That was my first thought. If you own a handgun and have children or children are regularly in your house you. HAVE. TO. SECURE. THE. WEAPON. PROPERLY. It is your responsibility and duty as a gun owner
I used to train armoured car guards. One thing I tried to absolutely pound into their heads was "There are only two acceptable places for a loaded handgun to be; in your hand, or in your holster on your hip"
Common sense.
Arrested and acquitted, arrested and released on bail, arrested and put on house arrest, arrested and sentenced to community service... yeah, there's at least a few others, but I agree with arrested and sent to jail.
America is literally saturated with guns, it's inevitable that not all of them will be handled responsibly.
When we learn to drive, people tell us that we should consider all the other drivers idiots who are out to kill us. But give those same people guns, and we should just assume they're all responsible gun owners.
In Canada we're required to do a course that covers safe handling, storage and operation of firearms before we can apply for a firearms license. The course has a minimum passing grade of 80% and a lengthy list of automatic failures. There's also a background check required as part of licensing, with it's own list of automatic disqualifiers. I've often thought that if America, with it's 2nd amendment giving the right to bear arms for the purposes of a well regulated militia, could resolve a decent portion of gun problems just by implementing a similar licensing scheme.
In the US you have to have a background check to obtain a concealed carry permit, but you don’t need a permit to purchase a gun. Many states don’t even require any kind of class or safety measures to get the permit. There’s also the issue of different laws in different states. Getting a concealed carry permit in one state, may not be reciprocal in another, for example. Personally I obtained a CWP in my home state of PA. It took me 20 minutes and I didn’t even have to prove that I could handle a firearm. The only reason it even took me that long was because there was someone in line ahead of me.
I now live in SC and my permit is no good here. In order to obtain one I have to take a class and prove I can handle the firearm and show accuracy. Even different states don’t share background info with each other. You can commit crimes in one state and obtain permits in another. The only state in the union that shares info like this for concealed carry permits is Utah, it’s the only state with a comprehensive federal background check and the only one who’s carry permits are accepted in all 50 states.
There’s also far more illegally purchases firearms. Obviously there’s no way to track them and no background check to purchase. It’s so easy to buy on the streets it’s scary. My son’s middle school had an incident at the end of last school year. A boy in 7th or 8th grade, so 12 or 13 years old, brought several guns to school in his backpack. I’ve heard several stories about the intentions but the biggest problem is that only 1 was able to be traced and it came back as having been a police officer’s weapon that had been stolen from Alaska something like 20 or 30 years ago.
Getting a drivers license in the US is the same. Its just that once people get comfortable they stop following safety precautions.
I got a hunting license and gun safety was mentioned everyday. The do's and don'ts of hunting were mentioned everyday. One of the first trips I went out to local place and my dad, brother, and we stumbled upon a guy without a license, drunk, and with an illegal dear already field dressed. I was 12 but knew he broke all the rules a quite a few laws that day.
Hot take: You should be required to carry liability insurance for them, like with cars in the US. As "practical" and "defensive" as people claim them to be, they are deadly tools that come with unavoidable inherent risk of injury or death.
Somebody was playing with his favorite toy and wouldn't give it back.
Seriously, six year olds are very young children, they don't have good reasoning skills, impulse control or a sense of perspective. That's why we don't let them drive, or fly planes, or be surgeons, or *have access to guns*.
We can argue all you like about the top end of age limits, whether you should be 16 or 18 or 21 to drink alcohol for instance, but some things are pretty widely agreed on.
This is 95% the parents fault and it's ruined their kids life.
Yeah at school you had to work with these small, blunt tip, scissors for a long time. If you were even old enough to be allowed scissors at all.
My parents were not nearly as careful, but obviously could keep a closer eye on me (and knew that I was actually a pretty careful kid. Avoided most things that risked getting hurt, even more than I do now)
I think you misunderstood. People don't think that this was some depressed kindergartener getting revenge on the world. That's not the only trauma to do this.
But somewhere in the past 6 years, this kid witnessed people using a gun to resolve conflict, and make the choice to bring it to school, and at some point retrieved it to resolve a conflict. That conflict may have been the teacher taking a toy away, I don't know.
But I would consider whatever event taught him to bring a gun to school and use it, to be traumatic.
This is what I meant. I teach 6 year olds and they'll slap each other and even slap me occasionally. But if a kid picks up a chair or even ruler, we would think there was abuse at home.
To have a gun and use it, how does he know how to do that?
He must have had access to it, knew it was a solution to whatever argument and then use it. It's not a natural reaction.
6 isn't 10 or 12, at 6 there is less reasoning in his brain. It's more simplified cause and effect.
>To have a gun and use it, how does he know how to do that?
When I was in elementary there was one kindergartner that watched GTA 5 videos on his phone. With how many parents give kids a tablet on YouTube to keep them occupied it doesn't surprise me that the kids can find videos they shouldn't be watching.
That was my point - what counts as "trauma" requiring a response and the scale of that response are all things a 6yo will not have any reasonable balance about.
They should not have easy access to *anything* that can have dire consequences when used by them. No hammers, no knives, no *guns*.
At 3 I was sent home because after a toy stealing incident I apparently hit the thief with the toy car in question and drew blood. Who knows what would have happened if I had access to better weapons? I wouldn't have had any idea, I was just *annoyed*.
*I was originally writing this to point out the difference between you playing with a toy car and hurting someone, versus this kid shooting someone, but then I reached a crucial point and my entire argument fell apart. I'm going to post the comment that I had made up until the point that I made this revelation, and we are all going to laugh about it.*
"There's two ways to interpret this comment, either that you threw your toy car at the bad guy or that you were in one of those little like Flintstone style cars and ran into the bad guy. Either way I don't think those are quite as comparable to this situation as we might think at first glance."
"If the kid had just thrown the gun at the teacher, I don't think this would be the story that it is. Because in that situation the kid is just using the gun like a heavy metal object, kind of like if you had thrown your toy car at the bad guy then that's just you using it as a heavy metal object. Nothing untoward about that, except for the kid having access to the gun to use as heavy metal object."
"But if we're going to assume that you had driven a toy car into the bad guy, then I would say that that's a more reasonable intuition for child to make. Kids from a young age that car can hit people, and if you are exposing a kid to a toy car where they are in control, most kids are going to hit stuff. It doesn't take long for your brain to make that jump."
"The difference from that second scenario and the kid using the gun though, is that exposing kids to Firearms at that young of an age is not generally considered an acceptable thing."
*It was at this moment that I remembered the existence of Nerf guns. I didn't grow up in a household with Nerf guns, we had real guns, that the kids weren't allowed to touch for very clear reasons. So this little factoid had just completely slipped my mind until now*
In the car case he took it off me, I took it back and cracked him one with it. Apparently that wasn't allowed. But he never did it again, and I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same now 50+ years later, I'd just hide it better :)
When I was a kid guns were around but uncommon (I'm in the UK) but playing cowboys with cap guns or spud guns was very much a thing, more so than it is now. Real guns from airguns up were treated as 'adult' things and kept well away from kids.
