Remember yesterday when we talked about the latest school shooter’s MAGA trash parents? It was worse than we knew. Far worse.
We knew the father bought the murder weapon. Thanks to the mom’s social media feed, we now know they bought it explicitly for their son as an early Christmas present. The prosecutor said the parents failed to respond when school officials told them earlier this week about disturbing drawings and messages their kid wrote involving guns and killing.
When a teacher caught the kid researching ammo online in class and alerted the psycho mom, she sent a text to the boy that said, “LOL, I’m not mad, u just need to learn not to get caught.” That’s not even all; I’ll try to collect the other details and update the post. The big red neon SCHOOL SHOOTER signs these garbage people ignored are just unbelievable.
Updated to insert this clip:
Crumbley's mom seemed to have a pretty good idea that Ethan Crumbley was considering a school shooting. pic.twitter.com/IeLvsHqDLS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2021
The mom texted the kid “don’t do it” minutes after the shooting started, and the dad called 911 to report the gun “stolen” and say the shooter might be his son.
Now the parents are charged with four counts each of involuntary manslaughter. The prosecutor says that not only are the charges appropriate in this case to get justice for the victims, it’s a message for gun owners nationwide that they have responsibilities and that there will be consequences if they fail to meet them:
‘Enough is enough’ — Prosecutor Karen McDonald says the charges against the Oxford High School shooter’s parents are meant to send a message to gun owners pic.twitter.com/LbIRO0qhdN
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) December 3, 2021
It’s about goddamn time. Open thread.
SpaceUnit
Step aside Rittenhouse. There’s a new hero on the right.
UncleEbeneezer
Lock. Them. Up!
Kay
Bravo
im pulling for her – the whole gun but culture is going to come after her, along with the industry
RaflW
Meanwhile Ronna McRomney tweets without any sense of shame that only the GOP cares about ‘life’.
ciotog
“Early Christmas present” sure sounds like, “Go ahead and shoot up your school, Junior” to me.
Starfish
Treat guns like drugs. If you have a gun within a thousand feet of a school, you are going to jail.
hueyplong
If those parents had wanted to see kids get shot, they couldn’t have taken actions any more likely to lead to that result.
Hope that “lol” sticks in a judge’s (and a jury’s) craw.
We’re seeing the 2A turned into a constitutional right to shoot people without consequence (so long as you’re white and right wing).
RaflW
@Kay: I admit to not really grasping all the implications, but I did see recently that the NRA lost some sort of important procedural question in their bankruptcy & move to Texas attempt.
No doubt they’ll be after this prosecutor with some gusto, but they are in disarray at the moment, which is good.
RaflW
Our current SCOTUS would probably find some emanations and penumbrances to void it, but we really, really need to treat gun onwership like we do swimming pools or cars.
If you aren’t well insured, you’re taken to the cleaners for any use that results in trauma, injury or death. And even if you’re insured, you have a duty of care that is high. Reckless driving is a legit offense, as should reckless gunhandling. Get busted for the latter, your insurance $$ skyrockets.
Can’t afford insurance, gotta get rid of the gun(s). Get caught with uninsured guns? Fines. Hard ones.
Betty Cracker
The gun industrial-political cartel will come out of the woodwork for sure, but from the evidence the prosecutor laid out, it will be hard to defend these cretinous parents. The Google tells me 15 years is the maximum sentence for an involuntary manslaughter conviction in Michigan. They face four counts each.
Leto
From the WaPo article on this (bold is mine):
Damn straight. It’s about responsibility. Gun ownership carries a responsibility. Responsibility to yourself, your family, your neighbors, to your community. Too many selfish assholes want to bear none of it. Glad the prosecutor is making this argument.
Kelly
Prosecute every careless bullet that hits someone.
mrmoshpotato
Holy shit is that mom a pile of shit!
Elizabelle
The WaPost did SUCH a better job on this story than FTF NY Times. Lots of detail in the Post’s story, including messages between Mrs. Manslaughter and her son.
The Times was sniffing about Second Amendment issues. Fuck them.
mrmoshpotato
@RaflW: They do care about life – the life of the unborn!
Kelly
Which is not prosecuted often enough.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Consecutively, please!!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Leto: yes, about time. Who in the F buys their idiot teenage son an assault rifle?
Antonius
“Responsible gun owners” indeed.
Betty Cracker
@Leto: No wonder the Republicans went all out to tank Chipman’s nomination. He thinks rights should come with responsibilities — so radical!
debbie
These MAGAts always think they’re too clever to get caught, but their stupidity always rats them out.
Warblewarble
Again the question,did the parents inform the school that they had provided a gun to their son?
trollhattan
I’m certain the parents of the children who were victims* will set their personal concerns aside to defend the Crumbly Clan’s 2nd Amendment rights.
Every Republican: “Nothing could have been done to prevent this, other than proper school security.”
*Every kid (teacher, staffer) in that school is a victim. They will be haunted by the experience the rest of their lives.
scav
Good old NRA / GQP Family Values. The family that preys together, stays together.
raven
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It was a 9mm Sig Sauer pistol.
JanieM
@scav:
In prison, generically speaking. Hopefully.
trollhattan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Who buys their idiot teen spawn assault rifles? They are legion, unfortunately. Adam Lanza’s mom, for starters.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
What an absolute nutjob! /S
hueyplong
@mrmoshpotato: “They do care about life – the life of the unborn!”
Immediately calls to mind a hypothetical in which a shooter’s stray bullet hits and kills an unborn child, after which the DA prosecutes the pregnant mom.
Mike in NC
Finished reading “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show” by Jonathan Karl today. The book has several pages of color photos of the Fat Smirking Clown posing with West Wing staffers, including a couple dozen young men and women from the Office of Presidential Personnel. If you need to guess what they had in common, it would be they are all white.
The Dark Avenger
@Starfish: That would make the fun bang tools enthusiasts sad.
lee
@ciotog:
That is exactly what I was thinking
The Dangerman
This school had a security officer, right? Was he or she armed? I’m hearing the SOFS about the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, etc. If the security officer was armed…
Almost Retired
Karen McDonald (the Prosecutor) was impressive! Hope she runs for higher office (although probably not state-wide, since she’ll be demonized by the gun fetish crowd that infests the state).
OGLiberal
OK, these fucking assholes bought a 15-year old a handgun. For Christmas. Not a fucking rifle so he could join Pop during the fall hunting trips. A fucking semi-automatic handgun. And the first thing he did with it was go to school and shoot kids. Dead. Not two years later – 3 days later. You didn’t see anything before to think that may junior doesn’t need his own semi-automatic handgun? Or do you not fucking care? Are you kind of not that upset that he killed those kids and maybe only worried that he “got caught”. Sociopath. Those fucking parents need to be in jail and longer than their fucking lunatic son.
p.a.
