Teachers Should Strike Over Guns

Yes, absolutely, teachers should immediately stop teaching in any& all states where assault weapons are sold , or made. Schools have become a hostile work environment. Another way we all can participate is an organized tax boycott.
Lastly, if we're really serious , an organized , nation-wide hunger strike should be considered. If you're unfamiliar w/ the long history of hunger strikes in Ireland, read : 10 Men Dead."

I bet Cambodians of the 1970's and The Present Day Chinese Uyghurs wish they were armed to the teeth. Zero talk of what causes these mass shootings other than to go after guns. Could it be the erosion of the nuclear families in this country and moral decay? Could it be the media running with these stories and sensationalizing them like a playoff game score count? Could it be the video games out there shooting away at people left and right in a fantasy land? Politicians motto is always to never let a tragedy go to waste. Term limits would do wonders for this country towards solving many problems but never mind that. We have Me Too, BLM, Global Warming, Climate Change, Covid, Vaccines, Ukraine and the distractions just keep on coming while politicians, media, and the <1% continue their never ending skim of the American People. Wake up and see what is going on folks. The <1% have the 99% squabbling and bickering like puppets on strings.

I have no problem with gun control. But let's be realistic- only 2% of gun deaths are due to assault rifles. A ban may make us feel better, but will not appreciably decrease the number of our young people being killed. Most of gun deaths are from handguns. We have had way too many deaths in New Haven from "routine" crime. Not from assault weapons and not from mass shootings. What we will do to combat the street violence that is endemic?

I'll go a step further: the students nationwide should walk out of class along with the teachers until there is a flat out ban on AR-15s, etc.....

Yeah, I know that's not a popular opinion, but that is the rifle of choice as far as mass killings go whether we choose to admit it or not.

And as for the 2% of all gun deaths by AR-15 type rifles, give it time.... it will go up remarkably soon enough.

Dr Jay,

The “street violence” you speak of mainly affects people of color. The traditional way to address “street violence” is community or police. Since they are not one and the same like suburbs, I’d go with community. So it’s up to you, me, and others. I’m not about that life and don’t own a gun, I’m doing my part.

"Zero talk of what causes these mass shootings other than to go after guns...". What utter nonsense! What guns of yours has the government confiscated? Republican gun merchants focus on every peripheral issue EXCEPT guns. It's mental health, it's video games, it's family breakdown, blah blah blah. There's ZERO evidence linking violent video games with actual murders with semiautomatic guns. Gun deaths are much higher in states with more guns - surprise surprise. One place to start is to stop parroting Fox lies and spouting lame stale NRA propaganda that only ever seems to lead to selling more AR15s to 18 year-olds.

No, teachers should not go on strike over guns. Many Americans don't even know what "assault rifle" means.

There are no weapons sold in the U.S. that are like the AK-47. In fact, there are no weapons sold in the U.S. that have a fully automatic (machine gun) firing capability.

The AR-15 looks like a real military rifle. That's why people fear it, but the AR-15 is NOT a military assault rifle.

@DrJay, A semi-auto rifle ban would be in the name of stopping mass casualty events like this one. The rest need other approaches like "red flag laws" for one thing.

As for Mr. Chauncey's righteous proposal, by the end of the third day, Gov. DeSantis will have fired all Florida teachers, told local school boards to hire subs who won't say you-know-what, and booked time on Fox News to declare that teachers were staging an insurrection and that he was calling up the Fla. National Guard. Everyone can take it from there....

"The AR-15 looks like a real military rifle. That's why people fear it, but the AR-15 is NOT a military assault rifle."

Oh boy. The "You Don't Know Guns Like I Know Guns" guy has entered the chat. The macho posturing of the AR-15's design is why gun fetishists like them, I suspect. It's more likely that this: <blockquote>
I was looking at a CT scan of one of the mass-shooting victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, and was bleeding extensively. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?<blockquote>
is why people fear them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/

America has gone too long, too far without any reasonable policy on gun ownership. The Constitution is a 200 yr. old, outdated document written within the context of our world at that time. All gun lovers now are incapable of rationale thinking when it comes to way they love their guns. To provide food? Protect themselves and family from bands of roaming urban attackers? To defend themselves from a forceful govt. takeover? Rational thinkers can look at every other developed country in the world to see that gun ownership is an unnecessary hobby and obsession and nothing else. Blaming all other societal ills as the cause of gun deaths is just another excuse to ignore the main issue. People with mental health problems don’t go out and knife or strangle or poison others on a regular basis. Urban crime only sometimes involves knifing but guns are the weapon of choice. Teachers can and should strike . Not a hunger strike. All they have to do is not show up for work for a few weeks, participate in marches and rallies. Will parents support them? I would hope and expect they will because parents claim to cherish their children . Govt cannot replace teachers en masse. This needs to be a nationwide movement . Metal detectors and armed officers at every school is not the answer. Kids deserve to grow up feeling safe at school, especially those that don’t haves happy and secure family life. The politicians who don’t support teachers, children and thei families instead of gun owners and manufacturers need to be voted out. They have used “ family values” aka anti- reproductive and marriage equality rights as a tool for decades now to control religious fanatics who want their personal beliefs to hold the rest of the country hostage. Until all lives are given value over profits and personal beliefs in unloving, uncompassionate, church doctrines , we will continue on our path to self destruction of our country.

