Tangle - The Georgia School Shooting

Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Starting point is 00:01:00 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Sullen. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about the school shooting in Georgia. Always, I mean, just like on a human level, these stories are awful. They're really terrible to cover.

Starting point is 00:01:38 I know for those of you who are listening to this podcast, they're probably not easy to listen to. It's not uplifting. It's not encouraging. But the story is really important. And it's really important because this is a really big issue in our country. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. And, you know, I'll be repeating myself, but hopefully sharing some insights that I think

Starting point is 00:01:58 are helpful or productive about how to move forward. On a much lighter note, before we jump into our main topic, I do want to let you know that tonight, for the first time ever, we are going to go live on YouTube for the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump debate. This is how it's going to work. Around 8.50 p.m. Eastern time,

Starting point is 00:02:18 I'm going to start a live stream on YouTube. I'm going to take a few questions and chop it up with readers and get all set up before the actual 9 p.m. debate starts. And then on our YouTube channel, we'll be live streaming the debate from ABC. So you'll be able to watch the debate and I'll be sitting there with you watching and I'm going to chime in with some commentary here and there. I'm going to answer some questions in the chat. I'll do some live fact checking. When we have commercial breaks, I'll talk a little bit about how I think it's going and where the debate's headed. And then after the debate ends, which I think will be somewhere between 1030 and 11pm, I am going to chop it up for 20 or 30 minutes with our viewers. So I'll

Starting point is 00:03:01 take some questions from you all. I might bring in some guests. I'm reaching out to a few friends in the media world and seeing if anybody wants to come on and hang out after the debate and do some quick immediate reactions. So we're going to have our own little Tangle News spin room. And I think we'll probably do it better than the major networks because, you know, we have some ethos and a really cool North Star about trying to give some balance and perspective from across the political spectrum. So that's happening tonight. We have our YouTube channel, Tangle News on YouTube, 8.50 PM. We're going live. We'll be live during the entire debate. Hopefully we won't have any technical issues or get shut down. And I'm going to take some questions when the debate is over and maybe talk to a guest or two. And I think it should be a really good,

Starting point is 00:03:45 raucous, fun time and a good way to watch and consume the debate. So if you're interested in that, please do come join us. All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to send it over to John for today's main topic, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will debate each other for the first time tonight on ABC at 9 p.m. Eastern. As Isaac mentioned before, we will be live-streaming the debate with commentary from Isaac on our YouTube channel.

Starting point is 00:04:23 That'll begin about 10 minutes before the debate. Number two, the U.S. accused Iran of sending short-range missiles to Russia and threatened Iran with more sanctions. Number three, Israel struck a coastal tent encampment in southern Gaza that had been designated as a humanitarian zone, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 60, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Israel said it struck a Hamas command and control center in the area. Number four, voters in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Delaware are voting in the final primaries of 2024 today. And number five, Ukraine targeted Moscow in the biggest drone attack yet, killing at least one person, forcing 50 flights to be diverted and destroying dozens of homes.

Starting point is 00:05:18 Horror in Winder, Georgia, after officials say a suspected shooter opened fire in Appalachee High School. There's a 14-year-old student here at the high school. Again, he has been taken into custody. He will be charged with murder and he will be tried as an adult. Last week, a 14-year-old boy killed two fellow students and two teachers and wounded nine others when he opened fire inside Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. The suspect was taken into custody minutes after the shooting began, and he has been charged with four counts of felony murder. As a note, Tangle does not name

Starting point is 00:05:55 mass shooters because of the well-documented contagion effect. For similar reasons, we try to share limited information about the shooter and their alleged motives where possible. The suspected shooter had been interviewed by FBI investigators last year after making online threats about committing a school shooting. The suspect denied making the threats, and investigators said they lacked cause to take any action. The FBI claimed it alerted local schools to monitor the suspect, but it is unclear if Apalachee High School was among the schools informed. About 30 minutes before the shooting began, the suspected shooter's mother reportedly called a guidance counselor at the school

Starting point is 00:06:30 to warn them about an extreme emergency involving her son. The suspect was armed with a semi-automatic rifle during the shooting, according to a local sheriff, and was confronted by school resource officers after the shooting began. The officers said he immediately got on the ground and surrendered. Those killed in the shooting were 14-year-olds Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimi, 53. On Friday, the shooter's father was brought to court and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of