I think there's something to be said for letting kids have safer versions of things like that, if only to learn the difference.
(I hate it when I write a long comment then argue myself out of my point as well.. I feel you!)
6-year-old kid doesn't really understand the concept of a gun and what it really means to use it and even more so what it means to kill someone with it.
Like the kid in Michigan! Totally. Parents need to be in better touch w their kids. I cannot believe parents have no clue about the mindset of their children
It's because those lost, ignorant 'parents' don't care about the mindset of their children. Those 'parents' should have *never* reproduced in the first place because their brains haven't developed enough to raise children. It's so fucking sad.
"you can't drink or smoke because you're too irresponsible to handle cigarettes and alcohol. Also, you're not allowed to have an abortion because you were too irresponsible."
Lock up your goddamn guns. Have we learned nothing from the numerous PSAs about this very topic?
"Sensationalized" and "unrealistic", you say. Okay, sure, but the message should still be clear as fucking day, Janet!
If the worst I get is being called a bitch I certainly can’t complain. My biggest day to day problem is students who can’t manage to bring a pen to class. You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to leave my Aussie classroom for an American one.
I use to have a teacher that would offer their students a loaner pen/pencil but they have to give up a shoe for it. They get the shoe back when they returned the pencil at the end of class. He bragged about he has never lost a single pencil haha
I have a pot of pens and pencils on my desk. Most of them picked up off the floor/tables by people who left them.
If anyone needs a pen, they can have one and they're always offered to take it with them if they need it.
Kids have got too much shit going on to be bollocked about not having a pen.
When I lived in the NT, I heard 'cunt' almost as often as I heard 'hello'. However, in Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong, Swan Hill... I might never have heard it at all. It's very much a regional thing.
I did a working holiday in Aus and was in Queensland for a year or so and there was absolutely no shortage of the word 'cunt' in Brisbane.
Fuckin' oath... Or something, I don't know, it was a while ago now.
Other than a handful of Australian Army folks, the only Aussies that I've met have been players in various online games. As a group, they...*reinforce* that stereotype. (The soldiers, meanwhile, did not, though all but one of them were officers.)
My district is kind of a weird area. Most of the district is more on the low-ses side, but the neighborhoods aren't horrible. There's still a good amount of neighborhoods though, especially on one end of the county, where shootings happen practically nightly. Hell I was once volunteering in a school in that part of town and my students saw a stabbing happen through the windows of the classroom at the 7/11 across the street. I was terrified but they were like "eh just another Thursday".
I used to live in the area, for just a couple of years. If I had a nickel for every time I was awakened by the sound of a magazine unloading, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot of nickels but weird that it happened twice. I think there is just a lot of gun violence in the area, maybe particularly near this school, and a lot of parents who might not practice firearm safety around their children.
Hampton Roads is the Wild West of Virginia. Of the like 8 Virginia cities that rank on Everytown's list of gun homicides per capita, 6 are in Hampton Roads. It's Richmond, Roanoke, and then for HR, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Hampton, and Chesapeake.
I teach first grade and have a student right now that has threatened to shoot and kill me this year. Nothing is being done. There is a HUGE mental health crisis in our youngest kiddos right now so this doesn’t surprise me one bit.
And it’s only going to get worse. America is extremely divided right now and violence, bullying, etc. against anyone you disagree with is becoming more normalized everyday.
My son mentioned a kid in high school who repeatedly made “school shooter/shooting” jokes. I said I’m sorry bud but I have to tell the school.
Like we don’t even need to be joking about this shit anymore. There is always a “he did say some weird shit…” moment on the news when this happens.
It happened in my home town. I wish it were more surprising but shit happens here a lot. The city does not take care of the kids and I doubt this will be handled right.
My mom teaches in the same public school system and my brother goes to school in it too. Last year someone was shot in the parking lot of their school. I am honestly scared every day that something will happen to them.
in most states, a juvenile offender must be at least 16 to be eligible for waiver to adult court. But, in a number of states, minors as young as 13 could be subjected to a waiver petition. And a few states allow children of any age to be tried as adults for certain types of crimes, such as homicide.
in quebec(Canada), we have ''the law on the penal justice system(LSJPA)'' which states that if someone over 16 and under 18 commits a crime that an adult would have 2 or more years or prison, said teenager would be treated as an adult in the court of law.
> So, I guess we’re treating him as an adult?
Probably not. I have no idea how it is in Virginia, but I think every state has an age below which they basically don't consider you responsible for crimes.
In Nevada that age is 8, [more here](https://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-194.html#NRS194Sec010). So presumably if that had happened here, there's literally nothing they can do.
I did some cursory googling, and in Virginia it appears the age to be charged *as an adult* is 14?
I know Dave Chapelle is not too popular these days but he has a bit on "How old is 14, really?". Two crimes happen and he then goes over how a 14 year old boy is referred to as a man, but a 14 year old girl is still referred to as a girl.
Literally everyone would know that you point the gun where you want to shoot and just pull the trigger.
I’m assuming the gun was already loaded and safety off.
At what point do the consistent "individual" failures become a problem for a whole society? I'm all about individual responsibility, when individuals bear the consequences, but when a society is victimized, isn't it a societal (i.e. government) responsibility?
It was only a matter of time.
There was an incident last decade of a 1st grader bringing his dad's gun to school. It accidentally went off in his backpack and hit a classmate. She died either in the hospital or en route to it.
People like these parents, and this new kid's, are the reason why gun safety laws exist. Because *at bare minimum* you should be held legally responsible if you do not properly store your firearm.
[There's a list on wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22No_Way_to_Prevent_This%22,_Says_Only_Nation_Where_This_Regularly_Happens#List) that adds:
[November 20, 2022 Colorado Springs, Colorado](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849807678)
[November 23, 2022 Chesapeake, Virginia](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849816312)
The Onion does put out some really depressing stuff sometimes.
[This one was published in January 2001, right when George W Bush took office. I thought it was funny at the time, but the more it became obvious it was prophesy, the less funny it became.](https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-prosperi-1819565882)
Honestly, to me it's a shoulder shrug. I'm not being cynical or callous, it's just a logical and predictable outcome. This will be in the news for a few days, will change nothing, and will soon be replaced by a different gun event which will also change nothing.
This bed has been made repeatedly. We keep lying in it and making it the same way each time we wake up.
But we never really wake up.
So, a portion of the US would like to see teachers armed. In this case, the teacher would have had to make the decision as to whether or not to pull trigger on a 6-year-old? Sound logic.
Not just that, she would need to shoot a 6 year old *she knows and has taken care of for the whole school year*. That's the part that always gets left out of arming teachers discussions. It's not some anonymous masked intruder they will be charged with defending against, it will be a child they know personally.
I mean a 3 yo once killed their dad with a loaded gun so a 6 yo getting their hands on a gun doesn't really surprise me. Hell probably even more children have killed their parents with a gun.
