Speaker 1: On September fourth, at Appalachi High School in winder Georgia,
Speaker 1: we saw the thirty ninth school shooting this year. I'm
Speaker 1: going to say that again. Thirty nine school shootings have
Speaker 1: taken place in the United States in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and we're in September, and that's current as of five
Speaker 1: days ago. The article that I'm going to discuss entails
Speaker 1: a Spanish teacher protecting her class during that shooting in
Speaker 1: a state where the starting salary for a teacher is
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand dollars less than the state's minimum living wage,
Speaker 1: and that's according to the National Education Association. The teacher,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Carter, cites training, God, of course, and her bulky
Speaker 1: furniture in protecting kids. But what we cannot do is
Speaker 1: attribute the state of Georgia to having any positive impact
Speaker 1: whatsoever on this situation, as it is ranked forty sixth
Speaker 1: in the nation in terms of gun law strength. When
Speaker 1: is Georgia, in fact, when is this country going to
Speaker 1: get its priorities straight and protect children and restore safety
Speaker 1: in the classroom. This story is from NPR by Emma
Speaker 1: Bowman on seven Excuse me, September seventh, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, I know what I'm supposed to do here,
Speaker 1: I think, and I know what I want to do, Okay.
Speaker 1: I want to empathize with this teacher, Ms. Carter, and
Speaker 1: I want to congratulate her. I want to say that
Speaker 1: my heart goes out to her, because it really does.
Speaker 1: It really does. This must have been absolutely traumatic, and
Speaker 1: you can tell that it was in her recount of
Speaker 1: the story, and so you know, I know that as
Speaker 1: an American, especially because this is a problem that's unique
Speaker 1: to America, as an American, and as somebody who loves
Speaker 1: this country and somebody who loves our children and loves
Speaker 1: our teachers, I want to be incredibly empathetic and you know,
Speaker 1: just support her however I can with my voice if
Speaker 1: I can. On the other hand, though, gentlemen, I would
Speaker 1: be remiss if I didn't question some of the antics
Speaker 1: that are in this story. And I do it from
Speaker 1: a completely skeptical perspective and not one that's created goal
Speaker 1: of Miss Carter. Right. But you know, I was looking
Speaker 1: over kind of our documents preparing for this show, and Jonathan,
Speaker 1: you had mentioned something that I wanted to harp on.
Speaker 1: So Miss Carter you know, she starts her recount of
Speaker 1: this tale excuse me, I shouldn't say tale of this
Speaker 1: event on her Facebook post saying I lied. I had
Speaker 1: to lie to my students, right, and she did. She said, guys,
Speaker 1: this is just a drill. Get down behind the couches.
Speaker 1: And Jonathan, you said something to the effect of lying
Speaker 1: or maybe just a good headline, right, You maybe think
Speaker 1: this was the introducing the story by highlighting that she lied.
Speaker 1: Was maybe is there something more to that? Did I
Speaker 1: read that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? To me, it sounded like clickbait, you know, and
Speaker 2: and it probably pretty much was. Because lying in that
Speaker 2: situation is not an issue. It's not a factor in
Speaker 2: what's going on. It's not bad to lie in that situation. Morally,
Speaker 2: there was no issue with it. But you know, making
Speaker 2: it out like she had a moral issue with lying
Speaker 2: to her kids, I think is kind of looks more
Speaker 2: like a marketing tool to me than an actual regret,
Speaker 2: because she was saving their lives. So I think that
Speaker 2: was you know, the overwriting concern is keeping them calm,
Speaker 2: sort they're not screaming and yelling so and thus attracting
Speaker 2: the gunman, you know, so keeping calm keeping, you know,
Speaker 2: hidden that. You know, if you have to lie, you
Speaker 2: have to cheat, you have to steal, you do it
Speaker 2: until you get the threat passed, and you know. And
Speaker 2: so that's the one thing I was kind of like
Speaker 2: struck me as reading the article that seemed more like
Speaker 2: the writer of the article making that point than the
Speaker 2: lady herself, because I don't think that was as big
Speaker 2: a deal for her as it was made out to be.
Speaker 1: You're probably right, You're probably right now that you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: you know, she did. She did start her Facebook post
Speaker 1: recounting this event with eyelide. But yeah, it did become
Speaker 1: the central focus of this article, didn't it, Kelly. I
Speaker 1: know that you had some comments on that as well, So.
Speaker 3: I think she did feel bad about it. I don't
Speaker 3: think she might have felt bad about it in the
Speaker 3: immediate moment, but I would have felt bad about it.
