Grim anniversary

In a week it will be Valentine's Day.

A year ago, a bunch of high school kids were looking forward to the day, doing whatever it is that is done by high schoolers for Valentine's Day these days. But someone else had other plans. And Valentine's Day was changed into something else entirely for the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

You could fill a calendar with commemorations for the victims of mass shootings in America.  Virginia Tech, April 16. Columbine, April 20. Santa Fe High School, May 18. Pulse, June 12. Aurora, July 20. Tree of Life, October 27. Borderline Bar and Grill, November 7. Sandy Hook, December 14. Some of the days would commemorate multiple mass shootings.

And the hits just keep on coming. We thought after a white male U.S. citizen walked into and elementary school and shot a bunch of children, that would be it. Nope. When a white male U.S. citizen opened fire with a weapon converted to semi-automatic mode with an inexpensive plastic accessory opened fore on the crowd at a country music festival, surely that would move people to action? LOL, no. What would it take for Congress to act, someone directly opening fire on a bunch of members of Congress? It happened, June 14, 2017. (The shooter was once again a white male U.S. citizen.) And still the puppets of the N.R.A. in Congress did nothing.

There's a new Congress in town. A House of Representatives dominated by Democrats. more diverse and less beholden to the deep-pocketed gun lobby than ever before. Will things be different now?

We'll find out.

The Last Generation Under the Gun?

On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - Valentine's Day - a terrible thing happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

For those reading this in the weeks (and perhaps longer) following the event, no further description is necessary. For those reading this farther in the future (Hello, future people! I hope things have worked out for you. Please be aware that some of us are actively working to change the timeline to your benefit, but there's a lot of guesswork involved), this incident and its aftermaths might be in your history books. Maybe it was a significant event, one that changed things. Maybe it was just a blip, a stray thread on the tapestry of gun violence that is modern American history.

Here is what happened, in the words of the people who experienced it.

From Steph (@ohstephany_ ):






From Ivanna Paitan:






From Liz Stout:





And on. And on.

There were seventeen killed on that day in that school, most (but not all) students.

Alyssa Alhadeff, 14
Scott Beigel, 35
Martin Duque, 14
Nicholas Dworet, 17
Aaron Feis, 37
Jaime Guttenberg, 14
Chris Hixon, 49
Luke Hoyer, 15
Cara Loughran, 14
Gina Montalto, 14
Joaquin Oliver, 17
Alaina Petty, 14
Meadow Pollack, 18
Helena Ramsay, 17
Alex Schachter, 14
Carmen Schentrup, 16
Peter Wang, 15

It is not the highest death toll in a mass shooting, not even in the past year.

We are just five years past the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, in which a gunman entered an elementary school and used an AR-15-style weapon to kill twenty children aged six and seven as well as six staff members. You would reasonably expect that the horror of that incident might have stirred Congress to action to, at the very least, limit accessibility of weapons to profoundly mentally ill individuals like the shooter. But you would be wrong. Spurred by the NRA, Congress took no action to increase restrictions of any sort, and sales of the weapon used in the shooting soared.

The Pulse Nightclub shooting.The Las Vegas shooting, currently the largest mass shooting carried out by an individual. A movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. A Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. A town hall meeting. A Congressional softball practice. Hundreds, thousands of dead police officers. None of these have spurred action.

Why does this time feel different?

This time the attack was on a generation just coming of age - literally; many of them turned eighteen shortly before or shortly after the shooting. It's a generation tuned into social media, and ready to use it in ways older generations can't conceive. High school students are generally full of piss and vinegar anyway. Now they have come under attack - again, literally - and have turned their youthful energies and their creativity against the forces that have promoted inaction in the aftermath of past incidents.

They are taking action - publicly, and in a way that allows the general public to both observe and interact. For now, Twitter is their main medium, but they are also not shy about using traditional news media and TV shows to get their message across. And as elections roll around, many of them plan to be very active at the polling place.

Will they be able to persist in their efforts? A part of me wants to say that the trauma they have just experienced will keep them going. But I know that in many cases trauma spurs a desire to move on from the memory of the trauma, lest it consume the one who experienced it. How many will be destroyed by this experience? How many will just want to forget it?