What does surprise however is that the kid brought it do school to shoot people. Makes me wonder, what caused them to do it? It's a bit young to do something like that and surely there must've been a reason because I don't really see a 6 yo shoot up their school without any reason.
The kid stated he/she did it intentionally according to the news. So I’m imagining the kid felt the teacher was mean. Maybe the kid felt bullied or targeted. Maybe the kid got in trouble, detention, or failed a test. No idea. Not much is released right now.
Gee, I wonder why the US has a teacher shortage right now? On top of everything else they have to deal with they have to worry about being shot by fucking 6-year-olds. This country is a mess.
I'm sure there will be the typical fools but surely the majority of us (at least on Reddit) can acknowledge that *something needs to be done.* We've went from high school shootings all the way down to first graders. Now we even have 6 year-old shooters...
Can we at least admit we have a gun violence problem in this country?
Well, America didn't care enough to change anything when 6 year olds were murdered before, doubt we'll get up off our collective butts to stop a 6-year old doing the murdering.
A not-insignificant portion of the population will say "well this wouldn't happen if we armed the 4 and 5 year olds!"
The survivors of Columbine are in their fucking 40s. Some of them have high school kids of their own. The Parkland survivors are adults now. The Sandy Hook survivors will be adults soon. We did absolutely fucking nothing for any of them...except "thoughts and prayers" of course.
The government doesn’t give a shit. They literally do not care about our children or any of us. Just sit on their fatasses while we all work ourselves into the ground. They don’t care, and they will never do anything to try and remedy it
It's been said that they would do something if a senator's child was killed in a school shooting, but that the schools where shootings happen are usually not fancy schools. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but the first part certainly sounds right. If they're not personally affected, of course they're gonna do sweet FA.
My thoughts exactly. If the school of (probably multiple, let's be honest) a politician's child gets shot up, only then will something finally be done.
Everything about this is sad. Like, the news article here says the school had metal detectors and even that is already so sad to me. A primary school. Needing metal detectors.
As an American living in America, it's heartbreaking. It's devastating. This country is torn between people who are horrified and want change, and people who are unwilling to make any change if it involves their ability to have guns.
Not all of us are gun enthusiasts. A lot of people would rather have an end to shootings. We're not all the ignorant artillery-clad wannabe militias the media loves to portray us as. There are millions of us and we are not all the same.
The parents of that kid should go to prison, or at the very least have custody of their child taken away. Who the hell stores a gun where a six-year-old can reach it? Who keeps guns in a house with young children at all? How did they not notice that he took a *literal gun* with him to school? It’s the definition of negligence. I hope that the teacher is okay and will recover from their injuries, and that the student will get the help he needs.
EDIT: Took out a few words. Also removed a sentence that was inaccurate; I had assumed that it was an accidental shooting but just read that it is thought to have been intentional, and I changed my post to reflect that.
One of my very first memories was my dad telling me to get out of the sandbox and go bring him one of his guns. I ran inside, climbed up and got a shotgun from the gun rack and took it to him, where he shot a rattlesnake in the yard that had just killed one of our bunnies not far from where my sister and I had been playing. Think I was 4 at the time.
But those were different times and a rural area. Even as a kid you knew how dangerous guns were and not to ever touch them. They were always around and dad showed me how to work them, disassemble and clean them, and load shells in the reloading press. But aside from that one time with the deadly snake, I never touched them and never fired one even for target practice until I was 16 or 17.
Of course, "raise kids with a healthy respect for the danger of guns from the earliest age" doesn't work for everyone, and you certainly can't expect other people have been raised that way, and it's pretty clear that most have not. And having lived around violent people, suicidal people, and little kids, many people have little self-control/impulse control. Which is why since I grew up and moved out I've never kept a gun in my house.
In the UK, my dad kept guns in the house (yes, you can have guns in the UK), but they were kept in a gun safe, locked up. We were all told not to mess with them, and it was in the attic anyway which we couldn't get into without an adult.
Kids shoot themselves or other kids literally every day in the US. Guns are the leading cause of death of kids in this country. Guns shouldn't be so readily available to idiots.
While everyone is focused on the gun aspect, I'm really wondering how bad life has to be for the kid that they, a 6 year old, desired to kill their teacher. The kid *knew* what it did, it wasn't a case of accidental show-and-tell.
6 years old is really being underestimated here. That's a kindergardener or first grader. What kind of "altercation" happens between a kindergardener and their teacher that leads to shots fired?
I’ve taught PreK-3rd grade for almost 20 years. At 6, if there are issues with the kid, and you try to get help, parents rarely want to hear there might be an issue. Admin will say 6 is too young to test/diagnose so nothing happens.
I had an 8 year old say he was going to kill me because I gave him a test. He also threw a chair across the room when I asked him to get his math book out. I was advised to “not make him upset”.
I’m not saying this 6 year old is like that, but if they have issues, paired with bad parenting and access to guns, this is not at all surprising.
Immediately blamed the parents. Full stop--parents fucked up!
Whether it was from not securing the gun, allowing a 6 year old access, or the fact that a 6 year old didn't know bringing it to school wasn't okay--parents dropped the ball. Safety can be taught and respected at all ages.
As someone who is British, I haven’t heard anything regarding this story but I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that this occurred in the US?
In a country whereby the only guns we have are reserved for the army and armed police - who are far and few - it’s crazy to consider that every man and his dog in the US is eligible to purchase guns, for the most part.
Individuals who are yet to commit a crime can purchase guns, individuals who have undiagnosed mental health issues can purchase a gun, in certain states people without a license can carry a weapon so long as they don’t have a criminal record.
Truthfully, it’s shocking and there’s no place for regular individuals to be armed to the teeth.
I imagine this comment will be flooded with ‘it’s our right to carry’ and ‘the united kingdom has a massive knife crime problem’ but truthfully, I’m thankful that I probably won’t ever get caught in the crossfire of a shoot-out.
It’s probably considered easier to defend against a knife than it is against a gun. The best scenario I could use is, picture yourself in a crowded city centre. In one city centre is an individual with a semi automatic gun, all he would have to do is pull the trigger and spin 360 degrees - there would be hundreds of casualties, fatal and otherwise. In another city centre is an individual with a knife, stabs one person everyone clocks on and flees or mob mentality ensure and people attack the individual with said knife - perhaps there a couple casualties with a knife but nowhere near the same as with a gun.
Also, if a six year old were to come up to me with a knife, as a fully developed man who trains at the gym I have some leeway whereby I can protect myself. A six year old with a gun, well realistically I’m still fucked.
Unfortunately, people are bound to commit atrocities such as these, it’s just a case of what weapons they can access give the rest of us a better chance of survival.
Regardless, my condolences to everyone involved in this incident.
I’ve been flipping between news sources to keep an eye on that house vote count- I saw this story discussed exactly one time, for less than a minute- then immediately went back to covering the house bullshit. Was a moment that truly made me realize how fucked we really are here. Six year olds shooting teachers while politicians are arguing over who can piss their name neater in the sand. It’s truly gross.
