It's Been Said....

  Anne Marie Hochhalter Born December 19, 1981 Died February 16, 2025 Hero Courageous Fighter Fiercely Independent Survivor Advocate Victim Following her death on February 16, 2025, all of the above adjectives have been used to describe who my daughter, Anne Marie Hochhalter, was. Thing is, I never saw her as such. I saw her as my daughter, my first-born child. She will always remain so. Please don't get me wrong. I do believe some of those accolades listed above must have, in fact, applied to Anne Marie. Otherwise, so many people would not be using them to describe their own knowledge of who she was. I just never got to see them or experience them with her as they applied to her at least from December 2009 until her death. I wasn't allowed to (more on that later). There were snippets here and there in media stories, but that was all I got to experience of her activities. But I digress. As most folks already know, Anne Marie was critically injured during the Columbine massacre....

Remember awhile back when there was a counter-movement to the March For Our Lives movement called  #WalkUPnotOUT ? While well intentioned, I personally believe that effort was an attempt to try and address bullying in schools and to place responsibility for doing that squarely on the shoulders of the kids choosing to participate in the walk-outs and the protests of March For Our Lives.   With that, who are the real bullies in mass school shootings? Really. Who are they? Soon after the massacre at Columbine High School April 20, 1999, rumors began circulating about the possibility that the two shooters who carried out this massacre had been the victims of bullying at the school. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Whether they were or were not is a conclusion that, by its very nature, must be reached individually by each of us based on our own knowledge and on our own perceptions of the incident, itself. The fact is they, themselves --- the two shooters of Columbine, became bu...

  October 15, 2015 Eric Mace published the following missive on his Facebook timeline Do Something . In it, he asks folks on both sides of the gun safety reform issue to actually do something. His daughter, Ryanne, was one of the victims in the Northern Illinois University mass shooting February 14, 2008. I'll let Eric speak for himself, though: Eric Mace:   Several days ago a close friend of mine posted a statement about doing something to reduce the number of mass shootings there have been over the last several years and the fact that they are becoming more frequent. He referred to what I've gone through since Ryanne's murder in '08 and echoed a sentiment that I've had since the day she was gunned down. That sentiment is simple and easily encapsulated by the following statement: do something! To put some more detail behind it, it's not a simple request even though it can be boiled down to just those two words. Remarkably, it confuses the hell out of lots of pe...

I did a thing. Yes, I did. The thing I did I probably shouldn't have done given past experiences debating with gun nuts, but I did that thing anyway. What was that thing? The thing I did was I posted a tweet on Twitter awhile back in which I said: Ted Zocco-Hochhalter Twitter Link That tweet was a retweet of, and response to, K-12 School Shooting Database (David Riedman), a researcher on school gun violence I have an awful lot of respect for. The reason I retweeted his tweet was because he mentioned school shootings in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s compared to school shootings today. Because the Columbine massacre took place in the 90s, I thought I'd throw in my two cents in support of what he was putting forward. Enter the gun nut: Well, DUH!! That is the newest in a long and idiotic line of AR style weapons defender's defenses I've seen so far. "The AR isn't some magical weapon." That's what he said. It was meant as an insult directed at those advocat...

  NRA, All Y’all Might Want to Stay in your OWN Lane!   Awhile back (2018 following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to be exact), the NRA created a virtual shitstorm when they ‘suggested’ that medical professionals stay in their lane. That same year, the NRA also created something they called their "National School Shield Program". Between the time they created the National School Shield Program and today, there has been little, to no, media coverage I'm aware of for this highly touted program (said with tongue planted firmly in cheek)....until May 31, 2023 that is. I give you their tweet here: Tweet: NRA National School Shield Program There's a video attached to the above tweet, but I won't share it here. That's how much I think of it. If you, the reader, feel the need to view it, you'll have to go to Twitter by clicking the above link and watch it there. “Stay in their lane”….that’s what the NRA said medical professionals should do. ...

  You Really Need to Educate Yourself (About AR-15s/Ammo) That's what he was told: "You really need to educate yourself".  That comment was directed at Brett Cross. Who is Brett Cross? Well, Brett's son, Uziyah (Uzi), was one of the children murdered at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.   Brett Cross on Twitter According to ChadHud39666678 (Twitter handle), Brett apparently needs to educate himself on the nuances of AR-15 style weaponry.  It doesn't seem to matter to Chad what Brett Cross believes regarding his son's death because, according to Chad, Brett apparently doesn't know anything about what killed his son, Uzi, in the Robb Elementary School massacre. It only matters that Brett doesn't understand, according to Chad, that AR-15s can chamber a number of different caliber bullets. Therefore, according to Chad, Brett can't be involved in a discussion or debate about the weapon of choice for so many mass shootings here of late. Why? Beca...