Shocker - School shooter was a gun enthusiast

[Rikurzhen]

If you can magically transform the US of 2014 into the US of 1956, sign me up. I'll support your plan and go along with the points on your poster.

 

[Rikurzhen]

He did so out of opposition to the Civil Rights Act of that year, and was gradually followed by the rest of the Southern segregationists including the aforementioned Trent Lott. That they found it even possible, let alone conducive, to join a party that had been when they grew up a dirty word owing to Civil War history (and make no mistake, it holds a long time in such a conservative land -- I can remember hearing the rhetoric in my own lifetime) reflects the changing nature of the Republican Party toward social conservatism --- led along in no small part by Jerry Falwell and his ilk -- a trait that had never been part of that party before. So that party too was changing. The idea of religion being a part of politics is a latecomer. Thanks a lot, Jerry. He of course was operating from the same motivation -- to acquire power.

I'll give you credit, that was carefully worded. What happened?

If the parties had in some meaningful way flipped on civil rights, one would expect that to show up in the electoral results in the years following the Democrats’ 1964 about-face on the issue. Nothing of the sort happened: Of the 21 Democratic senators who opposed the 1964 act, only one would ever change parties. Nor did the segregationist constituencies that elected these Democrats throw them out in favor of Republicans: The remaining 20 continued to be elected as Democrats or were replaced by Democrats. It was, on average, nearly a quarter of a century before those seats went Republican. If southern rednecks ditched the Democrats because of a civil-rights law passed in 1964, it is strange that they waited until the late 1980s and early 1990s to do so.
​

Why did it happen?

The Republican ascendancy in Dixie is associated with the rise of the southern middle class, the increasingly trenchant conservative critique of Communism and the welfare state, the Vietnam controversy and the rise of the counterculture, law-and-order concerns rooted in the urban chaos that ran rampant from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, and the incorporation of the radical Left into the Democratic party. Individual events, especially the freak show that was the 1968 Democratic convention, helped solidify conservatives’ affiliation with the Republican party. Democrats might argue that some of these concerns — especially welfare and crime — are “dog whistles” or “code” for race and racism, but this criticism is shallow in light of the evidence and the real saliency of those issues among U.S. voters of all backgrounds and both parties for decades. Indeed, Democrats who argue that the best policies for black Americans are those that are soft on crime and generous with welfare are engaged in much the same sort of cynical racial calculation President Johnson was practicing when he informed skeptical southern governors that his plan for the Great Society was “to have them ******* voting Democratic for the next two hundred years.” Johnson’s crude racism is, happily, largely a relic of the past, but his strategy endures.
​

More here:

But in the course of this argument, Bouie makes the following statement: “White Southerners jumped ship from Democratic presidential candidates in the 1960s, and this was followed by a similar shift on the congressional level, and eventually, the state legislative level. That the [last] two took time doesn’t discount the first.”

If you polled pundits, you’d probably get 90 percent agreement with this statement. And if you polled political scientists, you’d likely get a majority to sign off on it. That’s maddening, because it’s incorrect.

I’ve written at length on this, both in my book and here, but it is worth revisiting. In truth, the white South began breaking away from the Democrats in the 1920s, as population centers began to develop in what was being called the “New South” (remember, at the beginning of the 20th century, New Orleans was the only thing approximating what we currently think of as a city in the South).

In the 1930s and 1940s, FDR performed worse in the South in every election following his 1932 election. By the mid-1940s, the GOP was winning about a quarter of the Southern vote in presidential elections. . . .

Perhaps the biggest piece of evidence that something significant was afoot is Richard Nixon’s showing in 1960. He won 46.1 percent of the vote to John F. Kennedy’s 50.5 percent. One can write this off to JFK’s Catholicism, but writing off three elections in a row becomes problematic, especially given the other developments bubbling up at the local level. It’s even more problematic when you consider that JFK had the nation’s most prominent Southerner on the ticket with him.

But the biggest problem with the thesis comes when you consider what had been going on in the interim: Two civil rights bills pushed by the Eisenhower administration had cleared Congress, and the administration was pushing forward with the Brown decision, most famously by sending the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas to assist with the integration of Little Rock Central High School.

It’s impossible to separate race and economics completely anywhere in the country, perhaps least of all in the South. But the inescapable truth is that the GOP was making its greatest gains in the South while it was also pushing a pro-civil rights agenda nationally. What was really driving the GOP at this time was economic development. As Southern cities continued to develop and sprout suburbs, Southern exceptionalism was eroded; Southern whites simply became wealthy enough to start voting Republican.​

 

[Dana7360]

He was in a Washington school. A state controlled by liberals. It's a 14 year old boy who had never before experienced "no". If he played a game there was no score, or everyone "won". He never had a disappointment. His girlfriend of two years told him no. She rejected him. He wasn't firing randomly in school. He walked up to the table where she was sitting, with his best friend and two of his cousins. If that's not a major slap upside the head, what is. Had they no loyalty? In less than a minute he shot all four then shot himself.

Guns didn't cause this. Going to a liberal school caused it.

That shows what you know about Washington. Which is zero.

This happened in Marysville Washington. Which is very north of Seattle in completely different county.

Marysville is a rural area. It has mostly farmers, loggers, Tulalip Indians and some who work at Boeing.

The boy who did this was a Tulalip Indian who lived on the reservation.

