately become addicted to the incredible power it gives you." he's trying to overcome his nice Jewish boy background, but I consider that if you have to that far, your fundamental assumptions (and the emotions that motivate them) are, shall we say out of politeness, fundamentally flawed. if I'm buffering this post with a little wit, it's because I'm in despair over this issue, especially today) the insane conspiracy nuts who maintain--beyond obscenity--that Sandy Hook was a hoax maintain that it was a plot to get gun control legislation passed. "if so, it were a grievous fault, and grievously hath...[those scumbags]...answered it." in other words, when the fuck has a school shooting ever accomplished getting ANYTHING passed?
I think that for both of us (and a bunch of other people reading this) RAGE seems to be an excellent motivator for us to sharpen up our prose.
Your friend. Speaking of firing an AR-15 the first time. “You’ll become immediately addicted to the incredible power it gives you.” That’s where the Second Amendment has led us. Acquisition of personal power through the thrill of shooting a weapon designed for military use but now unleashed upon children.
There was a time, for many years, that I felt safe every day in a classroom. The drills we practiced were training for the event of a fire and getting away from that threat to safety. And then that changed. But there isn’t an emergency drill training that children can practice or the presence of resource officers at school that allowed nineteen kids to get away from the bullets that seared and ravaged their bodies as a shooter felt the addictive power of an AR-15 in his hands yesterday. Little bodies that required DNA testing for identification instead of their lunch pass used to get their tray in the cafeteria. Their teachers dead while trying to get them away or shield them from the bullets. I guess it’s the luck of the “draw” that teachers now hold onto in hoping it will keep their school building, their site, out of a killer’s gun site.
Rage. Rage against rage. More rage.
Will it be different “this time”? That the question is even asked gives us the answer. That a President who speaks to a nation last night spoke to parents 10 yrs ago as Vice President about losing a child to gun violence while in school. There is your answer.
I loathe those that bend the knee to the NRA. Think they will cancel their convention this weekend?
Terminal.
Steve Kerr set things right. “I’ve had enough.” And then walked out.
I totally agree with your post, Christine. I throat just closed up in grief reading about the little bodies. Forty-four years ago I taught first and second graders in a small NC city. My students were this same age! The old school was built in wings with covered walkways. The locks on one of my doors could easily have been kicked in. I did not even have a closet to hide my kids in! But that was before school massacres.
The Republican cult has the blood of so many innocents on its hands. My God!!! These are the people who vote against feeding babies and protecting children!!!! I have voted against their sorry asses since I could vote! This country is becoming more barbaric by the minute.
Thank you, TC, for calling this horror what it is- a massacre. Mass shooting is a sterilized euphemism.
“Immediately addicted to the incredible power it gives you “. That chills me to the bone.
There are those for whom empathy for strangers is not a thing..... Texas just confirmed the political power of the incumbent state attorney general, giving him the Republican nomination to run again, even though he is currently under indictment for securities fraud and under FBI investigation for corruption in office.....
I can tell you that virtually ALL the Youtube videos you can find of people firing these things are of shooters playing with toys, especially the new triggers that convert legal rifles into functional machine guns. A favorite activity seems to be the "mag dump", where they fire off a whole magazine in one or two long bursts - absolutely functionally the same as a purpose-built automatic weapon..... No doubt local police will cheer this development.....NOT. Here is an example, comparing two (soon to be illegal) "auto-fire" triggers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID72rCA-QZc
Thank you TC for telling it like it is. I am so disgusted with our government and everyone that is complicit in these massacres. I am ashamed to be an American right now if we can continue living in a society that lets these massacres happen, and so someone says a stupid prayer like it will make any difference, and then go on to the next massacre.
The prayer is not stupid. What is stupid is that is all they can offer.
Last night I went on a FB rampage, calling out every rethug in my small world as complicit in murder. I have been a fourth-grade teacher and an elementary school principal. The pain I felt was so overwhelming, I simply didn't care whose filthy toes I might trod upon. They deserved it - they still do.
TC, what the media isn't able to describe or show is what happens when little bodies are riddled with hundreds of bullets - they disintegrate. They can't even be identified, even though their names are on school rosters and records. They have ceased to be, not only as lovely little persons but as human bodies. They are no more.
I hate Republicans. I hate Cruz and Abbott, who with their pre-written pathetic "so sad thoughts and prayers" speeches, are preparing to head to Houston and puff out their teeny chests at an NRA convention. What I wish for them I dare not even write, much less think.
Sorry for the rant.
It's a good rant, Ellen.
