The neighboring city of Newport News is all over the national media following the shooting of a teacher by a six (6) year old who brought a hand gun to school and used against his teacher. While the administration of former governor Northam and the then Democrat controled General Assembly made some improvements to Virginia's gun control laws, Virginia's laws remain lax and there is no strict requirement that guns be stored safely nor strict legal liability applied to gun ownes whose weapons are used to commit crimes and violence. Maddeningly, little of the media coverage has raise what to me is the largest question: how the hell did a six year old get possession of the gun and where were the child's parents/guardians in the picture? Glenn Youngkin, Virginia's current governor, who doesn't want any subject taught in schools that might offend the evangelical/Christofascist and white supremacist base of the Virginia GOP and has issued an executive order censoring the discussion of race and slavery and, of course LGBT individuals shows far less concern about restricting the availability of guns and keeping schools safe. Indeed, he has done the ususal GOP stunt of blaming mental heath rather than the fact that the commonwealth is awash with guns (not a morning goes by in Hampton Roads when there are not multiple accounts of shootings in local cities). A piece in the New York Times looks at the shooting and Youngkin's wholly inadequate response:
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The scene was heartbreakingly familiar. Inside Richneck Elementary School, children and teachers hunkered down in fear. At a family reunification center nearby, desperate parents waited for answers. Some were so panicked that they struggled to breathe. Once again, a school shooting had left a community reeling.
Only this time, the authorities said, the gun had been fired by a 6-year-old boy.
The 6-year-old, a first grader at Richneck Elementary in Newport News, Va., shot a teacher with a handgun on Friday afternoon, the Newport News Police Department said, in an incident that the police said was “not an accidental shooting.” The boy and the teacher had been involved in an altercation in a classroom before the boy shot the teacher once, the police said. The teacher suffered “life-threatening” injuries but had improved by Saturday and was in stable condition.
It took only six days for the country to register its first school shooting of 2023, according to a tracker by Education Week, a count that is almost certain to grow as school shootings become more common in the United States. Outside Richneck Elementary, a sprawling, green-roofed building in a quiet neighborhood of Newport News, the school’s sign on Saturday still read “Happy New Year.”
The situation in Newport News left many shaken, with major questions still unanswered.
Among them: How did a 6-year-old child obtain access to a gun? The authorities have not publicly identified the child or the teacher, detailed the nature of the altercation or offered information about whether the gun was taken from home, school or elsewhere.
The boy was in police custody Friday evening, the authorities said, but the unusual nature of the situation leaves the path forward far from clear. While it is possible that the child could be criminally charged, legal scrutiny could also fall on the child’s parents or another adult. Virginia law prohibits leaving a loaded gun where it is accessible to children under the age of 14.
The shooting renewed calls from teachers’ unions and gun control groups for tougher laws to keep guns out of schools, including laws requiring safe storage. “When will the shock of gunshots in school be enough to inspire the action necessary to prevent guns in schools and the shattering of lives it causes?” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement.
Virginia, unlike some other states — notably Oregon and Massachusetts — does not have a broad law that requires all guns to be safely stored in homes.
“Virginia’s law is on the weaker end of the spectrum of these types of laws,” said Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, said on Saturday that he believed Virginia already had “some of the toughest gun laws in the nation” but that the next step was to invest more money in mental health treatment and to pass tougher penalties for crimes committed with guns.
He also said on Saturday, during a brief interview in Virginia Beach, that he wanted the Legislature to enact tougher penalties for gun crimes, though it was unclear whether either initiative would address how a 6-year-old was able to wield a loaded handgun in school.
To Youngkin and other MAGA Republicans, ridiculously easy access to guns guns and lack of strict accountability for gun owners are never the problem. Meanwhile, the carnage continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment