Witness Advocates Demanded Gun Focus at Educ. Dept. 1st School Safety Panel Hearing: DeVos Absent

[appalachiablue]

(Last Wk. June 6) WASHINGTON — Students, parents and educators urged the federal officials charged with preventing the next school shooting to pour more mental health resources and school support staff into the nation’s elementary and secondary schools — not more guns. The first public forum of the federal commission on school safety, convened by President Trump after the February school shooting in Parkland, Fla., drew dozens of speakers from across the country to the Department of Education on Wednesday.

But neither Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the commission’s chairwoman, nor the other three cabinet secretaries appointed to the panel were in attendance. On Tuesday, Ms. DeVos told senators that the commission would not wade into the gun control debate, but panel officials said they would follow Mr. Trump’s order to examine age restrictions on some weapons.

Alessia Modjarrad, a recent graduate of a Montgomery County, Md., high school, criticized what she called the ommission’s “complicit” stance on the role of guns in school safety. “I don’t want to be scared. I don’t want to think that at any moment someone with a gun could walk in and hurt us all,” Ms. Modjarrad said. “Please consider the possibilities that guns are the most important aspect of the purview of this commission.”

The speakers’ demands largely echoed the responses that liberal advocacy groups have pointed to since the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: more anti-violence programs, more mental health resources and better coordination between school and law enforcement officials in trying to identify at-risk students...More..

More, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/witnesses-demand-focus-on-guns-at-first-school-safety-commission-hearing/ar-AAyjAPd

*Above is a NYT article from 4 days ago, I noticed it 1 hr. ago. I never saw news about witnesses, just DeVos questioned by Sen. Leahy as posted. Fubar.

June 6, '18, 'Betsy DeVos Stirs Fresh Outrage, Says School Safety Panel Won't Study Guns,' Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/06/betsy-devos-stirs-fresh-outrage-says-school-safety-panel-wont-study-role-guns

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. It's not a mental health issue. It's a guns issue.

Let me repeat this, only a little louder this time:

IT'S NOT A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE. IT'S A GUNS ISSUE.

[appalachiablue]

2. The article, fmr Sandy Hook School teacher,

“I would like to make something perfectly clear: Had school employees been carrying guns at Sandy Hook school, it would not have made us safer, our children safer,” Ms. Clements said.
Ms. Clements said she and other teachers could not fathom navigating the bullets and chaos to engage a gunman.

A wide-ranging survey of nearly 400 school police officers published by Education Week this week found that one in five officers said their school was not prepared for a gunman.
“Trained, armed resource officers aren’t even proven to be effective during school shootings, and their only job is to protect,” Ms. Clements said. “This is not the movies."

[TimeSnowDemos]

3. This is the truth

Every country on the planet has crazy, violent people.

Only one developed country has generations of 30k dead a year gun violence.