Parkland shooting anniversary gun control factions parents
Bigstock
Parkland shooting anniversary gun control factions parents
Bigstock

It’s an image that has become emblematic of the Parkland school massacre: two terrified moms outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, one of them a tall, weeping blonde with the black smudge of Ash Wednesday on her forehead, the other a petite redhead crying in despair on her shoulder.

But the bond in that widely seen photograph didn’t survive long. The two women soon found themselves at odds — like the nation itself — over gun control.

The redhead was Cathi Rush, who was desperately waiting on Feb. 14, 2018, to find out whether her 14-year-old son Brandon was OK. The blonde was Mechelle Boyle, whose three children did not attend the high school and were safe.

“This community has fractured into two factions now,” said [Rush] — those who are trying to turn schools into “fortresses” and those who want to crack down on guns.

“And they fight like you wouldn’t believe on Facebook,” Rush said. “It’s gross. It’s disgusting.”

And while Rush condemns those she feels oppose her, there’s this little gem from Boyle who discussed what became of her friendship with Rush:

“She was very upset at me because I was a little more pro-gun than her, and she wasn’t very happy about that,” Boyle said. “I definitely pushed for laws, and I definitely said we need stronger laws, but I guess for whatever reason we really didn’t stay friends on Facebook or anything.”

– Kelli Kennedi for sun-sentinel.com, Their anguish was a defining image of Parkland. Now they don’t talk to each other

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68 COMMENTS

  1. Teachers don’t need funds. It costs $15,000-25,000 to put one student through one single year of public school in this country. You could send your kid to a pretty damn good private school for half that.

    • Governor, you are so right! Federal money corrupts everything: public schools, colleges,
      universities, local law enforcement, etc. Bear in mind the link below. Naturally our
      government controlled public schools, colleges, universities, and academia, who walk
      in lockstep with the establishment news media, doesn’t want the American public, including parents, to know about this. Like everything else they deliberately cover up, conceal, and hide the truth from the masses, simply because they “are masters of deceit!” Link is posted below addressing this.

      https://www.thenewamerican.com/print-magazine/item/31271-get-them-out

      James A. Farmer
      Merrill, Oregon (Klamath County)
      Long live the State of Jefferson!

    • Speaking from the standpoint of a retired (feels more like I escaped) teacher . . . The huge costs in per-student costs are mainly the result of an exponential growth in administrative overhead. In more than a few schools (both public and higher education) the costs of school administrators and their supporting bureaucracy rivals or even exceeds the actual classroom costs for teaching students. It’s not at all uncommon to find someone from a 3rd tier school’s weekend Ed.D. program who earns upwards of $200k.

      • True. From what I’ve heard, there’s also a lot of teachers and administrators going back to school and getting their masters degree which guarantees them a fat pay raise even though it’s of no use to their ability to do their jobs any better.

    • My kids private school is less than that plus I get to pay for the public schools.
      But I get to choose what they teach and I don’t get treated like a taxpayer.

      • Vouchers. The answer is vouchers. The only reason they won’t issue vouchers is the Commicrats know it will be the end of public indoctrination, er education, as we know it.

    • They don’t need more money to indoctrinate children into socialism and rhe religion of evolution. These shoorings happens because they teach children they are just animals . there is no God and if it feels good than it is good. They refuse to discipline children. They don’t understand it feels good to some people to harm others.

      Pretending that pycopaths and criminals will obey laws will not protect children or adults from pyscopaths and criminals.

  2. You can’t say both sides are fighting when you’re the one trying to take people’s rights away and they’re trying keep them.

    You could stop everything if you just stopped being a tyrant.

    • This ^^^. And it is not the shooting that is causing the split. The split was there, the shooting exposes who is who about respecting the Bill of Rights.

    • Look! It’s about time we called a spade a spade. The left isn’t really against guns and never has been. They are only against guns when they aren’t in the hands of the people enforcing THEIR agenda. Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, China Nazi Germany. How many more examples do we need.

      • “Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, China Nazi Germany. How many more examples do we need.”

        The classic con games never die, precisely because they work. Whether P.T. Barnum actually said it or not, there’s one born every minute. Thousands in fact.

      • Always one more than you have, because the average leftist will always find a reason to invalidate (in their own mind) your latest example.

        It’s one reason I find arguing with those folks so annoying.

    • The divide is actually between those who uphold the constitution and are factually correct in their position and information, versus those who are still ignorant to what the Constitution says and the media bias they fall prey to like the little sheep they are. Talk about cognitive dissonance…wow!

  3. Schools somt need more money. They need to start teaching interdisciplinary lessons instead of the archaic sit down for hours on end like all kids are gonna end up working in a factory post industrial revolution. Too many people talk without knowing the cause of problems.

    • While you are absolutely right and several private schools went in this direction I can only see this taking off with the various teachers unions getting a massive cut in funding/influence or being disbanded outright. Growing up in the 80’s into the 90’s it was readily apparent that the classes were ill suited to getting a meaningful job and the teachers (with a few exceptions) could not be bothered with improving their methods (or actually teaching to begin with)

    • Some change needs to happen?