Guns are very common in that area. Everyone has at least one. Hunting and fishing are very serious sports in Washington. Hunting and fishing is a way of life for the Tulalip Indians.

A girl who is Tulalip Indian and lives on the reservation goes to the same private school my daughter attends. They're very good friends. She's been over to spend the weekend at our home many times in the last 9 months. She started going to the same school as my daughter in the middle of last school year. Before that she went to Marysville High School. My daughter has talked with her friend about this and I know what really happened. My daughter will go to the funeral with her friend.

That girl knows everyone involved with the shooting. She grew up with them and went to school with them up until the middle of last year.

This has NOTHING to do with liberals. That boy isn't in an area that liberals live in. What you describe doesn't happen in Washington state. You're spouting stupid stereotypes created by haters just like yourself.

This has to do with the boy's mom and other important family members rejecting him most of his life. When his girlfriend rejected him he lost it. He was sitting in the lunchroom eating lunch with his friends just like any normal day. My daughter said then he stopped laughing and joking and his whole demeanor changed. His face and eyes turned to what she called "death" as he stood up and started shooting. At his friends.

 

[2aguy]

Rikurzhen...post 82 was great...that lie needs to be put down...thanks for doing it...


I love this part...

It’s impossible to separate race and economics completely anywhere in the country, perhaps least of all in the South. But the inescapable truth is that the GOP was making its greatest gains in the South while it was also pushing a pro-civil rights agenda nationally. What was really driving the GOP at this time was economic development. As Southern cities continued to develop and sprout suburbs, Southern exceptionalism was eroded; Southern whites simply became wealthy enough to start voting Republican.

 

[Dana7360]

He's Tulalip. Of course the young man would be an avid hunter.

Sheesh. OP get a freaking grip will ya? Take your anti gun agenda and shove it where the sun don't shine.

I can think of many a gun enthusiast in freaking Chicago that goes out hunting for human flesh every day but I don't see you anti gun freaks starting a thread about them daily.

The thing is. He didn't use a shot gun. He used a small pistol.

Which isn't used for hunting.

Yes hunting and fishing are a way of life for Tulalip Indians. But shooting your friends with a small pistol isn't.

 

[2aguy]

Ahhh...Kevin Williamsen....great writer...thanks again Rikurzhen...

 

[Rikurzhen]

A girl who is Tulalip Indian and lives on the reservation goes to the same private school my daughter attends.

What? You're such a flaming liberal and you send your daughter to a private school?

 

[MikeK]

I'm not worried about gun owners, just gun nuts.

[...]

And there always will be a percentage of those.

The fact is there are an estimated 300 million guns in the hands of 319 million American citizens. So considering those numbers there obviously are relatively few criminal, crazy, and accidental shooting incidents.

Actually, far more Americans are killed or injured in sports and recreational activities than are killed or injured with guns.

 

[Dana7360]

How could it happen the bluest part of a blue state? Wait a minute, the children raised in another liberal state, Colorado, massacred their fellow students a couple of times. Two deputy sheriffs were murdered in another Blue state yesterday and a maniac shot up liberal Canada's parlament. Do we need more gun laws or do we need to take the guns out of the hands of criminals and crazy people and enforce the freaking laws on the books? Was the kid taking prescription drugs to make it easier for the teachers union to teach a class? The Columbine kids were dosed with dangerous psychotropic drugs by the system but the liberal media didn't want to talk about it.

It wasn't the bluest part of a blue state.

The bluest part of Washington is Seattle. It's in King County.

Marysville is very north of Seattle. It's in Snohomish County.

Marysville is a rural conservative area. Seattle is an urban and very liberal area.

Learn about things before you post and make a very big fool of yourself.

 

[2aguy]

Actually, far more Americans are killed or injured in sports and recreational activities than are killed or injured with guns.

yeah...but....guns kill people....or something....isn't that the right liberal response to a statement of fact that contradicts their false religion of anti gunnery...

 

[2aguy]

The thing is. He didn't use a shot gun. He used a small pistol.

Which isn't used for hunting.

Yes hunting and fishing are a way of life for Tulalip Indians. But shooting your friends with a small pistol isn't.

A small pistol...it was against the law for him to have the pistol...

It was against the law for him to carry the pistol in public...

It was against the law for him to carry the pistol concealed in public...

It was against the law for him to take the pistol onto school grounds....they are, by law, gun free zones....

Pistols are used for hunting...they are easy to carry and don't get as hung up on branches as rifles...

Yes hunting and fishing are a way of life for Tulalip Indians. But shooting your friends with a small pistol isn't.

You mean murdering your friends over a girl is not a quaint Native American custom...wow...I'm glad you straightened that out...

 

[chikenwing]

You call that a gun enthusiast? You have a low bar. The gun wasn't the problem, the problem was the moral decay of liberalism, where everyone is a victim, life is unfair being offended is a way of life.

Yuh huh. So shooting victims aren't victims, they're just suffering the "moral decay of liberalism".

Idiot.

Thast not what was posted and you know it,yes they were victims,another lets just see how far we can piss poster,what a bore.

