On September fourth, at Appalachi High School in winder Georgia, we saw the thirty ninth school shooting this year. I'm going to say that again. Thirty nine school shootings have taken place in the United States in twenty twenty four, and we're in September, and that's current as of five
days ago. The article that I'm going to discuss entails a Spanish teacher protecting her class during that shooting in a state where the starting salary for a teacher is seventeen thousand dollars less than the state's minimum living wage, and that's according to the National Education Association. The teacher, Jennifer Carter, cites training, God, of course, and her bulky
furniture in protecting kids. But what we cannot do is attribute the state of Georgia to having any positive impact whatsoever on this situation, as it is ranked forty sixth in the nation in terms of gun law strength. When is Georgia, in fact, when is this country going to get its priorities straight and protect children and restore safety
in the classroom. This story is from NPR by Emma Bowman on seven Excuse me, September seventh, twenty twenty four, and gentlemen, I know what I'm supposed to do here, I think, and I know what I want to do, Okay. I want to empathize with this teacher, Ms. Carter, and I want to congratulate her. I want to say that my heart goes out to her, because it really does.
It really does. This must have been absolutely traumatic, and you can tell that it was in her recount of the story, and so you know, I know that as an American, especially because this is a problem that's unique to America, as an American, and as somebody who loves this country and somebody who loves our children and loves our teachers, I want to be incredibly empathetic and you know, just support her however I can with my voice if
I can. On the other hand, though, gentlemen, I would be remiss if I didn't question some of the antics that are in this story. And I do it from a completely skeptical perspective and not one that's created goal of Miss Carter. Right. But you know, I was looking over kind of our documents preparing for this show, and Jonathan, you had mentioned something that I wanted to harp on. So Miss Carter you know, she starts her recount of this tale excuse me, I shouldn't say tale of this
event on her Facebook post saying I lied. I had to lie to my students, right, and she did. She said, guys, this is just a drill. Get down behind the couches. And Jonathan, you said something to the effect of lying or maybe just a good headline, right, You maybe think this was the introducing the story by highlighting that she lied. Was maybe is there something more to that? Did I read that right?
Yeah? To me, it sounded like clickbait, you know, and and it probably pretty much was. Because lying in that situation is not an issue. It's not a factor in what's going on. It's not bad to lie in that situation. Morally, there was no issue with it. But you know, making it out like she had a moral issue with lying to her kids, I think is kind of looks more like a marketing tool to me than an actual regret,
because she was saving their lives. So I think that was you know, the overwriting concern is keeping them calm, sort they're not screaming and yelling so and thus attracting the gunman, you know, so keeping calm keeping, you know, hidden that. You know, if you have to lie, you have to cheat, you have to steal, you do it
until you get the threat passed, and you know. And so that's the one thing I was kind of like struck me as reading the article that seemed more like the writer of the article making that point than the lady herself, because I don't think that was as big a deal for her as it was made out to be.
You're probably right, You're probably right now that you mentioned that, you know, she did. She did start her Facebook post recounting this event with eyelide. But yeah, it did become the central focus of this article, didn't it, Kelly. I know that you had some comments on that as well, So.
I think she did feel bad about it. I don't think she might have felt bad about it in the immediate moment, but I would have felt bad about it. I feel bad about when I do things like that because I worry about if the means justify the ends, right, And I can see where her first thought was, I've got to keep the kids calm, I've got to keep them chilled out safe, and I can do that through lying to them. And she did it, and then two days later she thought to herself. Boy, you know, I
don't like lying the kids. It jeopardized my position as a teacher when I lied to them, And I yeah, I could see where she was, like morally worried about what she had done, even though she did save lives. It's a really really hard place to put yourself into. I certainly wouldn't want to be her, and my heart goes out to her, just like you said, Jimmy, you know, I really feel for this moment and I'm so glad she her and her students came out safe after this event.
Yeah. Yeah, And you know I read say that again Johnson.