Speaker 3: I feel bad about when I do things like that
Speaker 3: because I worry about if the means justify the ends, right,
Speaker 3: And I can see where her first thought was, I've
Speaker 3: got to keep the kids calm, I've got to keep
Speaker 3: them chilled out safe, and I can do that through
Speaker 3: lying to them. And she did it, and then two
Speaker 3: days later she thought to herself. Boy, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't like lying the kids. It jeopardized my position as
Speaker 3: a teacher when I lied to them, And I yeah,
Speaker 3: I could see where she was, like morally worried about
Speaker 3: what she had done, even though she did save lives.
Speaker 3: It's a really really hard place to put yourself into.
Speaker 3: I certainly wouldn't want to be her, and my heart
Speaker 3: goes out to her, just like you said, Jimmy, you know,
Speaker 3: I really feel for this moment and I'm so glad
Speaker 3: she her and her students came out safe after this event.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And you know I read say that again Johnson.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like the trolley problem all over again.
Speaker 2: You know, kind of damned if you do, and damned
Speaker 2: if you don't, you know, morally, Yeah, they have to
Speaker 2: make a decision.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, uh, I think what what we are
Speaker 1: overlooking or what not? What we are overlooking? But I
Speaker 1: think what was was kind of overlooked in this article
Speaker 1: was the way that teachers are treated, the environments that
Speaker 1: kids and teachers have to exist in on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: And so I want to just read out what somebody
Speaker 1: commented on miss Carter's Facebook posts A guy named Landon Benson.
Speaker 1: Don't know who he is, probably just a community member,
Speaker 1: maybe a friend. Family. Every single teacher feels this like
Speaker 1: a gut punch. I find myself scanning rooftops when I'm outside.
Speaker 1: I consider where will we run from out here in
Speaker 1: the field, How would I get their attention when they
Speaker 1: are far from me? How quickly will we react? Almost daily?
Speaker 1: And so I think that really is what we should
Speaker 1: be focusing on, not necessarily miss Lambert's account of this event,
Speaker 1: but the larger picture here that we have this faction
Speaker 1: of our society, if you will, which are teachers? Right?
Speaker 1: We rely on them across our culture as Americans. We
Speaker 1: rely on teachers for eighteen years plus at least, and
Speaker 1: they are in a position where they are living a
Speaker 1: life as if they are the head of some security organization.
Speaker 1: And it really isn't fair. I opened up this article
Speaker 1: with in my introduction talking about how underpaid they are,
Speaker 1: And now, of course we're in this debate do we
Speaker 1: arm teachers? And I kind of want to talk about
Speaker 1: that a little bit. If you guys don't mind, I
Speaker 1: want to ask both of you your thoughts. Kelly, I'll
Speaker 1: start with you this time. You know, where do we
Speaker 1: stand on arming teachers? No? Okay, that was very quick.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you've been thinking about this a while.
Speaker 3: Well, I've thought about it.
Speaker 1: I'll give you reasons.
Speaker 3: But let's hear John Hans to say. So, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: say we can do it back and forth.
Speaker 2: Sure, I don't know what you think I was going
Speaker 2: to say. I was gonna don't know you No, no, no,
Speaker 2: you know a thousand times.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Militarizing the schools is just making it worse for the kids.
Speaker 2: I remember full well. And so you, Kelly in elementary school,
Speaker 2: diving under my desk for nuclear drill. Okay, terrorized, literally
Speaker 2: terrorized for the first six seven grades that I was,
Speaker 2: you know that we did that for and I was
Speaker 2: just a little kid, And that imprints on you. We're
Speaker 2: not doing the children any favors by by the how
Speaker 2: we're treating it now. And to make it worse by
Speaker 2: seeing the very instruments of death that they're afraid of
Speaker 2: toted it around in their school, you know what are
Speaker 2: they going to think?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And so it scares me that we're going to be
Speaker 2: creating a whole another group of people who are are
Speaker 2: just terrified to.
Speaker 3: Live in an instance like this, I'm always worried about.
Speaker 3: You know, we always we often hear stories about the
Speaker 3: policeman who left his gun in the bathroom. Ah, you know,
Speaker 3: we always hear stories about the policeman whose gun got
Speaker 3: taken away from them. They're going to scuffle, and that's
Speaker 3: what that's what I worry about. That's why I don't
Speaker 3: think guns belong in the school at all. Especially. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's one thing for the policeman who's been highly trained
Speaker 3: to use that gun, to have that gun, to have
Speaker 3: that gun in a safe position, But we are now
Speaker 3: going to rely on teachers who are already not making
Speaker 3: enough money to survive, to now have to take on
Speaker 3: the role of also being a policemen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean they've already got a job to do, yes, yes, Okay.