 

[Impenitent]

THE BOY

Nine-year-old Ricky Watson sat on the living room for playing with a revolver. He didn’t know the word for revolver because he was too young, but he knew the word pistol. Ricky knew what he had qualified as a pistol because he could almost hold it in one hand. The weight of it was such that he couldn’t quite hold his arm straight out and keep the pistol level, not but for a few seconds anyway. The good part, though, at least to Ricky, was that he could load it. Most of the pistols he saw on TV had a complicated loading system (in something called magazines, not the kind at the checkout), but not this one. This one had a cylinder that slid from the body of the gun and he could just put the bullets in the holes. He also knew which way the bullets went, that was easy, from watching TV. Luckily, he had bullets. Eight of them, in fact. Enough to load its six chambers more than once.

Ricky knew that he would get in trouble if his parents saw him with the gun, so he didn’t play with it long. He had gotten it from his parents’ room the night before. He knew they didn’t check it often because it was stored in a metal box under their bed, along with some papers he couldn’t understand, and the box had the key right in the lock. The key never moved, as far as the he could tell, so he figured he could play with the gun for a couple of days and put it back, no big deal. For now, though, his parents were still asleep in their room and there was no putting it back, not that he wanted to yet. He slid it under the couch instead. The couch had cloth flaps that hung to the ground and so there were no worries about someone walking by and happening to catch a glimpse of the gun. Sunlight spilled through the window and even though the gun was shiny black, the cloth would cover it until he was ready to get it again. He planned to take it fishing with him later. Fishing was the only time he could get away from adults long enough to use it.

Ricky’s parents woke up thirty-five minutes after he slid the gun under the couch. He was lost in a cartoon when his mother came in the living room and asked about breakfast.

“Ricky, what are you doing up already? It’s almost impossible to get you up for school, but every Saturday I see you in here before us,” his mom said. His mom was wearing a light-blue nightgown.

“I didn’t want to miss the cartoons,” he said, scratching his nose, transfixed and not bothering to make eye contact. “This is the only time I can watch them all in a row with no homework.

“I wish you cared as much about school. When I was your age, we could only watch cartoons on Saturday morning. They were barely on during the week and there was no such thing as a cartoon channel. What do you want for breakfast?” his mom asked him.

“Pancakes …. Can I eat them in front of the TV, Mom? I got up early for this and I don’t want to miss it now,” Ricky said, picking his nose absentmindedly and completely ignoring the cartoon reference. Adults always had to have you know about their lives as children, Ricky thought, but it rarely mattered.

“OK, Ricky. But you don’t need to watch cartoons all day. After this one ends you should go out and play. Maybe you can go fishing with your friend, get out of the house,” his mom said, grabbing a clean pan from the washboard.

Ricky smiled and agreed with a nod unseen, feeling proud of a plan that, although wasn’t born of his mind, now appeared seamless in retrospect.

Noon rolled around and Ricky’s friend, Sid, would soon show, but there was no way to get to the pistol. Ricky’s dad was sitting on the couch, completely oblivious to the firearm not two feet below him, watching a baseball game. Ricky was disappointed, knowing that a golden opportunity to impress Sid lay perfectly locked away, but he was still happy to be going fishing. This was one of the few times, the only time, as Ricky came to realize, that he was without any adult supervision. Although school afforded children some measure of freedom away from adults, especially at recess, it was still controlled. When on the banks of the Wickee Creek, however, no one at all was there to intervene.

“Sid’s here!” Ricky said, jumping up, after seeing his friend roll up on his bike through the living room window.

“All right, Ricky,” his dad said. “Have fun - but you need to be back before four, so take your watch. If you’re late like last week again, we might have to change the rules.”

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Ricky said with an amount of confidence that sounds reassuring inside a nine-year-old’s head and nothing of the sort when it reaches the ear of an adult. “I put my watch on an hour ago, just so I wouldn’t forget.”

“Have fun,” his dad said, but these last words fell on no ears, only the crack of a screen door banging shut. His dad heard his son say something to his friend about having a surprise but didn’t think too much of it. It was part of his dad’s personal philosophy that everyone in the world needed to feel important or superior in some way, and little boys were most willing to do it with outright dishonesties.

Sid was a year older than Ricky, and so demanded a certain kind of chronological respect. This respect meant that Ricky was constantly trying to impress Sid. It could have been worse, however. Because Sid had been held back in the first grade, his age could be an asset at times, and a burden at others. There were many remarks in their fourth-grade class based upon the fact that Sid’s edge was based on academic underperformance. But Sid had the perfect excuse – he claimed that he had been held back because of a broken leg and spent too much time in the hospital to complete all the required schoolwork.

“I’ve got something that will really surprise you,” Ricky said as they were pedaling their bikes, just after leaving the bait shop.

“You told me that already,” Sid said. Sid was wearing a throwback Pittsburgh Pirates hat, the cylindrical, black version with horizontal yellow stripes - a sought after treasure that year with the Pirates finally back in contention. “I know that when some kid tells me that over and over that it don’t mean nothing. They’re just trying to build something up that isn’t even real.”

“Oh, mine’s real. I just couldn’t get the surprise out of the house today because my dad was right there.”

“Yeah, right. That’s what they all say,” Sid said. Actually there had never been a previous situation like this one in Sid’s life, but that’s what his brain told him to say, and so out of his mouth it went.

Upon arriving at Wickee Creek, Ricky was proud of himself for still not telling Sid the secret. Ricky never thought he could go that long, but he did. Still, he knew he wasn’t going to make it much longer. Ricky’s dad had once told him that his allowance was “burning a hole in his pocket” and, after Ricky was able to grasp the meaning, the idiom stayed on in his mind. Now he realized he felt much the same about the secret in his head. He knew that just like his money, the pleasure of his secret would be spent the moment it left his possession.