Starting point is 00:07:03 second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children. In Georgia, state law prohibits minors from possessing handguns, but there is no minimum age for possessing a rifle or shotgun. Police say they are investigating whether the gun used in the shooting was purchased by the teen's father

Starting point is 00:07:18 as a gift for his son in December of 2023. The shooter reportedly had a troubled family life, and his father said he was bullied and accused of being gay by other students. President Joe Biden said he was mourning the deaths of the students and called on Republicans to come to the table and negotiate common-sense gun safety legislation. Former President Donald Trump said, our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, Georgia, and called the shooter a sick, deranged monster. Today, we will examine some of the responses to this story from the right and the left,

Starting point is 00:07:52 and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police Learn more at fluselvax.ca. and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. All right, first up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right is mixed on how to best respond to the shooting, with many suggesting it is appropriate

Starting point is 00:09:20 to charge the shooter's father. Some disagree and argue the law is being stretched to justify flawed charges against the shooter's father. Others disagree and argue the law is being stretched to justify flawed charges against the shooter's father. Others say the failures of the school and law enforcement cannot be ignored. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote about parents and school shooters. Americans are understandably frustrated, angry,

Starting point is 00:09:39 and searching for other ways to prevent mass murder, especially against children in schools. Holding parents criminally responsible for abuses by their children may make sense when the facts of the case demonstrate negligence or aiding and abetting the child's commission of a crime, the board said. The Georgia facts will be tested in court, and it's important that laws are written in a way that requires clear parental culpability. School shootings are horrific, and the public desire to cast blame can be strong. There needs to be evidence beyond guilt by parental association. A second useful

Starting point is 00:10:10 focus has to be more school security, as some states and communities are doing. Security measures didn't prevent the school shooting this week, but they might next time. When the Georgia shooter returned to his algebra class with a gun, he was unable to enter because the door had been automatically locked and a fellow student refused to open it, the board wrote. It's a tragedy that such security steps are needed, but the deeper causes of school shootings, such as community and family disillusion, will require a cultural renaissance. In Reason, Jacob Sullum asked, why is the shooter's father charged with murder? The gist of the case is that he negligently gave his son, a freshman at the high school, access to the rifle he used in the shooting. Since Georgia does not have a law

Starting point is 00:10:50 that explicitly treats such negligence as a crime, prosecutors are stretching other laws to cover Colin Gray's alleged failures as a parent, Solemn said. Even if Colin Gray shares some of the moral responsibility for his son's actions, holding him criminally liable requires showing his conduct fits the elements of a specific offense. At this point, that seems doubtful. Prosecutors have to make the case that Colin Gray's failure to predict the outcome was so egregious that it amounted to criminal negligence. In light of the crumbly convictions, there seems to be a good chance that a jury will accept the proposition, especially if prosecutors can show that the father ignored the distress that his son's aunt described.

Starting point is 00:11:29 But for every lonely, depressed, and angry teenager who decides to shoot up a high school, there are millions of others who will never do such a thing. Warning signs are always clear in retrospect. In Bearing Arms, Ryan Petty called the shooting another preventable tragedy. The recent school shooting in Georgia is yet another stark reminder of the tragic consequences In bearing arms, Ryan Petty called the shooting another preventable tragedy. The recent school shooting in Georgia is yet another stark reminder of the tragic consequences when warning signs go unheeded and those responsible for our children's safety fail to act. As details continue to emerge, it becomes increasingly clear that this was not an unforeseeable event. It was preventable, and it should have never happened, Petty said. Recent reports have revealed that the FBI had been aware of the Georgia school shooter, a 14-year-old boy,

Starting point is 00:12:09 as early as 2023 due to online threats he made about committing a school shooting. This raises significant concerns about the effectiveness of the communication between local law enforcement and the school district. We cannot ignore the role of the school district in this tragedy. Schools are supposed to be sanctuaries of the school district in this tragedy. Schools are supposed to be sanctuaries of learning, not battlegrounds. The safety of students should be the highest priority, and any credible threat should be met with immediate action. Did the school district understand the gravity of the threats made online, or have any first-hand knowledge that the student was a potential threat, Petty wrote?