The original AR-15, designed by Armalite and later manufactured by Colt, was a military rifle. Most of the patents have long since expired, and many companies besides Colt make AR-15 style rifles, though Colt retains the trademark. Colt made some modifications to the AR-15 to create the M-16. The original M-16 had a full-auto option, but recent military versions do not, full auto being replaced by a three-round burst option. Being high velocity, it is accurate over a long distance, 500 yards for a point target (a human torso) and 800 yards for a group. With troops in Iraq more often engaged in close quarters combat, and often having to exit HUMVEES quickly, a less accurate, shorter barreled version, the M-4, was introduced to the military.
All these rifles retain the pistol grip of the original AR-15 design, as do the "sporting rifles" sold on the civilian market. The pistol grip enables the rifleman to maintain good control over the weapon while moving through an urban environment with only the dominant hand on the grip. The non-dominant hand may be free for tasks like opening doors, but quickly placed on the hand guard to fire.

Good reminder - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB7MwvqCtlk

@lrobin...
"All gun lovers now are incapable of rationale thinking when it comes to way they love their guns." - what a bigoted, broad-brush statement that is, but I won't be that guy that calls you a bigot. And let's not get started on the viability of the Constitution. Please.

Now, about "People with mental health problems don’t go out and knife or strangle or poison others on a regular basis" nor do mass-shooting happen on a similar 'regular basis', well? Ok if you say so, but teach us about Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffery Dahmer, Aileen Wournos, Samuel Little, to name just a very few...

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of the US as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world." So it is. Spending on mass murder more than the next 10 nations combined. The violence in our streets, in our schools, supermarkets, sites of worship is fully mirrored by the violence of bombing by US military and allies across the globe. Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan - the full list is far bigger. King also stated that a country that spend more than half of its national treasure on weapons and war had lost its moral compass. And so it has. We've heard from youth in our city: if our government resorts to violence to solve its problems, then why should we not also? These weapons of mass murder used abroad return to haunt us. How is slaughtering 20 in Uvalde, or Buffalo, or Brooklyn, any more horrendous than murdering 200,000 in Iraq? For any solution, both problems have to be dealt with. Actions by teachers and students are welcome, but many more need to be activated.

I am a gun owner. All my adult life. I took a class at Winchester at 10 years old, belonged to a gun club in East Haven for many years with my dad. Target practice, clay pigeon shooting, deer hunting, etc.
I don’t, for the life of me, I understand why reasonable restrictions on purchasing guns is so repugnant to so many. Background checks, waiting periods, age restrictions and even a basic safety class should be required. We do that for so many other things. And guns are the most lethal.
No one is saying you can’t have your guns. Just that there are some basic requirements to be satisfied before you get one.
And I don’t believe that’s the only change needed to stop these mass murders but is certainly a piece of it.

When the Constitution was written the only firearms were pistols and hunting rifles that had to be reloaded with one bullet and gunpowder tamping down between each shot taken, and a whole lot of aiming and skill to get the shot to hit its intended target.
Our founding fathers (because, yup, they were all white men in power at the time, people of color and females were considered property or sub-humans,) never dreamed of the weapons that exist today.
And the founding fathers didn’t authorize everyone to bear arms, only that a "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The best article written about the history of this amendment and it’s restrictions is below…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/02/22/what-the-second-amendment-really-meant-to-the-founders/#:~:text=The amendment&#039;s primary justification was,goal of the Second Amendment.

Where there are more guns there is more homicide. Guns kill more children each year than auto accidents. More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members.

And right wing “solutions” like arming teachers go against science and reason: more guns do not stop crime. Guns are a public health crisis, just like COVID, and in this, we are failing our children, over and over again.

Argue about what is or isn’t an automatic weapon all day and it won’t do a single thing to change these horrific facts. We gotta get some guts and stand up for sensible gun safety and stop being held hostage by a small vocal minority and the very well funded (although recently financially, but long spiritually bankrupt) cabal of the NRA Inc.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/

Yes, and with these amendments...
1) Make it a general strike, and
2) Don't settle for anything less than sweeping restrictions on access to guns.

We're talking registration with biennial renewal and safety checks, proof of need, local character references, limits on purchase frequency/type/quantity... the whole nine yards. Tie it up in a bow with a Constitutional amendment so that it's "originalist"-proof -- maybe the amendment includes some clear instruction to a divided Supreme Court, such as, "By the way, remember when we used the phrase 'a well regulated militia' way back in the Second Amendment? Well, we actually meant that, and that's what that amendment was about, you partisan hacks. Figure it out."

America's gun violence problem will only be solved when it's no longer laughably easy to get & use a gun.

The fact that ANYONE would suggest that a teacher's strike is in the best interest of our children has to be the most out-of-touch thing I have heard in quite a while, and when you consider all the things that have been said in the last decade that is astounding. We are just coming out of a pandemic that forced lockdowns and closures of schools, along with very little socialization and the wearing of masks for our school-aged children. Kids missed proms, dances, graduation, and many other events. And you think keeping children out of school is the answer? Have you not looked at the data suggesting massive mental health and trauma issues the last two-plus years have caused our children. Ummm, just for the record, mental health and trauma are the root causes of addiction, violence, and suicide. And if you didn't know, the two leading causes of death for children now are gun violence and overdose. Again both can be traced back to mental health and trauma.

Do we need to have honest discussions about gun control? Yes!

Do we need to have honest discussions about what makes young adults do these horrendous things? Yes!

Do we need to have honest discussions about our broken mental health infrastructure in this country? Also Yes!

Should we be advocating for sweeping teachers' strike? Absolutely not!!!!

Who does that benefit? Definitely not the children! How much are we going to ask our children to suffer because us adults don't know how to talk to each other and fix the problem.

I understand, it’s frightening and sad that this keeps happening. I also understand that Mr. Chauncey is advocating from a place of good intentions and he should be applauded for that. However, it is not the right solution for this problem at this time, particularly at this time. Kids need school more than ever before in human history.