But he was only nine. “I found a gun,” he finally blurted out as he disconnected the two bungee cords that held his tackle box to the frame of his bike.

“Liar, let’s see it,” Sid said, in challenge.

“I couldn’t bring it with me today, it’s under the couch and you saw my dad sitting there.”

“Sure, that’s what they all say,” Sid said, realizing again that he was referencing a non-existent precedent.

“I’ll show it to you. Just as soon as I can. I’ll bring it fishing next week,” Ricky said, now feeling embarrassed to have broached the subject at all. What he should have done was told Sid about it at school the following Friday, and that way he would have built up just enough suspense for a big payoff. Ricky could have put the gun back in the box that night and no one, not his parents or Sid, would have been the wiser.

“Next week? We’ll be old men by then,” Sid said, recklessly mis-referencing time as only the prepubescent can. “If you had it you would of brought it today.”

“I told you I couldn’t get it out of the house already.”

“Well, I don’t believe you. It sounds like something Eddie would say,” Sid said, referencing their class’s habitual liar, who had boasted of owning a motorcycle that was hidden in his garage until he became a teenager and was able to ride it.

“Fine. I’ll bring it to school on Monday. Then you’ll see.”

“We’ll see,” Sid said in reply. It was a statement his mom often used and it never brightened his mood, which is why he was saying it to Ricky. “I bet you can’t catch half the fish I can today.”


THE KILLER

The killer awoke before noon and put his high-tops on. He had killed his mother the night before with a shotgun and he wasn’t sure where all the blood had gone, so he checked the high-tops carefully. Convinced that there was none, he took a fresh T shirt from the dresser and checked his arsenal. Legally, the arsenal was his mother’s because he’d never bought a gun in his life. After being committed to multiple mental health facilities in his teens, he wasn’t sure if he was legally able, but he was certain his mom would never go for it. However, his mother had taken him to many gun shows, as a bonding experience, and let him pick out what he wanted. They would test the weapons on a range that his father had shown them before leaving for a new life with his secretary. The day’s arsenal consisted of two Berettas, freshly oiled, and an AR-15 with a scope. He especially liked the AR-15 because it looked just like the guns that soldiers carried on the news. The shotgun would remain at home. It was too bulky for what he was aiming to do.

By birth, the killer’s name was Lawrence Adams, but The Voice had renamed him Lee. The Voice played in his head pretty much nonstop anymore. Lawrence was smart for a 19 year old kid and his mind led him to believe The Voice was referencing Lee Harvey Oswald, but he couldn’t be sure. The Voice was not conversational and took no questions. It did, however, give a lot of instructions. The command for Lee to kill his mother was the second violent one he could remember, after being ordered to club to death a pregnant bird with a baseball bat the week before. “It will never survive like this, out on its own,” The Voice had told him “Be merciful and put it out of its misery.” The command to kill his mother was dressed in the same manner of euthanasia, explaining that her days were dark now, raising a son like him. “Let her be at peace” was followed by “use the shotgun” and now that deed was done. Two out of the three terrible deeds were now completed, The Voice assured him, and gave him confidence by pointing out that he was “over halfway.” Now The Voice was starting in again, the third act of the dangerous play. It was time to go to the school.



Lee had no license and had never driven by himself before, so he was a little worried. If he got stopped on the way to the school, he knew The Voice wouldn’t be pleased. There was no telling what kind of alternative plans The Voice could come up with, so he drove a little under the speed limit and made sure that he came to a complete stop whenever there was a sign. He also used his blinkers and wore his seatbelt.

It was an added advantage that Lee was in no hurry. He knew where he was going well– Wickee Elementary School – because he had been a student there before and had walked by it many times since. Right now, in this early September sun, he knew that the kids would be at recess. Recess he remembered well because it was the most dreaded part of his day. Before his mom had pulled him out of organized education, and began homeschooling, Lee had endured the most horrible part of his school day at recess. It was then that the bullying was worst because the students themselves were afforded partial autonomy for those thirty minutes. It was a chicken and egg thing, in that he wasn’t sure which came first, but Lee was awkward and stuttered horribly, and so constantly endured taunts from other children. On occasion, he was subjected to physical abuse as well, usually just a quick push to the ground that escaped the playground monitor during a game of kickball. The Voice had told him to end all of the torment that surely a few kids were currently enduring as he neared the school. “End the misery of those that do evil, Lee. Some others may fall with them, but theirs is misery too.”

He parked across the street from the school, right behind a VW bus. After exiting the car he walked to the back and opened the trunk. There was noise all around, kids laughing and even a couple walking towards him from the other side of the street, but he wasn’t worried. The Voice was still with him, giving him advice. “Move at a regular speed. If you hurry they will notice, but if you are calm they will not. What you’re doing is right and the universe will move with you. It’s clock work.” So he left the trunk up and stuffed the two Berettas into his waistband. Then he took the AR-15 and slung it over his back, just like he saw the soldiers do on TV when they went to go eat or were just walking around their base. After that was done, he put on a sports coat. The rifle was pointed downwards, and the barrel showed just a couple of inches, but he wasn’t worried. The Voice had been giving him a pep talk the entire drive over. It told him it was all in the eyes, all manner of human confidence, just look people in the eyes with confidence and calmness and they wouldn’t look many other places. “It’s not even necessary to smile, Lee. The people will see the smile right there in your eyes,” The Voice had told him.

