Frank Lasee Exploits School Violence For Free Publicity

Representative Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue) announced his plans to introduce legislation that will allow teachers, principals, administrators, and other school personnel to carry concealed weapons.

Uppity Wisconsin nails it:  "You Gotta Respect a Teacher That's Packing Heat."

    Okay - so it appears that at least one of our state legislators (Frank Lasee, R- Bellevue) thinks that the answer to the recent school violence is to give guns to the teachers.  Why not the students, too?  I'd like to see someone try to mess with a school full of kids with gats.

    Why is it that to some people the only answer to the guns and violence issue is more guns? Will that really make us all feel safer about our kids in school?

    I suppose the only really big surprise here is that it wasn't Dave Zien sponsoring the bill, and then saying that Pat Kreitlow is soft on school violence because Kreitlow isn't calling for school guns.  Or that the bill doesn't make carrying a gun mandatory.

You've got to read Lasee's release for yourself. Because Israeli teachers and volunteers are armed and successfully protect schools from Palestinian terrorist attack, "he wants to bring this proven program to Wisconsin."

Then, when the next bullied, abused, and desperate misfit grabs his dad's handgun or deer rifle to take revenge on the school, a vice-principal or librarian can blow him away with automatic fire using school district-issued Uzis.

Unbelievable.

- Barry Orton

Comments

[Russ]

Barry
Your long on attacking Frank Lasse's proposal but short on providing an alternative solution. Or do you think doing nothing is the answer?
It's easy to belittle Frank's proposal but if your child were killed in school you might have a very different view.
It goes without saying that their are many evil and dangerous people in this country and all law abiding Americans have an obligation to propose possible solutions for discussion.

[grumps]

We could try proactive counseling or family support measures or smaller class sizes so students felt like people rather than cattle. We could try building relationships with parents and providing outlets for students after school without kicking them to the curb.

There are an awful lot of things we could do before we resort to shooting the unruly ones. Of course, we'd have to step up to our responsibility to ourselves as a society and abandon the "cut to the bone" attitude of Lassee. We could do a lot of things to improve our society if we weren't pissing away a billion a week on GWB's Vanity War.

[Clinton]

Great. Just what teachers need; the added pressure from the knowledge that if a kid goes nuts and starts shooting, they are now the first target, and are implicitly responsible for ending said child's life if the kid by chance misses.

I'm sure the number of education degree graduates will skyrocket.

[Jim Jones]

Russ, you ignorant slut.

This is an extremely, extremely rare event. My kid is orders of magnitude more likely to die in traffic on the way to or from their school. The body count from that is way freakin' higher than the body count from school gun violence.

Check this out: http://www.weau.com/news/headlines/4310467.html

Everybody screws up. Even people trained to carry heat occasionally screw up. What are the odds of some tragic event happening because someone screwed up vs the odds of an armed attack in a school?

What the hell is it with conservatives that fear has such appeal to you? You guys really groove on this crap. It's like fear is porn for conservatives. It's not healthy, get your jollies some other way.

[Russ]

To Jim Jones
Your right school shootings are extremely rare events, so are terrorist strikes. Do you believe we should discontinue defending our homeland against terrorists? In the UK handguns were banned in 1997. I just read that since the ban crimes with handguns have incresed 53%. What does that tell you?
The sad fact is there are school shootings and they seem to be increasing. Copycats may be the reason. There's certainly no easy desireable solution to the problem but doing nothing is not a solution. Leaving schools indefensable against gun toting nuts is also not a solution.

[Rael Freeman]

Russ is correct. Lasse's on the right track, and over time people will eventually figure it out. I nearly jumped out of my chair when i read the story! I mean, ,aybe women will figure out that when you have a deranged killer husband stalking you, you can defend yourself? And it's sanctified by the constitution!! Nah, that will take a few thousand more counseling sessions and sensational attacks before anyone even starts talking about it. BTW, You can tell one side of the isle against the other on this blog because one proposes pratical solutions (not necessarily easy solutions) and the other (ironically named Clinton) is quick to whine and throw insults! Quit yucking along with the Daily Show and get some dignity before taking on a real discussion, Clinton! Or... don't!

[Jon]

I noticed that liberals know the difference between "you're" and "your" and "aisle" and "isle," and that conservatives don't. Obviously there's a correlation between level of education and political insight....

[Clinton]

Rael,

dig·ni·ty (dĭg'nĭ-tē)
n., pl. -ties.

1. The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect.
2. Inherent nobility and worth: the dignity of honest labor.
3.
1. Poise and self-respect.
2. Stateliness and formality in manner and appearance.
etc.

Your message has errors in grammar and punction, as well as plain old typos. You confuse "isle" (a small island) with "aisle" (a path between rows of seats). You exhibit hypocrisy when accusing me of throwing insults (I didn't), and then turning around and insulting me. None of this is "stately" or "formal," and certainly not worthy of respect. Don't talk to me about dignity.