Starting point is 00:12:42 The Georgia school shooting is a tragic reminder that our current systems and protocols are not foolproof. All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. Many on the left argue charging the shooter's father satisfies the public's desire for justice, but doesn't address the issues underlying the shooting. Some say the U.S.'s inability to pass gun control laws is a failure of democracy. Others question why lawmakers can act on other problems affecting children, but not guns. In the New York Times, Megan Kay Stack wrote about blaming a parent again for failed gun laws The United States, desperate to stop mass shootings, has been seized by an increasing zeal to prosecute parents

Starting point is 00:13:32 Jennifer and James Crumbly, convicted of involuntary manslaughter this year in Michigan after their son's school shooting, hadn't broken any gun laws either, Stack said These prosecutions satisfy the public desire to blame somebody. If you don't like guns, shaming and punishing the parents feels like landing a righteous blow against gun culture. If you do like guns, it's a bit like the predictable invocation of mental health by politicians, diverting attention from the weapons themselves and suggesting instead that the problem is a few bad apples among the owners. Going after parents in the absence of adequate gun laws is, in truth, a kind of scapegoating, displaying a head on a stake to satisfy the rage of a desperate crowd. We shouldn't wait for kids and teachers to be gunned down,

Starting point is 00:14:15 then punish parents by having jurors try to read their minds and judge their parenting, Stack wrote. Georgia's elected representatives have had ample opportunity to pass safe gun storage legislation. They are presumably aware of the scourge of school shootings, but they either deemed such laws unnecessary or didn't bester themselves to act. In the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin suggested, punishing a shooter's parents delivers some justice, but not enough. Given the prosecutors and jurors are eager to hold someone accountable for such horrific crimes, this might not be the last time

Starting point is 00:14:47 a parent gets charged in a mass killing. Moreover, there is no reason to limit potential defendants to parents, although they plainly have primary responsibility for their children, Rubin said. There is some justice in holding peripheral figures accountable for a cavalier handling of weapons, but that begs the larger societal issue of mass shootings.

Starting point is 00:15:05 Prosecuting people related to the shooter deflects from the grotesque public policy failure, ready access for such weapons. Treating these incidents as individual crimes with a subsequent search for a specific person to blame allows the real culprits, the gun lobby and the weak-kneed Second Amendment absolutists, as well as the hyper-partisan Supreme Court, off the hook, Rubin wrote. The gun problem is much a democracy problem as anything else. Gun measures such as universal background checks and red flag laws garner supermajorities, but as long as heavily gerrymandered states produce hyper-conservative state legislatures and the Senate filibuster allows sparsely populated red states to dominate, the popular will is thwarted. In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Patricia Murphy said,

Starting point is 00:15:49 We are failing our students, one school shooting at a time. Without more being done to prevent school shootings in Georgia and beyond, it feels like we're just waiting for the next one to happen and praying it's not where we live, Murphy wrote. We don't really know whether this terrible new normal for our kids is a result of the increasingly lax gun laws that our leaders keep passing or a lack of security in schools. Is it because of the rising levels of anxiety in teens or a failure to keep guns away from people having a serious mental health crisis?

Starting point is 00:16:18 Is it all of those things? Maybe. But lawmakers in the state are not looking deeper to find out. Since I've been covering the legislature, there's never been a study committee to look at how to comprehensively address school shootings. That's because a study committee would surely tell GOP leaders something they don't want to hear. That along with the millions of dollars they already spent to upgrade security at schools, and the requirements they put in place for active shooter drills for all students, including kindergartners, requirements they put in place for active shooter drills for all students, including kindergartners. The only way to prevent school shootings is also to consider gun restrictions

Starting point is 00:16:48 in some form or fashion, Murphy said. I know we would not need so many thoughts and prayers if lawmakers would take action and do more to save our students' lives, no matter the politics. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. So we have covered so many of these shootings that it is just becoming harder and harder to think of something valuable to say. This story is familiar. A young man or a teenager is troubled. He has a semi-automatic rifle. There were warning signs. Young, innocent people were killed. Family and friends could have done more. Law enforcement could have done more. Ineffective laws have left loopholes open that made it easier for this to happen. An unhealthy gun culture promotes guns