And The Voice was right. The couple walking him toward him did make eye contact, and although his lips didn’t turn upward to express pleasure, he transferred the expression into his eyes and the couple saw it. They were middle-aged and plump, prone to politeness and, after the man gave him a slight nod, they walked right on past Lee, completely unaware. The Voice was right again; Lee walked on.


THE BOY

Ricky brought his backpack to lunch. That wasn’t something he usually did. Usually he ate a ‘hot lunch,’ one that was prepared and purchased right there at school, but today he needed to have his backpack with him. That’s where the gun was. He was sitting there with Sid and another kid named Pete, who always brought his lunch. Pete was overweight and the others never let him forget it. He enjoyed eating at the ‘cold lunch’ section because it was smaller and so had less people to make fun of him.

Sid, also out of character, had decided to sit in the special section today as well. He had to borrow an apple from Ricky just so he would be allowed at the tables, but he wasn’t concerned about his hunger. It wasn’t every day that someone brought a gun to school. In fact, this was the first time it had ever happened, but Sid wasn’t about to let on. “Sid already told me, so let us have a look,” Pete said.

“You already told him?” Ricky said. Ricky had told Sid that morning but hadn’t shown him the revolver yet. All morning, as a matter of fact, Ricky had been regretting his decision to bring it to school. He was sure a teacher was going to find it and, even if that didn’t happen, he grew steadily more worried that his mom would notice it missing. His mom was off on Mondays and that was when she did most of the cleaning, when “the boys were out of the house,” as she put it. His mom was a meticulous housekeeper and it would be nothing out of the ordinary for her to clean under her own bed.

“What’d you expect? I have to tell somebody when something like this happens,” Sid said, maintaining his ruse. “Don’t matter anyway. You just show us real quick and nobody’s gonna know anyway.”

“I sure as hell ain’t gonna do it in here. Not with all these teachers walking around. Plus, who knows who else could see?” Ricky said, scanning his eyes around the room. It wasn’t often that Ricky cussed, even when adults couldn’t hear, but now his attitude was changing. Even though he had been worried all morning, and didn’t much care for Pete, now Ricky was feeling emboldened. Even Sid was hanging on his every word.

The three boys chose their place on the playground by figuring on where they were least likely to be seen, especially by grown-ups. The kickball field was the liveliest place for recess, and so that was out. The swing set was packed with girls, as always, as few would venture to engage in such a male-dominated activity as kickball. That left the jungle gym and the teeter-totters, and the jungle gym was hopping that day. And so it happened that the three boys, with essentially no one else around, ended up in the corner of the fencing, just a few feet from the jungle gym, which was only populated by a few stragglers, all of them focused on one another. On a small wooden bench the three boys sat, taking up the entire space. The bench itself was perpendicular to the street, so the boys sat with their backs towards the rest of the kids.

“Take it out already,” Pete said, growing even more impatient. “That is if you even have it. This is starting to remind me of the time that Eddie said he would bring that World War II knife to school, the one he said his grandpa took off some Nazi. We were waiting every day for two weeks and it never showed up.”

Ricky knew that it was then or never, so to satiate the group, he reached into the bag and pulled the revolver out just a little. At first the handle was all the boys could see, its cross-stitching grip showed dully in the sun. “There, see it?” Ricky said, feeling half-vindicated and hoping that would put the matter to rest.

But it didn’t. The boys simply weren’t convinced that Ricky was indeed holding a gun at all. They reserved the right to cast it all off as some elaborate ruse.

“How are we supposed to know what that is?” Sid asked, incredulous. “You could just be showing us the handle of a gun that got all busted up. My dad told me that when cops get too old to work the police department busts their guns up and gives it back to them, just so they know a police gun will never be used in a crime. You could be holding the butt of some gun like that.”

“That could be a toy gun,” Pete said, not even willing to concede the point of Ricky having a destroyed one. “I can buy a cap gun that looks just like that, and you wouldn’t catch me bringing it to school trying to show off.”

Ricky was feeling the heat. Pete had put him in the position of looking bad in front of Sid, and that wasn’t at all how he had hoped the day was going to go.

“All right, all right. I’ll pull it out more, but it’s just going to be for a second. Don’t try to grab it or anything. I get caught with this and I’ll be kicked out of school till I’m thirty,” Ricky said. With that, Ricky did pull the gun all the way out of his back pack. It was a surreal moment for him when he finally looked at the revolver on his playground, with his friends there watching. It was with a fear that bordered on the sensation of dreaming, an absolutely unreal situation that he suddenly found himself in, not sure how it had come about or what to do next. Ricky could feel the eyes of a thousand teachers on his back, and even though another part of his mind told him that this was simple paranoia, it did nothing to abate the sensation. After leaving the gun exposed for just a few seconds, Ricky shoved it back into his bag.

“That’s a cap gun!” Pete said, a little too loudly. “I have one just like that at home. You can get those anywhere. Did you really expect us to believe that you had a real gun?”

“Is too a real gun,” Ricky said in reply, his face beginning to redden. He couldn’t believe that he had taken all this risk just to be accused of being a fraud.

Then he had an idea. He pulled one of the bullets he had brought along and held it up for his friends to see. “Does this look like a cap to you?”

