I think if someone shot up a school, it's "natural" to assume s/he resented the school, teachers, admin, students etc. somehow. May not come to pass, but that's the first thing I would look into.

I could have done without seeing the picture of the kid in the bus. I’ll never understand why someone would murder innocent children on their way to killing themselves.

I guess points for being honest?

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) on school shootings:

"We're not gonna fix it." pic.twitter.com/yZZCbJleUA

— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) March 28, 2023

But he just made a campaign election video for his opponent.

Granted I didn't look this up but he's probably from a deep red area and won't face any worthwhile competition.

He won the 2nd district by 35 points. As long as he doesn't say something stupid like "Trans people should have rights" or "book bans are kind of stupid" he isn't losing that district.

SI

For both Dems and Republicans, it would be great if more members were worried about losing a general election than losing a primary.

Well, this is what Supreme Court supported gerrymandering gets us.

Maybe I misinterpreted what he meant but I took it as a trans man killer is not nearly as effective of a villain as it would be if the murderer were a trans woman. If you don't believe in transgenders, then you are just saying a chick cosplaying as a man shot up a school. That is not a successful narrative IMO and is more likely to blow over. It is not like the initial ID was of a guy and then we found out that the person was transgendered. Nor is the media pushing a traditional man's name on the murderer which would allow opponents to deadname the killer. From everything I saw, the description has been a woman named Audrey Hale shot up a school. Oh and she identified as transgender and used the pronouns He/Him.

Yes it should be investigated and it may have been a factor or even a primary motive. The idea that this is seminal event that will be used to justify future actions is silly because no more justification is needed. I spent an hour on a treadmill this morning with Fox & Friends on one of the TV screens in front of me. There was much more concern about the War on Christianity, putting more guns in schools and the government using this incident to take away guns from citizens than of the transgenders. Will it be swept completely under the carpet? No. Will it be the same sort of huge deal if it were a trans woman? No.

Oh ok - then the media is not really reporting things in a clear manner. Calling the shooter a "woman" and "trans" (as all three did) would lead me to believe that they identified, now, as a woman. Which doesn't seem to be the case.

Correct, but I don't think anyone knew that within a few hours of the shooting. Hearing that LE confronted a female and then finding out the person was trans, the obvious conclusion is man to woman. But apparently this was a woman who hadn't yet begun the transition, or was still dressing/looking like a woman enough to be ID'd as such by witnesses and LE at the shooting.

I would expect the confusion to be cleared up by media today.

I took Jon's comment the way I assume he intended it - because the shooting was by someone on the left, it will be swept under the rug. It really doesn't matter what kind of lefty, just that the media is going to protect the shooter because the shooter and media agree on ideology. Based on Jon's comments for the past couple of decades here, I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.

Some thoughts

It's says a lot that our 'leaders' are so flippant in their comments, I.E "we are not gonna fix it" Imagine if this country had this mindset throughout history, going all the way back to colonial times, wouldn't that mean we would still...
1-Be a British colony?
2-Still have slavery?
3-Children would still be exploited, killed and maimed working 12 hours a day in factories?

WTF is not fixable about this? Yes it is rhetorical question, money, power, constitution, blah, blah, blah.

To the first responders, for as much flak as Uvalde police took, and 100% rightfully so, this department deserves an equal amount of praise, plus some. Watch the bodycam footage, they were decisive, efficient and courageous in neutralizing the threat. Well done because they for sure saved lives, potentially many lives.

And of course why the fuck do people low key "celebrate" when the shooter is left or right, which I have seen. It's nuts, does it really matter what political affiliation the shooter is, or how they identify. Evil doesn't pick sides, it's just evil.

This country is so fucked up right now.

It looks like red flag laws would have prevented the shooter from buying 7 guns while under mental treatment, but we can't have common sense laws like that.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

Yep: Gerrymandering Competitive Districts to Near Extinction | Brennan Center for Justice

Not sure what you’re watching, other than the Fox News feed, but I’ve seen almost nothing but vilification of trans people because of this. Right wing media is downright gleeful over this.

Has anything come out on the shooter's politics and whether it was the reason for the shooting? This story is all over the news here in Chicago so I'm not seeing it covered up or whatever. I haven't heard anything about political ideology or motive though.