Speaker 1: So you know, and it's not just policemen that leave
Speaker 1: their guns around. You know. I have been in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: and somebody lost their pistol and an interpreter, an Afghan interpreter,
Speaker 1: returned it, Thank goodness, Right, somebody who should not have
Speaker 1: had a weapon returned it to the person that was
Speaker 1: in charge of the area of the base that we
Speaker 1: were staying on. They called them the camp mayor or whatever.
Speaker 1: But anyway, you know this this speaks to the fact
Speaker 1: that we when it comes to guns, don't really have
Speaker 1: a good grasp on this situation. You know, people, people
Speaker 1: are people, teachers are are above average people. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, they're not trained professionals with weapons,
Speaker 1: and nor should they be expected to be, because they
Speaker 1: have they have a job to do. And we have
Speaker 1: as a society already facilities in place and and and
Speaker 1: uh an apparatus in place to use guns and to
Speaker 1: protect us. Right, which brings me to my next point. Guys.
Speaker 1: Uh So, gun laws in Georgia number forty six in
Speaker 1: the country. Of course, for those of you who don't know,
Speaker 1: we have fifty states, so they don't see wheth don't
Speaker 1: ask me either Hawai or I don't know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it is probably. But in any case, so
Speaker 1: Georgia doesn't do anything to protect their gun laws, but
Speaker 1: they do require schools to have an annual gun gun
Speaker 1: active shooter drill by October first each year. Now think
Speaker 1: about that. We are in September. It's September eighteenth today
Speaker 1: right as we're recording. And for those of you who
Speaker 1: figured out that we pre recorded this and it's actually
Speaker 1: not next Wednesday when you're watching this, but it's this Wednesday.
Speaker 1: You know, I gave. I gave our secret away. But
Speaker 1: at a time where we're supposed to be getting our textbooks,
Speaker 1: learning our new language, learning our times tables. Instead we're
Speaker 1: focused on getting this drill done by October first. I
Speaker 1: digress a little bit, or I rant a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I mean, what do you guys make of our
Speaker 1: priorities not being in order? Well?
Speaker 3: I make I make that You're right, our priorities are
Speaker 3: not in order. I think if they were, we might
Speaker 3: have been working at more diligently on solving this school
Speaker 3: shooting problem. I mean, it is probably one of the
Speaker 3: most prevalent problems in America today, and yet we can't
Speaker 3: seem to get our shit together, to even get a
Speaker 3: paneled together to try and solve it. We can't even
Speaker 3: get a committee together to investigate and solve it. And
Speaker 3: that's a real problem, and it does say something about
Speaker 3: our priorities. Who the fuck in our government is running
Speaker 3: the show that they cannot protect our children. This is
Speaker 3: something that is really really important, and it's important to
Speaker 3: a lot of Americans, and yet these idiots that we
Speaker 3: keep electing just keep blowing the problem off like it's nothing.
Speaker 3: And I know we have a few people in Washington
Speaker 3: that are talking about it, that are yelling that we
Speaker 3: need to do something, but nothing is getting done.
Speaker 2: Nothing. I have a couple of comments. One is that
Speaker 2: how does the fourteen year old get the weapons to
Speaker 2: go into a school and shoot it up. This guy
Speaker 2: was fourteen years old. Granted they arrested him. He's going
Speaker 2: to be tried as an adult, probably spend a long
Speaker 2: time in jail, which is not the great place for
Speaker 2: them him to spend his teens and the young life.
Speaker 2: But you know, he's going to learn how to be
Speaker 2: a better criminal at that point. But you know, and
Speaker 2: the other point is that gun violence is the leading
Speaker 2: cause of death for young children in the United States,
Speaker 2: the leading cause. It's not you know, illness, it's not
Speaker 2: falling off a bridge, it's not getting run over by
Speaker 2: a car. It's gunshots. And in what reality do we
Speaker 2: allow that to happen to children. They're always screaming but
Speaker 2: the kids on everything. Yet they allow their children to
Speaker 2: go to school and not come home. What the fuck
Speaker 2: is wrong with these people?
Speaker 1: Well, and you know what, they're not only just screaming
Speaker 1: just the kids, but they're screaming thoughts and prayers as
Speaker 1: if that's going to do something for them, you know.
