Burnt Orange Report

Don't Shoot the Messenger!

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

I received the following e-mail today thanks to the loose peace network in the Hill Country. The story comes out of Kerrville/Ingram area in Central Texas, where I am still located for the moment before I return to Austin.

Below is a story I (Scott Pope have distributed to the media. KSAT TV ran a story last night on TV, and the SA paper is running a story, along with the Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman. Bradmesser.com is carrying the story. I have also sent this message to CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, Oprah, various Columbine survivor groups, Gov. Rick Perry, DPS, and many others.

Below is a news story worthy of national attention concerning a Texas public school which believes guns belong in the classroom. No condoms put plenty of guns.

I live in Kerrville, Texas. Kerrville is rural Texas and all that implies.

Our local school board in neighboring Ingram has decided to introduce real guns into the 7th grade classroom as teaching aids. The photo shows the speaker waving around a semi automatic pistol while at least six (6) real weapons are pointed at the students. The School Board maintains this is good for the students. Some parents feel the public schools should not be introducing young impressionable boys to semi automatic pistols and sawed off shotguns in a 7th grade classroom, as we are trying to keep our children away from these gangster type weapons.

While the School Board maintains they are teaching the children gun safety, it is clear from the attached photo they don't know the first thing about gun safety, as at least six (6) guns are pointed directly at the students. The School Board refuses to stop the guns program.

The picture says it all. Unbelievable, but true, and worthy of national news.

The picture is from the front page of our local newspaper (Kerrville Daily Times), which celebrates introducing weapons to children in the public school system

My name is Scott Pope, and I can be reached @ 210-849-8879. Thank you very much.

Well, in the interest of finding out the reality of the situation, I went digging for the article. It's still online and can be found here.

Like any other day, the seventh-grade students sprawled across their desks in the Texas history classroom of Ingram Middle School. Instead of napping, however, these kids were paying avid attention as the history that they’ve spent the past nine months learning came alive in front of their eyes.

It was Ranching Heritage Day at the middle school on Friday and 100 seventh-graders, under the direction of teacher Amy Brice, had an opportunity to step into the 1800s and learn about frontier life in Texas.

...

Inside, Texas Ranger Jim Ryan showed another kind of weaponry — period rifles, pistolas and knives used by the rough men who upheld Texas law.

His rapt audience, mostly boys, listened avidly as Ryan — dressed in period costume of tall leather boots, brown vest and felt hat — talked about justice on the Texas frontier.

He showed them a Ranger’s “Book of Fugitives,” which held names and descriptions of as many as 3,000 wanted lawbreakers. The state issued the books to the Rangers, who roamed the counties looking for these men. It didn’t matter how they were brought to justice, so long as they were. So very often Rangers would shoot first, then bring the men in, Ryan said.

So, I'm not going to make a big fuss over this. Yes, he shouldn't have guns pointed at school children, I completly agree with that. But I'm also thinking about the cultural and historical and educational relevance of all this. I think it's a school doing something new and different and I applaud that. And that's just my Central Texas roots showing. (though that is an entry for later this week)