“Anybody can get bullets,” Pete said. “How do we know the bullets even go to that gun. You related to Eddie or something?”

Ricky glanced sideways to see what look was registering on Sid’s face. It seemed that he wasn’t quite buying any of this either, and that was confirmed when Sid said, “He’s got a point, Ricky. Bullets aren’t that hard to get. You could of found that anywhere. We don’t know that it goes to that gun. You should prove it or just forget the whole thing.”

Ricky then realized that the only option for verification was to load the revolver. This would be dangerous, he knew, and it wasn’t something he had considered doing when he had imagined the adulation he would receive when he brought the gun to school. Into his nine-year-old mind’s eye, this last minute of conversation had never entered. Ricky was sure that simply showing the gun would suffice, but now they were pushing the limits. Actually, he didn’t want to load it until he got to the banks of the creek, where it could have been safely discharged last weekend. The only reason he hadn’t put the bullets back, and kept the gun, was that it would have proved too risky to sneak back into his parents’ bedroom for something so comparatively small. Seeing no choice he pulled the revolver all the way from the back and released the cylinder. Easily sliding the round into one of the empty slots, he clicked the contraption shut and looked up to see reactions. What he saw, however, was Pete’s hand reaching for the gun.


“Let me see that thing,” Pete said, by way of not asking.


“No, you can’t be touching it out here,” Ricky said, already starting the downward momentum necessary to put the gun back in the bag, and out of sight. But Pete’s hand had intercepted his, and it was going to take a struggle just to get it back. As Ricky pulled away, making a fist, his finger settled in the trigger guard and the revolver discharged with a deafening boom.

The Pittsburgh Citizen

September 17th, 2013

A tragedy was avoided yesterday at Wickee Elementary School when an armed man’s rampage was cut short. Lawrence

Adams, 20, murdered his mother sometime Sunday night and was headed to the school to inflict more damage. On his person were two pistols and a semi-automatic rifle.


Details are still unclear, but reports now indicate that Adams’ efforts were stymied by a nine-year-old boy. Fourth grade student Richard Watson is being hailed as a hero by many in the community, although at present time it is unclear how or why he had a weapon at school………………………

THE SALESMAN

Wayne LaPierre was a busy man that year. Not only did he have to make a sordid appearance after each mass shooting (like it was his fault), but he had extracurricular things happening as well. People might think that being the public face of the NRA is easy and uneventful, but let them walk for just a day in his shoes. There were gun lobbyists to meet with, press releases to tweak and politicians who always needed a favor. On the day that the Wickee story broke, Wayne was in Springfield, Missouri, for the opening of the NRA Sporting Arms Museum. It had opened nearly a month before but Wayne was just now getting to the mid-West, as most of his action was concentrated in Washington. He was in a back room of the museum, finalizing some notes, when he got a text on his Blackberry. It was from one of his assistants back in Fairfax, Virginia, and it was to the point – check this link immediately! www.thepittsburgcitizen.com/tragedy-avoided. He was bothered by the intrusion on the one hand, but knew it was necessary on the other. Everyone had Wayne’s itinerary memorized, and no one would be crazy enough to bug him without reason.

Going out to give a speech, even a simple one like this, to an entirely friendly audience, had its dangers when you considered that the press would be there. The mere presence of his Blackberry reminded him that he lived in the digital age. Actually, he wished they would call it what it was – the instant and forever age – in that whatever a person said or did was instantly known to the world and available for eternity. It wasn’t easy being a spokesman for an organization like this, but that’s why he got paid the money he did. Wayne LaPierre was a master and his track record proved it. He had been at it for over twenty years, through mass-shooting after mass-shooting, and he had not only expanded gun rights, but had enriched his organization along the way.

After finishing the story and jotting a few notes down, he walked through a backdoor and on stage. The good thing about this gig in Springfield was that it started on his time. Wayne considered the worst part of his job nationally-televised events, because they started when the press was ready. Not today; they would listen when he started speaking. He had only prepared a ten minute speech (it wouldn’t take much to please the hardcore members and most of them were just itching to look at antique firearms anyway), but it seemed to go on a lot longer because he was preoccupied with what would happen after his speech. His details of the Pittsburgh shooting were incomplete, and so he didn’t feel as well-prepared as he thought he should have. Usually he had a team of PR guys run through talking points and bounce questions off him before he ran the gauntlet, but today there just wasn’t any time for it. He would have to wing it. Which meant that he was hoping to slide-step as many questions as possible by telling reporters that he would wait to comment when he got more information, but that never lasted for long. The truth of the matter was that reporters often got under his skin and got him to give out a bad quote, something that could be used to burn him over and over on cable news. Often his missteps were on multiple blogs before he got a chance to even look at his Blackberry.

But of course the time came when his fluff had run its course, and here came the reporters. They weren’t pulling any punches today, not that they ever did.

Reporter: “Mr. LaPierre, any word on how the shooter acquired his firearms?”

WL: “At this time, as I understand it, the police don’t even know that, so I don’t have any information for you.”

Reporter: “Was the shooting of the suspect in Pittsburgh justified, in your opinion, considering that the alleged shooter hadn’t yet fired a shot?”

WL: “As I’ve always maintained – the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. It’s pretty obvious that people don’t bring firearms to schools for good purposes.”

