The dash is a little complicated, but....

On why "Walk Up, Not Out" won't help stop mass school shootings:

I hadn't heard of it until very recently.
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From Alternet, by Kylie Cheung:

Excerpts:

"...Walk Up’s ultimate premise is that the responsibility for ending school violence should be placed on the shoulders of young people who are in school to learn, while demanding nothing of the policymakers who are actually in positions to make change. The movement seems to place the blame for shootings on those who are purportedly complicit in the bullying and marginalizing of students who go on to become mass shooters.

"One viral Facebook post shared last Thursday by psychologist Rebecca Wald explores this in depth:
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'The myth that school shooters are outcasts fighting back against bullies dates back to Columbine. At the time it was widely reported that Harris and Klebold were social rejects, and much was made of the meanness of popular kids. But the FBI concluded that . . . kids didn't like the boys because they did creepy things like walking around giving the Nazi salute. ‘Walk Up, Not Out’ is a campaign of cowardice, promoted by adults who want there to be a solution to school shootings that asks literally nothing of us. No tough choices, no exercise of political will, no speaking out to power — just lecturing kids on how to do better.'...

"...If we tell students to be nicer to gun-loving, Nazi-saluting kids instead of reporting them, we could just as easily tell girls and women never to say no to men..."

(snip)
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I first heard of "Walk Up" here:

"I Tried to Befriend Nikolas Cruz. He Still Killed My Friends."
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/nikolas-cruz-shooting-florida.html

By senior Isabelle Robinson.

Excerpts:

"...Despite my discomfort, I sat down with him, alone. I was forced to endure his cursing me out and ogling my chest until the hourlong session ended. When I was done, I felt a surge of pride for having organized his binder and helped him with his homework.

"Looking back, I am horrified. I now understand that I was left, unassisted, with a student who had a known history of rage and brutality.

"Like many pre-teenage and teenage girls, I possessed — and still, to an extent, possess — a strong desire to please. I strive to win the praise of the adults in my life and long to be seen as mature beyond my years. I would have done almost anything to win the approval of my teachers.

"This is not to say that children should reject their more socially awkward or isolated peers — not at all. As a former peer counselor and current teacher’s assistant, I strongly believe in and have seen the benefits of reaching out to those who need kindness most.

"But students should not be expected to cure the ills of our genuinely troubled classmates, or even our friends, because we first and foremost go to school to learn. The implication that Mr. Cruz’s mental health problems could have been solved if only he had been loved more by his fellow students is both a gross misunderstanding of how these diseases work and a dangerous suggestion that puts children on the front line.

"It is not the obligation of children to befriend classmates who have demonstrated aggressive, unpredictable or violent tendencies. It is the responsibility of the school administration and guidance department to seek out those students and get them the help that they need, even if it is extremely specialized attention that cannot be provided at the same institution..."

(snip)
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And, while I don't know if Cruz is truly seriously mentally ill or not, chances are more love and bland "attention," even from adults, were NOT what he really needed, as I hinted elsewhere. Amoral types never get enough attention, in THEIR minds.

Vegan rage

https://twitter.com/MsBlaireWhite/status/979768282767966208

Walk Up’s ultimate premise is that the responsibility for ending school violence should be placed on the shoulders of young people who are in school to learn, while demanding nothing of the policymakers who are actually in positions to make change. ~ Kylie Cheung from the link by lenona at March 31, 2018 12:23 PM

What change could these "policymakers" actually make?

This is the kind of position someone stakes out when they expect the government to keep them safe and are willing to surrender their autonomy and freedom for that illusion of that safety.

The truth is that there is very little that any policy could have done to prevent Cruz from implementing a violent plan. Homicidal maniacs rarely follow the law. I'm pretty sure it was already against school policy, not to mention the law, to bring guns to school, to shoot fellow students, and to pull the fire alarm absent a fire.

Could policy have kept him from getting the weapons with which to kill his fellow students? Not likely. It could have forced him to use a different weapon, such as bombs.

And any policy is only as good as the enforcement of it. Both the FBI and the BCSO dropped the ball in protecting the students of MSDHS. The BCSO resource officer already on the scene even stood by while the killings occurred.

Could an armed teacher or staffer inside the school have made a difference? I don't know. No one does. Could the threat of an armed and trained teacher or staffer inside the school have made Cruz choose a new target or forego the attack? Again, impossible to say. Having only one known armed responder did not work, perhaps having uncounted unknown ones planted in a school might work.

Reporting him early to authorities did not work. As early as 2016, people at the school, including the resource officer, expressed concern about Cruz's mental stability. These concerns were ignored or not acted upon, whether due to legal restrictions, apathy, or incompetence is yet to be determined.

Another question to be answered is why an expelled student was able to walk into the school during school hours when he had no business at the school.

As for Walk Up, while cozying up to psychotics is also unlikely to tame a would-be serial killer and could leave a well-meaning student like Isabelle Robinson in grave danger, pointing out that a majority of US school shootings were carried out by students who were bullied, isolated, and ostracized is an important step in trying to understand why these things occur and, perhaps, in preventing future attacks.

