Thursday, March 5, 2009

Woodstock High School lockdown

Reported a few minutes ago, from Woodstock, GA:

Woodstock High School Latest School to go on lockdown

2 teens, aged 15 and 17, were arrested after one of them turned himself in.

A search warrant was issued for the home, and 2 ugly black guns were found with ammunition. There is a lot of information still to be reported, but I find the reporting of Gary Davis somewhat biased: "After the gun was located a search warrant was ordered for the home of one of the students. It was quite scary when two assault rifles were found along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition."

Quite scary?

What is scary is that the people doing the reporting haven't been the least bit objective in their portrayal of the incident. Joe Friday would say "Just the facts, Ma'am".

I do not support or condone gun violence at schools. I do not support or condone minors carrying firearms unsupervised. I do not support or condone any illegal use of a weapon.

I also do not support or condone biased reporting and opinion masquerading as objective journalism. "Just the facts" is all I am after. The implication that ownership of "assault rifles" and hundreds of rounds of ammunition automatically makes a person evil just turns my stomach.

Grow up Gary! LOTS of people own ugly black guns, handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles. MOST of these same people ALSO have "hundreds of rounds" of ammunition for them. So what?!! Un-bunch your panties, man up a little, and deal with it. If any laws were broken, then I am SURE that the enlightened law enforcement officers and the esteemed legal system in Georgia will deal with it appropriately. If they do not, then you have MUCH BIGGER problems in Georgia than it appears so far.

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Pax,

Newbius

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey man dont joke about that shit i have two of the guys in my first period class and the last one in my 4th period that was scary thinking about what could have been

Newbius said...

Anonymous,

Your post raises some questions (besides the question "Don't they teach grammar and punctuation any more?") that I must address. If you read my post carefully, you will discern that I am calling out the author of the news item for inappropriate behavior.

I am quite sure that the lock-down was a tense time. I am very glad that it ended peacefully, with no harm to any student or criminal (and your classmates with the guns are, by definition, criminals).

The "joke" (your word, not mine) is this: For this incident to occur and for Gary Davis to write that it was "quite scary" that "Assault rifles" were found-AT THE HOUSE, without reporting on the real scare (the lockdown) with that much emotion, begs the question: "Does the reporter have an agenda or bias that is showing through?"

The issue of students with guns at school is a very serious one. There are several potential solutions for rapid response, which school leadership will never consider because it is politically incorrect to do so. If something bad did go down, how long would it have taken for the sheriff to arrive? How many people could have been harmed in that time? How many fewer if a properly-trained teacher or administrator had been armed and able to stop an attack?

Lastly, you indicate that you know these guys. Wonderful. In your estimation, are they really kids with serious problems? Do they have a support system in place at home? Do they have friends that they can turn to for help with resolving problems? Is bullying an issue at school? Do you do anything about it when you see it, if it does occur?

Lots of questions, no answers yet...

Don said...

Well . . . . here's the thing. Guns by themselves aren't scary. But kids "turned themselves in." What does that mean? Does it mean they went to an authority and admitted that they were planning violence or suicide?

A kid who possessed a weapon because the adults in his life trusted him to possess it is one thing. A kid who acquired the weapon as part of a plan to hurt himself or other people is another. In that case, the gun is one of a set of warning signs. The plan is another. This is something parents should be handling (and maybe someday I'll tell everybody how much personal experience I have in this area, but for now you'll either take my word that I'm not just shooting my mouth off or you won't) but it's not uncommon to see parents doing nothing to handle anything, and the school is responsible for all those other kids and their safety.

The reporter's mistake here is that either the guns aren't scary (because the incident itself is being blown out of proportion) or the guns are scary for a specific reason--a reason he hasn't given us, either because he cannot or because he missed it.