Sarah Silverman has said that the low number of people joining the US Army is because kids already have to worry about getting shot at school, so they are less likely to sign up to go to war.
Silverman said that it’s hard to get people to join because of “traditional barriers” like the fact that “young people don’t want to die or get hurt.”
“These Gen Z kids are like, ‘Why would I go get shot in the Middle East when I can get shot in the comfort of my middle school?’” A day after three students were killed in a mass shooting at Michigan State University, Silverman made a joke about it.
The guest host of “The Daily Show” said these things on Tuesday during her “Headlines” segment. She also briefly talked about the latest news in the race for president in 2024.
Looking away from the camera after her comments about shooting, Silverman seems shocked by her own joke. She quickly backpedals and says, “I was kidding.”
She laughed when she said that mass school shootings don’t happen in America.
In the same segment, she also said that Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, became the first official Republican candidate to run against twice-impeached former president Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Adding that whoever wins the election will be in charge of the military, he said, “Given how recruiting has been going lately, that will be about 20 people.”
Recent reports say that the Army fell short of its recruitment goal for the last fiscal year by 25%.
Silverman said that even though some Republicans have strong views, “awakeness” is not a reason for the low number of recruits.
She joked, “Only Republicans would have the balls to blame the lack of people joining the army on being “woke,” when the main reason is that people really like not dying.”
“How is the military woke? Help me out here. Soldiers are still soldiers. They’re not going to be in battle saying, “I don’t think this is a safe space… trigger warning, I’m going to pull my trigger.”
Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, in which 15 people died and 24 were hurt, there have been hundreds of mass school shootings in the United States.
This week, a gunman shot and killed three students and seriously hurt five more at Michigan State University. On Monday, the gunman killed himself.
This was the first mass shooting at a school in the United States this year. So far this year, there have been 71 mass shootings across the country.
Mark Bryant, the executive director of the Gun Violence Archive, told USA Today, “We’ve never had 67 in six weeks this early in the year.”
By Tuesday night, 71 mass shootings had been reported and confirmed by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that was started in 2013 to keep track of gun violence in the U.S.
On Tuesday, four kids were hurt in a shooting outside of Westinghouse Academy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This was the second mass shooting at a school in 2023.
Anthony McRae, 43, was described as “evil and bitter.” He stormed onto the Michigan State University campus with a gun and killed three students. Their names are Alexandria “Alex” Verner, Brian Fraser, and Arielle Diamond Anderson.
Verner was the first victim named in a statement from her home school district. It said she was a “great student, athlete, and leader” who “showed kindness in everything she did.”
Verner’s Twitter bio says, “Can’t stop dreaming,” and it has photos and videos from Clawson basketball and volleyball games.
“If you knew Alex, you loved her, and we will always remember how she changed all of our lives,” said the statement.
Her LinkedIn profile says that she was studying both biology and anthropology at MSU and was set to graduate in 2024.
Fraser was the second person found to be a victim. He was a sophomore from Grosse Point, according to the Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety Police.
Fraser was the president of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Michigan State. In a statement released Tuesday, the group said that its members were “heartbroken.”
The group said, “Brian was our leader, and we loved him.”
He cared a lot about his Phi Delt brothers, his family, Michigan State University, and Phi Delta Theta.
“We will miss Brian a lot, and we will be sad about his death as a chapter. We will help each other through this hard time.”
On his LinkedIn page, Fraser said that he was studying business and that he had been the head lifeguard at a Detroit country club.
Jon Dean, who is in charge of the Grosse Pointe schools, said that the third victim also went to school in the district and graduated from there.
Dean said in an open letter, “I can’t even think about what I just wrote.”
“I’m very sad to tell you this news, and my thoughts are with the many families who are hurting because of another senseless act of violence.”
Flavor of Love star Deelishis posted on social media on Monday night that her niece was missing from her college campus. Since then, she has pinned a comment from another family member who said, “my sweet, beautiful niece… RIP baby girl.”
