Thread: How Texas is a model for Trump's gun-toting teachers

Parkland school shooting: Town known as a safe place to live

John McCarthy and Rick Neale, Florida Today Published 12:34 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2018 | Updated 7:26 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2018

President Donald Trump says Wednesday's mass shooting turned a Florida school into a "scene of terrible violence, hatred and evil." (Feb. 15) AP

PARKLAND — A study released just last week by a national real estate web site said Parkland was the 15th safest city in America, based on FBI crime statistics.

The city of some 28,000 people sits in northwestern Broward County, about 30 miles from Fort Lauderdale, bordered by West Boca Raton to the north and the Everglades to the west.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of Wednesday's horrific shooting, was named for the legendary Florida environmentalist whose 1947 book "The Everglades: River of Grass," changed the popular conception of what had been thought to be a worthless swamp.

With a median household income of $128,292, Parkland is far more affluent than most places in the country, where the median income is just over $55,000. Just 2.8 percent of families live in poverty according to the Census Bureau.

The city is primarily a bedroom community, with many people working elsewhere in South Florida, but returning in the evening to homes with a median value of $600,000 according to the real estate web site Zillow.

Landscaped subdivisions with monument signs, tree-lined medians and suburban shopping centers surround Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Flags flew at half-mast outside Parkland City Hall. Inside the lobby hangs a framed autographed jersey of Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo, a three-time All-Star who graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“Parkland and Coral Springs please stay strong!” Rizzo tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “This is out of control and our country is in desperate need for change. I hope In this darkest of times back home this brings everyone together and we can find love. You’re all in my prayers.”

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/n...ive/340845002/

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Four sheriff’s deputies hid during Florida school shooting

What is the parents of the victims must think, they gave full trust in sheriffs, and today they're in pain.

Florida Shooting Survivors Brace For An Emotional Return To School

Amid ardent demands by students for action, President Donald Trump has said he is open to raising the minimum wage for gun purchases and to banning so-called bump stocks, which can effectively convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic firearms.

World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: February 26, 2018 09:06 IST




WASHINGTON: Students and teachers preparing Sunday to return to the Florida school that was the scene of a gruesome mass shooting called the prospect "daunting" and "scary" as they urged politicians to act swiftly to address gun violence.

"Imagine being in a plane crash - and having to get on the plane every day and go somewhere else," David Hogg, a survivor of the February 14 shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school, told ABC's "This Week."

"I can't imagine, emotionally, what me and my fellow students (will) go through that day."

Some students and teachers have to back at the school on Sunday for what is being called "orientation." Teachers and staff are to return full-time Monday and Tuesday to prepare their classrooms for students' return on Wednesday.

Seventeen people died in the attack. Authorities have charged a 19-year-old former student, Nikolas Cruz, in the assault.

One teacher who has already been back told NPR radio that the shock of returning to a classroom left exactly as it had been during the attack -- notebooks still on desks, the calendar still set to February 14 -- made her so physically ill she had to leave.

Amid ardent demands by students like Hogg for action, President Donald Trump has said he is open to raising the minimum wage for gun purchases and to banning so-called bump stocks, which can effectively convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic firearms.


'Red flag' law

A new CNN poll, conducted a week after the Florida shooting, shows surging public support for stricter gun laws -- surpassing levels seen even after other horrific shootings of recent years -- and for a ban on powerful semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 used in Parkland.

Overall, 70 percent of those surveyed said they supported stricter gun laws, up from 52 percent in October, and 57 percent favored a ban on semi-automatic arms, up from 49 percent.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, himself a member of the influential National Rifle Association (NRA), has laid out a plan to station a police officer at every public school in the state, to raise the legal age for gun purchases from 18 to 21, and to pass a "red flag" law making it easier for authorities to remove guns from the mentally ill or people with violent histories.

The age change and "red flag" law are staunchly opposed by the NRA.

Scott, who holds the NRA's highest rating of A+, noted on "Fox News Sunday" that "there will be some that disagree. But ... I want my state to be safe."

Dana Loesch, an NRA spokeswoman, told ABC that her organization staunchly opposes most of the proposed gun bans. Instead, she placed blame on politicians, for their inaction, and on law enforcement -- specifically the Broward County (Florida) sheriff's office, which she said had had ample warning of Cruz's violent tendencies.

She accused the sheriff's office of "abdication of duty" for not arresting Cruz sooner.

'A terrible idea'

But in an often contentious interview on CNN, Sheriff Scott Israel strongly defended his department's work. Of the 23 calls to his department about Cruz's erratic or threatening behavior, nearly all were minor and had been handled appropriately, and a few others were being investigated, he said.

Asked about a deputy who stood outside the building for long minutes even as the slaughter continued, Israel called the man's inaction "disgusting" but said he appeared to be alone in failing to respond adequately. The deputy has since resigned.

"We will investigate every action of our deputies, of their supervisors ... and if they did things wrong, I will take care of business," he said.
Trump has also proposed arming some teachers, a step many teachers passionately oppose.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told C-Span in an interview aired Sunday that "it's a terrible idea, period, full stop."

Children, parents and teachers, she said, "want schools to be safe sanctuaries for teaching and learning, not armed fortresses."

And the idea of "a good guy with a gun" being able to stop a shooter, Weingarten said, was debunked by the inaction of the deputy outside the Parkland school.

Meanwhile, Delaney Tarr, another survivor of the Florida shooting, said Sunday on Fox that she was girding herself as best she could to return to school.

"It's daunting... (and) scary because I don't know if I'm going to be safe there," she said.

"But I know that I have to."

Florida Shooting Survivors Brace For An Emotional Return To School

Trump says he would have tried to stop Parkland shooter — with his bare hands

President Trump on Monday criticized the armed sheriff's deputies who reportedly failed to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., during the Feb. 14 mass shooting, suggesting he would have done so even if he didn't have a gun.

He needs to back off that a little bit. No one really knows for sure what they would do until they're in that situation real life, real time. That's why I have a serious problem with people attacking Peterson for "cowardice" when he was there by himself with no back-up.

"red flag" law making it easier for authorities to remove guns from the mentally ill or people with violent histories.

The age change and "red flag" law are staunchly opposed by the NRA.

Why oppose a red flag law? age - should be no problem raising to 21 for an assault rifle. The nitty-gritty is how one determines mental instability. How do police calls for violence, mental behaviour/meds as part of the history = NO GUN? Do it whatever it is! But know for sure MD Doctors will write you are OK just like they write scripts for drugs. No good.

There is a solution to this problem and it is not confiscating everyone's guns BUT if you have a prior history of a teetering mental stability which would include multiple police calls re you, spousal abuse, animal abuse, etc. - NO YOU DON'T GET A GUN/RIFLE!
It is HOW this info is gathered/accessed that needs to be determined.