It’s right there in the Constitution (or soon will be again): a white person can commit any act of violence if
a) he thinks he’s in danger*
b) he thinks a person of color is committing a crime*
“Reasonable Belief” NOT REQUIRED
delk
Mom is about to find out being grabbed by her pussy isn’t something to joke about. According to the ACLU:
ACLU
zhena gogolia
The whole TFG thing is not just mass hysteria, it’s mass insanity. I don’t know what to do about it. He is a Hitler.
Sister Golden Bear
About damn time.
Also worth prosecuting more garden variety “accidents” where parents leave an unsecured gun in the house, and their kids end up shooting themselves or shooting others. Too often, prosecutors decide “they’re already suffered enough” and decline to press reckless endangerment-related charges.
To paraphrase the ATF agent above, if parents left their kid unattended in running car unseat belted with the parking brake off, and the kid puts the car in drive (accidentally or not) and runs over someone, it ain’t an “accident,” it’s negligence.
Chris
@Antonius:
There’s a word for responsible gun owners, and that word is “Democrat.” Nobody in the NRA cult fits the definition.
(Frankly, that’s one reason I’ve never actually been interested in learning to shoot. Most shooting ranges are NRA affiliated, as I understand it, and if you’re the kind of person whose response to school shootings is that teachers and kids should be armed too, you’re simply not qualified to be teaching me about gun safety).
OGLiberal
My already read a tweet that basically said, “black teens kill people every day in Chicago – how many black parents are charged?”
The Chicago deflection – the racist MAGA standby.
oatler
DeSantis will send his new shock troops to rescue the beleaguered parents.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: You’re right, they will. For most, it will get easier to live with the direct personal knowledge that deadly violence can erupt at any time in a supposedly safe place. But you never feel as at home in the world again after something like that.
mrmoshpotato
@OGLiberal: Trump trash talking shit about my city.
chopper
so the school told them the kid had made a bunch of disturbing drawings and shit about shooting a bunch of people, and they responded by buying him a gun.
LongHairedWeirdo
So, I finally took a quick peek at the justice wearing a tee-shirt saying “ROE IS DEAD LOL jk!”who keeps insisting that all the questions we have are answered by the shirt.
Chief Justice Roberts, showing a level of competence usually reserved for slugs trying to organize a race across the great salt flats, asked why a woman needed *24 weeks* to make a choice; why is 15 insufficient? “Because, really, ladies, why you worrying your pretty little heads about your reproductive freedom? We got your reproductive freedom right here!” (The gesture he made, while saying “right here” was, I’m sure, just the result of an itch that he realized he must not scratch in public, rather than the typical “I got your… right here” gesture.)
It took me under a minute to look up amniocentesis and see that it is normally performed at week 14 or later. Once again, Republicans: how can you feel anyone respects you when they feed you such rotten dog turds as lies? When they expect you to extol those rotten dog turds as if they were gold bullion?
This is months after we had beer-baby say that you *can’t* put PUBLIC HEALTH restrictions on RELIGIOUS GATHERINGS, because, if a disease as deadly as smallpox returns, it might be part of the rapture[1]!
No, wait, he actually didn’t even try to give a justification. Seriously: how do you drop a massive turd in the punchbowl, followed by a brown stream of diarrhea, and have people say “the punch is just fine, he just spiked it in his own special way?”
And let’s not forget the newest justice, who, when asked her opinion on recusing herself, since her religious beliefs insist she *must* do so (by her own standards, note!), said “we attached the cortical stimulaters, but were unable to obtain a neural response.[2]” No, wait, she said something even stupider.
But don’t worry: with a 6-3 hateful court, soon we’ll be able to shoot anyone who makes us afraid for our lives, so long as we’re the sorts of soulless monsters who think other people’s lives aren’t meaningful.
Wait… actually, that makes a kind of sense. See, the stupidest thing to say in response to Black Lives Matter is “all lives matter!” If the set of “lives” matters, then so does the subset of “Black lives”. Unless… unless their point is, “all lives matter the same to us, it’s just, we haven’t gotten around to killing the *rest* of the people we irrationally despise… yet.”
[1] The rapture is a story that some Christians like to tell – one day, they’ll all disappear, and the period of tribulation arrives. Fascinating religion: at a time of great testing, take a heavenly vay-cay rather than stick around to help people in need. I think you’d really have to think of the rest of the world as worthless scum to follow that kind of idea very long.
[2] Firefly quote, from Jayne – I hate to make this kind of comparison, because one is a dumbass who thinks like the NRA, “shoot ’em all, it’s a Stand Your Ground state!” and is a dishonorable, unjust, mercenary engaged in corrupt activity, and the other is a member of the Firefly crew.
oatler
@chopper:
They’re doing their Lord’s work.
Chris
@OGLiberal:
Even assuming that were true, how many of those black teens are killing people with guns that their parents personally bought them and then gave them “you need to learn not to get caught” tips?
(Fairly certain a black teen’s parent being charged for their kid’s misbehavior would in fact be… something other than unprecedented, too, but that’s by the by).
Jeffro
“about damn time” is 110% right
Jump out there, GQP cowards: defend these parents, why dontcha
OGLiberal
@zhena gogolia: Kind of worse because I think there were a lot of Germans who were Hitler fans but not batshit insane. Also, Hitler kind of slid in by acting a bit normal – he had a whole PR rehab campaign in the early 30s. And he worked the system – didn’t get in there by overwhelming popular support. It was once he was in that he got it to the point that they couldn’t take him out – of course, not sure many non-Jewish Germans wanted him out in the early day. Trump never faked anything – he was a monster from Day 1 and people liked him because of that. These people are almost all batshit insane. We’re past, “Well, he’s a jerk but I voted for him because I couldn’t vote a Democrat.” People who think that way, if they voted for him in 2016, did not in 2020. Those left – and it’s about half the country – fucking love this guy. I don’t know what we do about that and waiting for them to die of old age is untenable because a lot of them are like 32-years old.
Chris
@LongHairedWeirdo:
If it makes you feel any better, I think the actor is exactly that kind of dumbass, too.
James E Powell
@Antonius:
They’re the real victims here. /s
Betty Cracker
WaPo’s article on this announcement of the charges notes that only four parents/guardians have been prosecuted out of all the countless school shootings that have occurred in the U.S. since 1999, more than half of which were committed with a gun the juvenile acquired at home. Wow.
In my disreputable Confederate backwater, three juveniles were recently prosecuted for firing AR-15s into the woods and unintentionally killing a woman who was in her yard a quarter of a mile away. The kids were acquitted, and as AFAIK, no one even considered charging the parents who left the guns and ammo lying around for dumb teens to pick up. No justice for that woman’s family.