Done. I'm so glad for those three little dots!
Will do. Don't you find it interesting that whoever started this included three distinct bits of misinformation: Trans + Leftist + Illegal?
"IT WAS A MASSACRE." Thank you for the truth, TC. A southern (Republican) friend who is a teacher wrote on her facebook page, "My heart is just sad." I replied, "Sadly, we have to vote for Democratic candidates for office now, or the slaughter of our children will not stop."
She responded, "Calm down. Not what this post was for."
One of the responses to me was, "What does politics have to do with mental sickness". I assumed the writer had to delete "the hell" before "does", and decided it wasn't worth it to respond. But my new mantra is to "convert good moderate Republicans to democracy", so I chanced losing a friend or 3 and replied:
"... thank you for that important question. Mental sickness has everything to do with politics. I am a community health nurse and RN patient advocate. For the past 10 years I have worked for our 6 county community mental health department. I also served on our county social services board for 8 years. I ran for that office as a Republican. I also voted for Republicans and supported our Republican governor's efforts to promote and support our small businesses. I was a lobbyist and got the full support of my wonderful Republican state senator to fund Maternal & Infant Support Services to provide home visits to families and children at risk, to prevent mental as well as physical illness. Plus I make pies for a group of hunters in exchange for venison and grouse, so I am not at all opposed to guns, but I know that the issue of control of who can have them is political. I also have first hand experience: I was working with a very unstable mother of 2 disabled children, who became so angry she told me she was going to buy a gun and shoot everyone in the school. I tried to talk her down, but she was vehement. I called my supervisor who said, "Tell her she must store her ammunition in a safe place separate from her guns." I said by law I had to report her to the police. My supervisor said No, there is no law that says she can't have a gun. (Laws are political). I then called the school principal who locked down the school and called the police.
My wonderful Republican Senator has retired. In his and in other good Republican legislators' places, we now have Republicans who limit community mental health funds at the same time they want no limits on gun ownership. Sadly, I have to vote for Democrats now to get financing to prevent mental illness and gun violence, as well as to get laws that prevent access to deadly weapons by these patients."
It's much more lively here than on the motherboard (forum) today, MaryPat, I hear a song in your spiel. It goes something like this: "There used be niiicce Republicans here, now I'm stuck with the Democrats. I'll to anything to help the sick. P.S. The Republicans are all nuts, NUTS, N U T S!
To which tune Fern!?!
MaryPat, You pick it. I'd suggest a very well known patriotic ditty. Please let me know how it goes!
It works!!
Fern and MaryPat, you two managed to make me crack my first smile of the day. Much appreciated!
SMH.
You got the answer for us, MaryPat. "Not what this post was for." In other words, "Nope, no gun control for you and yours."
MaryPat, I'm not Red/White/Blue (Never really was). Ironic is the best I can do - sarcastic - sharp - sting. I haven't got a thing!
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that it is in the interest of those in power - those who make the laws of this land - is to keep us living in fear. It's easier to control people who are afraid. "Be afraid of losing your freedom"
"Be afraid of being shot at school or at the mall"
"Be afraid to get pregnant"
"Be afraid of cops"
"Be afraid of immigrants"
"Be afraid of socialists"
Just to name a few. It's a very long list.
Salvador Rolando Ramos was the shooter. (excerpts from The Washington Post)
'Using weapons purchased this month, days after his 18th birthday, authorities said, Salvador Rolando Ramos shot and critically wounded his grandmother. He then went on a shooting rampage at Robb Elementary School near his home in Uvalde, Tex., killing at least 19 children and two adults and injuring others.'
'Santos Valdez Jr., 18, said he has known Ramos since early elementary school. They were friends, he said, until Ramos’s behavior started to deteriorate.'
'They used to play video games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty. But then Ramos changed. Once, Valdez said, Ramos pulled up to a park where they often played basketball and had cuts all over his face. He first said a cat had scratched his face.'
“Then he told me the truth, that he’d cut up his face with knives over and over and over,” Valdez said. “I was like, ‘You’re crazy, bro, why would you do that?’”
'Ramos said he did it for fun, Valdez recalled.'
'In middle school and junior high, Ramos was bullied for having a stutter and a strong lisp, friends and family said.'
'Stephen Garcia, who considered himself Ramos’s best friend in eighth grade, said Ramos didn’t have it easy in school. “He would get bullied hard, like bullied by a lot of people,” Garcia said. “Over social media, over gaming, over everything.”
“He was the nicest kid, the most shyest kid. He just needed to break out of his shell.”
'Two months ago, he posted an Instagram story in which he screamed at his mother, who he said was trying to kick him out of their home, said Nadia Reyes, a high school classmate.'
“He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there and he’d call his mom a b---- and say she wanted to kick him out,” Reyes said. “He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.”
'Ruben Flores, 41, said he lived next door to the family on Hood Street and tried to be a kind of father figure to Ramos, who had “a pretty rough life with his mom.”
'He and his wife, Becky Flores, would invite Ramos to barbecues at their house and for sleepovers with their son, who was a few years younger. Ramos went by the nickname “pelon,” Spanish for bald, because his hair was often cut so short when he was younger, Flores said.'
'As he grew older, problems at home became more acute and more apparent to neighbors, Flores said. He described seeing police at the house and witnessing blowups between Ramos and his mother.'
'Multiple people familiar with the family, including Flores, said Ramos’s mother used drugs, which contributed to the upheaval in the home. Ramos’s mother could not be reached for comment.'
'Ramos moved from the Hood Street home to his grandmother’s home across town a few months ago, Flores said. He said he last saw the grandmother on Sunday, when she stopped by the Hood Street property, which she also owned. The grandmother told him she was in the process of evicting Ramos’s mother because of her drug problems, Flores said.'
***
Call this guy what you like. You know that if it is a 'worthless piece of shit', I won't like it. These excerpts would not be here if Salvador was all about expletives, while his life might be called abominable or execrable.
I cannot pin my rage on Salvador.
We know who our enemies are.
The link to the article below is gifted.
https://wapo.st/3sWOqKq
Universal health care, including mental health. Universal background checks, including mental health. 18-year-olds should not be able to buy guns or be drafted.
It sounds as though his life was the mess that produced the results that happened yesterday, that in and of itself is a tragedy, that he was allowed to slip through the cracks until he ran a mock yesterday speaks to our society and it’s failure to protect the innocent. Some gentle guidance with compassion a long time ago might very well have prevented yesterday’s horror.
Yes, guidance and compassion. He probably also really needed early placement in a good foster home then adoption, too. It does not sound like his mother was capable of any decent parenting. When I consider how hard we have had to fight in Michigan for early childhood and school age support programs in mental health, public health and social services, I can't imagine how bad it must be in Texas to get them.
Dick, My imagining of Salvador's life from birth -- we have enough to think about without that.
This explains why he chose this elementary school, He wanted others to be in as much pain as he was suffering. Definitely a failure of our social services system.
'Oh', oh was in my mouth as I read your reply Lois. I think there was utter failure in his life and believe you are expressing that, too. It is part of the American Story. How many children in our country are living in comparable circumstances to those of Salvador?
Read the argument for the Second Amendment, contained in Federalist Paper #29, written by Alexander Hamilton..... See his arguments, and note the conditions he describes. The Second Amendment has NOTHING to do with individual firearms ownership, and EVERYTHING to do with serving in a state-organized militia, which is why Hamilton used the term "keep and bear arms" - that referred to possessing and presenting a weapon for service in a militia, for training and service when the militia was called out. Note that service in a militia was expected and usually required, as was the possession of a suitable weapons for service - that was the "keep" part of "keep and bear arms". The original draft of the Second Amendment contained a third clause that exempted conscientious objectors from having to serve in a militia, but it was dropped before ratification. Ironically, since that clause was about exemption from service, it would have made it clear that "bearing arms" was for the purpose of serving in a militia and not for personal use. So here we are.....
For want of a clause...
Counting up the Originalists and Textualists on the Supreme Court, you've got made Bruce. I'm sure many of us would like to hear the argument. Anything you can do for abortion?
Unfortunately, the "originalists" and "textualists" on the current Court seem to have their own "original" copies of the Constitution, which may or may not be the same as the one we studied in school..... They will interpret their copies and judge from on high, and they won't let history or the expressed original intent get in the way of a good story.....
From what I have read, at worst, the standard for abortions was to restrict them at the "quickening" (about 15 weeks or so), but before that, the fetus was not considered to be alive. The biological fact is that life does not start at conception, or fertilization, or implantation - life is a continuum, an unbroken stream that is at least a billion years old on this little blue marble. The gametes (sperm and egg) are not independently alive, but they contain the essentials for life to continue when they are joined..... This is one of those arguments that cannot ever be solved - it is a binary disagreement, and so one side or the other will always be disappointed that the decision went the other way. The real crime is that so many states essentially ban serious health and reproductive education and support - the conservative deep south has the highest rates of teenage pregnancies and abortions in the country, and the worst sex and health education.....