That's pretty close. The nuance you kinda miss is that it's not simply "on the left" but rather more specifically "an oh so trendy favorite sacred cow for the leftist media"

FWIW, I think someone referenced this somewhere, but the fact that the target was a Christian-affiliated school had zero to do with my comment.
That may (and is) be getting play on social media but not from me.

Glad to hear it. More pics need to be shown of actual consequences. Everyone has seen the body cam footage of the cops charging in to save the day and shoot the shooter, yet they blurreed out the bodies. Why not show the bodies. Every one of them. Guns kill people. Let's see that. Maybe that will start meaning something to people

Man, I'm usually pretty good at blocking out things as they relate to my own reality, but my wife is a substitute teacher, my daughter is just starting her career as an elementary school teacher, and my other daughter is a college student. I could get a call about any of them being involved in one of these incidents on any given day.

My daughter is getting her master's in curriculum so she has the choice to get out of the classroom. I've joked that all she'd be doing is trading gunfire for death threats. Crazy that schools have become a literal battleground on so many fronts.

so curriculum meaning dean? Principal?

thoser guys get death threats?

No, more like county curriculum specialists/coordinators. You know, the ones who are responsible for deciding what kids learn and whose jobs have been politicized by culture warrriors.

The clip I saw had 2 views, the officer that shot her with his AR and then from another officer following just behind.

They were very deliberate in searching & clearing the rooms before they got to her in the lobby (?) area.

They all get death threats. I'm pretty close to my local school systems (even running for school board in the election in a couple of weeks) and I can confirm this. It's utterly ridiculous.

Yeah, I watched the bodycam footage and it's the exact opposite of the Uvalde video, in terms of the police response. The officers should be commended, and the Uvalde officers should be even more ashamed.

Well I'm not going out of my way to search for it. That is not good for my mental health.

just google. there are a million pics and videos

Gentle suggestion (sincerely) in case this ever comes up in the real world, just say "they" in stead of s/he or whatever. Can almost never go wrong with "they"

If liberal politicians in actual power or the "leftist" media gave 10% of a shit about trans people as you're giving them credit for, the world would be a completely different place right now.

aaaaaand MTG's twitter account already suspended again...

Marjorie Taylor Greene restricted on Twitter after post on Nashville school shooting

Not to mention, every single MSM news story I've seen so far has specifically mentioned the shooter as being trans, and the story itself has been lead news for 3 days running (with the obvious transition this morning to talking about the victims, but they're still discussing the specifics of the shooting and potential motivation).

But sure, it's being swept under the rug.

I used s/he in the context of "... to assume a he or she (shooter) resented the school ..." meaning a shooter can be a he or she. And not because I was confused about how to address Audrey specifically.

He or She is better (I think) than a They because they are singular vs plural which is the case for most of these frakked up school shootings. Admittedly, it would be better if I used he/she vs s/he. I've read both are acceptable but the latter is confusing. I concede that.

However, I am confused on how to address her. I think your point is if the person is trans, use the general (and assume, more polite) term They. I can do that.

I've read quotes on the parents below. It may be that they truly were clueless but it's not easy hiding multiple long weapons (there was at least an AR15, another rifle, shotgun) and equipment in your room. And looking at the video, Audrey had harness/webbing also.

Let the investigation play out, but I wouldn't put it past that parents knew she had weapons in her room.

It's certainly an angle to investigate, but I don't think there is (or should be) an assumption that in every school shooting, the shooter had some issue with the school or someone in it. There are plenty of random shootings, or people who carry out a shooting in a school for the symbolism and not specifically targeting a school or people in it.

But here, once they knew that the shooter previously attended the school, then you have a reason to more seriously pursue that path. But even in that case, it's not necessarily connected to the reason for the shooting. Even with the Sandy Hook shooter, who attended that school for a few years, it was never conclusively determined why he chose that school and it may have had nothing to do with the school or anyone in it, but a place that he was familiar with and knew there were a bunch of innocent people who would be more easily controlled/killed to inflict maximum carnage. It's hard to get inside the head of someone so mentally ill that they would kill a family member and a bunch of children.

Here, given the national trans debate and recent legislation in states like TN (and here in KY), it's reasonable to assume a connection. And they said they left plenty of evidence of why they did it, so I assume that will come out in time.