SpaceUnit
These garbage parents are also responsible for a kid who is now going to rot in a prison for the next seventy years. His life is done at the age of fifteen. It’s hard to feel sorry for little Johnny Boomfinger at the moment, but he’s a victim as well.
Hand a kid a gun and then point to trump and Kyle Rittenhouse as role models and what did they think was going to happen?
Bart
Black kids get violently dragged out of school in handcuffs for ridiculous nonsense, yet this lily-white dingus can make open threats of violence and he just gets to go on and continue planning his massacre, and is even aided by his parents.
SiubhanDuinne
@Almost Retired:
And she has redeemed the name “Karen.”
:-)
I found her very impressive, and agree she should pursue higher office. A stint as Michigan AG, perhaps, and then Governor or the US Senate? Or both? She looks reasonably young.
HalfAssedHomesteader
“Fines. Hard ones.”
@RaflW: Like cost of a house fines.
Jinchi
I learned after Sandy Hook that, in school shooting cases, the hero and the victim on the right is always the gun.
It’s the victim because liberals are trying to take away your God given right to stroll around freely with an assault rifle, just because some bad apple shot up a school.
It’s the hero, because if only the rest of the kids had brought their own guns, they could have killed the gunman.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
But make them defend. Have the fight. Because if we’re not even willing to have the fight then it really is hopeless.
Make it about taking responsibility. These people have successfully shifted the entire risk of their cultish hobby to the public at large. That just isn’t fair. We’re all jumping theru their hoops, taking orders from them. We’ve rearranged our public spaces around accomodating their hobby and kowtowing to them hasn’t worked at all– they’re more extreme every year.
Roger Moore
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
People who have been steeped in gun culture. There’s a whole culture surrounding guns that tries to normalize everyone having them, and people who have fully bought into it just don’t see how crazy it is.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@OGLiberal:
Fixed. If I believed in the death penalty, they’d get it.
Gretchen
@LongHairedWeirdo: which is why old lawyers who know nothing about obstetrics shouldn’t be making these decisions. They all seem to think it’s only about “choice” – I’ve had 15 weeks to decide I didn’t really want a baby. They don’t know about the 16 week anatomy scan, or the 18 week amniocentesis, or the 20 week pre-eclampsia or broken amniotic sac. It’s just some slut who was too stupid to make up her mind in time.
JaneE
Those may be the legally appropriate charges, but the kid’s actions sure look premeditated, and mom & dad encouraged him. I wonder if mom thought he could not “get caught” after killing his classmates. It sounds like a whole family of sociopaths. Good Republicans all, I’m sure.
Jinchi
Have any of the infamous Karens of the last few years actually been named Karen?
Real Karens have gotten a bad rap.
Betty Cracker
@chopper: I wasn’t 100% clear on the sequence of events, but Detroit News provides details on the timeline, and holy fucking shit, those parents need to go to jail forever:
Emphasis mine. If they didn’t know the kid was troubled before, they damn well knew it when they met him and the school officials in the office before the shooting to discuss that note, and they knew he had unrestricted access to a gun. Those irresponsible fuckwads
I hope the victims sue them to the fucking ground so they lose every nickel they have AND go to jail.
Matt McIrvin
@hueyplong: COVID in the mother is, of course, not good for developing fetuses, and some of these same people have been urging pregnant people not to get vaccinated.
trollhattan
In which MT Greene learns me that I’m not a mere socialist, I’m communist. Coming for you next, I am, kulaks!
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1466600463285964801
She’s super-smart, that’s for sure.
SpaceUnit
@Jinchi:
Yep. I keep looking for the exit to this looney bin. Don’t think one actually exists.
JPL
Your republican party
mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) / Twitter
Kay
@Roger Moore:
And insist everyone else buy into their insane view of the world, and accomodate them.
It isn’t the job of public schools to fix the sick gun culture in the US. The gun nuts shoved it on public schools in their continuing quest to not accept responsibility for their own actions.
They’re out of people to blame. There’s no more excuses available. It’s them. They’re buying the guns, they’re bringing them into these places, they’re the shooters. It’s time they took on the burden the rest of us have been carrying.
OGLiberal
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yeah, no death penalty belief here either. My alternative – never will happen and should’t happen – that I told my wife was put them in the room with the parents of the kids who are dead or wounded because they bought their kid a gun like it was a damned toy, shut the door and let whatever happens happen.
Jinchi
They were probably just trying to build his self-confidence.
trollhattan
@Jinchi:
“Sorry you’re not getting laid by the cheerleaders, son, here’s a gun instead.”
Leto
@Betty Cracker: jesus fuck. That’s horrible. Another day that ends in -y here in America, but man…
Kay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Michigan sort of proudly and historically doesn’t have the death penalty. It’s a good story.
Rocks
@Betty Cracker: Make the sentences consecutive with no early parole.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: the red states are becoming unliveable… I’m selling – have you thought about it?
Roger Moore
@JaneE:
I think these are the charges they can reasonably sustain today. If they find more information that shows the parents knew or did more, they can expand the charges then.
trollhattan
@Ksmiami:
Sadly, there are no blue states with gators. Or Gators.
Although, a few pet gators seem to “accidentally” show up in California ponds and lakes from time to time.
Winston
We don’t know the trauma the kid had having to go to school with the moniker Crumbley. /s
scav
Thinking back to the recent abandoned and malignant heart murder verdict misremembered through depraved heart to depraved indifference murder, there does seem to be a variety of terms to characterize a certain parenting style. Send your kid to school with no mask, no vax, but don’t forget the latest firearm!
Kay
And also wrote a public letter to Donald Trump all about how she was law abiding and everyone else was not.
Martin
Yeah, good. You can’t have ‘responsible gun owners’ without accountability. This needs to be the default in every case with gun ownership in the home, and prosecutors need to look for reasons to not charge.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne:
Wikipedia says she’s 51.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jinchi:
I agree. We have at least one poster here who answers to “Karen.” I’ve met her IRL several times, and she totally puts the lie to the name stereotype.
Kay
@Martin:
It’s bold though. It’s not at all a done deal that she’ll get a conviction and the gun nuts and the gun industry are going to push back hard. The last thing they want is any responsibility or accountability. They’ve successfully shifted the entire burden to the non-gun nut majority. That works out very well for them. It’s a great deal, for them.
Ruckus
@Kelly:
From the sound of it, the bullets fired by this kid were not carelessly fired, they were intentionally fired, meant to be fired, meant to kill. It seems to me there is nothing involuntary about this shooting. Not from purchase, not till the last ambulance siren shut off, nothing involuntary or unintended.
tom
@SiubhanDuinne: I think “Karen” refers to the Karen character from Will and Grace.
hotshoe
@Starfish:
Yes, that can be done.
