Yesterday at the Colorado State Capitol, as 9NEWS reports, students from the Colorado Youth Advisory Council presented their annual proposals for legislation addressing “needs affecting Colorado youth now and in the future.”
The teenagers are a part of the Colorado Youth Advisory Council. It was created in 2008 to better understand students’ needs. Students create bills on topics they feel passionately about, and present them individually to state lawmakers. A few of the bill proposals have the potential to make it to the Governor’s desk…
Students fielded comments and tough questions from state lawmakers.
Representative Ron Weinberg (R) represents House District 51 in Larimer County. He was impressed with the students’ efforts.
“They’re essentially legislators presenting to legislators and their bills could actually become law,” he said. “They did fantastic, they stood behind their convictions.”
As 9NEWS’ Kyle Clark noted last night, some of those “tough questions” from GOP Rep. Ron Weinberg were a little more than merely tough, veering into the downright offensive:
NEW: Colorado @RepWeinberg (R-Loveland) told students that allowing trans kids to use their preferred names in class could confuse police during a school shooting. #coleg #copolitics pic.twitter.com/mtYSvfVkVJ
— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) October 26, 2023
The kids who proposed legislation protecting the rights of trans students reportedly answered that nobody they had spoken with in their schools had raised the possibility that what’s known in the transgender community as “dead naming,” or insisting on using names and genders that the student no longer uses, could constitute a security risk during a school shooting. That’s because it wouldn’t–but the discussion of this bill provided another opportunity for Republican lawmakers to embarrass themselves on subjects they have only a stereotypical understanding of at best.
On the day of another horrific mass shooting, talking with kids about legislation responsive to the experiences in their daily lives, Weinberg managed to drag the conversation to that dreadful hypothetical space where facts don’t apply–only shock value and the depths of his prejudicial imagination.
We just want those kids to know that the legislative process isn’t always like this.
And at least in Colorado, these people are the minority.
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"But in this situation would it be okay to deadname? No? How about this?"
What a blathering asshat.
Wouldn't the cops be looking for anyone alive in a mass shooting to rescue… You know the cops are not spooky reverse assassins who murder anyone who's not on a list? They yell out to drop the weapon before they shoot Ron!
"He had long hair… we were looking for a male to rescue and so we figured since our belief was males should have short hair we shot the unarmed child" is that the thought?
First responders would have access to an official school class list, digital or hardcopy, when looking for survivors of any disaster. Official class lists gnerally have the legal, as well as preferred name for a given student.
Of course, any sensible rescuer would use the preferred name if they’re calling or checking names off a list, but in a real emergency, they would just get the student bodies of whatever gender to safety. It’s not like they’d be putting them in line boy-girl-boy-girl.
What do the cops do when they encounter a Sam? Or a Taylor or Morgan?
Is that Samuel or Samantha?
Sorry we couldn’t save any of the kids with gender neutral names.
How about doing something radical that would be a win/win situation. Let's do something to stop school shootings! Comprehensive gun reform and robust mental health availability.
Good luck with that!
Nothing can be done at the state level because guns can be carried over state lines.
And nothing will be done at the federal level because we have a crackpot leading the House of Representatives who thinks that gun violence is the result of teaching evolution in public schools. (Memo to Mike Johnson. Other countries teach science, including evolution, in their schools and do not have the gun violence we have.)
Next year, when the Dems flip the House – and they probably will – they will unfortunately lose the Senate since Manchin's seat is gone. (I know, he was no great prize, but he did vote for Schumer and organizing resolution which made Durbin the chair of Judiciary instead of Blanche DuBois.)
Sherrod Brown is also having a rough re-election race this cycle because it is a presidential year and Trump will probably carry Ohio with coattails.
The third state to worry about is Montana but the reports on Tester is that he is in relatively good shape, and he may get lucky and draw Rosendale as his opponent again.
So, we end up going from 51 Dems to 49 Dems.
As stupid as Weinberg is, the award for bad ideas coupled with bad timing goes to John "Cornhole" Kennedy who though that this was the right to week to bring up an amendment to make it easier for mentally unstable military veterans to get access to firearms.