As many as 27 people have been killed, including 18 children, in a shooting attack at a primary school in the US state of Connecticut, US media say.
State Police spokesman Paul Vance would not confirm the number of deaths.
US media identified the gunman, who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, as Ryan Lanza, 24, said to from New Jersey.
If the death toll is confirmed, Newtown would be the second-worst US shooting, after 32 died at Virginia Tech in 2007.
Friday's shooting is the third major gun attack in the US in 2012.
In July an attacker killed 12 people at a premiere of a Batman film in Aurora, Colorado. In August six people died at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Children's 'eyes covered'
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy is meeting the families of the victims, a spokesman said, and is expected to visit the school later in the day. He is expected to make a statement at 15:30 EST (20:30 GMT)
US President Barack Obama is also due to deliver remarks on the shooting 15 minutes earlier.
The American flags on Capitol Hill in Washington DC have been lowered to half-mast in the wake of the attack.
Sandy Hook School - described by correspondents as a highly rated school has more than 600 students in classes from Kindergarten to 4th Grade - spanning the ages five to 10.
Police arrived at the school soon after 09:40 local time (14:40 GMT), answering reports that a gunman was in the school's main office and one person had "numerous gunshot wounds".
Scores of officers at the scene carried out a full search of the site. Classes were cancelled as the situation developed.
Schools across the district were immediately on lock-down as a preventive measure, officials said.
According to US reports, the gunman's mother was a teacher found among the dead at the school. The Associated Press said his brother was being held by police.
The attacker was dressed in black and wearing a bullet-proof vest during the attack, and reportedly used a .223-calibre rifle. Other weapons are also said to have been recovered.
With the death toll rising, it emerged that one entire classroom of students may remain unaccounted for, local sources reported.
Three other people were taken to hospital and are reported to be in "very serious condition", Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton told CNN.
One witness speaking to CNN said that shots were heard coming from the hall. There "must have been 100 rounds" fired, she told the channel.
Local media have reported that firefighters instructed children to close their eyes and run past the school's office as they exited the building.
Other sources suggest that some of the shots were fired in a school classroom.
There were early unconfirmed reports of two shooters, but no further details of a second gunman mentioned by police.
With the children now evacuated, aerial images of the school show emergency vehicles still at the scene and scores of cars surrounding the area.
Parents and children were seen weeping and comforting friends and family at the school as the scale of the shooting gradually became clear. Officials say they are trying to unite children with their parents.
This asshole needs to be chopped up, stuffed in a cardboard box, pack it with cow shit, dump gasoline on it, light it on fire, and after it's done burning have a street sweeper wipe up the ashes and deposit the remains of that son of a bitch in a landfill.
According to US reports, the gunman's mother was a teacher found among the dead at the school. The Associated Press said his brother was being held by police.
This asshole needs to be chopped up, stuffed in a cardboard box, pack it with cow shit, dump gasoline on it, light it on fire, and after it's done burning have a street sweeper wipe up the ashes and deposit the remains of that son of a bitch in a landfill.
Even that would be less that what this guy deserves.
It is deeply frustrating and incredibly sad when shootings like this occur. It's pointless to kill a roomful of kids who never hurt anyone. Not that the adults killed are any more guilty of anything. Every one of these people has an extended family, and their lives are scarred and destroyed as well.
It's an act of unmeasurable selfishness.
The guy apparently killed his mother at another location, before coming to the school where his mother is a teacher and killed apparently every one else he could get in the sight of his guns.
No doubt the media will psychoanalyze this guy for weeks, and tell us every detail of his life leading up to the murders. When in a just world he would be ignored and forgotten. I've previously described such incidents as "random absurdity", that they are isolated incidents where one lone nut kills a bunch of people, but aside from the people he kills, it is not an act that has an enduring significance on the nation or the world. But alarmingly, these acts seem to be occurring with greater frequency, and with increasing body counts. I'm not a psychologist or expert, but it seems to me that the media makes celebrities of them, and they choose to go out with a nationally televised bang that gives them 15 minutes of fame, along with their act of rage or revenge or defiance or whatever.
We all probably knew about the incident before you posted it.
Nice try though.
Yeah, Doog. Nice try at posting an article about something that just happened in the Current Events board allowing us all here a place converse about the event if we so choose.
We all probably knew about the incident before you posted it.
Nice try though.
Yeah, Doog. Nice try at posting an article about something that just happened in the Current Events board allowing us all here a place converse about the event if we so choose.
According to US reports, the gunman's mother was a teacher found among the dead at the school. The Associated Press said his brother was being held by police.
Wow. Insanity defense?
My first thought was the police picked up the brother just to get the full story of what was going through the shooter's head.
Although many reports at least imply that he's a second suspect.
We all probably knew about the incident before you posted it.
Nice try though.
Yeah, Doog. Nice try at posting an article about something that just happened in the Current Events board allowing us all here a place converse about the event if we so choose.
I'm just sayin'.
Don't you have an Avengers 2 script to go read so you can tell us how much it sucks? Or maybe, don't be a dick. Congrats on you for hearing about it earlier. Want a ribbon?
According to US reports, the gunman's mother was a teacher found among the dead at the school. The Associated Press said his brother was being held by police.
We all probably knew about the incident before you posted it.
Nice try though.
Yeah, Doog. Nice try at posting an article about something that just happened in the Current Events board allowing us all here a place converse about the event if we so choose.
A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."
Family friends in Newtown also described the young man as troubled and described Nancy as very rigid. "[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said one friend.
State and federal authorities believe his mother may have once worked at the elementary school where Adam went on his deadly rampage, although she was not a teacher, according to relatives, perhaps a volunteer.
Nancy and her husband Peter, Adam's father, divorced in 2009. When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a "parenting education program."
I think it's becoming obvious that the shooter had mental health issues. Therefore, And remember this is coming from a life member of the NRA, the mother should have not been putting him in a position where he could have access to weapons.
I'm not even sure that it is just the mental health issues at this point. While they certainly can--and probably do--play a role in this, the psychotropics these guys are on can have side effects just as bad--if not worse--than the mental illnesses. Just something else to put into the pattern file.
It's a truly horrible thing that happened and the fact that it looks like this douche took his own life,doesn't give any answers to grieving parents and families is just as bad. There can be no explanation as to "Why?" only speculation and probabilities but no definitive answers.
It's a truly horrible thing that happened and the fact that it looks like this douche took his own life,doesn't give any answers to grieving parents and families is just as bad. There can be no explanation as to "Why?" only speculation and probabilities but no definitive answers.
Yeah there isn't anything that's going to make sense for the killer to do what he did other than he was really crazy. Maybe it's time to go back to the state hospital system we used to have?
Yeah there isn't anything that's going to make sense for the killer to do what he did other than he was really crazy. Maybe it's time to go back to the state hospital system we used to have?
I noticed your post earlier. Is there really a chance something like that could be brought back though?
I don't know. Some of it would depend on the laws of each state. I haven't researched the issue but I think most of the movement to close mental hospitals, etc., were state, not federal initiatives.
Indiana man with 47 guns arrested after school threat: A northern Indiana man who allegedly threatened to "kill as many people as he could" at an elementary school near his home was arrested by officers who later found 47 guns and ammunition hidden throughout his home.
I wonder if the media creates some of this by exploiting these tragedies for ratings and/or a particular agenda. I suspect that the incessant coverage creates copycats.
I keep searching for pictures of Adam Lanza and all I get is a picture of him smiling as a young boy. Is he really that young or is this another case of the media choosing specific pictures just to make the person look sympathetic?
I wonder if the media creates some of this by exploiting these tragedies for ratings and/or a particular agenda. I suspect that the incessant coverage creates copycats.
Of course. Look at the "fame" or infamy the Colorado theater asshole got.
Constant coverage, putting the killer's face all over the news.
I keep searching for pictures of Adam Lanza and all I get is a picture of him smiling as a young boy. Is he really that young or is this another case of the media choosing specific pictures just to make the person look sympathetic?
I think it's more a question of them not having a picture they have rights to of him when he was older
The media coverage has been awful but blaming them? I would blame our whacky lack of gun control laws that allows weapons of mass destruction being easier to be had than reanting a car.
The media coverage has been awful but blaming them?.
The only person who deserves blame is the shooter. I'm only questioning whether people in the media should reonsider how they cover things and whether that makes things worse not better.
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
The media coverage has been awful but blaming them? I would blame our whacky lack of gun control laws that allows weapons of mass destruction being easier to be had than reanting a car.
Don't be hyperbolic. I live in NY. I can rent a car right now. I'm an officer of the court and I can't own a pistol without a difficult to get permit
I think this guy's Mom is more to blame than the guns.
Either she didn't safeguard her firearms from a member of her household with a history of mental illness, or (and this is just a wild speculation on my part) she bought her mentally ill son guns in her name.
11 Things Harder to Get Than Guns: Abortion, Drugs & More by Lauren Streib Dec 17, 2012 4:45 AM EST Want an abortion in Missouri? It’ll be tougher than buying a gun. What about selling lemonade in Iowa? You'll need to jump through more hoops than if you wanted to sell your piece. The Daily Beast lines up the laws side by side. ...
I find it funny that people want to focus on guns being the issue here and not the mental health of the attackers. They also ignore the fact that the Chinese have been killing their elementary school kids with knives for the past few years.
I'm not talking about you specifically. It's all over the internet now. People are just ignoring the fact that when crazy wants to kill, crazy finds a way to kill.
I brought up the gun stuff after the media started getting blamed.