California state law Penal Code 626.9 PC prohibits possessing a gun within 1000 feet of a public or private school.
Exemptions under law include duly appointed peace officer or security guard licensed to carry a loaded firearm … etc.
Of course, having a law like this doesn’t dissuade a school shooter who is already intent on mayhem: why would you care about a possible “gun possession” charge if you are planning to murder kids to begin with.
But I know it has been used to arrest someone for storing a gun in their locker at school.
SiubhanDuinne
@tom:
Which I never saw. But I assumed it started somewhere. Thanks.
Ruckus
@chopper:
The kid had dreams he aspired to fulfill. How empty would his life be if his parents didn’t help him fulfill his dreams and aspirations?
//S
(In case it wasn’t completely, totally, absolutely, positively obvious)
Fester Addams
I noticed some time ago that “responsible gun owner” was just code for “people like us.” They’re all responsible gun owners, until they’re not.
Kelly
@Ruckus: Yes the public info for this case describes intentional murder. I think the problem is broader and careless bullets need to be prosecuted as well. Scarcely a week goes by without a story of a child shooting someone with a carelessly secured firearm or some adult nitwit carelessly shooting someone with their self defense firearm. Usually reported as accidental I consider it carelessness.
gvg
@Ruckus:
I think those charges are on the parents. I am pretty sure the kid is charged with 4 counts of murder.
Kent
@OGLiberal: If black parents were giving their kids semi-automatics for Christmas and sending them to school armed I suspect the would be charged.
anon
The municipality of Brandon Township is located next to Oxford, and parts of Brandon Twp are zoned to that HS.
burnspbesq
@JaneE:
My first thought was to charge the parents as accessories to the kid’s four counts of premeditated murder. I’m far from expert on Michigan criminal law, so there may be obstacles to that of which I am not aware.
It certainly looks like the case against the kid is strong, but it only takes one crackpot to hang a jury, and there is no shortage of crackpots in Michigan. Jury selection is going to be fraught.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So the kid was a Call of Duty Twat on top of it all. That alone demands he be tried as an adult.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Roger Moore: My dad and his friends were stepped in gun culture; he bought me a .22 for my 18th. Stg 9mm machine pistols is not gun culture, that’s pew pew.
Gravenstone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They bought him a handgun. 9 mm Sig-Sauer according to previous reporting.
Betty Cracker
@Ksmiami: No. I don’t blame anyone else for getting out, but despite the lunatics, I love it here. It’s home.
Faithful Lurker
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: My father was a hunter, mainly birds. Quail, doves and pheasant, though how anyone could shoot a dove always baffled me. And quail aren’t worth the trouble unless you’re seriously hungry. He gave me a .22 rifle for my 12th birthday and taught me how to use it. I don’t think I ever fired it after the lessons. Don’t like guns.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@mrmoshpotato: In US politics, anyone younger than boomer is legit “young”.
JPL
So they can’t find the parents to arrest them. wtf
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I’m generally not a fan of prosecuting minors, so happy to see the law going after the adults who were responsible for this tragedy.
anon
@JPL: let’s go brandon township
Mary G
Those poor teachers and school administrators must be so traumatized. Alarms were ringing and red lights flashing and all they could do was tell the parents to get him counseling. What a montrous family.
Betty’s report of the teens who shot someone being acquitted is just as horrifying.
Benw
@Kay: and it’s not just legal responsibility (which is pretty non-existent for white people), the implication of gun culture is that the rest of us have to take on the responsibility of keeping our kids safe FROM THEM.
Example: yesterday there was a threat posted on social media in our district. The cops investigated and by 11 pm the district informed us there was no credible threat. And yet, my kids said about half the kids didn’t come in today. Tests were abruptly cancelled. Because now *parents* have to make the call how risky it could be that someone loaded with automatic weapons might show up at school.
Betty Cracker
According to The Daily Beast (via Detroit News), the shooter’s parents have gone missing:
The cops confiscated their many guns at their home earlier in the week. Maybe they had one stashed elsewhere and went to do the only decent thing left for such irredeemable shitheads to do…
Kay
You wish there was a kind of political reward for disclosure and transparency but there really isn’t. The more he releases the bigger the deal they’ll make about it.
Our political media encourages a situation where politicians just tell them to fuck off. That’s almost always the smarter move, which Trump knew from 50 years of experience telling them to fuck off, which always worked.
It doesn’t matter, really. Biden will never do what Trump did. It’s not his temperament or character or his understanding of the norms. He’ll issue the letter or whatever they demand, and they’ll ignore it.
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: That meeting should have ended with the kid under supervision on an emergency psych hold. And the parents right along with him if they failed to authorize the eval. No fucking way does he go anywhere else on campus other than out the exit, under police escort if needed.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Is their legal construct that the rest of us are obligated to get out of the way of the bullet if we desire not to be shot?
I’ve owned guns and hunted animals for food. Decades ago. I haven’t in over 5 decades. I carried a loaded semi automatic pistol in the navy when on watch, with specific orders to shoot to kill if necessary. I’ve come rather close to being shot, twice would have been “accidental,” the third was actually being in the wrong place at the wrong time (walking down the street) and the concept was anything but accidental. I’m lucky. Many others are often not even close to lucky. The world has changed, there are a hell of a lot more of us than there was not all that long ago. And there are a hell of a lot more guns as well. And I’d bet that at least 99% of them make any situation far worse rather than even 1% better. And the concept that we need guns for freedom? What a fucking laugh that would be if it were at all funny. We spend more for our military than anyone else in the world by far and that has turned into a race to the bottom. I have really no idea how to fix any of this madness, but it is going to end this country if we don’t wake the hell up and change.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: They will find them. People this stupid don’t know how to actually run and hide, which is exceedingly difficult to do in our modern society.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Poor lawyer. That’s a mistake on their part. It’s better if they turn themselves in.
Felanius Kootea
@Kay: This after she’d been arrested twice before she got married and moved to Michigan. Law abiding my foot.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t mean “bad lawyer”, by “poor”. It’s not her fault.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
hotshoe
@Betty Cracker:
God I hope they do a couple of suicides.
Save all the rest of us the trouble of their arrest, trial, appeals, and protests.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: Florida is a purple state. They have a deep red legislature, but that is a result of gerrymandering. The Governor may be a fascist, but he won election by a margin of less than 40,000 votes out of over 8 million votes cast.