Speaker 1: And I can't help but play devil's advocate here because
Speaker 1: I've already said it before. I'm super grateful for people
Speaker 1: like Ms Carter who can think quickly, yes, and who
Speaker 1: can who can get these kids to safety. But you
Speaker 1: know she asked her kids to hide behind couches, and
Speaker 1: that she purchased big, bulky couches where they took cover.
Speaker 1: But her remark in that recount was, thank God, I
Speaker 1: ditched the desks for balty bulky furniture. We're thanking God
Speaker 1: for this, I mean, we really, is this really where
Speaker 1: our minds are. We're thanking God for the actions of
Speaker 1: that day. And I don't mean to pile on miss Carter,
Speaker 1: because you know, what she did was very effective, and
Speaker 1: I feel like she would have continued to fight had
Speaker 1: she been in that situation, but to a larger in
Speaker 1: a larger respect, our minds are not on solving problems,
Speaker 1: not in Georgia. We're not solving problems in Georgia. We're
Speaker 1: praying to invisible gods that allow shootings to happen and
Speaker 1: saying thank you for not me, for not allowing me
Speaker 1: to be shot. And then we're re electing people who
Speaker 1: don't solve the problem and instead make us prepare for
Speaker 1: the problem by having us do drills while not relinquishing
Speaker 1: any of their poor gun laws. And so that's my
Speaker 1: rant on all this, gentlemen, What does this story tell
Speaker 1: us about how our youth have to grow up now?
Speaker 1: And Jonathan, great point on the nuclear weapons, but on
Speaker 1: the nuclear drills, But are we in a different scenario
Speaker 1: and I want to get your takes on that or
Speaker 1: is this different than that?
Speaker 2: It is? It is so different because this is an
Speaker 2: immediate threat. Nuclear war was like, okay, we're going to
Speaker 2: get down under our desk and put our heads down
Speaker 2: that sort of thing and basically just kiss our ass goodbye,
Speaker 2: you know. But that was it, you know. But it
Speaker 2: was terrifying because we knew they even as a small child,
Speaker 2: I knew that we were doing this because the world
Speaker 2: was ending, you know, at that point. But it was
Speaker 2: it was more often the distance gunfire inside your school
Speaker 2: is an immediate threat to you personally, It's terrifying that's
Speaker 2: the subject of PTSD. Imagine giving your children PTSD when
Speaker 2: they are five years old, they just started school, or
Speaker 2: all the way through teenagers in high school. You know
Speaker 2: Marjorie Stoneman High School here. You know this was a.
Speaker 3: High school PTSD from that age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, having having somebody right here who's
Speaker 2: had PTSD since that age, you know, it's it's like
Speaker 2: that's going to affect the rest of their lives. You
Speaker 2: are basically ruining lives here. They will never be able
Speaker 2: to think of school in a positive light. A lot
Speaker 2: of the market are. You know, they're gonna you know,
Speaker 2: they The thing is that colleges have had this problem too,
Speaker 2: So saying they're going to go to college and everybody's
Speaker 2: an adult there and it's not going to happen is bullshit, right, So,
Speaker 2: and they know it's bullshit. Kids understand an awful lot
Speaker 2: more than you think they do. Parents out there and
Speaker 2: you think they don't know what's going on, think again,
Speaker 2: you know they do. They're very perceptive. They catch little
Speaker 2: nuances and voices and things just like anybody else. They
Speaker 2: may not be able to put words to it, but
Speaker 2: they understand it. So just if you want to think
Speaker 2: about the kids. Let's seriously think about the kids and
Speaker 2: what we need to do to get this situation away
Speaker 2: from the schools and away from their lives, because you're
Speaker 2: going to grow up. They're going to have a whole
Speaker 2: generation growing up just fearful. Now, maybe that's what you want,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's not a good thing for the kids.
Speaker 2: So wake up, you know, and smell the roses and
Speaker 2: get rid of the guns.
Speaker 3: Kelly, first off, I want to say screw you, John,
Speaker 3: because now I got that song going through my head.
Speaker 3: Duck and cover, Duck and cover.
Speaker 1: Jimmy don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Your wigg Yeah, you lost me.
Speaker 1: I think maybe we had.
Speaker 3: We had to watch we had to watch a little
Speaker 3: five minute black and white cartoon about how to save
Speaker 3: ourselves when the nuclear bomb landed.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, And that was what we.
