“We do not send our children to school to learn how to hide from gunmen, nor should we expect sharpshooting to be a job requirement for educators. You may not have heard about all of these shooting incidents on the national news, but when a lockdown is announced over a school intercom, for whatever reason, it strikes fear across the community. … It’s time for our elected leaders to take a stand for the safety and future of our children.” – Shannon Watts in Report: School shootings often involve guns from home [at usatoday.com]
“It’s time for our elected leaders to take a stand for the safety and future of our children”
I agree; arm our teachers; change the law to allow teachers nationally even in anti gun hellholes to get a licence to carry in schools. Pass legislation that defunds any school district that disallows teacher carry by policy. Fund SRO’s for every school in this country. All of that takes a ton of money but it would help. Banning the private ownership of guns would NOT help but that is all this horse face of a woman can think to do.
Teachers should be licensed in those hell holes just like the police are. No paperwork required, annual training, every single one carries or finds another job. We’re all accustomed to that for police, why not teachers?
Teachrs are teachers because they want to educate. Forcing them to carry is a very bad idea, I have had some teachers no one would want armed, same with society making everyone armed is stupid, we have a right to keep and bear arms lets not impose laws making people exercise that right.
Just think of the spineless leftists that will recoil in horror at the very thought of carrying a gun and GIVE UP TEACHING ENTIRELY!!!
Sounds like a *win* to me…
She certainly is a master of non-sequitur and ambiguity.
Seriously, arm AT LEAST the admins in a school, make it publicly known, and we’ll see this school shooting BS come to an end overnight.
You have to be careful about your wording. When you say “arm teachers.” Or “arm admins.” That sounds like you want to shove a gun into someone’s hands and if that’s the case then you would be as anti freedom as the grabbers. It should be about choice. Right now teachers and admin don’t have a choice. If the choice was available and well known, that in and of itself might be enough of a deterrent.
The job should require being armed. Just like police. You don’t want to carry a nasty gun, find a real job. Your argument could just as well be used to justify paying police officers who carried brightly colored jelly beans instead of nasty firearms. Instead, they are refused employment.
I can assure you, teaching is a “real job”.
So she’s asking politicians to take action against all the man with an umbrella, child dressed in green, saw a stick on my way to school, lockdowns?
Those occur with far greater frequency than any real threat lockdown.
In addition: “You may not have heard about all of these shooting incidents on the national news…”
Hah…laugh…snort.
In the existing 24:7 news environment anything and everything is covered. There are absolutely ZERO “shooting incidents” involving schools that don’t make the headlines these days particularly among the liberal Democrat owned (as in controlled) anti-gun legacy news outlets.
Could it be the reason we mostly only see head shots of this snooty hogwash filled ‘Mom’ is because her pants are always on fire.
Photo OP, Dirk.
Sounds like the curriculum is working out just like she intended, don’t see why she’s complaining.
Shannon, you’re an Ostrich sticking your head in the sand so you can’t see danger OR truth.
She knows exactly what’s she’s doing… and she gets paid well for it.
yes, but the look on that face looks like she’s getting tired of the whole agenda….she must be getting paid a ton of cash though…
Please stop referring to Mrs. Watts as stupid, she is not. She is evil. She sold her soul to Monsanto a long time ago. She doesn’t have one anymore, all she has is a hunger for chaos and money. Also, I notice “anti-” usa today doesn’t allow comments.
Bingo. She knows full well that gun advocates won’t be fooled for an instant. People here recognize that a stapler isn’t useful in a gunfight. She is speaking to her liberal progressive audience: lefty mommies, statist politicians, wimpy men, FUDs, the mainstream media, and low information voters. Those idiots outnumber us. If that wasn’t the case, Gun Free Zones would disappear in a day. They are an abject failure.
Monsanto? What does that have to do with anything? Other than another target for libtard luddite hatemongers.