Kay
@Felanius Kootea:
She only recognizes immigration law :)
It’s a horrible thing, but it’s true. A lot of sort of arrogant people still consider themselves law abiding although they break many laws. They always, always say police should go after “the real criminals”. One of the January 6th defendants said it. I LOL’ed. They all say it :)
scav
Ditched their kid rather publicly too. Stellar exemplars of the much-vaunted ‘mercan responsible heartland culture. Wholesome! Wholesome Smalltown Wholesomness squared!
Rocks
@trollhattan: Regarding the claim that there are no blue states with gators, au contraire:
https://coloradogators.com/
The cover shot of the website is a beautiful picture of the gators crawling across a recent snowfall, with some of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks in the background.
Betty Cracker
@Kent: Maybe they’ll kill themselves. I don’t think I could live with myself if I was such a horrible parent and caused so much death and suffering through my stupidity. Seriously, I don’t think I could live with something like that.
anon
@Kent:
@Geminid:
they are on their way to Florida to be welcomed as 2nd amendment heroes and Desantis will deny extradition
TheTruffle
Just a couple of weeks ago, people were predicting that Rittenhouse kid would inspire a bunch of copycats. Anyone else wonder if this little sociopath was hoping to follow his example?
dexwood
@anon: Yep, they’re going to enlist in his new fascist goon squad.
Kent
@anon: That would be awesome if that actually happened. Let DeSantos be the politician in favor of BOTH Covid and school shooters.
Ruckus
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
It is a loaded concept, prosecuting minors, but there are situations where really, they have to be. This seems to me to be one. Yes, to me it’s obvious where the kid picked up the idea that a gun is the answer to everything and was given the tool to do actually do the deed, but he took the loaded gun to school, was holding it and pulled the trigger. The parents are responsible for their child’s actions and should pay a massive price for all of it, but the child proved that he should never be near a loaded weapon because he killed people. He may have been unstable, encouraged to be a murderer, he still pulled the trigger. That has to be answered for.
Leto
@Kay: I’m out of the loop on this; what letter did Biden’s physician produce?
@Ruckus:
Not sure if you understood that The Matrix wasn’t just a movie, but an instruction manual. /s
The Thin Black Duke
@Betty Cracker: These monsters are better off dead, but unfortunately I don’t think they’re going to off themselves. What I’m afraid of is if they go underground like that loony tune years ago who blew up abortion clinics. Would their tribe help them hide? Of course they would.
Roger Moore
@Fester Addams:
Yep. “Responsible gun owner” means a white person with a gun who hasn’t used it to commit a crime. Even the last part is pretty hazy, depending on who the victim is.
Kay
@Leto:
He has a cold. That’s it. That’s the whole story.
sab
@TheTruffle: Rittenhouse was being a cop wannabe. This kid was screamimg for help, otherwise nobody would have seen those notes.
The Thin Black Duke
@sab: Too bad he didn’t shoot his parents. He might’ve felt better.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
You are a normal human being.
They are not. Hate and reprisal seem to be their natural speed. They raised a child that didn’t just dislike school/growing up like a lot of kids, he actually killed other humans and was seemingly given the green light by his parents. The are no better than he is, and likely are far worse. They taught, bought, gave him the concept and weapon. They are anything but normal.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
FTFY. They’re all about murdering left-wing protesters, too.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Given our current conservative world, that comment isn’t snark……
sab
@Betty Cracker:Other things to like about Florida I left off my last list: manatees, porpoises.
Geminid
@hotshoe: When Charlottesville’s prosecutor charged the Maryland klansman who fired a shot at the Unite the Right rally, he used the fact that the shooter was within 1000 feet of a school to file enhanced charges. The klansman is serving a 7 to 8 year prison term.
Ken
@Rocks: “Natural range” is such a mess nowadays. Hmm, I wonder if that will be visible in the fossil record twenty million years from now, leading the coleopteran scientists to speculate about land bridges that allowed rabbits to reach Australia, or kangaroos to reach North America.
Leto
@Kay: whelp start the death watch now, as well as crank that Buttigieg v Harris up to 15… /ugh
Kay
@Ruckus:
I think there has to be a recognition among gun owners or hobbyists or whatever that this gun culture is different. They can no longer do the “I just use the gun for hunting” assuming that has something to do with what we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about here is my husband and I walking in the park across from our house and we come upon a young couple pulling 2 small kids in a wagon and the man has a huge gun strapped to his body. It’s nuts. I think they’re dangerous just by this behavior, I think that’s a reasonable thing to believe, and I want them to stay away from me. Really far away, because bullets travel a long way. How fearful is this person that he wears this weapon in his setting? He’s dangerous. He’s armed and terrified. That’s a bad combination.
NotMax
@Kent
Maybe it’s just me but I’d assign someone to stake out Boebert’s bar.
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: Agree with that. But that didn’t stop the Sandyhook killer from going back to the school.
Leto
@Ruckus: considering their inability to distinguish fact from fiction, yeah, I can see them recommending that soon enough.
“Silly libruls, just dodge the bullets. Duh!” – NRA
Roger Moore
@Mary G:
I think the administrators are going to be put under a microscope, but they were right to do what they did. There are probably hundreds of kids who show those same kinds of warning signs for every one who turns into a killer. If these parents had wanted to help their child be an ordinary person instead of a killer, the school’s intervention probably would have done it.
rikyrah
Good.
They should be charged.
Betty Cracker
@sab: Two of my favorites! The manatees are back now that the temperatures have dropped, and I hope the poor things have a better winter than they did last year. I’ll see dolphins this weekend when I visit my sister at the beach. There are always dolphins! :)
scav
@Leto: I thought their position was we were supposed to run (along with the trained first-graders) toward the shooter and swamp him.
The Dangerman
Are there any alligator infested swamps in Michigan? Asking fo a fiend.
dr. bloor
@Roger Moore:
The extent to which the administration is screwed is surpassed only by the extent to which the parents are. Zero tolerance for threatened or implied violence has been the standard in schools for quite some time now. I’ll get a handful of referrals during any given school year for kids who are on suspension until clearance for inane, trivial stuff. I once had a kid who was suspended because he was singing lyrics to an apparently popular rap song with aggressive content.
To add–I wouldn’t expect criminal liability, but the civil suits are going to be fast and furious.
mrmoshpotato
Shitbags on the run?
Felanius Kootea
@The Dangerman: What kind of fiend?