It's like it's like the trolley problem all over again. You know, kind of damned if you do, and damned if you don't, you know, morally, Yeah, they have to make a decision.
Well, I think, uh, I think what what we are overlooking or what not? What we are overlooking? But I think what was was kind of overlooked in this article was the way that teachers are treated, the environments that kids and teachers have to exist in on a daily basis. And so I want to just read out what somebody commented on miss Carter's Facebook posts A guy named Landon Benson. Don't know who he is, probably just a community member, maybe a friend. Family. Every single teacher feels this like
a gut punch. I find myself scanning rooftops when I'm outside. I consider where will we run from out here in the field, How would I get their attention when they are far from me? How quickly will we react? Almost daily? And so I think that really is what we should be focusing on, not necessarily miss Lambert's account of this event, but the larger picture here that we have this faction of our society, if you will, which are teachers? Right?
We rely on them across our culture as Americans. We rely on teachers for eighteen years plus at least, and they are in a position where they are living a life as if they are the head of some security organization. And it really isn't fair. I opened up this article with in my introduction talking about how underpaid they are, And now, of course we're in this debate do we arm teachers? And I kind of want to talk about that a little bit. If you guys don't mind, I
want to ask both of you your thoughts. Kelly, I'll start with you this time. You know, where do we stand on arming teachers? No? Okay, that was very quick. Sounds like you've been thinking about this a while.
Well, I've thought about it.
I'll give you reasons.
But let's hear John Hans to say. So, okay, okay, say we can do it back and forth.
Sure, I don't know what you think I was going to say. I was gonna don't know you No, no, no, you know a thousand times.
No.
Militarizing the schools is just making it worse for the kids. I remember full well. And so you, Kelly in elementary school, diving under my desk for nuclear drill. Okay, terrorized, literally terrorized for the first six seven grades that I was, you know that we did that for and I was just a little kid, And that imprints on you. We're not doing the children any favors by by the how
we're treating it now. And to make it worse by seeing the very instruments of death that they're afraid of toted it around in their school, you know what are they going to think?
Yeah?
And so it scares me that we're going to be creating a whole another group of people who are are just terrified to.
Live in an instance like this, I'm always worried about. You know, we always we often hear stories about the policeman who left his gun in the bathroom. Ah, you know, we always hear stories about the policeman whose gun got taken away from them. They're going to scuffle, and that's what that's what I worry about. That's why I don't
think guns belong in the school at all. Especially. I mean, it's one thing for the policeman who's been highly trained to use that gun, to have that gun, to have that gun in a safe position, But we are now going to rely on teachers who are already not making enough money to survive, to now have to take on the role of also being a policemen.
Yeah. I mean they've already got a job to do, yes, yes, Okay. So you know, and it's not just policemen that leave their guns around. You know. I have been in Afghanistan and somebody lost their pistol and an interpreter, an Afghan interpreter, returned it, Thank goodness, Right, somebody who should not have had a weapon returned it to the person that was in charge of the area of the base that we were staying on. They called them the camp mayor or whatever.
But anyway, you know this this speaks to the fact that we when it comes to guns, don't really have a good grasp on this situation. You know, people, people are people, teachers are are above average people. But at the end of the day, they're not trained professionals with weapons, and nor should they be expected to be, because they have they have a job to do. And we have as a society already facilities in place and and and uh an apparatus in place to use guns and to
protect us. Right, which brings me to my next point. Guys. Uh So, gun laws in Georgia number forty six in the country. Of course, for those of you who don't know, we have fifty states, so they don't see wheth don't ask me either Hawai or I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I think it is probably. But in any case, so Georgia doesn't do anything to protect their gun laws, but they do require schools to have an annual gun gun active shooter drill by October first each year. Now think
about that. We are in September. It's September eighteenth today right as we're recording. And for those of you who figured out that we pre recorded this and it's actually not next Wednesday when you're watching this, but it's this Wednesday. You know, I gave. I gave our secret away. But at a time where we're supposed to be getting our textbooks, learning our new language, learning our times tables. Instead we're
focused on getting this drill done by October first. I digress a little bit, or I rant a little bit, but I mean, what do you guys make of our priorities not being in order? Well?
