2y ago

The teacher shot by a 6-year-old still worries, a year later, about the other students in the room

A year after she was shot by her 6-year-old student in a Virginia classroom, former teacher Abby Zwerner said she still worries about the other children who saw it happen, and wonders how they’re faring.

Wounded by a bullet that struck her hand and chest and punctured a lung, Zwerner rushed the other first-graders into the hallway before she collapsed in the elementary school’s office.

“I hope that they are enjoying school, enjoying their second-grade year,” Zwerner, 26, told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. “I hope that they’re still kind to their classmates, kind to teachers. I hope that they still have happiness, and that their happiness wasn’t completely stripped away.”

57 comments

If only all the other kids were armed too we could have avoided the need for thoughts and prayers - NRA
- I'd say it's her own fault. Who doesn't wear a bullet proof west to an american school.
- They want to arm teachers already. When I keep asking how do you guarantee that a kid isn't ever going to get access to a teacher's gun, they act like that's a stupid question.
  
  Yep. Take your pick:
  It's either out of effective reach to be useful in an emergency situation.
  Or it's recklessly in the open for others to steal or accidentally play with and cause a safety accident that goes underreported in this country.
  Teachers are stretched even more thin and underpaid by an even greater amount as they must now take recurring training and expect to be a hero wheb trained LEO with more tools in their kit can't even do.
LiberalGunNut™ here! Not too many ideas out there for laws that actually make a difference and will stand up to 2A challenges, but I got one.
Drop the fucking hammer on anyone who allows a non-authorized person access to their weapon(s). No idea how this actually looks as a law, but I'm sure you get my drift.
I've heard arguments pro and con regarding safe storage. For example; I'm not one to legislatively tax poor people for exercising a right. But lockboxes are plenty cheap enough. If you want to step up from a cheap lock-box, $80 and an hour of work, and you got a Harbor Freight wall safe installed. (They're great BTW!)
And such a law doesn't need to specify containment! "Anyone gets hold of your gun, concrete and steel box for you." Bet people would pay fucking attention!
- 🥱
  Reducing the disparity in wealth has a direct impact on the amount of people who want to lash out at society by killing indiscriminately.
  Give people reasons to live so they don't make up reasons to kill.
  Unfortunately, liberals and conservatives love to unite on greed because they're both in on it.
  
  My dude I don’t think the six year old that shot her was economically anxious
  
  What data are you using to back this claim? Most school shooters seem to come from middle class to rather affluent families. How do you guys manage to pivot every thing to class warfare?
  I was walking down the street and I stubbed my toe: "Ow how can the proletariat suffer the injustice of tripping over uneven sidewalks while the rich continue to exploit us!"
  This is like a meme level comment at this point.
  Edit: to everyone downvoting: Prove me wrong. Give me the data. Show me that income or class had a considerable impact on these active school shooters.
- There've been a bunch of initiatives the past couple years (since Biden took office) to provide free gun locks and lock boxes. There's really no excuse not to have one.
  
  I have not heard of this at all.
  
  Yep. A bunch of police departments give out cable locks if you just ask. I bought one for $4 because I don't want to go to the police department for any reason and I use it to lock my helmet to my motorcycle.
  It's not a perfect solution but it's cheap and helpful.
  
  I'd like to know more!
- Punishment for irresponsible gun storage wouldn't make a dent. All it would achieve is putting more people in jail, not actually preventing mass shootings.
  Ban semi auto guns. Bolt / lever / pump / hammer (etc) action weapons only. That is plenty for hunting and defense scenarios.
  Realistically, it'd have to be a long, multi phase roll out of voluntary surrenders, followed by crime enhancements, followed by open warrants.
  
  and will stand up to 2A challenges
  You seem to have dropped this.
  And who do you imagine is voluntarily surrendering? Not sure what you propose here.
  followed by crime enhancements, followed by open warrants
  Doesn't that contradict your second sentence?
  As far as bans go, some people obey the law, some do not. There's also this.
  
  Ban semi auto guns. Bolt / lever / pump / hammer (etc) action weapons only. That is plenty for hunting and defense scenarios.
  The 2^nd Amendment exists for the purpose of ensuring "the security of a free State." Bolt / lever / pump / hammer (etc) action weapons don't cut it for that purpose in the 21^st century.
  Instead, we should take a page from Switzerland: issue everybody a military-standard assault rifle and force them to train with it, but don't let anybody keep any ammo.
- That may or may not work while not reducing rights. Hmm... I'd give it a go.
- "But I need my gun at the ready at all times! Plus there is one time I saw the lockpicking lawyer pick a gun lock and I'm certain all thieves have seen it."
  I've seen that shit argued soooo many times. Unless it is 100% failsafe, there are still a stupid amount of people that will think it's useless. It reminds me of people who do not wear seat belts because they heard about one person who was saved because they were thrown from a car. They will use that 0.01% of times to curse their own irresponsible behavior.
Anyone else feel like the article title was rather clickbait-y?
former teacher Abby Zwerner said she still worries about the other children who saw it happen, and wonders how they’re faring.
- At first I thought she maybe lives in fear of her students and that they might shoot her again.
- It did at least draw me to the comments section to see the chatter, but no, I pretty much expected what you quoted.
  I guess it's open enough to interpretation to be misleading. Do readers think she was worried the kid was going after them next? Do they think she was worried one more of the students would come after her?
  
  That was my initial thought, yeah.
Thank god for.guns... rolling eyes emoji
Is this the youngest perpetrator of a school shooting?
- The youngest...so far!
- [Researcher David Riedman, founder of a database that tracks U.S. school shootings dating back to 1970] said Saturday that he’s only aware of three other shootings caused by 6-year-old students in the time period he’s studied. Those include the fatal shooting of a fellow student in 2000 in Michigan and shootings that injured other students in 2011 in Texas and 2021 in Mississippi
  Maybe not, at least if we don't know the exact age at least to the month
  
  Jeez
- Maybe, but younger people have been shot, so it balances out!
- The person that coined this phrase is stepping down from the NRA. I think it's time we retired this garbage, just like the person that created it.
  
  My sarcasm wasn't clear enough I guess.
- Is that why elementary school shootings are incredibly rare outside the US where random people don't run around with guns all the time?
  
  You might have even less shootings if 100% of people on earth had guns. Even babies
Back in the day, when the government of Japan banned samurai schools, and prohibited so many dangerous weapons, the samurai got angry and revolted.
Those samurais, on the other hand, who worked closely with the government or had willingness (or had leverage by working with them), created their own "spiritual" schools, teaching aikido, kendo, and practices of spirituality, peace, and finding one's own path in life.
But now Japan thrives ever so lively. And yet, the government now carries all that stigma after the ages of samurais had passed; and for good reasons, because they do oppress people and judge them unjustly in courts.
Perhaps the sword may have not been the answer, but it is certainly not the solution either to dismantle all, including the good and the bad, for there are the protectors of peace- the sword carriers, and those whom carry weapons and guns are no different.
And there are those who are irresponsible and neglectful, and would drive opposition the opportunity for justifying radical changes. Then that radical change would be justified. Including the dismantling of weapons and their schools of thought.
So is the case that had led to this women's unfortunate circumstance.
However, I will still carry the sword to death with me.

57 comments