I think the media does share some responsibility for some of these occurrences. After the Batman or Wisconsin shootings, psychologists publicly stated that constant news coverage of these events could encourage other mentally fucked people to copy the acts. I just went to Yahoo!'s home page and saw at least nine articles on the shooting. NINE. If that doesn't encourage some fucknut seeking attention and notoriety, I don't know what will.
I brought up the gun stuff after the media started getting blamed.
I think the media does share some responsibility for some of these occurrences. After the Batman or Wisconsin shootings, psychologists publicly stated that constant news coverage of these events could encourage other mentally fucked people to copy the acts. I just went to Yahoo!'s home page and saw at least nine articles on the shooting. NINE. If that doesn't encourage some fucknut seeking attention and notoriety, I don't know what will.
I think this guy's Mom is more to blame than the guns.
Either she didn't safeguard her firearms from a member of her household with a history of mental illness, or (and this is just a wild speculation on my part) she bought her mentally ill son guns in her name.
It was disclosed today that his mother was trying to bond with her visibly disturbed son by sharing her gun enthusiasm with him. Obviously an ill-fated choice of ways to bond with him.
I'm not talking about you specifically. It's all over the internet now. People are just ignoring the fact that when crazy wants to kill, crazy finds a way to kill.
When crazy has easy access to high powered assault weapons they can kill a lot faster though. This is the price we pay for lame gun control laws.
That's crazy's mother's fault. Gun laws on the books don't allow the mentally ill to purchase a low caliber .22, much less an assault rifle. Again, this looks like we need to spend as much time talking about how we treat the mentally ill as we do gun laws.
You comment also ignores the knife killings in China or even the gun attacks in Europe where guns laws are a lot more strict.
If he had been armed with a knife the body count would have probably been much less. The kids and teachers didn't get to face a knife or even just a regular gun. We're probably not going to agree on this but I don't see a valid reason for allowing these rapid fire weapons.
I'm not talking about you specifically. It's all over the internet now. People are just ignoring the fact that when crazy wants to kill, crazy finds a way to kill.
When crazy has easy access to high powered assault weapons...
The Bushmaster .223 is not particularly high powered. In fact, it's banned for deer hunting in many states on the grounds that it’s too weak (i.e., it won't take down a deer quickly). It's basically a small game rifle.
People need to understand the difference between full auto and semiautomatic.
The versions of this gun that the military actually uses are able to fire fully automatically, meaning that when the shooter holds down the trigger, the gun sprays a continuous stream of bullets. This high fire rate makes the military version of gun hard to control. So the weapons use smaller bullets to reduce recoil. The use of smaller bullets doesn't really impact the military use, because the whole point is to "spray" a target.
But the "assault weapopns" that are widely available for civilian use are not fully automatic. These features have been removed. As a result, you are left with is a gun that was designed as a machine gun, and still looks like a machine gun, but functions like an ordinary, and often low-powered, rifle. Basically, a "kewl" looking hunting rifle for small game.
Yes. It's still a gun. Yes, a gun can still shoot a person. But if the left is being honest when they say they don't want to ban hunting rifles, then they wouldn't ban this one.
Furthermore, since deer rifles (including all the semi-automatic ones) are typically more powerful than the Bushmaster and similar "assault weapons," you can’t ban more powerful guns without banning many deer rifles, something most of the gun grabbers swear they don’t want to do.
I really don't see what the point is about semi-automatic weapons. You apparently think it is a machine gun. It is not.
I can see banning machine guns.
But I think this incident is just an excuse along the lines of Rahm Emmanuel's call to "Not let a crisis go to waste", enabling a major liberal push for gun control. When again, that was never the real issue. As I said 10 years ago, Americans have had guns in their homes for over 200 years, and we never saw the prevalence of violent incidents until recently. Guns are not the problem, but something in the culture that has changed.
And I see that "something" as the removal of prayer and any mention of God in our schools, along with its replacement by a very cynical popular culture that scorns any adherence to a moral standard. Any post-Christian message of morality is sporadic and confused at best. The lack of community, and the moral standards that accompany it, breed violence as one manifestation of that. Guns or no guns.
Guns are not the problem, but something in the culture that has changed.
...or, as I mentioned before, we stopped properly addressing the needs of the mentally ill.
I really don't think a dose of Jesus is going to stop a crazy person.
Well... in the cases of Adam Lanza, James Holmes, and Jared Loughner, I have to agree with you. While they may have espoused some level political or religious awareness, the full-on crazy there just over-rode any other possible causes. In these cases, I would agree. That either my right-wing moral/religious considerations, or the left-wing call for gun control, are both equally irrelevant to a case where mental illness is the clear motive.
In general though, among tens of millions of other saner people who commit crimes, I think the vaccuum of moral guidance, the attempt to ban Christian principles from our schools and public institutions, the outright contempt for them, results in a decline of ethics, and with it more crime.