Reporter: “What do you have to say about the boy many in Pittsburgh are calling a hero? Do you agree with children bringing guns to school?”

WL: “We need to have more information on the overall situation before I can comment on any of that. As soon as the Pittsburgh police know more, I will be able to comment more on the matter, but not now.”

With that, Wayne told the gathered reporters that he would have to go, and that he had a museum to tour. Overall, he was satisfied with his performance. He had been a little angry, as he always was when that pack of hyenas was let loose on him, but he had kept his cool and hadn’t given them any ammo to use against him, so to speak. Wayne LaPierre knew that he hadn’t nailed it, but he had survived and would live to fight another day. This was a valuable lesson that was generated through his experience. He had been through the wars.

Wayne Lapierre never liked David Gergory, especially since he started hosting Meet the Press, but that came as no surprise. For years, Wayne had hated nearly everyone who wasn’t a Fox News host. In his opinion, most news people were simply un-American, representative of the jack-booted liberal thugs than ran poisonous through the veins of American politics. It was all liberal bias, in Wayne’s opinion, those who said anything against the NRA. After all, the Second Amendment was right there in the constitution. It was the second most important point in the Bill of Rights and, as such, had no business being argued about.

The problem was that David Gregory had landed the key gig in Washington, and there was no way to avoid going on Meet the Press if you were serious about getting your message out. Sure, you could get on a second-tier show, but less people were likely to hear it. And of course you could mix it up with Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, which Wayne would have preferred, but then you always risked the attack of being labeled partisan. No, the only way to get the message out there was to run straight through David Gregory, no matter how unpleasant. Wayne’s position as Vice President and CEO of the NRA required this larger platform, no matter how much it may have irked him. But not to worry, Wayne was thinking as sipped at his coffee on his jet, for this time the circumstances were on his side. He had a lot of angles to play up, not least among them that no innocent people had been killed. So many times the dialog had devolved into a body count, which was hard to alleviate with words. Not too hard, though, Wayne thought, putting an empty sugar packet back to the foldout tray. Numbers worked in a strange way, he knew, one or twenty people killed eventually became a backdrop when the word got elevated to rights.

Ten minutes before show time Wayne was in the green room. The makeup woman was giving him a final once-over, and he was rehearsing what he wanted to say on air. His strategy was unchanged, and had been so for ages. The worst thing to talk about was the victims, especially by name. Giving a name to a victim inherently changed the argument. It put the onus on Wayne to show compassion, and this was not argument he was going to win. Wayne’s strategy and goal was to emphasize gun rights – the ones spelled out in the constitution, thank you very much. As he rose to go to the set, and slipped on his jacket, he ran through the mental checklist one last time. He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

Wayne was the third scheduled guest of the show. He had been relegated to the backburner, he knew, because only the shooter had died. This gave Wayne a kind of confidence that he wasn’t used to. Usually he was the first guest, in the hot-seat so to speak, and he was getting fired at from David right away. But because the shooter was the only fatality, and the argument over Obamacare was the big issue that fall, Wayne had been pushed back. Fine with him.

After David’s introduction, the two got right down to business. Wayne thought that he should try going on the late night shows, just so he could see what some cordiality might feel like, but those shows consisted of too much fluff for the NRA’s tastes. Meet the Press hadn’t built its reputation on one-liners and anecdotes.

“The tragedy avoided this week in Pittsburgh, your thoughts…” David said for his first question.

“The situation in Pittsburgh illustrates what I’ve been saying for years. It’s a perfect example,” Wayne began. “When there are enough good guys with guns, the bad guys with guns can’t win.”

“Perhaps so. And I know we’ve had you on here many times before and that’s what you’ve said. But this time, isn’t this time different? After all, the good guy with a gun in this instance was a boy, who shouldn’t have had access to a gun in the first place.”

“David, we can argue semantics all you want, but the fact is that the only way these things are avoided is when we have layers of security. And we can’t argue with the outcome and that outcome is that, with the exception of the shooter, no one was hurt or killed,” Wayne said.

“But there were no layers of security that allowed this shooting to be avoided, there was simply a boy with a gun. Are you saying that the responsibility of school defense should fall to toddlers when the situation warrants it?” David asked.

“The media needs to quit trying to steer this towards firearms when the fact of the matter is that there aren’t enough guns to stop these killers when they are intent on doing evil. The world needs more good boys with guns.”

Nice writing! I'll look for you and Rikurzen in the fiction aisle.

 

[Stephanie]

Good thing he wasn't a tank enthusiast eh? You people have no problems dancing on the graves of the dead before their bodies are even COLD

SICK FREAKS

 

[Impenitent]

Starting to see how region and culture trumps party yet?

Obviously you don't since Nixon, the one democrats lie about having a racist southern strategy won the new, non racist south...

Nixon feared another run by George Wallace in 72 , like in 68, would bleed off white voters from him, not the democrats. Now what would Wallace supporters have in common with the Republican party?

perhaps a hint from Wallaces' obituary:

"In Wallace's 1998 obituary, The Huntsville Times political editor John Anderson summarized the impact from the 1968 campaign: "His startling appeal to millions of alienated white voters was not lost on Richard Nixon and other GOP strategists. First Nixon, then Ronald Reagan and finally George Herbert Walker Bush successfully adopted toned-down versions of Wallace's anti-busing, anti-federal government platform to pry low- and middle-income whites from the Democratic New Deal coalition."