As for whining, I might be guilty of that. I'd call it 'sarcasm,' personally, but there's no accounting for taste. I still believe my point is perfectly valid. Call it a hunch, but I'm willing to bet the absolute vast majority of teachers become teachers because they want to teach, not keep the peace; otherwise, they'd have become cops. It isn't their responsibility, and it shouldn't be their responsibility. I suppose I could have merely repeated verbatim what "grumps" said, since it was and still is the most insightful thing said so far, but I didn't feel like reducing myself to an echo. However, since you seem to have latched on to every comment but his on "our side of the aisle," I suppose I'll echo it anyway. Maybe you'll hear it this time:

"We could try proactive counseling or family support measures or smaller class sizes so students felt like people rather than cattle. We could try building relationships with parents and providing outlets for students after school without kicking them to the curb.

There are an awful lot of things we could do before we resort to shooting the unruly ones. Of course, we'd have to step up to our responsibility to ourselves as a society and abandon the "cut to the bone" attitude of Lassee. We could do a lot of things to improve our society if we weren't pissing away a billion a week on GWB's Vanity War."

[Jim Jones]

"Leaving schools indefensable against gun toting nuts is also not a solution."

Dude, what about meteorites? What about anthrax? What about flesh eating bacteria? How are we going to keep our kids from chasing Mentos with Diet Coke and exploding? What about killer cellular phone radiation, what are we going to do about that?

More kids die because of actions taken in the cafeteria with a fork and spoon than any other place in school. Fear, fear, fear. It's a wonder you guys can bring yourselves to leave the house without your guns.

I don't worry about meteorites. I don't worry about anthrax. I don't worry about cell phones radiation. So I choose to do nothing about them. It is a perfectly rational thing to do. I am concerned about harm coming to my family when we are in the car. So I take measures to reduce the risk. And I don't live in fear. It's not healthy to live in fear.

[Dohnal]

Soglin is right, We just have to show that we love these people. Think how good it would be around the world if we just let these Islamic thugs know that deep down we believe that they are really good people. Turn the other cheek. Give them peppermint candy, sweeten them up.
Maybe we could find ten hookers for each one, anyone knows that hookers are more fun than virgins.
All of this evil in the world has come about cause they just don't feel our love. There is no such thing as a bad kid.

[Jim Jones]

"Give them peppermint candy, sweeten them up."

Mentos. Give them a shitload of Mentos. Then give them Diet Coke.

[Clinton]

Dohnal,

Small point: Barry Orton wrote this, not Soglin. As for hookers, I guess I'll have to just take your word for it.

Larger point: The examples Lasse uses, Thailand and Israel, were countries whose schools were under attack from Islamic terrorists. Our schools are under attack from their own students. They aren't comparable. Wisconsin is not Israel or Thailand, and our sociopathic children do not think like terrorists. If you care for a long-winded explanation why, I'll be happy to provide one.

[Russ]

Hey let's get back to reality, nuts are shooting people in our schools. The anti gun participants can continue insulting the others or we can all have a civilized brainstorming session and hopefully a find a compromise solution that will be acceptable to the majority and maybe stop some of these senseless killings.

I'll start

Is leaving schools defenseless against gun toting nuts acceptable??? If not, let's kick around possible solutions. Metal detectors is one possibility. Can we afford a metal detection screening system?

[Jim Jones]

As I've (repeatedly) pointed out, your desire for rational discussion is based on an irrational fear. So if you want to move past the name calling I would suggest not being a paranoid retard. The leading causes of school related deaths are traffic accidents and suicides. Gun violence is so far down the list it can't see the top from where it is. More kids die every year playing football. Should we outlaw football?

But anyway, how do you think metal detectors would stand up against alternative uses for that money, like equiping all schools with defibrillators?

If this is about safeguarding kids then your arguments make no sense. If it is about guns and using tragedy as a tool to promote concealed carry, then it makes perfect sense.

[Russ]

Jim

This is one paranoid retard Army veteran that's very happy people like you aren't running things in this country. If your kind did I'm sure we would be speaking German and taking our taking our marching orders from a dictator.

Harry Truman had it right when he said "never under estimate the collective wisdom of the American people. Needless to say Harry didn't walk away from threats, which is precisly what you are doing. Thank God the majority of Americans stand up to threats rather than appease them. You really ought to move to England. They outlawed handguns in 1997.

Russ

[Bruce Barry]

Frank LaSee is a national joke. A pathetic politician that in a desperate attempt to be a player stepped in it. Now he has two candidates running against him but more importantly here in Milwaukee, he drives the middle to the Democrats. Talk radio hosts keep talking but no calls come in on Mark Green or LaSee - Even Green backed away from FL. Thank you to him for stepping up and helping to lose the election for the right wing. Who knows, maybe he can even be beaten. I am glad he is in the Legislature and want him to stay. He does more good for the middle of the road by being crazed and confused.