Leto
@Roger Moore: Society treats schools as public daycare, while also expecting school officials to deal with every difficulty a kid has to face. All on a budget less than a shoestring, as well as continually questioning/criticizing everything they do.
not_a_cylon
@Betty Cracker: They’ve got a son facing life in prison now, I think they’re going to want to at least stay alive for him.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah. I’m quite certain the gendarmerie will find them, but whether dead or live I wouldn’t care to speculate.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: This. It’s perfectly reasonable to be alarmed by the sight of someone walking around a public park with a giant gun built for the express purpose of mowing down large numbers of people in seconds. NOT being alarmed by that is what’s irrational. Feeling the need to have such firepower outside a warzone is lunacy.
sab
@Leto: My guess is that the Venn diagram of Harris fans and Buttigieg fans is nearly a circle. Hard to get the two groups feuding.
Miss Bianca
@Leto: damn straight.
Kay
@Leto:
Agree. We have one universal public entity left and we dump everything on them.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
I don’t know how much more the administrators could have done than they did. Can you imagine if they’d tried banning the kid from school for a few weeks and cited this as the reason? The explosion of fury from the entire right-wing media ecosystem? “You’re punishing our kids, just because some of them like guns like our good old all-American forefathers did! CRT liberals are punishing our children because of their insane anti-gun crusade! Where does it end?” It would have been a national scandal until they were forced to let the poor wronged kid back in with an official apology from the entire school system.
Roger Moore
@not_a_cylon:
If they cared about their son as a human being, they would have gotten him the help he was crying out for, not a gun.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I was fine with the normal gun people! My oldest had a rifle. He shot targets. My father belonged to a “club” – this strange shack, not sure what that was about- where they left the gun there, that seems like a good plan.
Nothing about me changed. They changed. They went nuts.
Leto
@scav: I can’t remember which shitbag said that, but I do remember that being a suggestion. I think about how they trained us in the military: either flee (gtfo of the area), if you couldn’t then barricade yourself in, and the last resort was to fight.
We did a surprise drill once during an All Call. That’s when everyone on base gathers to hear the base commander speak about stuff. We were a small base so it was easy. Anyways we were in the auditorium, the base commander up on stage speaking, when from stage left this “gunman” comes in and opens up with a M16A2. Just ran out onto the stage and started firing up above the assembled people (firing blanks; just need to state that). Over half of them just bolted to the nearest exist. Behind them, to the left, front right… a very large number just froze. Didn’t know wtf was going on. Simply sat there. I think like 3 people actually moved towards the stage. This lasted for maybe, maybe, 10 seconds before the commander re-established control, got everyone to settle down.
But the entire point of the drill was: this shit is unexpected, how you think you’ll respond basically never happens, and it’s something you need to be always aware of. Asking fucking children to do this shit, to be proficient in this is just a complete and utter failure of our society. I’ll never stop believing that.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Kay: I don’t think they’re terrified. My opinion (which could be wrong) is they want to be threatening/intimidating. They claim they need guns for self defense but they don’t, they need them to project power and scare everyone else. It’s basically a bullying tactic. They’re pretty warped.
sab
Deleted. I think I am out of date on my comment.
hueyplong
No doubt the Crumblys think they can’t be tracked because they haven’t been vaccinated.
Unfortunately, they don’t seem like the type to make a run for it unarmed, so there is concern that people other than them might get hurt in the process.
patroclus
Where are the Crumbleys??!!
Chris
@Kay:
There’s a certain number of gun owners who left the NRA over the course of the seventies and eighties as it turned from a sporting club into a protofascist militia.
Like I said: there are still responsible gun owners around. They’re called “Democrats.”
trollhattan
@hueyplong:
This is real simple: they’re headed to the McCloskey’s for a little R&R, and gun cleaning if you get what I mean and I think you do.
Birds of a feather.
Tim C.
@Gravenstone: as a teacher, I can tell you that unless you are in a well run urban school district, white conservative parents get whatever makes them go away for a moment. White privilege killed those kids as much as anything.
hueyplong
@trollhattan: It’s a sign of the absurdly large number of shitty stories that I had to google “McCloskey” to remind myself that they’re the St Louis Bonnie & Clyde wannabes.
geg6
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Oh, it’s definitely a bullying tactic. But, in my own experience, every bully is, underneath all the assholishness, terrified of everything and everyone. They bully to cover it.
NotMax
@Chris
Other side of the coin is there’s a certain number who left to found their own organization because they deemed the NRA too squishy.
Kay
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I don’t think one theory excludes the other. They can be both afraid and want to intimidate us, which is what makes them dangerous.
Arbery was three against one and the three had vehicles. That wasn’t enough of an advantage for them- they had to go get their guns.
trollhattan
@hueyplong:
We’re awash in monsters. I’d task EPA with the cleanup but they’re awfully busy.
hueyplong
@trollhattan: And that sets to the side the fact that some of the monster stories involve GOPers (when in power) gutting the EPA.
Ksmiami
@trollhattan: I think Covid should work harder.
Roger Moore
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I don’t think “terrified” and “want to intimidate others” are mutually exclusive categories. Attacking others is some people’s way of dealing with fear.
Chris
@NotMax:
“They call him the Sand Spider…”
“Why?”
“Probably because it sounds scary. He’s formed his own splinter group called Crimson Jihad.”
“I guess he thought the other terrorist groups were a little too warm and fuzzy for his tastes.”
rikyrah
They are on the run ????
H.E.Wolf
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It seems so weird and inappropriate to use a derogatory slur for part of a woman’s body, to refer to a male teenager who utilized a phallic symbol to engage in mass murder.
There are lists of creative, pithy, and devastating insults findable with a single search query on the internet. No need to further the conflation of Woman and Worst Thing Imaginable.
Kay
@rikyrah:
They’re just making it horribly humiliating for themselves. Everyone thinks they’re in a movie :)
Suzanne
@mrmoshpotato:
I came here to say this! HOLY SHIT!
These people are garbage. Garbage.
Blithershout
Apparently the Crumblys have scarpered…
LongHairedWeirdo
@Chris: Yes, but Jayne actually showed regret for his behavior – not just “oh, crap, I’m about be killed” but “please don’t tell them I betrayed them”. That’s kind of like the most fundamental step in actually trying to do what’s right. I don’t know anything about the actor; but the fictional character has shown more remorse and *far* more shame than any prominent Republican has shown in my memory.
@Betty Cracker: This is why I really despise gun nuts these days – and yes, “nuts” is the right word for people who keep forgetting that an AR15 is dangerous, and fires high velocity rounds that are intended to be able to kill a man at long distances. They don’t even pretend to care about gun safety, and seem far more invested in killing people without facing consequences.
@Roger Moore: Yes. Witness how many of them think an AR-15 is useful for “self defense”. Tactically and pragmatically speaking, civilian self defense will be at a range inside 50 feet. At that range, you probably don’t want a rifle, unless it’s the only weapon you have available – a short barrel shotgun, or a handgun, will be more easily handled, and more easily retained, and neither is noted for killing people a quarter mile away by accident.
