I can’t wait to hear how the gun nuts spin this one. The 6-year-old was standing his ground in the face of an oppressive, authoritarian figure, threatening his constitutional rights — namely a first grade teacher? Where are you, Ted Cruz, this is right up your alley. Associated Press:
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A 6-year-old student shot and wounded a teacher at his school in Virginia during an altercation inside a first-grade classroom Friday, police and school officials in the city of Newport News said.
Experts said a school shooting involving a 6-year-old is extremely rare, although not unheard of, while Virginia law limits the ways in which a child that age can be punished for such a crime.
No students were injured in the shooting at Richneck Elementary School, police said. The teacher — a woman in her 30s — suffered life-threatening injuries. Her condition had improved somewhat by late afternoon, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said. […]
“We have been in contact with our commonwealth’s attorney (local prosecutor) and some other entities to help us best get services to this young man,” Drew said.
He’s not a young man, he’s a 6-year-old boy. What happened in this school is rare, but it’s not unique, unfortunately.
In 2000, a 6-year-old boy fired a bullet from a .32-caliber gun inside Buell Elementary near Flint, Michigan, 60 miles (96 kilometers) from Detroit, striking 6-year-old Kayla Rolland in the neck, according to an AP article from the time. She died a half-hour later.
Look at how the world has changed. I started grade school in 1959. There is no way some kid would have shot me in the classroom. That was not reality. In 2023 — anything goes.
And this is cheerful.
From 2010 through 2021, there were more than 800 school-related shootings in K-12 schools that involved 1,149 victims. Thirty percent of those occurred in the school building, said Fox, who published the 2010 book, “Violence and Security on Campus: From Preschool Through College.”
“There are students who killed teachers, more typically high school students,” Fox said. “I don’t know of other cases where a 6-year-old shot a teacher.”
Again, there was no way on God’s earth that anybody in my high school would have pulled a gun on a teacher, let alone killed them. It simply was not real at that time in history. There wasn’t that level of conflict. Yes, there were “hoodlums” in the school, who maybe weren’t as squeaky clean as the athletes were, but it was all within a very narrow, fundamentally WASP setting. I never went to high school thinking it was a war zone, where I might not make it through the day. That’s got to be a different mindset.
What is going on with us? Our country is now a battleground and our children are learning from the cradle that if you have a conflict with somebody, you just whip out a gun and shoot? That’s the coping mechanism of choice? The mind reels.
When the 2A gun nuts pose their children with automatic weapons for their Christmas cards, you can expect a 6 year old to shoot a teacher. They learned early that guns solve problems. That’s the gqp way.
Children see, children act… So, did a parent leave their gun out within reach of this boy? Did he know where it was? Did he just take it? Million dollar question, WHY??? Did the teacher say NO to him once too often? Did it tick him off? Did he decide he’d eliminate his problem? A child can’t rationalize what they do. The world acts, the kids see but, they see a reaction. Yes, I believe the parents should be charged because apparently their parenting skills stink. I suppose they don’t pay attention to him. I mean, if he was being supervised, how’d he get a gun? How did the parents not know he had a gun? This is such a tragedy. The child is wayyy too young to understand all of the ramifications of what he’s done. No way he can or will ever comprehend… If I had kids in school today, I’d DEF home school. I wouldn’t let my kids out of my sight today.
I just can’t accept the murderous hypocrisy that somehow the 2nd amendment is sacred, although erroneously interpreted, and allows 400 million guns on the street with the slaughter of the innocent, while the 14th amendment which prohibits people who commit sedition from holding office is pissed on. Not only are the individuals free to serve, they now hold the house hostage. The history of legal hypocrisy in this country is long and ugly. Just ask the users of cannabis, criminalized for half a century due to a criminal president who ignored the scientific and medical facts to get civil rights activists and antiwar activists off the street. Meanwhile the purveyors of death, i.e., the alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, fossil fuel industries make the rich richer. It’s beyond evil. Cue up the flimsy justifications.
I’m sorry, Scott. But WHEN EXACTLY were all these “people who commit sedition” formally charged AND tried AND convicted of this alleged sedition?
See, the very 14th Amendment that you’re trying to invoke gives you the answer you’re so demanding:
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
As best as I recall, EVERY SINGLE PERSON that you claim “now hold the [h]ouse hostage” was IN THE CAPITOL BUILDING ENGAGED IN THE PROCESS OF CERTIFYING ELECTORS. Kind of hard to be “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” when you’re participating in a government process.
And, I’d remind you also that particular section was being used against men* who’d actively taken up arms against the US government and abandoned their oaths of allegiance to the same BY CREATING A SEPARATE GOVERNMENT. That is a far different matter than blindly accusing members of the House of any actual sedition WITHOUT THE DAMN EVIDENCE. Section 1 of the 14th also includes a line about “due process.” If you don’t understand that phrase, you do not need to be here posting your constant whines. And, for what it’s worth, that section was meant to ensure that EVERYONE–mainly meaning newly-freed slaves–was covered by the words of the 5th Amendment. Do I need to provide the text of the Fifth Amendment for you? Because the text makes it VERY clear that mere accusations and presuppositions of criminal behavior or activity are not enough.
And if you consider ANY of that to be “flimsy justifications,” well, then you need to admit that you are JUST AS REPREHENSIBLE as those you would condemn and that you want the same kind of strong-man dictatorship that you’re so quick to condemn in others. You are every bit the hypocrite that you paint the right-wingers to be. And worse, you try to justify your hypocrisy by painting yourself as some sort of “righteous angel” when you’re no better than the devils you decry.
The parents should be charged. They allowed the kid to get hold of that gun.
How did the child get the pistol? I’m thinking the parents may be in trouble. Firearms are supposed to be locked up in most states.
How’re are the gun kooks going to spin this one? The way they always do: thoughts and prayers. Stupid fucks.
I wasn’t that far behind you entering grade school, and only a year older than this kid when I got my first shotgun. Typical midwestern boy in a typical small midwestern town. I can assure everyone that when it came to safety and responsible gun handling my father laid down the law, with my mother’s approval over his harshness. My shotgun was kept with his in HIS bedroom closet and I wasn’t allowed to take it (or his) out of the carrying case unless he or another adult was present. Basically, my shotgun was ONLY for hunting or some type of shooting WITH adult supervision in those early years. The only other time it was out of its case was for cleaning, or a couple of times a year to inspect it to make sure no rust was developing and to wipe it down & apply a light fresh coat of oil. Later on, in high school I’d see some with trucks with hunting racks and long-guns in those racks in the parking lot during hunting season. No one ever dreamed that any student would, even after losing a fistfight, or getting dressed down and even punished by a teacher or a paddling from the Prinicpal go out to their truck and grab their gun. It simply wasn’t something anyone would have done, and most likely not even thought about doing! It’s a sad commentary on where we are culturally, and how “gun culture” has devolved over the decades.