 

[XPostFacto]

He's sporting a bolt-action rifle, not exactly your run of the mill mass shooting iron AR-15. I'm also glad to see he isn't considered a white Tea Partier. Since that area is near an Indian village, he looks more Indian than white so there goes another stereotype that the liberals can't exploit. What are they to do, now?

 

[tinydancer]

Yes, the six CONFEDERATE officers who started the klan were probably libertarians...

Ku Klux Klan - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

From a link in the article...I give you one of the first members of the clan...no surprise...he was a democrat politician...

George Gordon Civil War General - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Political career[edit]
Gordon was elected as a Democrat to the Sixtieth, Sixty-first, and Sixty-second Congresses. He served from March 4, 1907, until his death in Memphis.

From another link in the democrat klan article...nathan bedford forrest...first grand wizard of the klan...another democrat politician...

Nathan Bedford Forrest - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821 – October 29, 1877) was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He is remembered both as a self-educated, innovative cavalry leader during the war and as a leading southern advocate in the postwar years. He was a pledged delegate from Tennessee to the New York Democratic national convention of 4 July 1868. He served as the first Grand Wizard of theKu Klux Klan, but later distanced himself from the organization.[3]

Hmmmmm...the guy who wrote the klan dogma...gordon and the first grand wizard of the klan, forrest....were democrat politicians...and confederate officers during the democrat war to keep slavery...and yet...the six confederate officers who started the klan...no one knows their political affiliations....

Try harder....

So, you really don't understand that the two main political parties have essentially traded places in our history?

You really don't know that???

Educate yourself.

He's Tulalip. Of course the young man would be an avid hunter.

Sheesh. OP get a freaking grip will ya? Take your anti gun agenda and shove it where the sun don't shine.

I can think of many a gun enthusiast in freaking Chicago that goes out hunting for human flesh every day but I don't see you anti gun freaks starting a thread about them daily.

The thing is. He didn't use a shot gun. He used a small pistol.

Which isn't used for hunting.

Yes hunting and fishing are a way of life for Tulalip Indians. But shooting your friends with a small pistol isn't.

He's Tulalip. Of course the young man would be an avid hunter.

Sheesh. OP get a freaking grip will ya? Take your anti gun agenda and shove it where the sun don't shine.

I can think of many a gun enthusiast in freaking Chicago that goes out hunting for human flesh every day but I don't see you anti gun freaks starting a thread about them daily.

The thing is. He didn't use a shot gun. He used a small pistol.

Which isn't used for hunting.

Yes hunting and fishing are a way of life for Tulalip Indians. But shooting your friends with a small pistol isn't.

Of course shooting your friends with a small pistol isn't a way of life for First Nations nor any other ethnicity.



I'm responding to the assinine OP that a "gun enthusiast" kills again.

 

[2aguy]

perhaps a hint from Wallaces' obituary:

"In Wallace's 1998 obituary, The Huntsville Times political editor John Anderson summarized the impact from the 1968 campaign: "His startling appeal to millions of alienated white voters was not lost on Richard Nixon and other GOP strategists. First Nixon, then Ronald Reagan and finally George Herbert Walker Bush successfully adopted toned-down versions of Wallace's anti-busing, anti-federal government platform to pry low- and middle-income whites from the Democratic New Deal coalition."

an obituary written by the media arm of the democrat party...did you read the actual voting patterns...you might learn what actually happened instead of sucking up more of the democrat lie...

from an earlier post...and not from a democrat media organ...

Of the 21 Democratic senators who opposed the 1964 act, only one would ever change parties. Nor did the segregationist constituencies that elected these Democrats throw them out in favor of Republicans: The remaining 20 continued to be elected as Democrats or were replaced by Democrats. It was, on average, nearly a quarter of a century before those seats went Republican. If southern rednecks ditched the Democrats because of a civil-rights law passed in 1964, it is strange that they waited until the late 1980s and early 1990s to do so.

 

[Dana7360]

He's sporting a bolt-action rifle, not exactly your run of the mill mass shooting iron AR-15. I'm also glad to see he isn't considered a white Tea Partier. Since that area is near an Indian village, he looks more Indian than white so there goes another stereotype that the liberals can't exploit. What are they to do, now?

He was Tulalip Indian.

While he was too young to be involved with politics, Marysville is an area that has a lot of teabaggers.

The Tulalip Indians aren't teabaggers. In fact a Tulalip Indian represents the people of that area in our state's senate. He's a democrat.

It's not a village it's a reservation. It's not like other indian reservations in other states. The Tulalip Indians are a well off tribe. They have a very large casino, hotel & spa and an amphitheater. They have a full summer schedule of concerts every year. I've worked many of those concerts. There's also an outlet mall too.

 

[2aguy]

While he was too young to be involved with politics, Marysville is an area that has a lot of teabaggers.

The Tulalip Indians aren't teabaggers. In fact a Tulalip Indian represents the people of that area in our state's senate. He's a democrat.

Nicely done...smear Tea Party people while diluting the fact the kid was most likely a democrat...

Remember for those keeping score...it is recorded that the democrats planned to attack the Tea Party by falsely accusing them of racism...

The Tea Party is a loosely constituted group of people whose primary concern is taxes TEA = Taxed Enough Already, and government spending...of course, both of those things are like crosses to blood sucking vampires...which is really what democrats are...