@Fester Addams: I know you’re saying they’re using “responsible gun owner” in a stupid, bigoted way, but… I think you’re overestimating how much thinking they did. They never actually cared about responsibility; they just wanted to be able to counter any report of harm caused by saying it was “irresponsible and illegal”.
They proved that they never cared about responsibility by passing The Witnesses Are Toast, or TWAT laws.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: To be fair, they could as easily be, e.g., an NCIS fan. I’m not sure an episode was written that doesn’t have Sigs mentioned – to the point that I kinda wanted to take one to the range, “never shot one, I wonder how they handle?”
bluegirlfromwyo
How many of those black teens’ parents would even be informed that their kid was making disturbing drawings and get counseling recommendations for him?
Matt McIrvin
@scav: We’ve learned by now that if you DO rush the shooter, depending on state law, he may have the legal right to kill you.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Kay: And, to call out an error I’d made recently, all three of them thought that a black man’s life and freedom had no meaningful value, and they’d be free from consequences so long as they made the correct prepared statement.
(It’s hard to be disappointed with a person who aided and abetted a murder, but god damn, did I hope the guy who leaked the video was trying to get justice for an innocent victim of prejudice and bigotry.)
SiubhanDuinne
I’m hearing somebody on MSNBC saying “The parents did nothing to stop [their troubled, murderous son].”
That is just some Caspar Milquetoast chickenshit, sorry MSNBC expert pundit person. The parents enabled their son. They encouraged him. They facilitated his homicidal spree. For the love of vanilla latte fuck, don’t hide behind the pallid and passive “they did nothing to stop him.” FFS.
Suzanne
I will note that schools across the country are experiencing a higher than usual quantity of threats, and Spawn’s school was in modified lockdown all day. So I didn’t send her. Probably a good thing—I got a COVID positive notification from the school around 2PM.
FUCK we are not doing a good job as a society.
Kay
@LongHairedWeirdo:
I was shocked by the casualness at the scene, how confident they were that their explanation would be accepted and they would just go back to what they had been doing. I felt like the (initial) police presence at the scene helped them to believe that which is still horrifying because I assume they’re all still police.
People (well, JERKS) say BLM didn’t achieve anything but they’re racking up some convictions in cases that wouldn’t even have been charged in the past. They changed the way these cases are viewed by the public, if not yet by police. That’s a big accomplishment and it’s the kind of change that lasts.
LongHairedWeirdo
Random thought:
“I was in fear for my life, and could not retreat, from my pregnancy – so, since you can’t prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that I wasn’t, in fact, afraid for my life, you can’t say anything negative toward me – you might even call me a hero!”
Skepticat
@RaflW:
THIS
oatler
Guess which Murdoch-owned news channel has a lawyer on defending the fugitive parents?
bluegirlfromwyo
They don’t know because they don’t care. They have staff that can do that kind of basic research if they did. In their world, every pregnancy is to be completed. It doesn’t matter if there are problems. Those will just work themselves out somehow. Amy Clueless Barrett made that clear.
An extended family member of mine married a hard core anti-choice religious nut. She got pregnant with a Trisomy-18 fetus and carried to term. The baby was born dead because it developed only half a heart, only a partial brain and spinal cord, and other deformities, all of which were predicted before she and her husband refused to terminate. She sent pictures of this poor child afterwards. To me, it was the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever seen, putting that poor little body through that. But she and her husband are seen as heroes to their church and themselves. This is the mentality of at least five, if not six, members of SCOTUS. If they allow abortions at 15 weeks, it will be for political reasons until they can shorten it further.
Kay
People in Brazil will end up hating Glenn Greenwald too, for the very simple reason that he’s horrible:
Another Scott
@Leto: +1
We’ve all heard the stories of cops panicking and firing dozens of rounds at someone who was doing nothing wrong (and most of the rounds missing the target). Expecting teachers or “resource officers” or Joe Public to be able to handle the adrenaline and confusion and lack of accurate information is madness when cops who are supposedly trained in this stuff can’t do it.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I dunno if they also gave him a long gun aka rifle, but the gun he used for his murderous killing spree was a handgun… a Sig-Saur 9mm. It was an early xmas present, the news tells us.
And the parents are now fugitives on the lam from law enforcement, which tells us a lot more about their ethics (none)~!!~
Kay
@oatler:
It’s gotta be panic-inducing for gun nuts. “We’re RESPONSIBLE for our guns?!”
Chris
@Kay:
You know, I keep hearing that Brazilian politics is the one thing Glenn Greenwald isn’t a total gobshite on, but I haven’t seen a hell of a lot of evidence to support that.
Leto
Apparently the shitbag parents have “been found” and are returning to the area. They apparently fled for “their safety”. Too bad they didn’t give those kids the same chance.
OGLiberal
These parents bought a semi-automatic handgun for their 15-year kid as a gift, ignored all the warnings signs, then after he shoots up a school and kills kids, instead of trying to find him the best lawyer possible, trying their damndest to get in to see him, etc, they skedaddled. Kyle Rittenhouse mom, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to withdraw your nomination for Worst Parent of the Year.
Cameron
This is an outrage. A fine young American patriot and his loving family are being CRUCIFIED by the SatanistSocialistJoeBiden liebruls for standing up to “WOKENESS” and “CRITICAL RACE THEORY” and…well, and just kneegroes in general. Forced to action, he did what any real American (of appropriate origin) would do, and attempted to put down the transgressors while making a statement to the world. And now he is threatened with the power of the Deep State, when all he did was try to stand for America.
bluegirlfromwyo
@OGLiberal: No, we can call it a tie. They’re both poster children for forced sterilization (obligatory no, I don’t believe in forced sterilization statement)
OGLiberal
@J R in WV: Son, we wanted to get you something special for Christmas. We first thought about a PlayStation but settled on a 9MM. Here you go…we love you, baby. Now go shoot up that school like you’ve been dreaming about, you little rascal.
Kay
@Chris:
Oh, I imagine he’ll alienate them too. It’s always the same. They engaged with him honestly and he comes back with shitty, snotty “privileged Leftists” because that sort of Tucker Carlson “cleverness” is his go-to.
Why can’t he just answer their objection? He insults them and they’re still polite and sticking to the issue.
gvg
That kid was suicidal. I don’t think the parents will kill themselves but the kid should be under suicide watch. He is going to jail IMO but he will really need counseling unless the authorities can watch him forever. He might be quite different in 20 years…or even a few years away from those parents. I don’t sympathize with him, I can’t but I am just commenting that those parents are really really messed up. I am glad I wasn’t raised by them.
Geminid
@Chris: I think Greenwald is just a nominal critic of Jair Bolsonaro. That gives him a little bit of credibility. But Greenwald isn’t really going to rock the boat. I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin’s and Bolsonaro’s people worked out an agreement to that effect.
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The last five years have caused me to reevaluate my previous absolute opposition to the death penalty.
JanieM
It has been reported that he is. Although that link is from a couple of days ago.
Chris
@LongHairedWeirdo:
To be fair, most people have never had to stare at their own imminent execution by a member of the found family they just tried to harm. It would be interesting to run that experiment on the entire wingnut population; I expect you’d get a whole range of responses.
But point taken.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Hope that attorney’s held accountable.
mrmoshpotato
@Leto:
And I’m the queen of England!
Another Scott
It’s good the parents were charged. I hope the prosecution is successful.
Just like the yin/yang duality, there must be a rights/responsibility duality or society fails.
In other news, …
Shocking! I wonder how Satan put that money there??!!1
Context (with autoplay video)
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Kay:
That explains why Joe’s voice is a couple of octaves lower today.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
But you have morals and ethics and all that liberal stuff. They don’t. They’ll probably try to fight off the US Marshals and get themselves shot up, more likely. Won’t surrender via a lawyer, that’s not in them at all. Despicable varmits!!
You, on the other hand, care deeply about people you haven’t even met yet. While the Crumbleys would shoot them for fun!
Hmm, maybe the family surname is actually meaningful in this case?
debbie
@trollhattan:
Five bucks says the McCloskeys declare their home a Second Amendmen Sanctuary.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
For XMas I bought a sawed-off shot gun for my 6 year old niece.
Now I’m starting to have 2nd thoughts.
Leto
@mrmoshpotato: Your Majesty! *curt head nod
Annie
@Elizabelle:
huh? The NYT article I read about the parents being charged described what the Crumbleys did, and the text, and discussed how laws differ in various states as to parents’ legal responsibility. It said nothing about the Second Amendment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
someone on MSNBC said the committee is thinking about offering Eastman and Jeffrey Clark “use immunity”. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I am intrigued that these aren’t the lower-ranking, I-heard-Prezdinent-Trump-ask-for-my-help goobers. These are lawyers who talk to real lawyers
Steeplejack (phone)
@tom:
I don’t think that’s true. Wikipedia has more plausible origin theories.
oatler
@Another Scott:
Was that a disrespectful reference to the AZ Wal-Mart cop who shot a 61-year-old guy in a wheelchair nine times in the back a couple days ago?
Another Scott
@oatler: Not specifically, no. I was specifically thinking of Amadou Diallo.
You never know when some guy in a wheelchair could turn into The Hulk or Reaper though!!1
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
hotshoe
@Geminid: Ah, that’s good news. I mean, at least if someone is determined to shoot, at least afterwards the sane parts of our society can bring charges to bear.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@The Dangerman: My daughter’s (former) suburban high school had a resource officer when a boy stabbed a girl to death in the stairwell a few years ago. No one can be everywhere. I don’t see the point of resource officers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (phone): Since my work at the Orange Apron Place makes my schedule somewhat incompatible with Balloon Juice real time commenting(I get home late at night, sometimes early morning PST). Good luck on your surgery next week.
Geminid
@hotshoe: The outcome of that rally was bad enough, but I always thought people in Charlottesville were lucky that day. At least 200 right wing marchers carried firearms, and a dozen or so left wing militia people also showed up armed with rifles, ostensibly to protect counterdemonstraters. That klansman’s gunshot might have precipitated a bloodbath. Judge Moore knew this when he dropped the hammer on the klansman.
Steeplejack (phone)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks! I have high confidence that everything will go all right. I just want to get it over with.
Skepticat
@sab:
I find the “Help me” note the most incredibly sad and terrifying part of this story. Except for the outcome, of course.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
Please don’t.
We should be better than murderers. It doesn’t matter that we say it’s legal and go through years and years of hoops to make it happen, the death penalty is still wrong. Besides, you kill them they can no longer think about what they’ve done, where they have to live until they no longer do. And BTW I’m not all that willing to put very many of them in prison for life without parole. But that is better than killing them. Because in reality that makes us no better than them. And I really, really do not want to be like them.
debbie
@oatler:
I had to google to learn about this. Small comfort, but he was fired.
debbie
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
Here, the school resource officers were all let go last summer in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. They had gotten overly aggressive with the African American students, even the very young. Since then, bomb threats, fights, and threatened shootings have risen enough that parents are asking for them to return to the schools.
The Moar You Know
@anon: this is my money bet of the day. They have called the offices of both DeSantis and Abbott, gotten a guarantee from one of them, and are on their way now. And yeah, I think DeSantis would absolutely do it.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Decades ago we had a fella working for us who was scared of pretty much everything so he kept a revolver in his car. He was nuts then, today he’d be a hero to some.
But yes there is a fear in some parts of the country that everyone is out to shoot everyone else and therefore carrying a gun is important, so one doesn’t get killed. Of course if someone came into a store and saw someone with a gun, they would then want to shoot the person before they got shot. Maybe we should go back to the wild west days where the county sheriff outlaws open carry of guns except for the deputies, many of whom seemed to be actual criminals themselves.
Oh wait, that’s the movies, the ones that glorify the carrying of guns and the fast draw and the deadly aim from the hip at 20 yards. Some people really are freaking stupid, aren’t they? The terms idiot, imbecile and moron came into common usage for a reason. I think they fell out of common usage because with our population it’s possible that in a gathering of more than 10 humans it’s quite possible that we’d always have to use the plural versions and that in a crowd of 10 or more we might have to use all 3 at once. Save time and just go with idiots.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Well our society seems incapable of doing the intelligent, sensible thing so going in the opposite direction at least seems…….. Nope, can’t find the proper words or concept when dealing with weapons of death. I can come up with all kinds of stories, make believe, bullshit, lies, but actual intelligent concepts of everyone being armed will create a calm, ordered society just does not fucking compute.
Ruckus
@SpaceUnit:
Exactly what they wanted to happen.
Bupalos
@Betty Cracker: I do blame people for running. Or at least I consider them generally to be some mix of cowardly, wrong-headed, and shortsighted.
Blue state/red state doesn’t exist in any meaningful way other than the electoral college and dumb online talking points. And acting like it DOES, to the degree suggested here, where you’d flee over state lines- is as much the source of the problem here as anything McConnell and company can cook up.
Yes, let’s all abandon our homes and communities and the natural world around us to the depravities of the worst among us. So we can be proud of what state we’re from.
Tehanu
The kid needs years of serious therapy. The parents should be — well, I was going to say, strung up, but I oppose the death penalty. However, I would gladly participate in dunking them into a pile of feces up to their necks.