The insensitivity is endemic in the GOP, since they have purged out all rational voices via primaries and RWNM attacks. It’s manifested in their ‘telling like it is’ tropes and arrogance like was seen in Arlington last week. In the latter example, the two (!) pushers were named: Michael Picard and Justin Caporale (he was the ‘project manager’ at the Ellipse on J6).

It’s also apparent that each outrage has to be more disgusting than prior ones, like ‘reality shows’ have to ratchet up conflicts to keep interest.

However, if Convict-1 really was coherent, he wouldn’t have run the ‘Dems setup a made-up story’ line on Tuesday while also releasing the unedited video that Steven Cheung said the campaign had. IMHO, I think Convict-1 is testing the waters to see just how outrageous he can be before the courtier press calls him out for his actions.

Psst! JD—you’re running with a psycho who wants to make headlines…

/s

Judge Juan Merchan delays Trump’s sentencing in NY state criminal fraud trial until November 26th, weeks after the election.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/sep/06/trump-harris-us-election

As a person who dedicated my early criminologist/statistician research-life to studying mass shootings/ers and mitigation strategies (yes, they existed pre-1996 except the targets were post offices and other places of employment), I post this comment at risk of some misinterpreting it as advocating for measures other than looking at guns and gun possession involved…. But I persist knowing some of you may serve on school boards or be involved in committees planning school design and construction, or are parents of school-aged kids.

Despite what JD Vance suggested, Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, WAS NOT a soft target. It was hardened. And preventative measures ‘worked’ by diminishing the number of victims shot:
1) Based on news reports, TWO school resource officers were employed by the school district/sheriff’s office and BOTH these SROs stepped in immediately, getting the shooter to surrender when they arrived. Unlike Uvalde, they were not hindered by higher ups commanding the scene, nor an instinctual fear of the gun possessed by the shooter. If there was a short delay, we have not heard any news reporting about it, but it, regardless, would pale in comparison to the devastating fail of Uvalde.
2) The “pass” system to exit the classroom means teachers are aware who has exited and when. I’m sure investigations will focus on how the student was allowed to exit without also taking the bathroom pass or saying exactly what he needed to retreive from his locker, so this procedure can be strengthened, but having the procedure in place allowed minimal free-roaming about the halls during class time, which reduced the shooter’s access to targets and reduced the number of in-classroom targets available due to number 3.
3) Automatically “locking behind the exiter” classroom doors — with WINDOWS — is what SAVED an algebra class full of 20 to 30 soft-target-desk-seated students from being targetted, but only because A FEMALE STUDENT DID WHAT SHE HAD BEEN TRAINED TO DO: look through the windows to make sure the person seeking to re-enter the classroom is indeed a safe person to open the door for. (This training is similar to what exit-seated passengers on planes are told — look out the window and do not open the exit if you see a fire). The female student who refused to open the classroom door for the gun-wielding shooter is the truest hero in this situation!

This led to deaths in the hallway, yes, but a non-human-cluttered hallway in the middle of class-time is nothing like an exceptionally easy-to-precision-target of 20 to 30 desk-seated Algebra students.

The one hardening measure not present at the school was metal detectors and bag searches, but these are much less palatable measures for parents and teachers who usually clamor for smooth entrance at the start of school days. Staggered start times per grade are ways some schools can integrate both, but it takes community buy-in to make these work.

Other measures are see through back-packs, not loved by menstruating teenage girls, and limiting heights of backpacks to shorter than the smallest assault weapon (but can be thwarted by an immovable state legislature that won’t ban collapsible assault weapon sales or limit magazine size). In addition, curious bus drivers seeing bulky backpacks might be empowered to ask questions or limit ridership if they feel something is off — another controversial policy requiring parent buy-in, of course.

My children’s middle and high schools did not allow backpacks to be seen/used except upon school entrance and exit at the end of the day — they had to be locker stored for the entire school day . . . a real pain if you picked up your child for an after-lunch-but-not-returning-back-to-school doctor appointment, but that strategy doesn’t work if you let a kid go to his locker in the middle of class to get his AR-15. (See 2 above).

Points of vulnerability we still don’t have reporting on (as far as I know): i) self-locking, non prop-openable school-building-exit doors if weapon was stored in car; ii) size/collapsibility of weapon, iii) where/how gun was stored before retrieved by student, iv) exact nature of contacts with GA child services and how this troubled teen with known troubled home life slipped through the cracks, and v) the stupidity of a father gifting his son for Christmas an AR-15 style weapon 7 months after police question him and his son over the 13-year-old’s posts on social media threatening to shoot up his middle school. In addition (vi), it appears (lack of “attachment” and “committment’ — Hirschi concepts — to school demonstrated by) persistent unmitigated truancy of the troubled teen appears to have played a role here too, an ongoing and persistent problem, nation-wide, since the pandemic.

Last, I urge all parents to either take a class or become knowledgable about what is taught in research-based mass shooter “victim mitigation” classes, as irritating as this idea might be, and to review these skills with your students/children at fall and winter school start periods. And, please use your school open house visits to visually scan to see what a school and its classrooms have in place to mitigate casualties.

My oldest daughter who sponsored and took the course as a university RA taught me several things to look for and do when I began law school at the start of my 2nd career. For example, because they did not exist, I personally posted on each classroom bulletin board at the front of each room, a large handmade sign noting each classroom number and the name and driving address of the building the classroom was located in — an essential piece of information any in-classroom caller needs to relay to first responders if injured victims, or God forbid, the shooter himself, are inside. This also helps larger first responder triage teams to know which rooms can be initially skipped when searching for shooting victims (if callers report their room number to have been spared).

Yes, it is insane I typed the word “school” and “mitigate casualties” within 8 words of each other. INSANE!