• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

The Trump Presidency (Act V - The One Where Everybody Dies)

Status
Not open for further replies.
quadraginta said:
Interestingly, this reserve police officer who was giving his students a lesson on gun safety wasn't even authorized to have a weapon in the school to begin with.

And when the gun went off it was because he was "making sure that it wasn't loaded".

So much for training, unless they are teaching that the way to check to make sure a gun (which wasn't supposed to be there to begin with) isn't loaded by pulling the trigger.*

At least he wasn't looking down the barrel to see if a bullet was in it when he did that.

I have to think that this goes well beyond the classification of occasional, unavoidable accidents, and clearly demonstrates that rules and training are not going to be the answer to the gun problems we are confronting.



* - My father gave me my first lesson in handling firearms when I was around ten years old. (Hey, it was the early Sixties. And it was West Virginia. By those standards I was something of a late bloomer.)

We went out to an open field with a hill at one end (Not hard to find in WV.) and he handed me the rifle, an old '42 Mossberg .22LR which I still have.

I was thrilled and excited. My very first time holding a real rifle.

He said,

"Don't be afraid, it isn't loaded yet. Just put it to your shoulder, and look down the barrel. Try to get the rear sight lined up with the front, and gently squeeze the trigger. Just to get the feel for it."
​

I did all that, and I can still remember the sound of that rifle going off to this day. It sounded louder than anything I had ever heard, and I swear it has never sounded that loud since then.

While I was still shaking from the shock and surprise, he then said;

"NEVER believe ANYONE when they tell you a gun isn't loaded. ALWAYS open it up, take it apart and check it YOURSELF."​

And I always have.
Click to expand...

Thanks much!

You sound quite sensible about firearms and I do appreciate your good attitudes.

However, the NRA always likes to say "The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun".

But the reality of violence is not so simple because in practice it can be quite difficult to determine just who is the "bad guy with a gun" and just who is the "good guy with a gun".
 
Beelzebuddy said:
If they are going to grow one, they'll do it around July. The only way to salvage the midterm election is to keep sucking up to Trump until the primaries are over, then do a complete 180 and attack him with everything they've got. Impeachment hearings, everything. They have to appear more anti-Trump than the Democrats if they want to keep the existing Dem wave from becoming a tsunami.

But they can't do it until then, because their dwindling base is still conditioned to support whoever the most rabidly insane candidate appears to be. If they jump the gun they'll get primaried by someone who isn't just acting crazy.
Click to expand...

If Mueller is fired, it migh tbe alost cause for them even then.
 
dudalb said:
If Mueller is fired, it migh tbe alost cause for them even then.
Click to expand...

Preventing Mueller from presenting his findings (and thereby keeping up the uncertainty for those who want to believe it's all a witch-hunt) is almost certainly less damaging to Trump and the GOP than having the evidence out in the open.

If I was Trump, Ryan or McConnell, I would use the flimsy pretence the end of the House Intelligence Committee Investigation to get rid of Mueller ASAP.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
I think we can stipulate that accidental discharges of firearms occur. They happen with soldiers, police officers, and anyone who is obligated to carry a weapon as part of their job.

With proper training and properly maintained weapons, they should occur very rarely. In most instances one can point to “operator error”. It happens. And should be addressed on a case-by-case basis when it does.
Click to expand...

So, speculating on the math: Number of school injuries and death from purposeful gunshots per capita
vs
Number of injuries and accidental deaths per capita if you armed teachers and other school staff in every school in the nation.
minus
the injuries and deaths those armed school staff are likely to prevent.

I'm going to guestimate based on the obvious that arming teachers and staff is going to result in more student injuries and deaths than they prevent.
 
ponderingturtle said:
quadraginta said:
Interestingly, this reserve police officer who was giving his students a lesson on gun safety wasn't even authorized to have a weapon in the school to begin with.

And when the gun went off it was because he was "making sure that it wasn't loaded".

So much for training, unless they are teaching that the way to check to make sure a gun (which wasn't supposed to be there to begin with) isn't loaded by pulling the trigger.*
Click to expand...

What was the exact nature of the failure that caused this discharge? I think it is highly unlikely that he was testing if it was loaded by pulling the trigger.
Click to expand...


Mebbe so. The exact quote in the cited article was;

Dennis Alexander, a reserve police officer, was pointing the gun at the ceiling Tuesday to make sure it was not loaded when it discharged inside his classroom at Seaside High School in the coastal community of Seaside, police said.
Click to expand...
Now, I concede that it is difficult to construct an exact sequence of events from that statement, but I have difficulty trying to explain the purpose of pointing it at the ceiling "to make sure it was not loaded" if he didn't pull the trigger.

Otherwise its state of readiness to fire would remain unknown when pointed in any subsequent direction, just as if he had never pointed it at the ceiling in the first place.

Now maybe what they meant to say was that he pointed it at the ceiling just in case it was loaded, which kind of goes back to the same obvious problem, which would be that he didn't know, because he hadn't personally unloaded it.