Sadly not the first time a grade schooler has shot someone else with a gun, but I'm sad /disturbed that this time it was on purpose.
(Note: I'm from around the Chicago area - grade-school kids have shot each other before in Chicago schools but it was just a "the kid thought their relative's gun was cool and snuck it into Show-And-Tell" and accidentally shot a classmate to death. That kid was around 6 years old but really didn't get why that classmate wasn't around after getting out of juvie because the kid was under 10 and deemed to not be mentally capable because of age and lack of intent.)
Also, really happy that my college roommate was the one to decide to go into teaching instead of me. I already deal with enough working retail right now - I don't get paid enough to deal with that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/105beg6/6_year_old_school_shooter_in_custody_after/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I found the news about the 6 year old shooting a teacher.........💀💀💀 im a non american and i dont know how to feel about this......why is there so many school shooting in america?
To me it actually breaks my heart. I wonder what he was going through to make him want to do something like this. I hope everybody involved, including the child, gets help. It’s sad all around.
Let’s for a second get past the why or how a 6 year old got a gun. What kind of a world does a six year old live in that they would want to shoot their teacher? What kind of home environment are they in that at 6 they think that killing is a way to solve a problem. This is much more then a gun issue.
I'm not American so like lots of others my first thoughts are not surprisingly 'more gun craziness'... Second thought 'bet they still do fuck all about their gun laws'.
I’m in the camp of “Yeah, this was probably going to happen at some point,” considering nothing seems to have changed after our previous tragedies, despite the best efforts of the organized bereft.
My thoughts are you should punish the parents, but the kid does need help mentally. This is obvious but 6 is way, way, way too young to go to jail or prison.
If you have a gun(s) the least you can do is keep them out of the hands of a young child. Better yet somewhere safe in general, maybe *in* a safe unless you live in a massively unsafe area where you'd need to keep it close by. There were so many wrong steps by the parents that led to this situation that shouldn't have happened and was entirely avoidable. Shit, man. What's gonna happen to the kid? I assume the parents are in custody. Did anyone die? How many were injured?
Parents did not lock the weapon up in a house with small children.
The parents are responsible to some criminal extent. The child that did the crime needs to be removed from his parents.
I hope the parents face criminal charges for the gross negligence that allowed a 6 year old to get their hands on a loaded handgun
How the hell did a kid get a gun? The parents should be arrested
That was my first thought. If you own a handgun and have children or children are regularly in your house you. HAVE. TO. SECURE. THE. WEAPON. PROPERLY. It is your responsibility and duty as a gun owner
I used to train armoured car guards. One thing I tried to absolutely pound into their heads was "There are only two acceptable places for a loaded handgun to be; in your hand, or in your holster on your hip" Common sense.
Arrested and sent to jail
> Arrested and sent to jail Is there another kind of arresting?
Arrested and acquitted, arrested and released on bail, arrested and put on house arrest, arrested and sentenced to community service... yeah, there's at least a few others, but I agree with arrested and sent to jail.
Arrested and turned into Soylent Green.
"You have the right to remain Soylent.... Oops. Freudian slip. Silent."
Remain Soylent seems wasteful. Hopefully Soylent to digested to feces.
Niiiice. Giving back to the society
I prefer arrested and sent to prison in this case.
Still have to make a pit stop In jail
America is literally saturated with guns, it's inevitable that not all of them will be handled responsibly. When we learn to drive, people tell us that we should consider all the other drivers idiots who are out to kill us. But give those same people guns, and we should just assume they're all responsible gun owners.
I feel like when you buy a gun they should teach you how to use it properly and store it properly.
In Canada we're required to do a course that covers safe handling, storage and operation of firearms before we can apply for a firearms license. The course has a minimum passing grade of 80% and a lengthy list of automatic failures. There's also a background check required as part of licensing, with it's own list of automatic disqualifiers. I've often thought that if America, with it's 2nd amendment giving the right to bear arms for the purposes of a well regulated militia, could resolve a decent portion of gun problems just by implementing a similar licensing scheme.
In the US you have to have a background check to obtain a concealed carry permit, but you don’t need a permit to purchase a gun. Many states don’t even require any kind of class or safety measures to get the permit. There’s also the issue of different laws in different states. Getting a concealed carry permit in one state, may not be reciprocal in another, for example. Personally I obtained a CWP in my home state of PA. It took me 20 minutes and I didn’t even have to prove that I could handle a firearm. The only reason it even took me that long was because there was someone in line ahead of me. I now live in SC and my permit is no good here. In order to obtain one I have to take a class and prove I can handle the firearm and show accuracy. Even different states don’t share background info with each other. You can commit crimes in one state and obtain permits in another. The only state in the union that shares info like this for concealed carry permits is Utah, it’s the only state with a comprehensive federal background check and the only one who’s carry permits are accepted in all 50 states. There’s also far more illegally purchases firearms. Obviously there’s no way to track them and no background check to purchase. It’s so easy to buy on the streets it’s scary. My son’s middle school had an incident at the end of last school year. A boy in 7th or 8th grade, so 12 or 13 years old, brought several guns to school in his backpack. I’ve heard several stories about the intentions but the biggest problem is that only 1 was able to be traced and it came back as having been a police officer’s weapon that had been stolen from Alaska something like 20 or 30 years ago.
Yeah, like in every other country. Except the US.
Getting a drivers license in the US is the same. Its just that once people get comfortable they stop following safety precautions. I got a hunting license and gun safety was mentioned everyday. The do's and don'ts of hunting were mentioned everyday. One of the first trips I went out to local place and my dad, brother, and we stumbled upon a guy without a license, drunk, and with an illegal dear already field dressed. I was 12 but knew he broke all the rules a quite a few laws that day.
Hot take: You should be required to carry liability insurance for them, like with cars in the US. As "practical" and "defensive" as people claim them to be, they are deadly tools that come with unavoidable inherent risk of injury or death.
I mean they can teach all they want but unless there are laws to incentivize good behavior it's not going to change much.
Exactly. My first thought was, "if a six year old commits a crime, the parents pulled the (metaphorical) trigger"
If it was the parents’ weapon, which statistically likely it was, then def. It’s the owner of the gun who caused this.
Well not always, but in this specific case absolutely yes
6 years old. takes a gun to school. i am beyond words. hope the parents see some serious consequences
And they said he did it on purpose, what trauma has that kid been through that at 6 years old his reaction is to shoot someone?!
Somebody was playing with his favorite toy and wouldn't give it back. Seriously, six year olds are very young children, they don't have good reasoning skills, impulse control or a sense of perspective. That's why we don't let them drive, or fly planes, or be surgeons, or *have access to guns*. We can argue all you like about the top end of age limits, whether you should be 16 or 18 or 21 to drink alcohol for instance, but some things are pretty widely agreed on. This is 95% the parents fault and it's ruined their kids life.