Starting point is 00:17:45 as if they are toys. Repeated head-by-news coverage gives these twisted plots a reality to copy. And then there were the usual media failures, this time the Associated Press misleadingly quoting J.D. Vance. We are broken. Our country is a great, big, beautiful place that is better than most other places in the world at everything from economic growth to press freedom to track and field. But when it comes to gun violence, we are very, very broken. And with each event like this that goes by, we seem to be losing the will to do anything besides add more guns and security to the equation. All the normal caveats apply. Gun deaths are the leading cause of adolescent

Starting point is 00:18:25 death, but suicide is the number one gun violence killer in our country. Mass shootings usually involve semi-automatic rifles, but handguns are involved in more violence than any other kind of weapon. School shootings represent a small sliver of the number of gun deaths, but they comprise a huge share of the psychological toll gun violence takes on us, especially younger Americans. We now have a society where kids have to learn what to do in quote-unquote active shooter drills, and many of their schools are looking more and more like prisons, with armed security guards, metal detectors, and doors that lock automatically. Appalachee High was one such school. Armed police were on the premises to stop a shooting like this, and a system was in

Starting point is 00:19:05 place to lock the doors inside. Those safety measures may have saved lives, but they didn't prevent a 14-year-old from being able to easily access a gun, walk into his school, and kill two of his teachers and two of his classmates before surrendering. They may have mitigated the damage if you measure that damage only in lives lost, but they didn't prevent this from happening in the only country where it happens regularly. I've written before about the lack of friction to buy guns and the failure of our gun culture. This story touches on both of those points. In Georgia, there is no friction for a teenager to own a rifle or shotgun. It is perfectly legal without age restrictions or background checks. It should not be easy for a 14-year-old to carry a rifle, but illegal to carry a driver's permit, period.

Starting point is 00:19:51 We don't just have a failure of law, of course. Most people would agree that a 14-year-old who threatens a school shooting when he's 13 shouldn't legally be able to access a gun. But we have a failure of culture. The latitude provided to a teenager to own a rifle in Georgia is a holdover from an era with a more responsible gun culture, one built on guns being tools for sport or self-protection, one that no longer exists. The gun culture we have today undervalues the seriousness of owning firearms, promotes the notion that guns make you tough or patriotic, and plants seeds in the brains of our youth that solving your issues with a gun is a viable option. When I was

Starting point is 00:20:29 a teenager and learned to shoot a gun, I was taught to fear it and recognize its lethality. I was made to feel the weight of the responsibility of what I had in my hands and made to understand that this wasn't an activity I was ever allowed to participate in without specific adults present. I'm immeasurably grateful that this is how I was introduced to firearms. Today, we have legislators posing with semi-automatic rifles in front of Christmas trees, blowing stuff up in campaign ads, or saying it's embarrassing if their state is no longer the number one gun state in the country. These things matter on the margins,

Starting point is 00:21:00 and they are insidious markers of a corrupted and failed culture. And now, we are fighting against gun violence on a whole new front, prosecuting parents. Jennifer and James Crumley were the first parents in the U.S. to ever be found criminally responsible for their child carrying out a mass killing. Now the shooter's father, in this case, is being charged. As I said, after Jennifer Crumley was convicted, I was initially supportive of this pursuit. I think holding parents responsible for their role in securing firearms could increase gun safety and increase the urgency with which parents react to warning signs. But I also got cold feet once I saw the prosecution go down. Crumley's guilt seemed obvious at first, but the more I learned about the case, the more I understood how we were all benefiting from hindsight.

Starting point is 00:21:50 I became far more skeptical of this approach. There is no magic bullet that can solve gun violence, for lack of a better expression. This will require a holistic societal fix. We need to better enforce the laws we have on the books. We need to support new laws that allow family and friends to easily flag warning signs to law enforcement. We need more robust mental health treatment for teenagers, especially young men. We need gun ownership and training to be more like using a car and less like shopping at Walmart. We need our politicians and celebrities and cultural leaders to treat gun ownership as a grave, monumental responsibility, not one to be flaunted or flexed. We need all of this together in the long run, and each of these is individual victories as soon as possible, and we need to work together to get

Starting point is 00:22:30 there. Unfortunately, this means we need a world we don't currently seem to have, unless we are willing to make it happen collectively. We'll be right back after this quick break. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.