Shannon sold herself to the evil dwarf from NY City. THAT earns her a spot in hell.
often involve guns from home NO! the horror. Guns are in homes rather than locked up at the local cop shop? Yes Virginia, 99.9% of guns are owned by someone. That has a home. And some of the homes are invaded/robbed by POS gang bangers who steal things. Including firearms.
(Not a farmer)
I believe the Monsanto reference is pointing to a time in Ms. Watts career when she was a PR schill for them…
You can comment, you just have to do it via Facebook, which I don’t do. There’s a little “comments” label under the article, click on it and you’ll see the comments–which, BTW, are running heavily pro-gun when they aren’t wandering off on rabbit trails.
Shannon, why are you so against protecting our kids as best we can? Why do you hate America?
Becsuse it pays well.
her kids go to private school.
Do _her_ kids even go to school? Aren’t the ones she bore grown up?
She whelped two: one is/should be a freshman in college. The other is a SR. in high school. John had 3: two are in college, one is approx. 14/15 (the only one with a Y chromosome).
aha–thanks for clearing that up.
USA Today still parrotting the “95 School Shootings” since Sandy Hook lie….
Well, at least they are pointing out that it includes gang shootings, accidental discharges, and suicides, and counts universities as “schools”. They could have pointed out that it also includes so-called ‘shootings’ where no one is shot at all, but that would be too much to expect I guess.
I don’t believe there have been that many “school” shootings.
I’ll bet they are counting the rival gang shoot a block away that had zero to do with any school.
Consider also that we have around 100,000 schools in this nation.
Nick already addressed this issue in June:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/06/foghorn/bloomberg-funded-gun-control-group-releases-list-school-shootings-since-newtown-immediately-debunked/
Short answer, you are correct, most of the “school shootings” have precisely nothing to do with a school. Some aren’t even on school grounds, several were suicides. Most were gang/drug related.
Actually, the article states that such incidents are being counted as “school shootings”. In fact, due to some poor editing, the article states that twice.
“Fer teh chilllrunnnns!” At least she got her thought terminating cliche in there.
If you haven’t taken the time to really look at the SH egregious inconsistencies, and you patently accept what you are told as fact by officialdom, then you deserve the all the Shannon Watts they can dish out, and she is just the beginning.
To me, it is fairly obvious she does not believe a word she says in public. She is a paid propagandist who is well funded by a rich elitist who has aspirations of dictating rules to We The [Little] People.
“Shannon Watts in Report: School shootings often involve guns from home“
Little slip, there, USA Today? Letting the cat out of the bag that the end game here really does have nothing to do with school shootings and everything to do with complete civilian disarmament?
Because, you know…does it really matter WHERE the gun used in a school shooting came from? Are the victims any less injured / dead by a STOLEN gun, for example, than one brought “from home?”
And nice rhetorical device there, since even stolen guns can often be said to have come from “home” – someone’s home (not necessarily the shooter).
It is amazing the level of manipulation you, USA Today seek with subtle use of language. Interesting, too, how you set Watts up to be the mouthpiece for your propaganda to take the heat for you. But, your message is clear.
Rhetoric – propaganda – conditioning = brainwashing…for the great unwashed.
Perhaps we should just outlaw stealing guns?!
“You may not have heard about all of these shooting incidents on the national news…”
If by “not have heard” you mean “wall-to-wall nonstop hysterical biased coverage”. Except, of course, when a potential spree killer is stopped by a good guy with a gun. Then it’s nothing to see here, move along…
Actually, we have not “heard about these incidents in the national media”. Because the vast majority of them are not “school shootings” at all, they are gang shootings or accidental discharges or target shooting or suicides, that may not even involve anyone being shot, that happen to occur somewhere in the vicinity of a school, university, or community college/technical school, at all hours of the day or night, whether or not the “school” is occupied. None have been the kind of mass shooting in an occupied K-12 school that occurred at Sandy Hook. That’s the problem with this particular trumped-up, falsely inflated statistic: ordinary Joe Blows are not hearing about this deluge of horrific school shootings because in reality there is nothing of the sort happening for the local media, much less the national media, to report.
‘…when a lockdown is announced over a school intercom, for whatever reason, it strikes fear across the community.’
I totally agree. So they should stop locking down schools for stupid things like finding a single spent .22LR case. They’re trying to instill their own hoplophobia on the children.
Enthusiastically seconded.
Hey _ new pic of Shannon for my file. thanks.
By the way, Shannon, this is called WINNING: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/report-more-favor-gun-rights-than-gun-control/article_7b8508a3-d751-52de-b3cd-274020df33d1.html
Imagine what those numbers would be if the media didn’t toe the civilian disarmament line.
Thanks for spelling “toe the line’ correctly 🙂
What, you don’t think the media tows that line?
LOL! The media might, but educated folks like the Armed Intelligentsia know that they “toe the line”, as in “toe the mark” (ever tried to tow a mark?).
That one at the top of the article? She’s looking a little washed-out there Dirk, you sure you want to keep it?
I find the sad and wishful Stepford Wife look sexy. . . .
Hogwash. You just want her (Bloomer’s) money.
She may look wishful to you (or maybe wistful), but to me that pic makes her look like she needs to blow her nose and have a hot toddy.
Most, if not all, school shooters weren’t “sharp shooters” and armed teachers wouldn’t need to me Navy Seal skilled shooters either. Most mass shooters crumble at the sign of armed resistance, maybe shooting at the person a bit then running off to blow their own brains out. It is irresponsible to be a caretaker of children and not consider self-defense. In modern society these means having a pistol. Simple as that. If law prevents you from doing so, the law is wrong and needs to be ignored/changed.
Even if teachers and/or admin in schools aren’t armed, why is it such a hard concept to keep an armed officer stationed at each school. An active shooter knowing he’s going to have an officer on him in seconds at a school will do 1000 times more good than banning all firearms! And I for one would gladly let my property taxes $100 a year to know there is an armed officer in each of my kids schools!!!
How dare you offer a solution to the problem – why you’d put Shannon right out of a job and she’d have to go back to doing, whatever it was she was doing before.
chasing after wealthy senior executives at Fortune 500 companies and ruining otherwise happy marriages?
BTW – think if this type of policy existed at Wellpoint Healthcare a few years ago when John and Shannon were an item?? http://www.jsonline.com/business/johnson-controls-ceo-violated-ethics-policy-bonus-reduced-almost-1-million-b99405945z1-285240341.html
“And I for one would gladly let my property taxes $100 a year to know there is an armed officer in each of my kids schools!!!”
Well, I am glad you are speaking for yourself.
Instead of raising taxes, how about diverting tax money from some lower priority line item? How come few people suggest that? “Raise the tax for x new service” is the go-to solution, and culturally “comfortable.”
Now, also the problem with the tax solution is…you are ok with it to protect YOUR kids while they are in school. Should I also have to have MY taxes raise to protect YOUR kids in school?
I ask because my children ALREADY have armed protection in their school: we homeschool. I’ve taken personal responsibility not only for my children’s education but also their personal security during the school day.
We ALREADY pay taxes to support the local public schools (that we don’t use); are we to also pay for security there, too?
Sorry…maybe I’m picking on a tangential point of your post. But any time I read / hear someone say “I’m okay with x new tax,” here’s what I think will really happen:
(a) increased government inefficiency
(b) wealth redistribution
(c) increased lack of PERSONAL responsibility in our culture
New taxes are rarely a good answer to real world problems. Government supplied solutions are rarely good answers to real world problems.
There are plenty of teachers (at least in my AO) that are now or would gladly be CCH permit holders. Allowing them to carry at their place of employment does not cost the tax payer a single dime.