      In my days (the 80s for HS)
      We had 2 years of history 1 US and 1 world then 2 more of each in HS….why? WASTED MY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      If I did not understand it all in jrHS I understand that…but if I tested out on the basics at 70% or better, then DROP the other 4 because US history is not changing much in 4 year and my HS did not have the budget to offer a spec class on some history subject like medieval times for example.
      In all those 6 years only one teacher even got my attention, because he taught the class college lecture style and KNEW his shit (USC prof, was his last job and he gave it up for HS teaching)

      IMO at about age 14 to 15 you should be nearly done with what we call HS now, test for your next step and should be ‘tracked’ into a nearby city college or state one…or you go full blow apprentice and learn a job those last 2 years part time and grad right into a paying job!

      • I learned learned three times as much in a year and a half from my Navy instructors as I did from twelve years in public school. Any one of the half dozen or so Navy instructors could have blown my public school teachers out of the water.

      • i always thought about the additional math classes i could taken if the great state of NJ didn’t demand i take 4 years of english, 2 of which were ‘british’ and ‘american’ literature. I saw the value in grammar & vocabulary, but the literature was a total waste of my time

        • While English classes were not a complete waste of time they certainly bordered on it. We used to joke the syllabus was based around what books the Department of Education could buy by the ton. Being forced to study the poetry of Sylvia Plath has turned me off poetry for life and has only served to understand a joke in the series Warehouse 13.

      • I went to a private 1st thru 8 th grades. Went to public school for the high school grades 9 thru 12. I was appalled that there were people in the 9th and 10th grades reading at 3rd grade levels. Was a real eye opener. These young people were getting screwed over by not being required ( actually taught ) to read etc.

  5. ah yes the, “its disgusting when you dont agree with my worldview,” argument. Yeah, honestly, what effrontery! How dare they have a thought that diverges from my own.

  7. Well, she’s right. And what’s been happening is a carefully engineered tactic to split this country in two. By making one side the ‘bad guys’ who “just won’t be reasonable”.

    Fuck that noise. The actual conversation this nation needs to have is the peaceful dissolution of the marriage that is the United States. We’re at the point now of the screaming and the dishes being broken. It’s in the best interest of all parties to have a separation.

    Before the inevitable spousal abuse starts…

    • Starts? We’ve been abused for so long we got numb to it, and most only noticed recently. It started on Christmas Eve eve in 1913. The obvious start anyway, it really goes back a whole lot further than that.

      • If only people in general understood the significance of that evening….We allowed Europeans to own our collective a$$e$$ that day. Next they created the “racket” as in “war is a racket” to be fought on their “lending” behalf….I agree with your historical perspective.

      • Actually the 16th and 17th Amendments were what screwed the people and the states respectively. The Fed was just the bread of that crap sandwich.

        • The Fed Reserve removed US sovereignty. We have been literally owned by private, foreign interests since that evening.

        • Don’t forget that when JFK tried to put an end to all the BS he got shot in the forehead.

          Trump dare not do anything that will actually make a substantive change for the better. He saw what was in the JFK files when he decided to lock them away for many more years. Notice how Trump talks a big game then sits down when it’s time to play?

    • I’m all for spousal abuse. Letting the commies walk away with half our shit is not an option. Time to declare martial law and put them in their place.

      • Now, now, tsk, tsk. You don’t want to condone spousal abuse. I suggest a equitable and respectful split instead of war.
        They get to keep the portion they brought to the table and we get to keep ours.
        So the patriots get to keep the constitution, territory, all the wealth, and means of production.

        With no territory and wealth, they get to keep Hollywood as a parting gift. The non elites that don’t fit in Hollywood can be sold into slavery to China in order to support their totalitarian socialist overlords. The rest will starve as the pipelines shut off, the manufacturing and farming quits producing, and the trucking and transport infrastructure collapses. Due to this massive famine wiping out their population, I hereby and henceforth christen it, “Crazy Cooter’s super duper excellent genius green new deal.”

        • You wanna see some “triggering”, note how precariously dependent on the deplorables the shining cities are.

          “What have you got that they really need?” puts them right over the top. I like to note 50% + 1 vote takings of stuff they can’t live without. Water “authorities” that claim other people’s lakes n rainfall, for example.

    • Send the socialists/communists back to their European homelands where they can live the life they always wanted. Bernie can party in Russia until the end of his days. Hipsters can hangout in France pretending they are so civilized. /s

      There will be no separation because both sides want socialism. Things will end up like Germany. The rest of us will suffer and have no power to fix it.

      Domestic violence and divorce ruins the kids. We liberty supporting people are the children and the warring factions are the mom and dad.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJjYT0VCAkA

  9. ” The shooting has split parents into to factions, and the fighting is disgusting.” Is this about the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s?

    • Kind of – except the Hatfields and McCoys used real guns, and people died. In this Brave New World, getting “unfriended” on FakeBook is the moral equivalent of a V2 attack on London.

