Thursday, February 22, 2018

Trump Promotes Arming Teachers

The president rarely if ever thinks things through. Larry O'Donnell had a segment on devoted to the realities of arming teachers with a gun. The first shot he said, with statistical evidence, often misses giving the shooter time to kill others and most probably the teacher him or herself. The teacher could easily shoot the wrong person missing the shooter but wounding or killing someone else including one of his own students.

Moreover, arming and training expertly teachers would be one of Herculean costs. Trump just cut money to education. In a day when some teachers are forced to purchase their own items for their class I suggest no one, least of all this Trump education slashing administration, would pony up that cost. Maybe Trump would pay out of his own pocket like, for example, the hush money he paid for the sexual dalliances with porn stars or Playboy bunnies. Or, perhaps, he would simply allow teachers to carry guns sans the training.  What could possibly go wrong?

I suspect he will ask for nothing and I aver nothing will get done at all including stricter background checks, prohibition of bump stocks much less the eradication of the sale of AR 15 military style assault rifles which no one needs in civilian life. This president needed crib notes to talk to high school students. Why should we ever suspect he reads up on the bills he, off the top of his thinning hair head, wants. Arming teachers should be verboten. This is not Nazi Germany or so I thought.  The only answer to the correct policy is to crush Republicans in 2018 and in 2020 to get the most prescient and humane policies we want.  I hope we are on our way to doing that!  


RESIST!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/us/politics/trump-guns-school-shootings.html?emc=edit_na_20180222&nl=breaking-news&nlid=75028030&ref=cta

There oughta be a law -- Therapy for the shooter

 I have mixed emotions about psycho therapy. On the one hand I wonder about it effectiveness but on the other hand it provides an outlet for feelings either submerged or talked about with friends/relatives who can offer little help. The professionalism and objective removal of the therapist from one's life makes talking, I believe, easier. One can simply "get it off one's chest." Those who go to therapy often feel a sense of relief and do feel better after the session. I wonder, though, about a permanent fix. Is there one? For some there may be. A lot, too, depends upon the therapist. There are many incompetent ones out there but occasionally there is one who helps at least a little or even a lot to relieve some of life's burden and find another way to cope.

There is no shame in asking for help. In fact it is a strength. If the shooter at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland had an effective therapist for an extended length of time one to whom he could vent his anger I cannot help but think it would have prevented the mayhem. We cannot know for sure but what we can know is it would not have hurt.

We also know the removal of access to the military weapon of the AK-15 from all hands is the real remedy to, as evidence shows, cut down the number of horrific shootings. It is a no brainer to me. Why is it not to so many Republicans who really could do something? One word answer to that: NRA money and barrels of it filling their overflowing campaign coffers with cash! There oughta be a law against that!

NOT ANYMORE

  I wrote this last week and for the most part sat on it because I did not want my writing to imply anything against Israel. As stated agai...