Anderson also went to school in the Grosse Pointe Public School system, just like Fraser. Her family told WXYZ that she loved kids and wanted to be a pediatrician one day.
The shooter had no known ties to the school, and it’s still not clear why he did it.
McRae’s father Michael, who is 66 years old, said that he was a “mama’s boy” who became “evil and mean” after his mother Linda died suddenly three years ago.
The two of them lived together in McRae’s family home, which is about five miles from MSU.
McRae was found with a note in his pocket that said two public schools in Ewing, New Jersey were in danger. Out of an abundance of caution, the schools were closed for the day.
McRae scared people on campus for almost four hours by running through the streets with a gun in his hand and firing shots, but police haven’t been able to figure out why.
The security camera clip showed him casually walking down a street while wearing a jean jacket, a ball cap, and red sneakers. He had just shot up two different places on campus.
At 8:18 p.m., the shooter, who was 43 years old, walked into a building called Berkey Hall and opened fire on everyone inside.
Police rushed to the scene after getting a lot of urgent calls to 911, but the killer had already left. He had gone west out of the building and was hiding on campus roads while looking for his next victims.
Less than 15 minutes later, shots were heard at the MSU Union building, which is just a 10-minute walk from Berkey Hall and is a popular place for students to eat, drink, and study.
On the day before the fifth anniversary of the Valentine’s Day shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died, there was a shooting at Michigan State.
It also comes after the shooting at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb on February 14, 2008, in which a gunman killed five students and hurt 17 others before shooting himself to death.
After classes were held in person again in 2021, school shootings seemed to start up again.
At least one person was hurt or killed in 90 school shootings at K–12 schools and college campuses across the country. Four of these events involved a lot of people being shot.
According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, there were 132 school shootings and 132 people were killed or hurt in those shootings. This was a record high.
Armed people killed 74 people and hurt 190 more at schools all over the country.
Twelve of the incidents were mass shootings, including one at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which was the deadliest school shooting in a decade.
In May 2022, Salvador Ramos, 18, opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, about 83 miles west of San Antonio. He killed 19 kids and two teachers.
In December, months after the shooting, a security check was done in the area.
Tensions between the community and local law enforcement and school district officials stayed high. Many people said that efforts to stop Ramos were slowed down.
A report that came out on December 8 showed that the Uvalde County Sheriff knew what was going on at Robb Elementary School on May 24, but did nothing to stop it.
CNN’s report said that Sheriff Ruben Nolasco was at his desk when the calls about the shooting that killed 21 people started coming in.
While Nolasco was driving to the scene, a local told him about another shooting at Salvador Ramos’ grandmother’s house.
Nolasco changed his mind about going to school and stayed for an hour at the grandmother’s house, even though the crime scene was safe.
CNN says that Nolasco told DPS investigators that it wouldn’t take a “rocket scientist” to figure out that the two shootings were related. The sheriff has been doing his job for 30 years.
Even though he said that, Nolasco didn’t tell the police officers at Robb Elementary School about the shooting at the home.
He didn’t tell the other officers about the shooting of the grandmother until an hour later.
About 16 minutes after the shooting started, Nolasco went from the house to the school to join the other 375 officers at the scene. He is said to not have taken control of the situation.
Nolasco got to Robb Elementary at 11:49 a.m., but the Diaz Street shooting doesn’t come up until 12:08 p.m.
At one point, Nolasco sent a text message to other officials saying that Ramos had “barricaded himself in the school.”
The sheriff sent DPS officers to different places, but he didn’t plan a raid on the classroom. The kids were left to take care of themselves. He also worked hard to get children who were not in immediate danger out of classrooms.
“DPS is coming,” he can be heard to say. I was given the captain. We need to stop this and find out what’s going on and who’s in charge.’
The brave Khloie Torres called 911, the CNN story says, so the sheriff knew that there were still children alive in the classroom. Torres told the person on the phone what was going on inside.