Speaker 3: Were supposed to do. Dian had a cute, catchy little
Speaker 3: song about duck and covering. So that's what John mentioned
Speaker 3: back in those days and having the drills, and we'd
Speaker 3: always watched that movie before the drill.
Speaker 2: Old defense pictures from the Defense Department.
Speaker 3: Different, isn't it, Because like when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: I never heard of a school getting nuked. I never
Speaker 3: heard of a bunch of school kids getting killed by
Speaker 3: an Adam bomb, right, So this is a completely different mindset.
Speaker 3: There's actually kids getting gunned down in their schools and
Speaker 3: other kids are hearing about this. So yeah, it is
Speaker 3: a different thing. It's completely different. And I'm just thankful
Speaker 3: that I'm not a kid nowadays, because I don't know
Speaker 3: how I'd be able to deal with that, especially with
Speaker 3: what I had to deal with to begin with as
Speaker 3: a kid, you know, having this pile down it, it
Speaker 3: would have drove me.
Speaker 1: Crazy, absolutely absolutely, and it affects society as a whole,
Speaker 1: as somebody who has a child in preschool and in
Speaker 1: high school. Uh, you know, I never thought that i'd
Speaker 1: be dreading a call like that, you know. But sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes I think about it is today the day that
Speaker 1: it happens to me? Because we're all we're all at
Speaker 1: one time or another about many different things. I'll never
Speaker 1: get sick, I'll never get into a car wreck, I'll
Speaker 1: never it won't happen to me. But is today my day?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And society parents shouldn't have to worry about That's right,
Speaker 1: That's right. Parents shouldn't have to worry about it. Kids
Speaker 1: should be able to enjoy themselves and learn comfortably, and
Speaker 1: teachers shouldn't have to wonder if they're going to need
Speaker 1: to be an expert marksman instead of grading midterm papers
Speaker 1: or coming up with lessons and things like that. And
Speaker 1: so that's why where our society is backwards. I just
Speaker 1: want to put this on you, gentlemen, that you know
Speaker 1: I said that there were thirty nine school shooting so
Speaker 1: far this year as of September September thirteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Last year, I don't think well, first of all, I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody probably knew that. Not you, but in general,
Speaker 1: I don't think the general public would know that we
Speaker 1: had eighty two last year in seventy nine the year before.
Speaker 1: I want to give you. I want to ask you both,
Speaker 1: is this normal now? Because people like to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is becoming normalized, we are becoming desensitized. I would
Speaker 1: argue we're way past that point.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we are.
Speaker 1: I want to know what you guys think about that.
Speaker 2: I would agree that we are way past the normalization park.
Speaker 2: You ever notice these things become You hear another shooting
Speaker 2: and it's kind of like, well, change it to yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like, that's right. It used to be. You get
Speaker 2: all upset about it, but you can only get upset
Speaker 2: about things so much, and if they start being frequent,
Speaker 2: you just you can't emotionally deal with it, so you
Speaker 2: shut it out, you know. But instead of doing something
Speaker 2: about it, you're ignoring it.
Speaker 3: It is normal, and it doesn't have to be. That's
Speaker 3: the thing. It doesn't have to be sure people standing up.
Speaker 3: It's going to like the kids from Florida or the
Speaker 3: parents from Massachusetts. It's going to take more and more
Speaker 3: people standing up who were victims or related to the victims,
Speaker 3: and the people who didn't have anything happen to them
Speaker 3: standing up and making this change happen. It's not going
Speaker 3: to happen any other way. It's not going to happen
Speaker 3: until a majority of Americans stand up and say I
Speaker 3: have had enough of this. We need to do something,
Speaker 3: and it's about time for us to start standing up
Speaker 3: and saying that.
Speaker 1: Well put, well put. Fascinating discussion, gentlemen. I just want
Speaker 1: to say that not only are our elected officials on
Speaker 1: either the state or the national level doing anything about it.
Speaker 1: God's not doing about it either. And I just want
Speaker 1: to remind you of that as a member of the
Speaker 1: atheist community of Austin, it's time to start thinking about
Speaker 1: this from a skeptic perspective. Are we putting all of
Speaker 1: our hopes into an invisible character that is obviously, if
Speaker 1: it is real, not going to help us? And then
Speaker 1: why do we put our support behind people who are
Speaker 1: not helping us? The Sandy Hook children would have been
Speaker 1: in their senior year of school this year, and they,
Speaker 1: like many other many other kids across this country, are
Speaker 1: never going to know what it's like to have a
Speaker 1: normal school experience.