Starting point is 00:23:15 Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. All right, that is it for my take today, which brings us to your questions answered. This one

Starting point is 00:24:00 is from Pete in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. Pete said, I keep seeing posts that the Georgia election officials are playing fast and loose with the voting rights of Georgia citizens and are making plans that don't sound constitutional. Is this on your radar? Yes, Pete, good question, and we have been following the story, and yes, it is troubling. For background, the Georgia State Election Board appointed three new members to the five-person board earlier this year. All three are supporters of former President Trump. He recently praised them by name at a rally, calling them pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory, which is not exactly reassuring. Two weeks ago, the board passed new rules requiring county election officials to make reasonable inquiries before certifying results, allowing them to examine all election-related documentation created during the conduct of elections and

Starting point is 00:24:49 requiring counties to investigate voting discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters in a precinct before certifying results. Prominent Republicans and Democrats in Georgia immediately voiced their opposition to these rules, arguing they were passed too close to the election and were likely to impede the vote counting process. In short, I agree. These maneuvers by the election board are clearly designed to appeal to President Trump and his supporters by implying there were major problems in Georgia's 2020 election results to fix. There were not. And they create an additional pathway for Trump to challenge the 2024 results.

Starting point is 00:25:26 In a press release about the new rules, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger noted that the state had already implemented a number of election reforms in recent years, including requiring photo ID for absentee ballots, expediting the reporting and certification of election results, and introducing citizenship verification measures. The Conservative Heritage Foundation already ranked Georgia number two on its election integrity scorecard. All the new rules for the election board seem to do is increase the likelihood of a weeks-long delay to Georgia certifying its results. All right, that is it for your questions answered. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod.

Starting point is 00:26:01 And don't forget, I'll see you guys tonight out there on YouTube. Have a good one. Peace. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under the radar story for today, folks. On Monday, Republicans and Democrats released competing documents on the botched August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Republicans accused President Joe Biden of placing optics above personal security. Democrats claim the GOP was distorting the facts, blaming a deal former President Donald Trump struck with the Taliban that set the terms for the withdrawal. The reports offer few new details, but laid out in plain terms how the deadly withdrawal is being framed by Democrats and Republicans. CNN summarized the

Starting point is 00:26:40 reports, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The amount allocated in Georgia's 2023 budget to make school safety grants available to every K-12 school in the state is $115 million. The number of years in prison that the father of the suspected shooter in the Appalachian High School shooting could be sentenced to, if convicted on all charges, is 180. The number of shootings at schools in the U.S. since 1999 is 417, according to the Washington Post. The total number of children, educators, and other individuals killed in those shootings is 213. The median age of school shooters since 1999 is 16. The number of states with laws aimed to prevent children from accessing firearms is 26. The percentage of U.S. adults who live in a home with a gun is 42 percent, according to a 2023 Pew Research survey,

Starting point is 00:27:41 and the approximate percentage of adults in Georgia who lived in homes with guns in 2021 is 49%, according to a study from the RAND Corporation. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. In Kirkby, Stephen, England, flower bouquets left in public have caused a groundswell of good cheer. Members of the Napian Wharton Women's Institute seeded the idea, creating about 30 flower bouquets with flowers and herbs from the gardens of those involved, supplemented by flowers from local vendor Gregson's Bar. The project aimed to cheer up individuals feeling lonely, and it caused a bloom of optimism among locals.

Starting point is 00:28:18 The BBC has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to retangle.com and sign up for a membership. And don't forget that tonight we are going to be live streaming the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Our programming will begin at 8.50 p.m. Eastern time on YouTube.

Starting point is 00:28:43 We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y' p.m. Eastern time on YouTube. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by Duke Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman,

Starting point is 00:28:59 Will Kabak, Daily Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was made by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website at readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com.

Tangle - The Georgia School Shooting

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