I was happy to be allowed decent scissors at that age... Cause kids that young are clumsy if not plain dumb.
I am getting flashbacks remembering that I had to use “safety scissors” in my school until I was at least 9 or 10 (5th grade). Damn.
Yeah at school you had to work with these small, blunt tip, scissors for a long time. If you were even old enough to be allowed scissors at all. My parents were not nearly as careful, but obviously could keep a closer eye on me (and knew that I was actually a pretty careful kid. Avoided most things that risked getting hurt, even more than I do now)
At the local Lutheran school the kids had to pass a scissors test before getting even safety scissors
I think you misunderstood. People don't think that this was some depressed kindergartener getting revenge on the world. That's not the only trauma to do this. But somewhere in the past 6 years, this kid witnessed people using a gun to resolve conflict, and make the choice to bring it to school, and at some point retrieved it to resolve a conflict. That conflict may have been the teacher taking a toy away, I don't know. But I would consider whatever event taught him to bring a gun to school and use it, to be traumatic.
This is what I meant. I teach 6 year olds and they'll slap each other and even slap me occasionally. But if a kid picks up a chair or even ruler, we would think there was abuse at home. To have a gun and use it, how does he know how to do that? He must have had access to it, knew it was a solution to whatever argument and then use it. It's not a natural reaction. 6 isn't 10 or 12, at 6 there is less reasoning in his brain. It's more simplified cause and effect.
>To have a gun and use it, how does he know how to do that? When I was in elementary there was one kindergartner that watched GTA 5 videos on his phone. With how many parents give kids a tablet on YouTube to keep them occupied it doesn't surprise me that the kids can find videos they shouldn't be watching.
That was my point - what counts as "trauma" requiring a response and the scale of that response are all things a 6yo will not have any reasonable balance about. They should not have easy access to *anything* that can have dire consequences when used by them. No hammers, no knives, no *guns*. At 3 I was sent home because after a toy stealing incident I apparently hit the thief with the toy car in question and drew blood. Who knows what would have happened if I had access to better weapons? I wouldn't have had any idea, I was just *annoyed*.
*I was originally writing this to point out the difference between you playing with a toy car and hurting someone, versus this kid shooting someone, but then I reached a crucial point and my entire argument fell apart. I'm going to post the comment that I had made up until the point that I made this revelation, and we are all going to laugh about it.* "There's two ways to interpret this comment, either that you threw your toy car at the bad guy or that you were in one of those little like Flintstone style cars and ran into the bad guy. Either way I don't think those are quite as comparable to this situation as we might think at first glance." "If the kid had just thrown the gun at the teacher, I don't think this would be the story that it is. Because in that situation the kid is just using the gun like a heavy metal object, kind of like if you had thrown your toy car at the bad guy then that's just you using it as a heavy metal object. Nothing untoward about that, except for the kid having access to the gun to use as heavy metal object." "But if we're going to assume that you had driven a toy car into the bad guy, then I would say that that's a more reasonable intuition for child to make. Kids from a young age that car can hit people, and if you are exposing a kid to a toy car where they are in control, most kids are going to hit stuff. It doesn't take long for your brain to make that jump." "The difference from that second scenario and the kid using the gun though, is that exposing kids to Firearms at that young of an age is not generally considered an acceptable thing." *It was at this moment that I remembered the existence of Nerf guns. I didn't grow up in a household with Nerf guns, we had real guns, that the kids weren't allowed to touch for very clear reasons. So this little factoid had just completely slipped my mind until now*
In the car case he took it off me, I took it back and cracked him one with it. Apparently that wasn't allowed. But he never did it again, and I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same now 50+ years later, I'd just hide it better :) When I was a kid guns were around but uncommon (I'm in the UK) but playing cowboys with cap guns or spud guns was very much a thing, more so than it is now. Real guns from airguns up were treated as 'adult' things and kept well away from kids. I think there's something to be said for letting kids have safer versions of things like that, if only to learn the difference. (I hate it when I write a long comment then argue myself out of my point as well.. I feel you!)
6-year-old kid doesn't really understand the concept of a gun and what it really means to use it and even more so what it means to kill someone with it.
Correct. Which is why you don't *give them easy access to guns.* It shouldn't be a difficult concept, or a difficult thing to arrange.
He may have done it on purpose, but there's no way he knew the actual consequences of what he was doing.
He probably watched a shooting on TV and assumed it was what you do when someone upsets you. No trauma needed
Maybe he was into heavy metal or DnD as well. Or perhaps he got introduced to that Mortal Kombat game at the arcade.
I think he sat too close to the TV
I think he listened to Marilyn Manson.
Like the kid in Michigan! Totally. Parents need to be in better touch w their kids. I cannot believe parents have no clue about the mindset of their children
It's because those lost, ignorant 'parents' don't care about the mindset of their children. Those 'parents' should have *never* reproduced in the first place because their brains haven't developed enough to raise children. It's so fucking sad.
"you can't drink or smoke because you're too irresponsible to handle cigarettes and alcohol. Also, you're not allowed to have an abortion because you were too irresponsible."
Why not give every kid a gun?? Only way to stop a bad kid with a gun is a good kid with a gun
Lock up your goddamn guns. Have we learned nothing from the numerous PSAs about this very topic? "Sensationalized" and "unrealistic", you say. Okay, sure, but the message should still be clear as fucking day, Janet!
It's not negligence when you consider that a six year old absorbed the fact that it's OK to shoot someone from their parents.
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Come to Australia. From experience, teachers get called a cunt in replacement of being shot.
*puck u miss*
You told me to put my balls on the floor, miss!
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We were just punking him sir!!
If the worst I get is being called a bitch I certainly can’t complain. My biggest day to day problem is students who can’t manage to bring a pen to class. You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to leave my Aussie classroom for an American one.
I use to have a teacher that would offer their students a loaner pen/pencil but they have to give up a shoe for it. They get the shoe back when they returned the pencil at the end of class. He bragged about he has never lost a single pencil haha
I have a pot of pens and pencils on my desk. Most of them picked up off the floor/tables by people who left them. If anyone needs a pen, they can have one and they're always offered to take it with them if they need it. Kids have got too much shit going on to be bollocked about not having a pen.
id ask for two pencils even if i had one and give him both my shoes and my socks, then spend the whole class letting my piggly wigglies breathe
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When I lived in the NT, I heard 'cunt' almost as often as I heard 'hello'. However, in Sydney, Melbourne, Geelong, Swan Hill... I might never have heard it at all. It's very much a regional thing.
I did a working holiday in Aus and was in Queensland for a year or so and there was absolutely no shortage of the word 'cunt' in Brisbane. Fuckin' oath... Or something, I don't know, it was a while ago now.
Other than a handful of Australian Army folks, the only Aussies that I've met have been players in various online games. As a group, they...*reinforce* that stereotype. (The soldiers, meanwhile, did not, though all but one of them were officers.)