Your taxes are already funding both the school system and the police departments! If we could add a cop to each school without raising taxes that would be great. Hell, if we could do it and lower taxes that would be even better. But we all know that’s not how the “System” works!
I agree with JR, here, but not for just the one reason. Putting a police officer of any kind into each school leaves us with the continuing and increasing demands for civilian disarmament from schoolteachers, and those same people brainwashing our nation’s children. We are seeing the culmination of a plan growing for decades, taking over teaching colleges first and then, more and more, our public schools. I graduated high school in the ’60s, and throughout 12 years never heard a single word about civilian disarmament from any teacher. Requiring every teacher to be armed would stop the entire movement in its tracks in a single year, and there is very good reason to do so. The cost of one police officer per school during school hours would be enough to pay each teacher $100/month extra to support the requirement that they CARRY, every day. Teaching colleges would fall into line or fold. Their anti freedom teachings and teachers would go, and quickly, or they themselves would go. Firearm courses would be in the mix for the next class. All this is desirable, and is playing the game we have been victims of since the early 80s at least. Let’s get started.
Sadly, she’s developed a following of sheep who are noding their heads everytime she utters this nonesense. To them it makes all thh sense in the world while at the same time, making no sense. I’ve long given up on those following her, they are beyond help, for they are the sheep that need, no they expect protecting. The ones who would never consider the option of defending themselves or their loved ones in any situation. So she’ll continue speaking to her audience of surrender advocates, and I’ll forever believe that I am the only one ultimately responsibile for the safetly of my family and my property. Not the police, not the governement, me.
Sometimes I want the zombie apocolypse to be a reality just so we can remove this element from society and get back to the “rugged individualism” that once founded this country.
Ha, the zombie apocalypse is reality, just take a look around at the herd. The whole zombie fad is a commercially driven joke by the powers that be, they are laughing in our faces as they have us watching shows about brain dead zombies as they have turned the majority of the public into.
Yep. These are allegiance statements, intended to affirm core beliefs among the true believers.
Because the type of people (mostly women, single mothers) who support her & Bloomberg have totally endorsed the ideology of modern feminism, where the family is absent a man, which is replaced by the state. Perpetuating cycle of victim hood & lack of personal accountability, all the while enabling higher taxes & larger government (police state) each for the sake of the other.
I don’t think sharpshooting should be a “requirement” for educators either. But should be a RIGHT if they want to be a first line defense. It is surprising how many educators are asking and being turned down. My brother in law has got the okay (in indiana they have to go through a law enforcement or security guard training). He said he will be at some conferences and other teachers are asking but being told no.
They need to get vocal and active about it, then.
For example, they should be interviewed for USA Today and other mouthpiece organizations…as rebuttal to the sycophantic following of SW and her entire movement.
I’d bet dollars to donuts a good number of those teachers are also members of NEA or something similar…AND that such organizations do NOT support (at the organizational level) teachers being “allowed” to carry. If that is the case, it’s a real problem as well.
Every time she opens her mouth her comments strike me as Counterproductive, Untruthful, Negative and Terrible…. I guess that can describe her as well.
Solution: Micro red dot sights.
“It’s time for our elected leaders to take a stand for the safety and future of our children.” — gun grabber (who I refuse to name)
No. It is time for PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS to take a stand for the safety and future of our children. That is THE primary responsibility of parents and their proxies — e.g. anyone entrusted with the care of children.
We do not depend on politicians or bureaucrats to childproof our homes and schools. Rather, parents and teachers make sure that children cannot access chemicals, poisons, or other dangerous items. Why would we depend on politicians or bureaucrats to make our homes and schools criminal-proof?
+1,000,000
If we had educators intelligent enough to be grounded in reality, they would want and accept teacher carry and proficiency as a self-imposed job requirement.
We do have some in Texas. The middle school where I sometimes play basketball after hours has signs posted advising that some of the staff are armed, for the safety of the school and the community.
All we need to do now is change that wording to “all of our staff” and we’re good to go.
From what I’ve seen as a substitute teacher a couple of years back–there are some I would just as soon pass on that.
But, but, I support the 2a but……..
I’m thinking Shannon is the Wendy Davis of gun control. She gets all kinds of media adoration, but it doesn’t really get her to her objective.
Great comparison (Watts to W. Davis) and I pray an accurate one as well.
Hey, did you see where Wendy (Davis, that is) won Texas Monthly’s “Bum Steer” award? And those guys aren’t exactly National Review, if you get my drift.
I wonder does Shannon Watt’s armed bodyguards follow her when she goes on to school property?
Watts is a Crusader without a Clue.
Sorry lady but you are the one that strikes fear across the country. How are those “Gun Free” zones working for you in preventing crime? My fear is walking into a gun free zone.
But, but, but, Ms. Watts supports our 2nd amendment rights, she said so herself…..
Now just what does she want politicians to do that won’t batter our rights?
“We do not send our children to school to learn how to hide from gunmen…” Exactly Shannon!! and nobody with half a brain ever advocated lockdown drills, it was YOU and your brainless followers that placed security theater (lockdown drills) over actual common sense solutions, like allowing (notice I didnt say forcing), teachers and admins to be armed.
This nonsense of lockdown drills and hysteria did not come from law abiding gun owners, it came from all the sheep bleating for “feel good” measures to make them think that everything wasn’t so hopeless. I’m glad to see you are finally realizing how stupid all of that is, unfortunately (or rather, quite predictably) you are just moving on to yet one more dead end that wont solve the problem but makes people feel “safe”. How is it possible that blatant stupidity has earned such a terrible person so much money and fame?
I said “forcing”, and I stand by it. I expect that to mean the current crop will quit, and good riddance.
Now that is an interesting angle… food for thought indeed.
“We do not send our children to school to learn how to hide from gunmen…”
Technically, we don’t send out children to school just to learn how to hide from tornadoes or escape from fires, and yet, we still do tornado and fire drills.
“…nor should we expect sharpshooting to be a job requirement for educators.”
No one on our side of this debate is suggesting that we mandate teachers to carry firearms. Nonetheless, we do expect our educators to at least know what to do to keep kids safe, but the option to defend themselves and their students from attackers is apparently too much.
“No one on our side of this debate is suggesting that we mandate teachers to carry firearms”
I certainly am, and support that position above. I have yet to hear a rational explanation of why we should NOT do so.
Violence is a fact of life, and schools are not exempt from the real world. She can bury her head in the sand all she wants (which is better than where she usually sticks it), but the only thing that stops murderers are the anti-murderers with the tools needed to negate them.
Cold hard fact. Deal with it.
So other than a violence free Utopia what exactly is Ms. Watts proposing?
She does not care if the Utopia is violence free or not. She probably recognizes that is an impossibility.
What she proposes is one sided violence – by those in power.
Comment self moderated.
I agree with what you did not say.
There are some school shootings you don’t hear about on the news, because they’re the ones stopped by police, armed security, man with a gun, etc. These get maybe a ten second sound bite if any coverage. I think the common sense answer here (WHAT? what does common sense have to do with guns or government?) is to defund security on capitol hill and the White house, no secret service, no metal detectors, no bodyguards, and do the same at each state capitol. Take that money and provide armed security officers at all our schools nationwide. Not only will it be safer FOR THE CHILDREN tm, but you will see a mad rush headlong to apply for carry permits and pass laws allowing instant purchases and open carry and mega capacity mags everywhere as reality hits the elected idiots. Probably do away with those pesky background checks also as I doubt half of our elected officials can pass one!
Great, except for “who would have to pass those laws?” IOW, can we spell “pipe dream”?
Given how well the war on drugs has stopped drug abuse, and the war on poverty has ended poverty, I’m sure the war on guns will end gun violence once and for all.
*sigh*
but those guns from home came from a gun shop, which came from a manufacturer, which came from a steel mill, which came from the ground, which ( for the simple minded and uneducated) comes from “god”. so its gods fault we have guns?
“( for the simple minded and uneducated)”
Be willing to bet my education at least equals and likely exceeds yours, yet somehow I don’t feel the need to insult half the site’s readership every time I want to make a point. There’s a point in THAT statement … I wonder if it was made too simplemindedly for you to discern.
Wasn’t it you that posted recently that you were “done” with this site?
Rhetorical question: Why is it that trolls never follow-up on that promise?
We do not send our children to school to learn how to hide from gunmen
Well, I don’t have a school-age child, but if I did, I certainly would teach her or him how to escape from gunmen. Because it sure beats the hell out of being shot in a Gun Free Zone while waiting hopelessly for rescue that may not come in time.
An odd statement, from a woman with armed guards.
POINT 1: The sad part is that the media laps up this pablum and regurgitates it to the mindless (or at least distracted) masses, who simply hear “95 more Sandy Hooks.”
You can bet your Beretta (and come to think of it, you might be) that Shannon’s PR team is gathered around planning exactly that: “We need to tap into the emotions people felt around Sandy Hook to ‘raise awareness’ of the ‘epidemic’ of school shootings [a/k/a exaggerate].”
POINT 2: They’re shameless in including gang incidents, criminal activity and suicides in their statistics, purely to inflate the numbers, but their “reasonable solutions” don’t do a damn thing to address the very things that cause the vast majority of firearms-related deaths. This is like banning wine because of winos and calling it a “reasonable solution.” And not even the most clueless media outlet would accompany a report on, say, increases in sales of fine wine with a photo of a three-decade chronic inebriate lying toothless and unshaven in the gutter. But that’s almost exactly what happens whenever Shannon issues a press release.
POINT 3: One of their ubiquitous talking points refers to the supposed need for a “national conversation” on guns (never on violence or mental health). Have they no shame? This is a group that bans even polite dissenters offering empirical evidence from its Facebook page, yet allows its foamy-mouthed followers to rave about how the children of NRA members deserve death, or to boast about calling 911 on lawful armed citizens in an effort to get them shot.
Earth to Shannon: Facebook is a national conversation. And you’re insisting that it be one-sided, devoid of facts, laced with hysteria, and totally under your control.
Ahhh. Bolshevik Bloomberg’s useful media whore has emoted to the liberal state sponsored Ministry of Truth who will amplify the double plus good message to the awaiting eager proletariat sheep.
Here are some numbers:
1. “According to Everytown’s most recent numbers, there were 45 fatalities from “school shootings” between the December 2012 Sandy Hook attack and December 9, 2014. Forty-five is probably high due to Everytown’s method of compiling such statistics, but it will be used to denote the number of “school shooting” deaths over a two-year period. ( call it 23 deaths on average)
2. There are 124,110 public and private schools in the United States http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=1389
3. There is an average of 180 days in the school year.
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/tables/table_15.asp
Take the number of schools time the number of days, you get 22,338,000 school days per year.
Divide 22,338,000 by the 23 deaths and you get:
941,217 school days for each death.
Point is, school shootings are incredibly rare.
Perhaps Shannon Watts would be better to focus on efforts to identify and treat troubled students. Not as newsworthy but more effective.
Calls gun owners ignorant fear mongers, then turns around and uses made-up statistics to spread ignorance in fear…Does she know what hypocrite means?
See! There you go with the numbers thing and logic. Don’t you know numbers and logic have no feelings? That is no way to persuade someone do something not in their best interest. You have to use feelings, emotions and a healthy dose of fear mongering. Donors don’t open up there wallets and checkbooks unless they feel there’s an urgent problem to be fixed. If you use your numbers to show there is no problem, how will you get paid?
Numbers and logic = no money.
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