Nolasco had said before that radios at the school didn’t work, which turned out to be false.
In earlier interviews, Nolasco said it took him about 35 minutes to get to the school after the shooting started. Ramos was in a standoff with police for a total of 77 minutes.
A CNN reporter asked Nolasco in November if he thought his response to the shooting was good enough. He said, “Yes, I do.”
A week later, Lt. Mariano Pargas of the Uvalde Police Department quit, just days before the city council was likely to fire him at a “special meeting.”
At the time of the massacre, Pargas, who was 65 years old, was the officer in charge.
The officer quit after CNN released damning audio and video that showed he didn’t do anything to stop the attack and didn’t tell the right people what was going on.
Court documents show that the victims of the shooting also filed a lawsuit against local and state police, the city, and other school and law enforcement officials. They want $27 billion in damages because the attacker wasn’t stopped quickly enough.
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Austin on December 6, said that officials didn’t follow active shooter protocol when they waited more than an hour to confront the attacker in a fourth-grade classroom.
It wants to turn the shooting on May 24 into a class action and get compensation for people who were hurt emotionally or psychologically because of what the defendants did or didn’t do on that day.
The lawsuit was filed by school staff and the parents of children who were at Robb Elementary at the time of the incident.
Instead of doing what they had been trained to do to stop an active shooter, “the conduct of the 376 law enforcement officials who were there for the exhaustively torturous 77 minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction, and harm fell far short of their duty-bound standards,” the lawsuit says.
Her grandmother, Berlinda Irene Arreola, said that the 10-year-old was killed while she was sitting next to her best friend and trying to call 911. Her best friend was “covered in her blood,” her grandmother said.
Arreola said that Ramos told the students and staff inside the room, “You’re going to die,” before opening fire and killing her granddaughter as she tried to call for help.
Berlinda told The Daily Beast, “So the gunman went in and told the kids, “You’re going to die.”
“[Amerie] had her phone with her, so she called 911.” He could have taken it from her or broken it, but instead he shot her. Her best friend was sitting right next to her. Her best friend had blood all over her.’
Uziyah Garcia, 8
Uziyah Garcia, who was only eight years old, was the youngest person to die in the attack.
The child’s family said he had died just hours after saying he was one of the many children who had not been found after the tragedy.
Manny Renfro, the boy’s grandfather, told people early on Wednesday after getting the news from the police.
Renfro said, “[He was] the nicest little boy I’ve ever met.” “I’m not saying that just because he was my grandchild,” she said.
Renfro remembered that Uziyah had last seen him during spring break in San Angelo.
“We started to throw the football together, and I taught him how to pass.”
The sad grandfather said, “He was such a fast little boy, and he was so good at catching a ball.”
“When I called out certain plays, he would remember them and do them just like we had practiced.”
Makenna Elrod, 10
Makenna Elrod, who was 10 years old, was also missing after the massacre. Her father, Brandon Elrod, told reporters at the time that he thought she might not be alive.
On Wednesday, a family friend finally said that she had died. The girl’s father told a local news station, KTRK, after the shooting, “It’s pretty sad to see where this world is going.”
In a Facebook post, the mother of one of Makenna’s friends talked about how sad she was about the loss.
‘Sweet Makenna Rest in Paradise!! The mom wrote, “My heart is broken because Chloe loved her so much!” Wednesday, a family member confirmed that the girl was one of the people who died.
Xavier Lopez, 10
Xavier Lopez, who was 10 years old, was the first student victim of Ramos to be named.
Felicha Martinez, the child’s mother, told the Washington Post on Tuesday that she had been at the school just hours before the attack to watch her son take part in an honor roll ceremony.
She took a picture of her son showing off the certificate he had just gotten.
The last time the mom talked to the boy, she told him she was proud of him and loved him, and she hugged him goodbye. She didn’t know it would be the last time she saw him alive.