Nikolas Cruz may turn out to have been insane in a Ted Bundy sort of way. Or, his treatment at the hands of his fellow students may have sent him around the bend. We'll find out as we study him. In that sense, it may be a good thing that he lived.

According to Emma Gonzalez, Cruz was isolated and bullied by his fellow students since at least middle school. And it was okay with her because "you don't know this kid." According to another student, Manolo Alvarez, Cruz was bullied "a lot."

The stridency with which those fellow students, like David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, are willing to arbitrarily condemn others does not bode well for an acquittal of their behavior toward a troubled young man in their midst. It's likely that this monster was not born, that he was created. The fault this time, may not be in their stars, but in themselves, that they were bullies.

Internet dialog.

PS-- I totally think children have a role to play in protecting themselves from school shootings by their members.

Internet technique




I cannot conceive of a less appetizing menu.

Why some of us carry pocketknives




May the blessings of the weekend be upon you

Thoughts:

• In that first right-hander, it's going to take you off the road.

• It's the end of Forumla One. A driver who can, perhaps surrepticiously, have a HUD with this and similar technologies (perhaps including traffic data) projected onto his helmet visor will have an insurmountable advantage.

Regarding Sixclaws link,

I love Vegans, they are so easily riled up

I always love to ask them
1) how they ignore 50 years of research showing plants feel pain, can recognize close family members, have the ability to refuse to consume food so their offspring can access it instead, and have been shown to display sentience thru anticipatory behavior

2) how they justify murdering millions of animals and destroying entire ecosystems to grow high protein plants that are not native to this hemisphere/continent/area if they are all about "reducing harm"

Yeah, but imagine caring that much about some goofball on teevee.

I mean, why should we be cool with the enthusiasm of a doorknob like this to be a "leader of a movement"? Does not that alone, regardless of the cosmetics and preciousness, encourage our sincerest mockery and disregard?

If someone—somebody on television— says "I want to be a leader," aren't you immediately & righteously repulsed?

Mechanics recreating masterpiece paintings.

https://twitter.com/PersianRose1/status/979675606022463488

Speaking of teenage bullies:

Teenagers Make Great Progressive Shock Troops

> It's likely that this monster
> was not born, that he
> was created.

Either way. We're always going to have both kinds of monster to deal with. I don't think it will be school boards, law enforcement or politicians of any kind who make this go better.

There's more to life than government. There are all sorts of ways in which people who can freely associate can make society better. There's more to life than government. There are all sorts of ways in which people who can freely associate can make society better. There's more to life than government. There's more to life than government. There's more to life than government. There's more to life than government.

The thing about lefty daydreams is that they're always based on taking authority over the lives of others. This fantasy for power is invisible to themselves but bright as dayglo paint when you get used to looking for it.

But there's more to life than government.

”Could an armed teacher or staffer inside the school have made a difference? I don't know. No one does.”

Nonsense. It is easy to demonstrate that the fatality rate is almost seven times as severe when there is no armed citizen on the scene when shooting starts.

Of course, if you believe that you are helpless and typical, you will profess that nothing can be done…

You really can’t tell that armed is better than unarmed when you are assaulted? Come on.

Nonsense. It is easy to demonstrate that the fatality rate is almost seven times as severe when there is no armed citizen on the scene when shooting starts. ~ Radwaste at April 1, 2018 6:45 AM

When the armed citizen responds correctly it can reduce the fatality rate. However, there's no guarantee that he won't run away or freeze or be mistaken in his assessment of the situation (deputy Scott Peterson anyone?).

Personally, I think any discussion about hardening the target at schools is a worthy discussion to have, whether it involves arming teachers, staffers, both or neither, or even adding police to the school. Shooters seek out soft targets, so making the school a harder target can have beneficial effects.

Just knowing there might be armed teachers or staffers in a school could cause a shooter to reconsider. However, based on MSDHS, we can say that knowing there was one armed resource officer on-site did not deter the shooter. Based on the GMHS, we know that having one armed resource officer on-site might not deter a shooter, but that one officer can stop a shooter in the act.

A town in Minnesota set up satellite police stations in its schools, not just a resource officer at a desk, but working offices with patrol cars and officers going out on patrol.

We need to look at all solutions to school shootings, not just the ones that are pleasant and nice or that fit our personal political viewpoint.

"This is going to be a very harsh and unpleasant business, and will take an equally harsh and unpleasant person to see to it."

"When the armed citizen responds correctly it can reduce the fatality rate."

You are working very hard to be obtuse here.

When the armed citizen has responded, it DOES reduce the fatality rate.

The action reports are all over the Web.

By the way: Utah allows teacher to carry concealed weapons. As usual, none of the signs of the Apocalypse predicted by hoplophobes have appeared.

Personally, I think any discussion about hardening the target at schools is a worthy discussion to have

OK, how many public school students total were there in 2017

How many died in 2017 on school grounds

How many were shot total

How many died from horsing around

From sports

From allegries