I make I make that You're right, our priorities are not in order. I think if they were, we might have been working at more diligently on solving this school shooting problem. I mean, it is probably one of the most prevalent problems in America today, and yet we can't seem to get our shit together, to even get a paneled together to try and solve it. We can't even get a committee together to investigate and solve it. And that's a real problem, and it does say something about
our priorities. Who the fuck in our government is running the show that they cannot protect our children. This is something that is really really important, and it's important to a lot of Americans, and yet these idiots that we keep electing just keep blowing the problem off like it's nothing. And I know we have a few people in Washington that are talking about it, that are yelling that we need to do something, but nothing is getting done.
Nothing. I have a couple of comments. One is that how does the fourteen year old get the weapons to go into a school and shoot it up. This guy was fourteen years old. Granted they arrested him. He's going to be tried as an adult, probably spend a long time in jail, which is not the great place for them him to spend his teens and the young life. But you know, he's going to learn how to be
a better criminal at that point. But you know, and the other point is that gun violence is the leading cause of death for young children in the United States, the leading cause. It's not you know, illness, it's not falling off a bridge, it's not getting run over by a car. It's gunshots. And in what reality do we allow that to happen to children. They're always screaming but the kids on everything. Yet they allow their children to
go to school and not come home. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Well, and you know what, they're not only just screaming just the kids, but they're screaming thoughts and prayers as if that's going to do something for them, you know. And I can't help but play devil's advocate here because I've already said it before. I'm super grateful for people like Ms Carter who can think quickly, yes, and who can who can get these kids to safety. But you know she asked her kids to hide behind couches, and that she purchased big, bulky couches where they took cover.
But her remark in that recount was, thank God, I ditched the desks for balty bulky furniture. We're thanking God for this, I mean, we really, is this really where our minds are. We're thanking God for the actions of that day. And I don't mean to pile on miss Carter, because you know, what she did was very effective, and I feel like she would have continued to fight had she been in that situation, but to a larger in a larger respect, our minds are not on solving problems,
not in Georgia. We're not solving problems in Georgia. We're praying to invisible gods that allow shootings to happen and saying thank you for not me, for not allowing me to be shot. And then we're re electing people who don't solve the problem and instead make us prepare for the problem by having us do drills while not relinquishing any of their poor gun laws. And so that's my rant on all this, gentlemen, What does this story tell us about how our youth have to grow up now?
And Jonathan, great point on the nuclear weapons, but on the nuclear drills, But are we in a different scenario and I want to get your takes on that or is this different than that?
It is? It is so different because this is an immediate threat. Nuclear war was like, okay, we're going to get down under our desk and put our heads down that sort of thing and basically just kiss our ass goodbye, you know. But that was it, you know. But it was terrifying because we knew they even as a small child, I knew that we were doing this because the world
was ending, you know, at that point. But it was it was more often the distance gunfire inside your school is an immediate threat to you personally, It's terrifying that's the subject of PTSD. Imagine giving your children PTSD when they are five years old, they just started school, or all the way through teenagers in high school. You know Marjorie Stoneman High School here. You know this was a.
High school PTSD from that age.
Yeah, and you know, having having somebody right here who's had PTSD since that age, you know, it's it's like that's going to affect the rest of their lives. You are basically ruining lives here. They will never be able to think of school in a positive light. A lot
of the market are. You know, they're gonna you know, they The thing is that colleges have had this problem too, So saying they're going to go to college and everybody's an adult there and it's not going to happen is bullshit, right, So, and they know it's bullshit. Kids understand an awful lot more than you think they do. Parents out there and you think they don't know what's going on, think again, you know they do. They're very perceptive. They catch little
nuances and voices and things just like anybody else. They may not be able to put words to it, but they understand it. So just if you want to think about the kids. Let's seriously think about the kids and what we need to do to get this situation away from the schools and away from their lives, because you're going to grow up. They're going to have a whole generation growing up just fearful. Now, maybe that's what you want, but you know, it's not a good thing for the kids.