I don't know if the principle was there when they attended, but is she was it is easy to assume she was the target or at least one of the targets.

I have said this before, but I wish we just stopped gendering pronouns altogether. It isn't just trans people that you can offend by "misgendering". Not knowing if it is a he or a she by a persons voice over the phone, or the way they look, it is just a minefield sometimes. Add to the fact you offend many people by asking, let's just all go by they/them. I would often do that long before the current gender identity debate when I had no idea by a name or alias the gender of a person.

I will also say this thought it probably can be considered bigoted in a "get off my lawn" way. Made up pronouns are NOT pronouns. They are nick-names. "xi/xis" or whatever are not in any grammar list of pronouns.

I'd think knowing if singular or plural is important.

You know by context of the information provided that there is only one shooter, so why is this important?

Plus, now that the Europeans have forced their "we talk about singular sports teams in plural" thing on us, that kind of makes no difference anymore.

Because we aren’t talking about the shooter. GD is proposing to use They for everything (I think).

So in regular conversation, single vs plural is important, ‘she screwed up that program’ vs ‘they screwed up that program’

Again, that will be used in context (whether we're talking about a shooting or anything else) and it's not that hard to figure out. It's not like you are just doing a drive-by of a conversation and only hear that phrase. And if you are, then your understanding of it is really unimportant because it probably wasn't intended for you anyway.

We're going to have to agree to disagree here.

I'm not saying its impossible to not make out the context. I am saying it is a lot more clear & easier to use singular vs plural in many (if not majority of) situations.

If the point is to use They (or some other term) in some circumstances, no problem. If the point is to do away with He/She and just use They exclusively, I'm struggling to see how. Pick your favorite fiction book and imagine the exclusive use of They. I don't see it.

I'm probably half and half on the issue. I personally am not going to use "they" to describe someone who I and anyone I'm talking to clearly understands to be one gender or the other. When there's uncertainty or the person I'm talking to doesn't know, I have no issue using they.

In your example, if someone walked up to me and said "They screwed up the program," I'm liking asking "Who?" whether it involves a transgender or not because specificity is required (it could be 3 out of 4 specific people, for instance - or just 1). However, if I was involved in or watched the program, then I would have some context for understanding who that person was referring to. But I just don't see that as being a huge hurdle to avoiding potentially awkward/impolite social interactions.

My comment was intended to be more outside of this specific issue. I interpreted the way you stated that as a bit of a stumble either not knowing which might be correct or how to correctly refer to the person. I think that in general, the s/he thing in a world of heightened tension can come across as dismissive to someone who is trans and the safer bet is to simply say they.

Despite the fact that we lie very far apart in beliefs and the way we express those beliefs in many threads, I don't think you actually have ill intent towards any individual, so on the off chance that you end up interacting with anyone non binary or whatever, being comfortable just defaulting to "they" until you know their preferred pronouns can really make someone feel at ease. And we're on an anonymous internet forum, we have no idea who is reading this, so the intent there is truly a "gentle", non-judgemental pointer that might make someone who isn't out as trans who is reading this feel a little better about our little group here as well.

I didn't mean to spark a totally different discussion, sorry about that, but I do truly appreciate you receiving my comment thoughtfully.


** something that a lot of folks don't realize is how often we do use "they" as a singular these days. Got a meeting with a new coworker or a class with a new teacher and all you have is a last name or a generic first name? "it's 9:05, they were supposed to show up at 9, dammit" ;)

Crazy that we're all supposed to think that only six people dead means things worked.

Turned out great in Bengazi.

They've released pics of the victims :(
Lovely people

altho also the cynical side wonders which of them (or their parents) voted against candidates that want gun restrictions and legislation.

alive or dead?

If they released the pictures of children's corpses torn apart by bullets we'd have gun control in a week.

I don't want to see it, but I don't want to see the image of Emmett Till either. Reality is real though.

No we wouldn't.

This problem will never be solved in our lifetimes. Likely not ever. We had our shot with Sandy Hook. Every one since desensitizes us further. This will be out of the news cycle by Friday. Republican lawmakers wear AR15 pins on their lapels instead of the flag FFS.