“He was funny and never sad, and I will never forget his smile,” she said after hearing from the police that he had died. “It would always make anyone feel better.”
Lisa Garza, the boy’s 54-year-old cousin from Arlington, said that Xavier liked to swim and was excited for the summer.
She said, “He was just a sweet 10-year-old boy who loved life and didn’t know that this terrible thing was going to happen today.”
“He was very outgoing and loved to dance with his mom and brothers. This has just made us all feel bad.
Lopez’s grandmother, Amelia Sandoval, said, “It’s so hard. You send your kids to school thinking they’ll come home, but they don’t.”
Eliahana Torres, 10
Eliahana Cruz Torres, age 10, was also missing for hours before her death was confirmed.
Adolfo Cruz, her great-grandfather, said that she didn’t want to go to school on the day of the shooting, but her family made her.
He said that he waited outside the school gates all night until he heard from the police what happened to her.
He said at the time, “I hope she is still alive.”
Torres loved to play baseball, and he played in a local little league.
Ellie Lugo, 10
Ellie Lugo was one of the people killed in the attack on Tuesday. Her parents, Steven Garcia and Jennifer Lugo, confirmed her death several hours after she was listed as missing.
“It’s hard to say anything right now because my mind is going a thousand miles per hour… But I do want to send our thoughts and prayers to those who also didn’t make it home tonight!!! Steven Lugo said on Wednesday, “Our Ellie was a doll and the happiest person ever.”
“Mom and Dad love you, always remember that, and please try to stick with us.”
Nevaeh Bravo, 10
Nevaeh Bravo was confirmed to be one of the dead late Tuesday night, after her cousin asked for help for the girl on social media after the shooting.
She posted the news on Twitter around 9 p.m.
She wrote, “Unfortunately, my beautiful Nevaeh was one of the many people who died today.”
Sje said the child was “flying high” and asked people to pray for the child’s family.
“We have found Nevaeh. She is up in the sky with the angels. We love you very much, Princess Navaeh.
She wrote, “Thank you for the help and support.” “Rest in peace, sweet girl, you didn’t deserve this.”
No one could tell right away how old Bravo was.
Tess Marie Mata
Tess Marie Mata was also killed in the attack, her sister Faith Mata said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
She wrote, “I really don’t know what to say except that I’m sad, confused, and angry.”
“I’m sad because we’ll never get to tag team on mom and dad again and tell each other how much we mean to each other. I’m confused because how can something like this happen to my sweet, caring, and beautiful sister? And I’m angry because a coward took you away from us.”
Tess smiled in a baby picture, cuddled up with a cat, did gymnastics, gave the peace sign, and posed in front of a big heart mural in a photo that went with the post.
She wrote, “Sissy, I miss you so much. I just want to hold you and tell you how pretty you are. I want to take you outside and play softball with you. I want to take one last family vacation with you. I want to hear your infectious laugh. I want you to know how much I love you.”
Her age could not be known right away.
Rojelio Torres, 10
Rojelio Torres, age 10, was reported missing by his father, but his family said on Wednesday that he had died.
Someone who said she was the boy’s cousin wrote on Twitter, “It breaks my heart to say my Rojelio is now with the angels. I’ll always miss and love you, my angel.”
Federico Torres, the child’s father, told reporters in Houston that he was at work when he heard about the shooting and rushed to the school right away.
He said, “They sent us to the hospital, to the civic center, to the hospital, and back to the hospital, but there was nothing there or here, not even in San Antonio.” “They don’t tell us anything; all they give us is a picture. Wait and hope everything is okay.”
Nearly half a day later, the police told the boy’s family what had happened.
“My 10-year-old nephew, Rojelio Torres, was killed in this tragedy,” Torres’ aunt, Precious Perez, told KSAT. “Our whole family had to wait almost 12 hours after the shooting to find out.” “We are heartbroken and crushed. Rojer was very smart, worked hard, and helped people. We’ll miss him and never forget him.’
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