So wake up, you know, and smell the roses and get rid of the guns.
Kelly, first off, I want to say screw you, John, because now I got that song going through my head. Duck and cover, Duck and cover.
Jimmy don't know what I'm talking about.
Your wigg Yeah, you lost me.
I think maybe we had.
We had to watch we had to watch a little five minute black and white cartoon about how to save ourselves when the nuclear bomb landed.
Oh wow, And that was what we.
Were supposed to do. Dian had a cute, catchy little song about duck and covering. So that's what John mentioned back in those days and having the drills, and we'd always watched that movie before the drill.
Old defense pictures from the Defense Department.
Different, isn't it, Because like when I was a kid, I never heard of a school getting nuked. I never heard of a bunch of school kids getting killed by an Adam bomb, right, So this is a completely different mindset. There's actually kids getting gunned down in their schools and other kids are hearing about this. So yeah, it is
a different thing. It's completely different. And I'm just thankful that I'm not a kid nowadays, because I don't know how I'd be able to deal with that, especially with what I had to deal with to begin with as a kid, you know, having this pile down it, it would have drove me.
Crazy, absolutely absolutely, and it affects society as a whole, as somebody who has a child in preschool and in high school. Uh, you know, I never thought that i'd be dreading a call like that, you know. But sometimes sometimes I think about it is today the day that it happens to me? Because we're all we're all at one time or another about many different things. I'll never get sick, I'll never get into a car wreck, I'll never it won't happen to me. But is today my day?
You know?
And society parents shouldn't have to worry about That's right, That's right. Parents shouldn't have to worry about it. Kids should be able to enjoy themselves and learn comfortably, and teachers shouldn't have to wonder if they're going to need to be an expert marksman instead of grading midterm papers or coming up with lessons and things like that. And
so that's why where our society is backwards. I just want to put this on you, gentlemen, that you know I said that there were thirty nine school shooting so far this year as of September September thirteenth, twenty twenty four. Last year, I don't think well, first of all, I don't think anybody probably knew that. Not you, but in general, I don't think the general public would know that we had eighty two last year in seventy nine the year before. I want to give you. I want to ask you both,
is this normal now? Because people like to say, oh, well, this is becoming normalized, we are becoming desensitized. I would argue we're way past that point.
Oh yeah, we are.
I want to know what you guys think about that.
I would agree that we are way past the normalization park. You ever notice these things become You hear another shooting and it's kind of like, well, change it to yeah, it's like, that's right. It used to be. You get all upset about it, but you can only get upset about things so much, and if they start being frequent, you just you can't emotionally deal with it, so you shut it out, you know. But instead of doing something about it, you're ignoring it.
It is normal, and it doesn't have to be. That's the thing. It doesn't have to be sure people standing up. It's going to like the kids from Florida or the parents from Massachusetts. It's going to take more and more people standing up who were victims or related to the victims, and the people who didn't have anything happen to them standing up and making this change happen. It's not going to happen any other way. It's not going to happen until a majority of Americans stand up and say I
have had enough of this. We need to do something, and it's about time for us to start standing up and saying that.
Well put, well put. Fascinating discussion, gentlemen. I just want to say that not only are our elected officials on either the state or the national level doing anything about it. God's not doing about it either. And I just want to remind you of that as a member of the atheist community of Austin, it's time to start thinking about this from a skeptic perspective. Are we putting all of our hopes into an invisible character that is obviously, if
it is real, not going to help us? And then why do we put our support behind people who are not helping us? The Sandy Hook children would have been in their senior year of school this year, and they, like many other many other kids across this country, are never going to know what it's like to have a normal school experience.