They have vowed that they will be the last generation to experience mass shootings. Their banner, their rallying cry, their hashtag, is #NeverAgain. Will they succeed? There have already been more deaths - the "accidental" shooting of Courtlin Arrington at Huffman High School in Alabama, the murder of three workers - one of them seven months pregnant - at a veterans' facility in California. I fear that next Valentine's Day, as a holiday that now commemorates a mass shooting at a high school, some pundit will sardonically rattle off the number of mass shootings since "Never Again" was declared. Will the survivors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas still be carrying on the fight? Will we be fighting alongside them?

Here's a non-exhaustive list of Twitter feeds to follow. Please "like" and repost relevant tweets to boost the signal and keep the fire burning and the memories of those murdered alive.

@NeverAgainMSD ‏
@fred_guttenberg ‏

@John_Barnitt ‏

@sighnatasha ‏

@Ryan_Deitsch ‏

@lexforchange ‏

@giu0807 ‏

@davidhogg111 ‏

@Emma4Change ‏

@rain_valladares ‏

@Sarahchadwickk ‏

@longlivekcx ‏

@kali4change ‏

@ohstephany_ ‏

Redneck school shooting

Ayup. 'Round these parts, we don't need psychotics in combat gear to shoot up schools - just some rednecks doing a little target shooting uprange of an elementary school.


WNEP: Bullet hits elementary school

MIDDLE SMITHFIELD TOWNSHIP — State police in Monroe County said a stray bullet hit an elementary school on Thursday.

Troopers said the bullet struck a double-paned window at Resica Elementary School near Marshalls Creek. The school is in the East Stroudsburg School District.

It smashed through one pane of glass, but not through the second.

No one was hurt.

State police questioned four men who were target shooting nearby. They could face charges in Monroe County.



WBRE: Bullet Pierces Second Grade Class Window
(linked story includes video)

Middle Smithfield Township, Monroe County - A bullet hit the window of a class full of second graders Thursday. It happened at Resica Elementary School in Middle Smithfield Township, Monroe County.

...Police say people at 823 Resica Falls Road were target shooting and someone missed a target. The bullet traveled at least a half mile. It went over a road, through the woods, and across the school parking lot.

Forsyth said the teacher in the hit classroom jumped into action. He explained, "The classroom teacher immediately sheltered the children along a wall where they wouldn't be visible from the outside."

...School District Police Officer Marc Iannazzo found the people who were shooting. He said he discovered four young men in their late teens or early twenties doing target practice. He said, "They were shooting into the woods down the hill towards the school." He noted, "I saw multiple guns, about three or four rifles, a couple handguns, laying on the bed of a truck and they were shooting at targets tied to a tree."

Police are investigating the young men.

Eyewitness News tried to talk to the people at 823 Rescia Falls Road but a man started yelling as soon as a reporter and photographer pulled into the driveway. He demanded the crew leave.
The school district is holding a parent meeting about the situation at Resica Elementary School Friday at 3:45.


Four people investigated after stray bullet hits Resica Elementary | PoconoRecord.com

State police continue to investigate the incident that caused a stray bullet to hit Resica Elementary School. The school was not targeted for any criminal purpose, said police.

Patrol units located four people who were target shooting today after a bullet hit a second grade classroom window at the school on Route 402 in Middle Smithfield Township. All 20 students who were in the classroom are safe, according to superintendent Sharon Laverdure.

The people, ages 18 to 21, were target shooting about a half-mile from the school, according to Lt. Robert Bartal of Troop N State Police. Their names have not been released.

...Bartal said police would confer with Monroe County District Attorney David Christine to determine if charges will be filed.

“By all indications, they were just target practicing. It was not an intentional act,” Bartal said.

Yes. There's a term for that kind of unintentional act. It's called "criminal negligence."

The address given for the shooters is indicated by the red marker "A" at the top right. The elementary school is the cross-shaped building at lower left. Note the scale at bottom left, and the houses, road, and baseball field between the two. How could they have possibly known these things were there? File under "heroes of the NRA."