Bruce, I appreciated your explication. We do part ways, however, with you calling their story 'good'. 'Old hat', would, at least, stamp it as familiar baggage.
"good story" was just an ironic figure of speech on my part - I have always considered the phrase "a good story" as referring to stories that are plainly false or exaggerated. Sorry about that, chief.....:-)
Any other figures of speech on you part, which you care to share in advance? In all other ways, Bruce, your clarity is a charm.
😣
Again - if you really want to move gun control legislation along, you must show the public the reality of shootings - photos of bodies in place, with the blood and wounds not blurred, so people can see what these weapons do. What do you think those little kids in Uvalde looked like, when they had to be identified by DNA and photos of their clothes? Unrecognizable, that's what they looked like. One description said they couldn't be entirely sure how many kids were in the classroom. That's because some of the kids were literally shot to pieces.....
And the "debate" goes on..... What has happened on the right is that guns morphed from being tools used for certain functions - hunting, pest control, target shooting, etc. - and became synonymous with masculinity and male identity. That's why they fight so hard against any gun control measures - because if you take away their guns, they aren't "real men" anymore.....
The massive police failure that is now coming out may "move the meter."
I certainly hope so, because it is looking more and more like a complete cluster..... from here. Just for grins, here is an interesting URL: https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdwgn/uvalde-swat-team-bragged-about-training-at-schools-on-facebook
I didn’t read this Tuesday. I couldn’t. I didn’t read it yesterday. I was neck deep in peer support activities , (meeting/training/, dealing with anniversary trauma from our local school mass shooting (Thurston High, Springfield, OR 1998), routine tasks, and reaching out to my teacher friends. Today I was fielding questions on the law enforcement “tactics” displayed yesterday. I mustered up the energy to read it today.
It was a massacre, with the most vulnerable of victims, perpetrated by someone whose life was altered by the lack of resources for marginal youth.
I’m spent. Gonna go play tuba and clear my head.
Thank you, TC, for expressing our pain and outrage at the gun lobby and our inability to do anything about that perverted power.
We are going to do something, if you watched the voter participation numbers yesterday here in GA, unless I am wrong we had a much larger turnout than we did in 2020 and that was to throw the insipid imbecile out of the WH. I believe that the unspeakable horror that was visited upon those innocent children yesterday, as well as the upcoming SC decisions will create a tsunami that will remove enough of the GQP from office that the government will be able to start acting in the interests of the people and not the goddamn gun lobby. I held my nose and voted in the Republican primary yesterday to help ensure that Perdue and Hice did not advance to the mid-terms this fall, I loathe both of them, it seems to have worked.
'We' must coalesce. Who thinks that the majority of the Donor Class and Republican Party are playing wolf? How many suckers have died? Take a look at the of deaths due to COVID in Trump country. Which states have the most gun deaths? Take a look. How many innocent Americans have died, gone hungry and gone homeless? How's life in the USA, folks? You all happy are you? Mental health -- want some?
The brainwashed keep voting against their best interests. How can they be deprogrammed?
Your voting in the Republican primary was a good strategy, Dick. I hope there is hope that the blue turnout in November will be incontrovertibly overwhelming.
Many thanks, Dick, for how you voted.
YES!!!! Thank You Dick!
"Heart of Oak",
The Liberty Song
Star-Spangled Banner
God Bless America
Color Me America
America The Beautiful
Over There
"(I'm a) Yankee Doodle Dandy"
"American Heart"
My Country 'Tis of Thee. ...
You're A Grand Old Flag. ....
This Land Is Your Land.
"Born in the U.S.A."
"American Girl"
"A Change Is Gonna Come"
"America"
Get well soon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRUjr8EVgBg
You make the reality of what an automatic weapons does to living things and it's real purpose visceral. I wish more could feel what I felt by reading your words as if I were the 6 year old in that classroom. I found myself like a caricature of the victim in a video war game; I was terrified and bleeding and torn up and just before my eyes closed from the pain that come in the end, I whimpered "mom." Game over. Thanks.
I fear it will be a generation before anything is done at all - the Supreme Court we have now will protect the right of people to arm themselves like the 3rd Infantry Division until they are replaced - not in my lifetime.....
I quibble with this excellent piece only in two particulars:
1) The shooter doesn't "For a few minutes, hold.... of life and death." The life is already there, the shooter has only the power to inflict death.
2) It's only terminal if we allow it to be although I'll readily admit that the means of changing it escape me at the moment. Perhaps there is a deeper thinker than I am who has some ideas. If not, it's after 5 somewhere.