Safety Wars
Jim's commentary on the School Shooting in Georgia
(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Jim from Safety Wars. Before we set the program, I want to make sure everyone understands that we often talk about OSHA and EPA citations along with some other regulatory actions from other agencies, legal cases and criminal activity. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. For those fines are exactly that and they are all in litigated, reduced or vacated. We use available public records, news accounts and press reads. We cannot warranty or guarantee the details of any of the stories we share. Since we are not directly involved with these stories, at least not most of the time. Enjoy the show. - This show is brought to you by Safety FM. - Hi, this is Safety Wars with a special broadcast on September 5th, 2024. We're going on a little bit here early tonight. I cannot be out on the regular schedule time. I did not want to leave an important information out there without sharing it, but you would know. I'm always trying to build on the knowledge of our audience and I want to be people to think about things. I mean, if you want to disagree with me, please disagree with me. So yesterday there was unfortunately another school shooting here. And I have a solution that, not as a part of this solution. There's many different, no. We've had 215 school shootings this year in the United States. I think there are 215 different discrete situations with 215 different solutions. And everybody has an idea. I want to throw in my two cents here. And it's something that I have not, I have shared with some other safety people and people will call you like, "Hey," and you call them to, radio shows, other radio shows are like, "Oh yeah, that's going to be crazy, blah, blah, blah, blah." But I think as safety professionals or concerned citizens, we have to start thinking a little bit outside the box here because we have a lot of political division in this country. I don't see any end to it, unfortunately. So, what are we talking about? I'm going to, this is from Max Madza from the BBC here. "U.S. school shooting suspect, "porting pleasure about threats last year." So, this is essentially what happened. And I'm not going to mention the alleged person's name here with this. But a boy is accused of killing four people out of high school in Georgia. And apparently he was well known to police. With this, according to the reports, I don't know if that's true or not true. So, the suspect allegedly opened fire on Wednesday at Appalachia High School in the city of Winder, Georgia, killing two teachers and two people's investigators. They, eight students and one teacher were injured. He was charged with four cancer murders today, four cancer murder today. But, this keeps coming up. And it's usually in this public schools and things with that very rarely do you hear about it happening in private schools, even though it does happen. But those don't seem the ones that like the ones that are publicized. And remember, we talked about Tuesday, the issue attention cycle. And where things get discombobulated with that, you want to check back with our Tuesday, September 3rd program. Now, some things I want to point out, I'm trying to put some clarity to this by stating facts, all right? Fact number one, I don't think any anti-second amendment or can control legislation is going to go through it. At least for this Congress. And if it does, there's going to be a lot of litigation and debate and, you know, people getting upset and everything else with this. So I don't think that's a realistic thing. Well, there is legislation that can be passed and proposed. And I want you to go and forward this video along to your Congress people, senators, even your state representatives with this. OSHA, OSHA has jurisdiction over private companies. Can it get pulled in on consultations and this and that with public entities? Sure, but there really no jurisdiction there. Even on the state level, where in New York, you have cash, New York, cash, you have a New Jersey, P.O.S.A. and you have some of the other things. A lot of time, most of the time, these state agencies do not do a really intense job on regulating public employer workplaces. In a lot of states, some, no, no, they're varying numbers depending on who you talk to. Because some of the states don't officially take over stuff from OSHA or don't officially pass laws. That would be a separate agency, but there are laws and it's a patchwork of laws. But essentially, in Georgia, there is no state OSHA officially and there is, according to my research, the OSHA website and there is no federal OSHA, does that, has no jurisdiction over state entities. The other thing is, is that there is no sovereign immunity to these states, to these city and state and all these other entities. Usually very rare, is it? And there are isolated cases, for example, the former governor of Michigan, I believe it was, Flint, Michigan, with the water supply and things with lead and they get slapped on the wrist. I think, it's time we need to start to having a discussion on protecting the workplace, school workplaces, public schools, by OSHA with OSHA. So you're gonna say, well, Jimmy, that's crazy talk. OSHA does, and that big, well, okay, we gotta expand OSHA and crease funding, things of that nature. But more importantly, we have a thing in OSHA called the General Duty Clause, where you have to supply the safe and helpful workplace, free of recognized hazards, and they have a whole scheme on how they enforce that. And if OSHA doesn't have a standard, then they come up with four-part test issue citations. And you're gonna say, well, what's that gonna do? You protect the teachers, you protect the people at the school, by extension, you're going to be protecting the students. Just in the last couple of weeks, I read on my regular show here, where a convenience store was cited for not having control. So you have a convenience store, now you gotta have some type of security. Well, why can't we apply that to schools? Well, what this is gonna require is legislation passed by Congress to expand the authority of OSHA into public schools, number one. And number two, I would argue, remove sovereign immunity protections, or some type of qualified immunity, the school, administrators, school officials, if they don't do their job, and other people related with schools, so for example, you are not implementing security protocols like in New Volde, Texas. There are very few security protocols. Guess what, now you're under federal investigation by OSHA, and the added advantages that normally, OSHA investigations are public records, and are very transparent. Like, for example, the Alec Baldwin case, done by New Mexico, OSHA, that state agency, it's not called New Mexico, OSHA, I know, basically the same thing. Very open, guess things going. So this is what I want you to do. Send me some comments, just say, Jimmy, you're full of glue of no, you don't know what you're talking about, that's fine. I don't care what's having conversation, at least maybe we come to better ideas than what I had. I'm not willing to, I'm not the end all of it to be all of things. Number one, number two is, you know, send this along to your legislator, your senator, something like that, try to get on the conversation going about expanding worker protections for teachers, and jurisdiction for OSHA. Now, why do I think this has a better chance in passing than anything? You're not going to impede Second Amendment protections, number one, number two, the teacher's unions could get on board with protecting teachers, because guess what, there's a lot more going on in schools than just school shootings. I hear stuff from teachers all the time, as far as annoys surveys and shop classes, chemical exposures and shop classes, and in chemistry and other science classes, and all of the above. Get everybody protected out there, and by extension, you protect the teachers and the workers in the school, you're going to be protecting the students, right? That's my idea with this. And that's all I have for tonight. Like I said, I can't be on tonight, but this is too important a subject to not talk about. For Safety Worse, this is Jim Poulful. We're available on Safety FM, and you can visit us on the web on our regular podcast at Safety Worse. If you want to give us a call, give us a call 845-269-5772, and please share this to your social media, and whoever you listen to in the news, reporters, talk radio, whatever, let's get that conversation started. For Safety Worse, this is Jim Poulful. [BLANK_AUDIO]