Georgia HS lock down poss. shooting

Excellent point. After a plane crash, no one says now is not the time. There are investigations and all kinds of questions.



not the time?

Shannon Watts
@shannonrwatts
Governor Kemp refuses to answer a question about how to make Georgia schools safer from gun violence: “This is not the day to talk about safety or policy. We need thoughts and prayers for the victims, law enforcement and educators.”

Would he say that if a plane had just crashed?

Agreed.

Except one of the persons at the press conference said they were all gun-related Of course we could interpret that differently.

The father has now been arrested. Good riddance.

The only reason a kid needs an assault rifle is to shoot up his school.
Like, there is literally no other reason for them to have one.
I'm so glad his father is being held accountable. They should have thrown accessory to murder charges in the mix too.

I'm deeply disappointed, but not surprised, in Kemp's NRA-approved response.

My sister posted on FB questioning why a parent would give their 14 year old an assault weapon as a Christmas gift.
One of her "friends" replied - because they are fun to fire for target practice - my sons and I do that all the time. We have a right to own them.

She deleted his comment, thankfully. But I wonder how he'd feel if one of HIS sons was shot and killed in school like those 2 boys were this week? Would he still think they are "fun"?

They have no shame! Do they even care?

2 boys + 1 girl, I believe. 

Edited to add: I am really curious how she got the siblings. She has had CPS charges and at one point, wasn't allowed to be around the kids. 

An interesting perspective on the dad. In the absence of safe storage laws, what exactly did he do that was illegal? And if his son is being tried as an adult, are parents responsible for their adult children? I understand the need to blame someone, but I place a lot more blame on weak or non-existent gun safety laws, our gun culture, the NRA and the Republicans.

Gift article - no paywall

www.nytimes.com/2024/09/06/opinion/school-shooting-georgia-dad-arrested.html?unlocked_article_code=1.I04.63Eo.dmxnIkVbmSGu&smid=url-share

OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
Blaming a Parent, Again, for Failed Gun Laws

These prosecutions satisfy the public desire to blame somebody. If you don’t like guns, shaming and punishing the parents feels like landing a righteous blow against gun culture. If you do like guns, it’s a bit like the predictable invocation of mental health by politicians — diverting attention from the weapons themselves and suggesting, instead, that the problem is a few bad apples among the owners. Most insidiously, though, these prosecutions set a murky legal precedent for questionable parenting while camouflaging the abject failure of the federal and state governments to adequately regulate gun safety and stop mass shootings.

Going after the parents in the absence of adequate gun laws is, in truth, a kind of scapegoating — displaying a head on a stake to satisfy the rage of a desperate crowd. We shouldn’t wait for kids and teachers to be gunned down, then punish the parents by having jurors try to read their minds and judge their parenting.

Georgia’s elected representatives have had ample opportunity to pass safe gun storage legislation. They are, presumably, aware of the scourge of school shootings. But they either deemed such laws unnecessary or didn’t bestir themselves to act.

...

There is another glaring problem with the case against Mr. Gray: His child is being tried as an adult. That means that in the eyes of the state, Colt Gray was a mature, fully cognizant individual who can be held to the same legal standard as a grown man. But prosecutors should not be able to claim that Colt Gray was just as responsible as any adult for the crimes he is accused of while blaming his father for neglecting his parental duties.

The facts and circumstances of this family’s life remain little known, and we probably won’t get a sufficiently clear picture until evidence emerges in court. Scraps of information depict a desperate family — plagued by drugs, evicted from their home, the boy’s parents were separated. His mother has been suspected of possessing fentanyl and methamphetamine.

In other words, yet another family clinging to the social and economic margins of middle-class American life.

We are angry. We are right to be angry. A war hasn’t been fought on the continental United States in well over a century, and yet our kids learn how to hide from gunmen in between multiplication lessons and spelling tests. Every day we send them off, protected only by our perpetual hope that the whims of fate won’t strike their school — not today, not any day.

Prime example of why this country is sick and twisted.

I wouldn't go as far as the NYT article, I do think the parents bear some responsibility for their poor judgement and poor parenting decisions.  I don't have an answer to the question - should the parents be held criminally responsible?  

I do agree that by blaming the parents, we are targeting and maybe even displacing our anger at the parents.  Anger should also be directed at the gun industry, the NRA and Republicans for the failure to pass meaningful gun safety legislation and safe storage laws.

Boo the fuck hoo.

From the article it sounds like that explains the questions the woman was asking at the press conference. The confusion between the two kids with similar names really caused problems. But they should have locked the school down when they found out that he wasn’t in class. I’m curious what tipped the mom off.

MTG’s response and that of those like her is why we won’t have any change. They are F ing idiots who think guns are the only important thing and can’t possibly see a bigger picture where there are other options besides taking all of their guns. Georgia needs to do better for themselves and the rest of us who have to be held back by this type of thinking. MTG is worthless as a congresswoman.

The mother has spoken.
Her sister states she has seen the call log on the phone..


THE mother of suspected Apalachee High shooter Colt Gray has insisted she tried to warn the school when she got a concerning text from her son - right before his alleged rampage.

Marcee Gray, 43, and her father Charles Polhamus, 81, spoke out about the shooting that left two teachers and two students dead and another nine injured on Wednesday.

The mom said she tried to warn the school after getting a concerning text from her son the morning of the rampage.

"I’m sorry, Mom," the message read.

Marcee was at her father's house in Fitzgerald at the time - a three-hour drive from Winder, where her son went to school.

The mom desperately tried to call Apalachee High School and warn them of an "extreme emergency," a family member told The Washington Post.

At 9:50 am, the mother had a 10-minute call with the school — about half an hour before the gunman opened fire, per call logs seen by the outlet.

"I was the one that notified the school counselor at the high school," Marcee told her sister after the shooting in texts seen by WaPo.

"I told them it was an extreme emergency and for them to go immediately and find [my son] to check on him."

During the call, a counselor told Marcee Colt had been talking about a school shooting that morning, according to Annie Brown, Marcee's sister.

Counselors tried to find Colt in his classroom but were unsuccessful - and gunfire began soon after.

'IT'S HORRIBLE'
Marcee learned about the four deaths while she was racing to her son's school from her father's house, he told The New York Post.

She was spotted outside her dad's house on Saturday and told the outlet, "It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible."

www.the-sun.com/news/12397772/colt-grays-text-mom-marcee-apalachee-high-school-shooting/