Maybe it meant that he pointed it at the ceiling as a routine precaution (although they seem to have very carefully not said that). In which case he still brought a weapon that wasn't supposed to be there to begin with into the classroom and proceeded to do things with it in front of a classroom full of students when he obviously had no idea whether or not it was loaded.

What is even more disturbing is what he planned to do with it. He ...

was about to show the students how to disarm someone when the gun fired, Gonzales said.
Click to expand...

Imagine where that could have ended up if he hadn't managed to screw up and fire the weapon before he really got started 'teaching'.

It was his firearm, and he brought it into the classroom, against school policy, without even bothering to inspect its state of readiness.

For someone who had at least the minimal training of a reserve police officer, his grasp of firearm safety was severely lacking, as was his grasp of school policy.

So, not just an accident. More like an accident waiting to happen. It didn't require one little mistake. It needed a conscious refusal to conform with a whole series of well established rules and requirements.
 
Last edited:
quadraginta said:
Mebbe so. The exact quote in the cited article was;

​
Now, I concede that it is difficult to construct an exact sequence of events from that statement, but I have difficulty trying to explain the purpose of pointing it at the ceiling "to make sure it was not loaded" if he didn't pull the trigger.
Click to expand...

The whole thing about not pointing a gun ever in a direction you are uncomfortable with it discharging in maybe? What do you point the gun at when you are verifying it is empty? I hope it isn't into a classroom.

Otherwise its state of readiness to fire would remain unknown when pointed in any subsequent direction, just as if he had never pointed it at the ceiling in the first place.

So, not just an accident. More like an accident waiting to happen. It didn't require one little mistake. It needed a conscious refusal to conform with a whole series of well established rules and requirements.
Click to expand...

Yep and he is trusted with a gun on the street. At least as highly trained as those armed teachers everyone is talking about.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Preventing Mueller from presenting his findings (and thereby keeping up the uncertainty for those who want to believe it's all a witch-hunt) is almost certainly less damaging to Trump and the GOP than having the evidence out in the open.

If I was Trump, Ryan or McConnell, I would use the flimsy pretence the end of the House Intelligence Committee Investigation to get rid of Mueller ASAP.
Click to expand...

But the evidence is going to surface no matter what...and it won't take much time.

Firing Mueller would put this country into the worst political crisis we have seen since The Civil War, probably.

Democracy mighnt not survive.

In which case we might need a few AR 15s...
 
Belz... said:
Don't you think that's a bit hyperbolic?
Click to expand...

No. I think Trump, and the GOP seems,with a few exceptions, to be kowtowing to him is the gravest danger to democracy in the US we have seen in a long time.
People keep on saying the checks and balances are working, but I see little evidence of that.
 
“They take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and drop it on the hood of the car. If the hood dents, the car doesn't qualify. It's horrible."

What is he blathering about now?
 
Doubling down on his lie via Twitter.

We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive). P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the U.S.(negotiating), but they do...they almost all do...and that’s how I know!
 
ponderingturtle said:
The whole thing about not pointing a gun ever in a direction you are uncomfortable with it discharging in maybe? What do you point the gun at when you are verifying it is empty? I hope it isn't into a classroom.

Otherwise its state of readiness to fire would remain unknown when pointed in any subsequent direction, just as if he had never pointed it at the ceiling in the first place.
Click to expand...

I think the point is that he should have checked whether or not it was loaded before he brought it into the classroom - if he felt compelled to break school rules and bring it in at all.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
“They take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and drop it on the hood of the car. If the hood dents, the car doesn't qualify. It's horrible."

What is he blathering about now?
Click to expand...

He's probably talking about Japan's tests regarding vehicles hitting pedestrians, which doesn't involve dropping a bowling ball from 20 feet, but firing a bowling ball like object at the hood of the car to simulate someone's head hitting it.

http://www.nasva.go.jp/mamoru/en/assessment_car/head_protection_test.htm

It, of course, has nothing to do with whether or not the hood dents. But this is the closest thing to what Trump describes.
 
Last edited:
dudalb said:
No. I think Trump, and the GOP seems,with a few exceptions, to be kowtowing to him is the gravest danger to democracy in the US we have seen in a long time.
People keep on saying the checks and balances are working, but I see little evidence of that.
Click to expand...

I agree: Trump and his minions are seeking at multiple levels to undermine the very core elements that maintain democracy and the rule of law in the USA. The majority of both houses of Congress is willing to go along because they are spineless political hacks. The courts are being stacked by Trump in his image. Even the modest cautions and dissent that a President usually receives from his cabinet are too disturbing to Trump and are being purged. Perhaps the most dangerous of all: Trump and his supporters have repeatedly used their access to public opinion to undermine and demean respect for the rule of law and for our democratic institutions among the people of the USA.

Hyperbole? No not all all. Too many people think oh, it can't happen here. It's happened in other places by exploitation of exactly the same strategies throughout history. There is nothing about us that makes us immune.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom