This country is insane.

But, who cares, lets have another!


Give people an opportunity to call some 18 year olds they have never met dipshits and dumbasses again!

So I would like to take this opportunity to call those 18 year olds who need a yearbook picture with a weapon dipshits and dumbasses. And if their parents permit/encourage this, they are the same.
Gun culture in this country is nauseating.

you wouldv'e learned that the firearms aren't taken to school, the photos are taken by a professional and submitted to the school for approval.
Also, that part of Neb. is big time hunting culture, the firearms are most likely hunting rifles.

Big ado about nothing.

Nothing I wrote indicated I didn't.
I strongly dislike hunting "culture".
Killing an animal that you eat I can understand (I am a vegetarian), and certainly not worse than supermarket meat, but the hunting culture I can't, and I'm happy to be judgmental and condemn it. Getting pleasure or joy or whatever from the hunt is disgusting.

those young people are hunting are not eaten by their families? I assume the opposite.

My main problem is the glorification of the "sport" of hunting.

Arming Deer

I don't really think that would be helpful to the deer. Where would they get ammo? If they got ammo, how would they load it? How would they shoot it? They don't have opposable thumbs so it would be quite difficult for them to handle a rifle safely, heck they would probably only injure themselves or their offspring by mishandling a loaded rifle. How would they even know what a rifle is? They don't have a memory you know, only instincts. That's why they frequently only run off 30 yards after being shot at (and missed)...they only run as far as they need to to forget the danger.

But thanks for the rest of your post. I certainly had never considered any of that. I bow to your genius.

but I have spoken with the deer biologist that is in charge of deer hunting in the State of Minnesota, the Big Game Program Leader, who told me that information. Deer have a 'flight' response, but it does not last for a long time.

Thanks for the chuckle...

On a more serious note, the school should have stood up to those whiny parents. Senior photos nowadays have tons of different views to choose from and those kids did not need to have their guns included in the yearbook. It is completely irresponsible to glorify the threat of violence inherent in posing with a weapon. The rampant consumerism about guns demonstrates how effective and insidious marketing is.

The excuse that Nebraska is a rural area where hunting is somehow a special and sacred activity is absurd. The effective marketing by the gun manufacturers has completely blinded these folks that they are being hoodwinked into being mindless mass consumers for the profit of a few 1%'s. The tragedy is the rural folks vote over and over for the right wing that claims they will protect their gun rights. These politicians then turn around without blinking an eye and work tirelessly to destroy the rural economies where these people live. Sure you can buy as many guns as you want, but good luck in getting a job, keeping your farm in the family, getting decent education for your kids or having decent health care in these rural communities.

Grew up in gun culture and we ate more game than anybody I knew, as we were rural and poor and we really did need game to supplement our food choices. My daddy, if he were still alive, would be absolutely appalled at the irresponsible and ridiculous behaviors that have been foisted on us all by the gun lobby. He was an absolute gun safety nut after his best friend killed himself cleaning a gun. He was an avid hunter and fisherman, but in his last years found a lot more pleasure in watching wildlife than hunting. The most shocking thing is the amount of shooting that goes on in rural areas now. Not a day goes by, that I do not hear gunfire. My dad would get a box of shells at Christmas and one for Father's Day and never needed more. Of course, he was a good shot and did not need to practice incessantly for thrills. A gun was a tool to him not a source of manhood.

Sorry for the rant HERVEPA, but these people get to me. The gun nuts are bigger fools for the marketers than the teens who have to follow the most recent style trends.

the guns are not at school.
We did this fight yesterday also.

gawker gotta get the click thrus I guess

they take pictures at a private photography studio is more likely

But tasteful.

"Administrators say the photos have to be taken off-site."

Well, that's misleading. And a whole lot of froth over nothing.

Something?

Guns are meant to kill things. A high school kid posing with something meant to kill things is disgusting. Fuck the gun culture.

I think the 17-18 yr olds in High School in ROTC with his squad photo in the yearbook with their rifles would rile you up too. Sometimes rabid anti-allofit culture is disgusting.

I have no problem with allofit.

be personalized--to represent the hobbies, interests, skills, achievements of the graduates--then hunting and shooting sports should certainly be permissible IMO...

Dead animal carcasses. I think they should allow these little darlings to also pose with dead animal carcasses... specifically, the carcasses they found entertainment in killing.


That too, would be very tasteful and certainly within reason.

Did you miss the young man posing with his dog, the rifle his grandfather gave him, and the deer head mount?

I missed the carcasses, it seems...

They were are tastefully done. If you are opposed to hunting, I guess you would not agree. The thing is, these photos are not about so called 'gun culture', it's about those showing pride in their accomplishments in hunting, and in one case, his prized truck.

Hilarious. You are a keeper; I hope you stick around.

That funny coming from sonebody with fewer than 2,000 posts.

Classism is alive and well on DU.

to think that allowing high schoolers to take their yearbook photos with firearms is idiocy and sets a poor example in a nation devastated by gun violence.

Keep up the good work, brave 2nd amendment warrior.

not gun violence. If they were posing with semi-auto handguns pointed sideways at the canera while flashing gang signs, then I would be opposed to the photos.

any school board would allow that.

I agree with you and agree with how you said it. There are a certain bunch who seek to shame people that disagree with the persistent gun shaming inherent to this place.

I get depressed that a left-leaning place wouldn't sink to using stereotypes and what not, but, it happens. Happens quite a bit. But seeing it, I try to learn from it, and to not thunk that way about things I encounter through life. I don't want to be like that.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you for your analysis and open mindedness.

I don't care if people are opposed to hunting or don't like guns as long as they use logic instead of emotion to make their case.

They were shot and stuffed. Is their really a time limit on the display of a dead carcass. It cost a lot of money to preserve the great accomplishment of killing that dear and preserving it. I put no time limit on that for showing off in a photo and still calling it a "dead carcass."

Wasn't finished on day one so we will meet in the yard to fight over the exact same thing tomorrow. It is actually a perfect narrative for du.

If we're talking about senior photos, those are taken by offsite photographers, who submit the photo to the school. t least that's how it works in this part of Nebraska.

I will point out that these photos show the priority, at the time of the photo, on being a part of a gun culture.
I have no reason, from what is stated in the article, to believe any of these students will become criminals later in life.

Even though she is still young, she is apt to see the photos because she is curious and news savvy.
She will probably come to me with the news article. Because these are younger people she may be more curious about why they chose to be photographed with a weapon.

We will cover the whole spectrum of gun ownership and National Statistics in our talk.



Tikki

These photos are not specifically about guns. Would you be opposed to a photo of a high school senior if he was posing with the headmount of an 8-point buck, and his compound bow and razer tipped arrows? That would be a likely photo from the same 'hunting culture'. These photos are abount hunting, not about guns.

good for you!

These photos have nothing to do with criminal activity and you seem to wish to show your grand-daught the horrible judgement these kids used because of the choice they made in posing for these photos.


"...no better way to define themselves..."

Ok we get it, you're anti-gunting and cinfused about what is 'good' and what is 'bad'. These kids have done nothing to harm their reputation by posing for these photos. They do not represent 'gun culture'. They represent themselves in these photos and nobody else.

I am now going to have to bounce my head against the wall to get your distorted sense of logic out of my head. I hope your grand-daughter is allowed to think for herself instead of you telling her about the 'mistake' these Nebraska students have made.

I will share statistics about hunting with her, also.

Don't hit your head, that can make it hurt.


Tikki

You cab tell her that on Novenber 8th there will be 500,000 hunters in the field for the Minnesota opening day of deer season. Wisconsin has 750,000 deer hunters and Pennsylvania over a milion deer hunters. There are about 10 million deer hunters in the U.S.

this with the overall number of hunters each year.

She's smart...she gets numbers...she'll figure out where she wants to fit into this.

You do believe in teaching gun safety....this is my way of talking about gun safety, to introduce her to
statistics that may help her decide if she would be interested in being part of the gun culture.

Tikki

overall hunting related gun deaths have been dropping for years. My brother has been teqching gun and hunting safety for over 25 years. Passing the course is mandatory to hunt game for everyone born after 1979 and prior to that, every 12 year ood and older but still under 18 neadedd to pass starting in the 1950s.

I think all teens should take a gun safety course. That do a lot to reduce gun accidents.

If it were only that easy to teach anger and impulse control as part of gun safety to teens and others who possess guns.


Tikki

and highlight their interests and such.

All good. So if some students decided to pose with, oh say, a box of condoms or birth control pills, or a vibrator or other sex toy, I assume there would be no problem?

The reason we loose rural voters is the ridiculous decision of the Democratic Party to not work on rural issues and allowing the NRA to spend without challenge in these rural communities. The rural people who vote against their economic and personal safety interests are targeted as easy marks by the gun manufacturers so they can make massive profits at the expense of the public. It is worth repeating, the profits of the gun industry are at the expense of the public. Rural boys are just as likely to die from guns as urban boys. The only people that talk about that fact is the Brady campaign. I know of three boys in my very rural community who have died as the result gun suicide. The cost of the loss of these lives is incalculable. Rural people are being abused and used by the mindless mass marketers to take their money and give them back a product that brings death and destruction to our rural communities.

Rural burglaries are rampant and the number one article that is stolen are guns. It just means more profit to the gum manufacturers as the stolen guns are replaced by new guns. There is no effort to stop the burglaries in rural areas, but it does help increase profits for the gun industry at the expense of rural people.

Hunting is a great hobby for those who enjoy it. There are no serious proposals for confiscating guns that are used for hunting or home protection, either. The gun industry knows that fewer and fewer people are interested in guns and hunting. The only way they can continue to make a profit is to whip their customers into a panic every time there is a tragedy to get them to buy more guns. A good marketer never lets a tragedy pass without getting a few more marks to buy more guns and ammo they do not need.