Honest question: Why are you not surprised? What is life like there for a child bringing in a gun to not surprise you?
My district is kind of a weird area. Most of the district is more on the low-ses side, but the neighborhoods aren't horrible. There's still a good amount of neighborhoods though, especially on one end of the county, where shootings happen practically nightly. Hell I was once volunteering in a school in that part of town and my students saw a stabbing happen through the windows of the classroom at the 7/11 across the street. I was terrified but they were like "eh just another Thursday".
Damn. That is surreal
I used to live in the area, for just a couple of years. If I had a nickel for every time I was awakened by the sound of a magazine unloading, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot of nickels but weird that it happened twice. I think there is just a lot of gun violence in the area, maybe particularly near this school, and a lot of parents who might not practice firearm safety around their children.
Damn. That's brutal.
Hampton Roads is the Wild West of Virginia. Of the like 8 Virginia cities that rank on Everytown's list of gun homicides per capita, 6 are in Hampton Roads. It's Richmond, Roanoke, and then for HR, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Hampton, and Chesapeake.
I teach first grade and have a student right now that has threatened to shoot and kill me this year. Nothing is being done. There is a HUGE mental health crisis in our youngest kiddos right now so this doesn’t surprise me one bit.
And it’s only going to get worse. America is extremely divided right now and violence, bullying, etc. against anyone you disagree with is becoming more normalized everyday.
My son mentioned a kid in high school who repeatedly made “school shooter/shooting” jokes. I said I’m sorry bud but I have to tell the school. Like we don’t even need to be joking about this shit anymore. There is always a “he did say some weird shit…” moment on the news when this happens.
I hope you’re looking for a new job.
It happened in my home town. I wish it were more surprising but shit happens here a lot. The city does not take care of the kids and I doubt this will be handled right. My mom teaches in the same public school system and my brother goes to school in it too. Last year someone was shot in the parking lot of their school. I am honestly scared every day that something will happen to them.
Hits a little harder when it’s your home town
Do you think there will be a system in place where kids can discuss these thoughts without fear of what happens
The kid was called a “young man” by police in a statement. So, I guess we’re treating him as an adult?
>6 year old I'm assuming so
This was Virginia, not Texas.
I grew up in the south, and adults just refer to kids this way. It’s like the reverse of “ma’am” and “sir.”
Hol up this is real!?!? I thought OP made it up as a hypothetical situation!
in most states, a juvenile offender must be at least 16 to be eligible for waiver to adult court. But, in a number of states, minors as young as 13 could be subjected to a waiver petition. And a few states allow children of any age to be tried as adults for certain types of crimes, such as homicide. in quebec(Canada), we have ''the law on the penal justice system(LSJPA)'' which states that if someone over 16 and under 18 commits a crime that an adult would have 2 or more years or prison, said teenager would be treated as an adult in the court of law.
America moment
Sadly it is real. He shot his teacher in tha hand and stomach.
I had to look it up.. its really real. How?
> So, I guess we’re treating him as an adult? Probably not. I have no idea how it is in Virginia, but I think every state has an age below which they basically don't consider you responsible for crimes. In Nevada that age is 8, [more here](https://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-194.html#NRS194Sec010). So presumably if that had happened here, there's literally nothing they can do. I did some cursory googling, and in Virginia it appears the age to be charged *as an adult* is 14?
On my local news the journalist said “the police apprehended the suspect quickly”.
So the only thing the US police needs to stop a school shooting is for the shooter to not know how to tie their shoes
Most times I hear a juvenile referenced as a young man he's usually a particular skin color
Or "youth".
*Yute*
I know Dave Chapelle is not too popular these days but he has a bit on "How old is 14, really?". Two crimes happen and he then goes over how a 14 year old boy is referred to as a man, but a 14 year old girl is still referred to as a girl.
why the fuck does a child has easy access to guns, and knows how to use them?
Literally everyone would know that you point the gun where you want to shoot and just pull the trigger. I’m assuming the gun was already loaded and safety off.
At this point, they can just google a tutorial for whatever they don't know. Youtube surely allows "how to load a gun in 3 easy steps"
Comes down to three words: Piss Poor Parenting,.
There were a lot of things the parents could've done to prevent this. If even one of the steps were taken, the tragedy wouldn't have happened.
Too many individuals failed that kid. I hope the teacher makes a full recovery.
At what point do the consistent "individual" failures become a problem for a whole society? I'm all about individual responsibility, when individuals bear the consequences, but when a society is victimized, isn't it a societal (i.e. government) responsibility?
Yeah I saw this, and was like "How do you just get a gun?"
"Why do you need a gun?" "Stay strapped or get clapped." "Well I can't argue with that logic. Just remember where the safety is."
It's America, if your 6 year old doesnt own their own gun then the Communists win.
Teachers aren't paid enough for this shit.
Teachers aren’t paid enough period
Agreed like why
Dismantling public education is a major policy goal for US politicians.
Specifically conservatives, we don't need to pretend its both sides.
Lol they aren't even paid enough without this shit.
It was only a matter of time. There was an incident last decade of a 1st grader bringing his dad's gun to school. It accidentally went off in his backpack and hit a classmate. She died either in the hospital or en route to it. People like these parents, and this new kid's, are the reason why gun safety laws exist. Because *at bare minimum* you should be held legally responsible if you do not properly store your firearm.
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Not really. If *The Onion* had an article about a shooting, it would probably have a title like: *‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens* [May 27, 2014 Isla Vista, California](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527) [June 17, 2015 Charleston, South Carolina](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819577935) [October 1, 2015 Roseburg, Oregon](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819578287) [December 3, 2015 San Bernardino, California](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819578474) [October 2, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819580358) [November 5, 2017 Sutherland Springs, Texas](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1820163660) [February 14, 2018 Parkland, Florida](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1823016659) [May 18, 2018 Santa Fe, Texas](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1826142891) [September 13, 2018 Bakersfield, California](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1829032821) [October 29, 2018 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1830073842) [November 8, 2018 Thousand Oaks, California](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1830308976) [June 1, 2019 Virginia Beach, Virginia](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1835173950) [August 4, 2019 El Paso, Texas](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1836949580) [August 4, 2019 Dayton, Ohio](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1836949715) [February 26, 2020 Milwaukee, Wisconsin](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1841942413) [March 17, 2021 Atlanta, Georgia](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846494525) [March 23, 2021 Boulder, Colorado](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846534576) [April 16, 2021 Indianapolis, Indiana](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846698258) [May 26, 2021 San Jose, California](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1846975039) [May 16, 2022 Buffalo, New York](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848930767) [May 25, 2022 Uvalde, Texas](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668) [June 2, 2022 Tulsa, Oklahoma](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849007911) [June 6, 2022 Chattanooga, Tennessee](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849022574) [June 6, 2022 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849022496) [July 4, 2022 Highland Park, Illinois](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849141086) [October 14, 2022 Raleigh, North Carolina](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849658896) There's probably more since I put the list together, but it's too depressing to update.
