Teachers who save students from shootings “are not” heroes

The wingnut brigade has a big problem with public schools. Actually, their big money silent partners in crime have a problem: schools are generally supported in large part by property taxes and the 0.01% pay more, based on the value of their real estate holdings, than the typical middle-class homeowner pays on his or her tiny box or struggling single parents pay on their roach infested tenement. Ergo, any excuse to bash public ed and pick on teachers is eagerly taken up and, if it involves portraying teachers as cowards, so much the better. So, what to do about teachers who have saved little kids while crazy people prowl the halls with assault weapons blowing off tiny heads and snuffing out tiny lives?

RW Watch — On VCY America’s Crosstalk last week, Gun Owners of America executive director Larry Pratt agreed with a caller who said that unarmed teachers who protect students during school shootings aren’t heroes. “When you see these stories on the news about teachers, and they’re saying they’re heroes because they’re running and hiding and locking doors and everything, and that’s supposed to be a heroic act. I think it’s sheer terror,” the caller complained. “I’d rather they be a hero with a good shot,” Pratt agreed.

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, just not the adults who sacrifice their lives to save them, huh? Let’s meet a few of these non heroes:

Maryrose Kristopik — music teacher, Newtown: Mrs Kristopik said: ‘I did take the children into the closet and talked with them to keep them quiet. I told them that I loved them. I said there was a bad person in the school. I didn’t want to tell them anything past that.’ Mrs Kristopik said she was standing in front of the other door and holding the handle to keep the children out of harm’s way.

Victoria Soto –, 1st grade, Newtown: When she became aware there was a gunman in the school, she hid her first-graders in closets and cabinets, then told the shooter they were in the gym. He turned the gun on Soto, killing her, but none of her students were harmed.

Antionette Tuff, accountant, Ronald McNair school: The bookkeeper, an eight-year veteran of the DeKalb County school district, talked suspect Michael Brandon Hill into surrendering after a brief standoff with police Tuesday afternoon. Faced with an armed 20-year-old who told her he was off his medication for a mental disorder, Tuff shared stories of heartbreak from her own life to help calm him down — a recent divorce, a son with multiple disabilities.

Larry Pratt may be a total, shameless, amoral sociopath or he may just a garden variety asshole. He’s sure not the guy any respectable org should want in the judges booth rating heroes. But when it comes to panic, I suspect Mr. Pratt may have some very real, first person insight into the mind of a coward.

The conspiracy: Newtown was fake, or staged, or something

We’ve all seen the lucrative delusions packaged and sold like a pound of butter to the religious right over the years. Some of them revolting, most of them a little bit comical and almost all of them sad. They are created and marketed to fleece hard earned money from people who may lack the finely honed critical thinking skills we take for granted here, but the marks are by and large honest people who do not deserve being victimized and made fools of. That in itself is repugnant: the very voters the grifters depend on for success are held in utter disregard and open contempt. Well, there’s a new one making the rounds and its a doozy: the Newtown massacre was staged by the government as a ruse to take away our guns! [Read more…]