I CONFESS, I’M A COMICS FAN. It started as a small child with the Sunday Funnies in the local paper.
I enjoyed Classics Illustrated® literature as I got older.
And there was EC’s Mad®; I was “hooked” on Spy vs. Spy.
I might have broken my addiction to comics had my first jobs after the Air Force been anything but newspapers; one of the “perks” was a free paper and the paper had, of course, comics. When I worked for Today in Cocoa FL, even the weekday comics were in COLOR! (Cocoa was Gannett’s first experiment with a TODAY newspaper.)
THE MAY 7 Darrin Bell effort caused me to recall my elementary school days. This was before compulsory kindergarten; my school “career” began in Grade 1 at Benjamin Harris PS #2 in Indianapolis.
Then the concern was not “active shooters.” The adults of the time were concerned with The Russians are coming.
If a school had a basement, all the students went into the basement.
No basement? Students “hid” under their desks.
Not that either action would have sufficed against a Russian A-bomb.
- Later in life I met a some Russians who were my contemporaries. Their story was the same as mine, save for them, “the Americans are coming.”
His May 7 cartoon DOES point out a serious problem in today’s schools: crazies with guns and, sometimes, bombs — not on the scale of an A-bomb, but deadly none-the-less.
Bottom line: While some things change (methods) some things stay the same (threat to innocents).
It was amusing to read what GoComics, the site that carries Bell’s several cartons, selected at the best response to the strip.
For two-days running, someone whose name I don’t know and wouldn’t mention anyway, was chosen as the “lead” respondent.
Both yesterday, when the school “arc” started, and today, this person rants and rails against the National Rifle Association, the NRA.
The rants remind me of some of our elected officials who spout “information” about subjects it is obvious they know nothing. The comments from this poster are so outrageous that they must be shared. After all, the person made them public.
- The idea that our small school children should now be routinely traumatized by mass shooter drills — AND ACTUAL LOCKDOWN EMERGENCIES — shows how depraved this nation has become.
The NRA — which supports the unfettered rights of terrorists, violent felons, domestic abusers and the severely mentally ill to own unlimited assault-style weapons with unlimited magazine capacity and launders illegal foreign contributions from a hostile foreign adversary (Russia) to the Trump campaign — sacrifices our school children, concert goers, movie goers and even church goers on the blood-stained altar of corporate profits for gun manufacturers (domestic gun runners).
Primitive tribal societies sacrificed their own children to appease the gods and ensure a bounteous harvest.
The NRA and its most extreme fringe elements sacrifice OTHER PEOPLE’s children on the blood-stained altar of gun manufacturer corporate profits.
The anti-NRA ranter cites zero authorities; he, or she, just goes on and on about what I’m certain the poster believes are “facts.”
As a reporter, I learned that I HAD to cite my sources; unless I was an editorial writer I might offer my opinion as long as it was clear that it WAS opinion.
When I read rants sans citations, I immediately am suspicious. In this instance, there ARE citations that counter the poster’s allegations, e.g., none of the shooters has been associated with the NRA; the NRA does not oppose background checks, and the NRA does not promote gun ownership to mentally handicapped persons.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a PDF file on the Internet titled The School Shooter – A Quick Reference Guide - FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) that on a single page provides a wealth of information about school shooters. Nowhere does it mention membership in the NRA.1, 2
GUN REGULATION
There is, in my mind, no question that gun ownership needs to be regulated.
Unfortunately, regulations are not enough.
As examples:
- A recent shooter was diagnosed with a mental problem that, had it been promptly reported would have prevented the shooter from buying a weapon.
A school shooter took his father’s guns to kill classmates.
Stolen guns are sold to crazies sans any control.
Background checks need to take longer than 72 hours and there must be a “checklist” to assure the gun purchaser is eligible to own a gun.
Gun owners MUST keep their weapons either in their hand or locked up. That does not mean sharing access information with a teenager, an age when actions precede thinking about consequences, and certainly not with a six-year-old who cannot fathom the danger of a gun.
I, personally, have no problem with limiting magazine capacity of semi-automatic weapons. Why would a hunter need a 30-round magazine? Better: spend more time on the range to learn how to shoot straight.
Likewise, I fail to see the need for “full-auto” pistols and rifles in civilian hands.
Florida, my state, requires a 72-hour waiting period to buy a pistol; it should apply to rifles as well. The check is cursory and depends on buyer-provided information. A concealed carry license requires fingerprints and, allegedly, the prints are forwarded to an FBI database that depends on its input from local law enforcement.
Florida also has a law that allows a gun to be taken from a person who may have been eligible to own a gun but for one reason or another no longer is eligible. Good law.
Guns acquired illegally — in this case, meaning the sale is not registered — are an on-going problem, even if the weapon was not stolen. A number of guns are not registered because the owners fear the government will confiscate all civilian weapons as was done in elsewhere.
BACK TO THE COMICS
This entry started off with a comic by Darrin Bell.
Bell’s point, that it is a shame that today’s kids have to have “active shooter” drills, is valid.
I’m not certain they are “traumatized” any more than students in my day were “traumatized” by bomb drills or even fire drills. There is noise, there is herding of students to “safe” areas.
Teachers can play a major role in how students react. My Spouse has been a teacher/administrator for nearly 50 years and knows how to engage the students without ““traumatizing” them.
I don’t see much difference between hiding under a desk (a useless exercise, in hindsight) and locking doors and moving to a safe area of a classroom.
There DOES need to be improvement in communicating an “active shooter” situation to teachers and students. Schools, in conjunction with local law enforcement, need to work on that.
But A-bombs or fire drill or active shooters — in the end there is not much difference except the active shooter drill may be the “real thing.”
Sources
1. http://tinyurl.com/ybgj8uwf
2. http://tinyurl.com/yxqzomf8
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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