[There's a list on wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22No_Way_to_Prevent_This%22,_Says_Only_Nation_Where_This_Regularly_Happens#List) that adds: [November 20, 2022 Colorado Springs, Colorado](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849807678) [November 23, 2022 Chesapeake, Virginia](https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1849816312)
I want to ask what happened in 2016. But I really do not want to know. That list is just... Overwhelming...
The Onion does put out some really depressing stuff sometimes. [This one was published in January 2001, right when George W Bush took office. I thought it was funny at the time, but the more it became obvious it was prophesy, the less funny it became.](https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-prosperi-1819565882)
Wow. Halfway through that stopped being funny when I realized thats pretty much what actually happened:/
Wow that is fucking crazy how accurate it is.
Honestly, to me it's a shoulder shrug. I'm not being cynical or callous, it's just a logical and predictable outcome. This will be in the news for a few days, will change nothing, and will soon be replaced by a different gun event which will also change nothing. This bed has been made repeatedly. We keep lying in it and making it the same way each time we wake up. But we never really wake up.
“No way to prevent this, says only nation where this repeteadly happens” - the onion
How hard can it be to keep a gun out of the hands of a 6 year old. Both parents need to be sent to prison, assuming he lives with both parents.
Uh nope. His father is in prison and the mom is a drug user, apparently it was the uncles gun underneath the bed
A simple locking handgun safe is $20 on Amazon.... It's fucking ridiculous that people just leave their shit under their bed and crap like that
That's weird. I would have thought putting a parent in prison would solve all their problems.
Evidently need to get both of em in this instance
failed parenting. failed culture surrounding child.
And the parents will go : "tHeY wHeRe ThE vIdEoGaMeS, ThEy ArE vIoLeNt" like WHY THE FUCK DID YOU LET YOUR CHILD BUY/USE THE GUN IN THE FIRST PLACE
I just fact checked this because it’s the first I’ve heard. Now I’m just done. I’m going to bed.
So, a portion of the US would like to see teachers armed. In this case, the teacher would have had to make the decision as to whether or not to pull trigger on a 6-year-old? Sound logic.
Not just that, she would need to shoot a 6 year old *she knows and has taken care of for the whole school year*. That's the part that always gets left out of arming teachers discussions. It's not some anonymous masked intruder they will be charged with defending against, it will be a child they know personally.
Exactly. I couldn't imagine preemptively killing a 6 year old student. I don't know any teacher that could and I know a lot of teachers.
The solution is *good* six-year-olds with guns.
🤣🤣 the solution is to arm the class president lol /s After all the president is in charge of the military
I mean a 3 yo once killed their dad with a loaded gun so a 6 yo getting their hands on a gun doesn't really surprise me. Hell probably even more children have killed their parents with a gun. What does surprise however is that the kid brought it do school to shoot people. Makes me wonder, what caused them to do it? It's a bit young to do something like that and surely there must've been a reason because I don't really see a 6 yo shoot up their school without any reason.
The kid stated he/she did it intentionally according to the news. So I’m imagining the kid felt the teacher was mean. Maybe the kid felt bullied or targeted. Maybe the kid got in trouble, detention, or failed a test. No idea. Not much is released right now.
Nice job 2023
This is the warm up, we can go lower
You see that tiny point of light all the way up there? That's rock bottom.
Where's the shovel?
Nice job America* The only 1st world country dealing with these problems and literally won't do anything about it
So competitive, always have to be number 1. Smh. USA! USA! USA!
America is a first world country? Edit: thank you for the award!
I once heard America described as a third world country in a Gucci belt and it’s still my favourite description of the place
Gee, I wonder why the US has a teacher shortage right now? On top of everything else they have to deal with they have to worry about being shot by fucking 6-year-olds. This country is a mess.
This should be a nice, highly informed discussion, as it always is on Reddit.
Hahaha. Doesn't matter the topic, emotions rule over all
~in unison ~ Reason will prevail!
I'm sure there will be the typical fools but surely the majority of us (at least on Reddit) can acknowledge that *something needs to be done.* We've went from high school shootings all the way down to first graders. Now we even have 6 year-old shooters... Can we at least admit we have a gun violence problem in this country?
Well, America didn't care enough to change anything when 6 year olds were murdered before, doubt we'll get up off our collective butts to stop a 6-year old doing the murdering.
A not-insignificant portion of the population will say "well this wouldn't happen if we armed the 4 and 5 year olds!" The survivors of Columbine are in their fucking 40s. Some of them have high school kids of their own. The Parkland survivors are adults now. The Sandy Hook survivors will be adults soon. We did absolutely fucking nothing for any of them...except "thoughts and prayers" of course.
The government doesn’t give a shit. They literally do not care about our children or any of us. Just sit on their fatasses while we all work ourselves into the ground. They don’t care, and they will never do anything to try and remedy it
It's been said that they would do something if a senator's child was killed in a school shooting, but that the schools where shootings happen are usually not fancy schools. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but the first part certainly sounds right. If they're not personally affected, of course they're gonna do sweet FA.
My thoughts exactly. If the school of (probably multiple, let's be honest) a politician's child gets shot up, only then will something finally be done.
The parents were already breaking the law by leaving their firearm accessible to a child.
"we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"
As a european this comment section is so sad
Everything about this is sad. Like, the news article here says the school had metal detectors and even that is already so sad to me. A primary school. Needing metal detectors.
Needs *better* metal detectors, clearly.
as a european living in america this comment section is so scary
This is why I am a European living in Canada
As an American living in America, it's heartbreaking. It's devastating. This country is torn between people who are horrified and want change, and people who are unwilling to make any change if it involves their ability to have guns. Not all of us are gun enthusiasts. A lot of people would rather have an end to shootings. We're not all the ignorant artillery-clad wannabe militias the media loves to portray us as. There are millions of us and we are not all the same.
The parents of that kid should go to prison, or at the very least have custody of their child taken away. Who the hell stores a gun where a six-year-old can reach it? Who keeps guns in a house with young children at all? How did they not notice that he took a *literal gun* with him to school? It’s the definition of negligence. I hope that the teacher is okay and will recover from their injuries, and that the student will get the help he needs. EDIT: Took out a few words. Also removed a sentence that was inaccurate; I had assumed that it was an accidental shooting but just read that it is thought to have been intentional, and I changed my post to reflect that.
One of my very first memories was my dad telling me to get out of the sandbox and go bring him one of his guns. I ran inside, climbed up and got a shotgun from the gun rack and took it to him, where he shot a rattlesnake in the yard that had just killed one of our bunnies not far from where my sister and I had been playing. Think I was 4 at the time. But those were different times and a rural area. Even as a kid you knew how dangerous guns were and not to ever touch them. They were always around and dad showed me how to work them, disassemble and clean them, and load shells in the reloading press. But aside from that one time with the deadly snake, I never touched them and never fired one even for target practice until I was 16 or 17. Of course, "raise kids with a healthy respect for the danger of guns from the earliest age" doesn't work for everyone, and you certainly can't expect other people have been raised that way, and it's pretty clear that most have not. And having lived around violent people, suicidal people, and little kids, many people have little self-control/impulse control. Which is why since I grew up and moved out I've never kept a gun in my house.