  10. It’s hard to have a conversation when one side keeps demanding more “common sense laws” and the other side keeps rolling over and over and over. Heard on the radio yesterday: “The democrats are the party of evil, the republicans are the party of stupid”. Stupid is not sticking up for yourself. Quit trying to please everyone. It never works. Didn’t President Lincoln say that?

    • “The democrats are the party of evil, the republicans are the party of stupid.”

      And the rest of that old saying: Sometimes they cooperate to do something stupid AND evil. That’s called bipartisanship.

  11. The thousands of gun “laws & regulations” on the books have become irrelevant to a great many people on both sides of the issue. Note the increase in permitless carry States – 15 now, and growing; And the ever growing restrictions in locales that are historically anti-gun.

  13. Looking at that protest sign, yes it is true that teachers do need funds. Start by taking it away from bureaucrats and layers of useless administrators. Every year teachers take money from their own pockets to buy school supplies for kids, arts and crafts supplies for the little ones. Even shoes and coats and paying for school lunches. I see it every year even tho I’m too old to have kids in school anymore. So each year I make what donation I can.

    I blame the jokers in charge, but this doesn’t change the burden on the teachers.

    Guns? Well, very few would need them and very few would want them and very few could be adequately trained. But that’s kind of the point, nobody says “all teachers” should be armed. Only those that are emotionally damaged by the idea react as if the word “all” was in there. Guess what snowflake, nobody is talking about giving you a gun.

    We are also not talking about putting you in the command pilot’s seat for the first Mars Mission. Nor giving you control of the Federal Reserve Bank or responsibility to negotiate peace in the Middle East. Maybe there’s teacher’s who could do those jobs, but nobody is thinking the “all” in front of “teachers” when those tasks are brought up.

    Some perhaps, not all, so far as guns are concerned.

    • Sorry, *I* say arm all teachers. If they cannot be armed for any reason, they should not be allowed to be teachers. Teaching colleges should be required to offer training and qualification certificates. If you cannot go that far, add $100/month for armed teachers, cafeteria workers, janitors, etc.

      • A better solution is to permit school system employees who possess a concealed carry permit to carry on school property. No cost to the school system since the armed employees would use the equipment they already own. Perhaps a cost for training to handle school attacks such as Buckeye Firearms FASTER. Its marksmanship standards exceed those for police officers.

  14. If they weren’t trapped in the same schools together, they wouldn’t have to fight so hard; they could be disgusted with each other at a distance.

  16. I left the teaching field not because of low pay, bad admins, or bad students. I left because I didn’t want to deal with so many failed parents. Wasn’t worth it, so I moved on.

    I’m happy with the public education my sons are receiving. They’re STEM kids that are college bound. If they do their part, and if I do my part, it’ll probably work out.

    Probably.

    • i admire home schoolers and 100% of the results that i have witnessed.
      mine weren’t; they think like me.

  18. Yeah that happens when you turn to your neighbor and start demanding the revocation of their rights, the confiscation of their property, and the forced defenselessness of their children.

  19. Ahhh the ole children are more important than the constitution. Wonder if any of these antis ever stop and thought about the fact that if the constitution were not in place, them and their children might not even exist. But what do you need that old antiquated document for?

    • it’s consistent.
      why protect something that you might have tossed in the garbage when it was new?
      have you grown accustomed to its face?
      they’re a mess.

    • Naturally, they never believe that their genocidal socialist state will ever come for THEM… Why that would be absurd.

    • Typically liberal– my door is open for further conversation, but it stops as soon as you disagree with me. That’s hardly a conversation– more like “stop by any time you feel a need to be lectured.”

  22. You have the gun control parkland side who cannot even acknowledge the glaring reality that the shooter was a well-known problem child, the school failed in their job, so did the Coward County Sheriff’s dept and sheriff, and the FBI that utterly dropped the ball despite being relentlessly hit over the head with red flags.

    There’s no reasoning with those that deny basic reality.

  24. The public schools definitely don’t need any more money as they misuse the funds they have.

    We spend way too much on education and have little to show for it.

  25. I suspect a great many of the anti-rights Parkland parents were totally on board with the school and sheriff’s psycho coddling policies. Those policies resulted in their kids getting killed, so now they feel entitled to try to strip rights away from the rest of us. I feel sorry for the normal people who’s children were killed because they lived in a community that valued of human garbage above the safety of children. Yet another reason to not live with lefties.

  26. I cannot deduct or get a tax credit for sending my child to a private high school. Why is that? Oh, yeah, the public school teacher’s unions are screwing America’s children first hand. If the public schools actually had to compete with private schools for funding of any kind, vouchers, tax credits, etc., these so-called “educators” would be out of a job. In the meantime they are willing to expose countless children to harm because of their virulent anti-2A worldview. To a socialist, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, unfortunately the eggs are people.

    BTW my child’s school has armed security. You get what you pay for, as the saying goes.

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