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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   25457 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024

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a teacher left Jennifer Crumbley a voicemail saying that her son had been looking at bullets on his phone in class. “Lol I’m not mad you have to learn not to get caught,” she wrote to her son in a text.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Looking up ammunition on your cell phone is completely normal behavior, and I do so occasionally to keep an eye on prices. If I was somehow back in school, where administrators and teachers are stupid and afraid of all things firearm related, then the correct advice is absolutely "learn not to get caught". Why is everyone under the impression that this text message is damning?

This is one of those blue-tribe red-tribe divides that simply does not compute for people on either side of the divide. For the red tribe (i.e., you, me, others like us), looking up ammunition prices on your phone, or browsing /r/guns or whatever is totally normal behavior. It is a completely benign expression of a perfectly normal hobby held by millions of Americans. For members of the Blue Tribe this is a screaming bloody murder oh god we're all going to die giant neon "Victory Day Parade in Red Square" red flag, that requires reporting not only to the administration of the school but the FBI. That is not an exaggeration, that is a personal experience I have had.

The JTTF paid for my coffee, which was very nice of them.

Totally agreed, this seems like it would be any supportive mom's reaction if their son was into guns. Posting about the range trip to facebook checks out, not getting worked up he was looking at bullets checks out... This might seem weird to people not in the hobby and not around guns at all, I suppose, but obviously you can't really look at this family's dynamics from that kind of framing.

I don’t think looking at ammo online is ipso facto unreasonable, but given the blue tribe paranoia about school shootings it seems trivially obvious that in class is a time and place that is at the very least highly inappropriate.

Do you believe taking your children to the gun range to target practice is unreasonable or bad parenting?

Taking your children to a gun range is GOOD parenting in a country with more guns than people and high homocide rates.

Do you want your kids to be raped and murdered for want of any ability to defend themselves from black crime?

My backyard is the family gun range.

No, I’m willing to bet that no one wants such a thing. If you think it’s a good rhetorical question, then you need a little time to cool off.

One day ban.

Well that's a crazy response

How do you mean?

This has what to do with what I said?

You posted this excerpt:

Other online posts of hers furthered the prosecution’s case. Days before the attack, she posted on her social media about her and Ethan’s trip to the gun range and his new SIG Sauer 9mm firearm.

Under which you said:

This does not paint a picture of good parenting.

Another poster addressed that looking at bullets in class isn’t unreasonable nor does it suggest bad parenting, to which you qualified it as a “highly inappropriate” time and place, if not unreasonable.

I am asking a similar question pointed at by the other poster, about an imminently reasonable time and place - the gun range outing documented in your quoted section showing what you suggest(?) to be bad parenting.

There is nothing wrong with taking your child to the gun range, nor in supporting a firearms-involved hobby. One can perhaps say that this should go on hold when that child has a mental health issue- and it seems obvious that he did- but that wasn't my point. It does seem clear that she knew her son wasn't trustworthy with guns(she texted in that he can't be left alone), though.

I agree that you shouldn't get caught looking at ammo on your phone in class. But you know what the best way to not get caught looking at ammo on your phone in class is? Waiting until you're out of class to look at ammo on your phone. Yes the education system's hoplophobia is dumb. But it is a thing that is not changing and the rest of us just have to work around it, and sometimes dumb arbitrary things just have to be complied with and encouraging your kid to pitch a fit about it instead of knuckling under is at the very least questionable.

Hence, it's good advice to "learn not to get caught". I don't parents think telling High Schoolers not to do highly inappropriate stuff has a history of being effective.

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