Thought | How to break public schools: Republican Book

January 22, 17-year-old in Antioch residential district in Nashville entered the High School Room and shot the other two students before fatally turning the gun on himself. One of the students fled with the pasture. Another, Josselin Corea escalante16, died.

Antioch’s secondary school has been equipped Multiple safety measures Designed to obstruct school shootings: resistant to splitting glass, security cameras with software designed to detect corporate weapons, two school resources placed on the campus. As reported radicalized by extreme right propaganda On the Internet, the attacker was actively working on sites that have been valorized by school shooters. He was stopped in the fall threatening the student with a cutter for the box. One teacher called him “Walking red flag“.

But none of what was known about the fighter, and none of the security measures committed by the school was enough to save Josslein Korea Escalant.

WPLN, NPR Nashville branch, put eight journalists on history, Breakdown on national news broadcasts with live updates During the day of shooting. In most other ways, the reaction to the tragedy in Antioch, which lies in the southeast of the city, has been muted – very different from the passionate reaction of the city shooting less than two years ago at the school of willPrivate Christian Academy on the South Western side of Nashville. The shooting of the will occupied the lives of three 9-year-old and three employees, including the headmaster.

Tennessee has One of the highest death rates from firearms in the country. Many of us believed that the shooting of the will could change the hopes and further depends on the mind, at least only modest ways. The main covenant was a close girlfriend of Maria LeeThe wife of Governor Bill Lee. The Covenant offers a Christian education that corresponds to the fact that Republicans want for public schools in the state. For them, the tragedy was personal.

WITH protests that Following the cherished shooting, it gave rise to several non -party organizations, a clear purpose of which was to force the General Assembly to accept common sense legislation that Most Tennessa’s supporters. Red Hike Laws. Background checks. Expectation periods. Safe storage of guns. Legislators have not adopted such lawsso the governor pulled them back to finish work At a special legislative session.

In my life I carried a lot of unsuccessful hopes but I have never been more screaming, awful than I Maintaining hope For meaningful, reasonable action on weapons from Republicans.

Everyone wants to know how Antioch’s minor shooter got his hands on deadly weapons, but tracking the origin of the gun in Tennessa is a “stupid assign Joint Investigation Report with Propublica He monitored the deadly consequences of the laws on relaxed Tennessee pistols. “State laws made here really, it is very easy to own guns without any allowed process,” she said last week on “This is a non -spawn“” Basic checks are not required for private sales, including sales on the Internet or on a gun show. It is not to mention the ubiquity of weapons – guns stolen from cars, and that is very often. “

Here, at the bottom, School shootings inspire weaker The laws on the gun. Following Sandy Huk massacre in 2012, when other states were strengthened by gun laws, Tennessee invited pistol manufacturers Go down. Following the firing of a waffle house, the legislators proposed an open transfer law against which parents, doctors, pastors, police officers, public health officials- Almost everyone. It still went.

Regardless of the fact that the call of Lee Governor for a special session for weapons safety may have moved in 2023, The special session he convened last week Inspiring any such illusions. Outside the state house, as before, hundreds of students have chanted “Not one! ” and “Joined students will never be separated! “But this time the governor was in a castle with his hard surplus. Progress has never been even an option.

This special session also concerned schools, but not make them safer. This time the governor did not urge the legislators to pass a red campaign law. This time, he brutally used the urgent need to assist for natural disasters for the Eastern Tenines, Hurricane Helen affected as a way to analyze the types of elections at school and immigration legislation that promotes Trump President. No less horrible accounts considered by public buildings in the south.

Tennessee legislators allocated $ 447 million To get a voucher program this year, but the program is designed to grow. At least one republican legislator, representative Jodi Barrett, expect a balloon up to $ 1 billion a year For decades, even if most students have now studied Voucher pilot program Not as good as students in public schools.

It is not surprising that vouchers do not use broad public support at all. Last year, Kentucky voters who, unlike Tennessee, got a chance to weigh – The voucher won firmly in their condition. Here in Tennessee, Governor Lee Failed to fulfill enough republican lawmakers To adopt a voucher bill only last year.

But Political intimidation and heavy costs Outside the extracurricular groups of special interests This time changed the result. In a state where there are public schools chronically underfundedTennessee is going to spend almost half a billion state dollars to launch a program that will benefit mainly students already enrolled in private schools.

State House Minority Leader, John Ray Clemmons, Democrat Nashville, called the Voucher law “the best scam you can buy money“. The representative of BO Mitchell, also Democrat Nashville, called it”Governor Bill Lee private school voucher for bribery of Athos subsidy“.

Meanwhile, the new legislation on immigration of a special session is almost certainly unconstitutional: Application of local elected voting officials In favor of the policy of “sanctuary” for immigrants, the law will complicate the Tennessns of Conscience to protect various communities, such as Antioch, which has a larger population of Latin Americans than any other Neshville neighborhood. Think about it only a minute: this law will turn elected officials into criminals and remove them from office when they are just vote For the policies that the Republicans are, do not keep in mind that their own voters have chosen to do them. American Union of Civil Liberties already promised to challenge the law in court.

The Tennessee General Assembly never worried whether its components, which he adopted, supports it, and now it is not indifferent. We ourselves. Without legislative assistance in keeping weapons from the hands of dangerous people, the school system of Nashville piloting a new weapon detection system in Antioch high school. We can only pray that it is more efficient than the previous system.

But this will not return Josselin Korea Escalate. Johsellin, who celebrated his Kinvanier in 2023; Johselin who played football and made good grades and loved his family; Johselin whose parents were looking for asylum in this country To save her from violencedisappeared. GofundMe page He notes that her family will send her body back to Guatemala: “Where she can rest in peace surrounded by loved ones.”