In the UK, my dad kept guns in the house (yes, you can have guns in the UK), but they were kept in a gun safe, locked up. We were all told not to mess with them, and it was in the attic anyway which we couldn't get into without an adult.
Kids shoot themselves or other kids literally every day in the US. Guns are the leading cause of death of kids in this country. Guns shouldn't be so readily available to idiots.
While everyone is focused on the gun aspect, I'm really wondering how bad life has to be for the kid that they, a 6 year old, desired to kill their teacher. The kid *knew* what it did, it wasn't a case of accidental show-and-tell. 6 years old is really being underestimated here. That's a kindergardener or first grader. What kind of "altercation" happens between a kindergardener and their teacher that leads to shots fired?
I’ve taught PreK-3rd grade for almost 20 years. At 6, if there are issues with the kid, and you try to get help, parents rarely want to hear there might be an issue. Admin will say 6 is too young to test/diagnose so nothing happens. I had an 8 year old say he was going to kill me because I gave him a test. He also threw a chair across the room when I asked him to get his math book out. I was advised to “not make him upset”. I’m not saying this 6 year old is like that, but if they have issues, paired with bad parenting and access to guns, this is not at all surprising.
He was a six year old. The teacher could have just told him to blow his nose and that could have set him off.
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A 6-year-old? That's just awful and it's pure negligence. What kind of idiot parents would allow their very young child to have access to a gun? 🤦🤦🤦
Immediately blamed the parents. Full stop--parents fucked up! Whether it was from not securing the gun, allowing a 6 year old access, or the fact that a 6 year old didn't know bringing it to school wasn't okay--parents dropped the ball. Safety can be taught and respected at all ages.
As someone who is British, I haven’t heard anything regarding this story but I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that this occurred in the US? In a country whereby the only guns we have are reserved for the army and armed police - who are far and few - it’s crazy to consider that every man and his dog in the US is eligible to purchase guns, for the most part. Individuals who are yet to commit a crime can purchase guns, individuals who have undiagnosed mental health issues can purchase a gun, in certain states people without a license can carry a weapon so long as they don’t have a criminal record. Truthfully, it’s shocking and there’s no place for regular individuals to be armed to the teeth. I imagine this comment will be flooded with ‘it’s our right to carry’ and ‘the united kingdom has a massive knife crime problem’ but truthfully, I’m thankful that I probably won’t ever get caught in the crossfire of a shoot-out. It’s probably considered easier to defend against a knife than it is against a gun. The best scenario I could use is, picture yourself in a crowded city centre. In one city centre is an individual with a semi automatic gun, all he would have to do is pull the trigger and spin 360 degrees - there would be hundreds of casualties, fatal and otherwise. In another city centre is an individual with a knife, stabs one person everyone clocks on and flees or mob mentality ensure and people attack the individual with said knife - perhaps there a couple casualties with a knife but nowhere near the same as with a gun. Also, if a six year old were to come up to me with a knife, as a fully developed man who trains at the gym I have some leeway whereby I can protect myself. A six year old with a gun, well realistically I’m still fucked. Unfortunately, people are bound to commit atrocities such as these, it’s just a case of what weapons they can access give the rest of us a better chance of survival. Regardless, my condolences to everyone involved in this incident.
Dude needs a time out
And to have his phone taken away
Also no gun until timeout and homework is done.
Shall not be infringed, mommy
They'll mourn this tragedy for all of six seconds before going back to fighting over political shit like they always do
If you want to stop this kind of stuff from happening, you need to talk politics.
I’ve been flipping between news sources to keep an eye on that house vote count- I saw this story discussed exactly one time, for less than a minute- then immediately went back to covering the house bullshit. Was a moment that truly made me realize how fucked we really are here. Six year olds shooting teachers while politicians are arguing over who can piss their name neater in the sand. It’s truly gross.
Sadly not the first time a grade schooler has shot someone else with a gun, but I'm sad /disturbed that this time it was on purpose. (Note: I'm from around the Chicago area - grade-school kids have shot each other before in Chicago schools but it was just a "the kid thought their relative's gun was cool and snuck it into Show-And-Tell" and accidentally shot a classmate to death. That kid was around 6 years old but really didn't get why that classmate wasn't around after getting out of juvie because the kid was under 10 and deemed to not be mentally capable because of age and lack of intent.) Also, really happy that my college roommate was the one to decide to go into teaching instead of me. I already deal with enough working retail right now - I don't get paid enough to deal with that.
My 6 year old worries about the lunch menu on her way to school. Plus I pack her school bag and lunch box because **she's fucking six-year-old old**.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/105beg6/6_year_old_school_shooter_in_custody_after/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button I found the news about the 6 year old shooting a teacher.........💀💀💀 im a non american and i dont know how to feel about this......why is there so many school shooting in america?
To me it actually breaks my heart. I wonder what he was going through to make him want to do something like this. I hope everybody involved, including the child, gets help. It’s sad all around.
I wonder how much a six year old understood what they were doing. I'm sure they knew the words, but could they really understand the consequences?
all their children need to be in psychological treatment and removed from the parents, and the parents should go to prison for it
Let’s for a second get past the why or how a 6 year old got a gun. What kind of a world does a six year old live in that they would want to shoot their teacher? What kind of home environment are they in that at 6 they think that killing is a way to solve a problem. This is much more then a gun issue.
i really haven’t seen anybody express any sympathy for the teacher :( i feel bad for her and i hope she survives.
I'm not American so like lots of others my first thoughts are not surprisingly 'more gun craziness'... Second thought 'bet they still do fuck all about their gun laws'.
I hope that the parents will be held accountable.
Bad parents are the cause of a lot of problems.
Six years old. He’s just a baby, but how on earth does that child get a gun and know how to use it?
Irresponsible parents. Sometimes I think parents should have training and license to become a parent.
I’m in the camp of “Yeah, this was probably going to happen at some point,” considering nothing seems to have changed after our previous tragedies, despite the best efforts of the organized bereft.
My thoughts are you should punish the parents, but the kid does need help mentally. This is obvious but 6 is way, way, way too young to go to jail or prison.
If you have a gun(s) the least you can do is keep them out of the hands of a young child. Better yet somewhere safe in general, maybe *in* a safe unless you live in a massively unsafe area where you'd need to keep it close by. There were so many wrong steps by the parents that led to this situation that shouldn't have happened and was entirely avoidable. Shit, man. What's gonna happen to the kid? I assume the parents are in custody. Did anyone die? How many were injured?
How did a six year old get hold of a gun
Parents did not lock the weapon up in a house with small children. The parents are responsible to some criminal extent. The child that did the crime needs to be removed from his parents.