Two weeks ago I saw John Stossel on an O'Reilly segment about religious faith. And Stossel surprisingly said he's an atheist, and said he wished he could believe in God, because religious people are statistically healthier, happier, live longer, and have a greater sense of purpose in their lives. I thought it interesting that while not being a believer, he could see that aspect of religious faith.
I really don't think a dose of Jesus is going to stop a crazy person.
Usually the opposite happens with religion.
I think whether religion, alcohol, drugs, sex, or even reading comics, or other passions or pleasures, anything that becomes an obsession, that is good in moderation, can become something bad.
Guns are not the problem, but something in the culture that has changed.
...or, as I mentioned before, we stopped properly addressing the needs of the mentally ill.
I really don't think a dose of Jesus is going to stop a crazy person.
Thomas Jefferson--a deist--would disagree with you. Or at least tell you that your scope is too narrow. By the time someone turns crazy, it's probably too late to "stop" them. But sound philosophy tends to curb, as well as deter, dysfunctional behavior. And that has been one of the primary strengths of American culture up till now.
I'm not talking about you specifically. It's all over the internet now. People are just ignoring the fact that when crazy wants to kill, crazy finds a way to kill.
When crazy has easy access to high powered assault weapons...
The Bushmaster .223 is not particularly high powered. In fact, it's banned for deer hunting in many states on the grounds that it’s too weak (i.e., it won't take down a deer quickly). It's basically a small game rifle.
People need to understand the difference between full auto and semiautomatic.
The versions of this gun that the military actually uses are able to fire fully automatically, meaning that when the shooter holds down the trigger, the gun sprays a continuous stream of bullets. This high fire rate makes the military version of gun hard to control. So the weapons use smaller bullets to reduce recoil. The use of smaller bullets doesn't really impact the military use, because the whole point is to "spray" a target.
But the "assault weapopns" that are widely available for civilian use are not fully automatic. These features have been removed. As a result, you are left with is a gun that was designed as a machine gun, and still looks like a machine gun, but functions like an ordinary, and often low-powered, rifle. Basically, a "kewl" looking hunting rifle for small game.
Yes. It's still a gun. Yes, a gun can still shoot a person. But if the left is being honest when they say they don't want to ban hunting rifles, then they wouldn't ban this one.
Furthermore, since deer rifles (including all the semi-automatic ones) are typically more powerful than the Bushmaster and similar "assault weapons," you can’t ban more powerful guns without banning many deer rifles, something most of the gun grabbers swear they don’t want to do.
"gun grabbers"?
Isn't one of the issues with these assualt weapons is that you can shoot more before having to reload?
You brought up the concept that these guns were 'high powered'. I was pointing out that wasn't really the case.
This is part of the problem with gun control arguments. As with any law, the proponents need to understand what they are trying to regulate. The public does as well.
If someone says "we only want regulate 'high powered' guns". It can easily turn out they have, in fact, (knowingly or otherwise) banned hunting rifles.
Guns involve technonology. People trying to regulate a technology should try to understand it first.
So you do recognize the differences between guns right? I'm asking because you left out the whole part of being able to shoot more before having to reload.
The term 'assault weapons' is one created by the anti-gun lobby. There's no real definition to it. Politicians and anti-activists can make it mean whatever they decide it means. Any gun they pretty much hate, they slap that label to it.
The gun Crazy McCrazystein used wouldn't have been banned by the old '94 federal law and met the CT's own law that was based on the expired fed one. As a matter of fact, rifles, of any kind, account for about 3% of homicides. That's less than knives and blunt objects.
Utah Boy Brings Gun to School, Cites Newtown Fears
Quote:
Authorities say a Utah sixth-grader caught with a gun at school told administrators he brought the weapon to defend himself in case of an attack similar to the mass shooting last week in Newtown, Conn.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that two classmates at West Kearns Elementary School reported the gun to a teacher toward the end of the school day Monday.
Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley says the teacher "immediately apprehended the student," and police responded shortly after.
Horsley tells KSL-TV that an unloaded gun and ammunition were found in the 11-year-old's backpack. Authorities have not released the child's name.
Horsley says school police are investing reports that the boy pointed the gun at another child's head. He says such accounts haven't been confirmed.
Authorities say no one was injured.
That kid was just exercising his 2nd Amendment right. He's part of the Utah state militia or something.
Signed,
Pariah and G-man.
Yeah well, if it weren't a gun, it would have been a knife, so I don't see what the problem is.
[snark] I'm going to bomb an anti-abortion group in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He demands aborted fetus flesh, dammit! [/snark]
All snarkiness aside, I hope you can acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of Christians would condemn said hypothetical bombing/shooting of an abortion clinic, and be embarassed at the mention of it.
Islam, to my knowledge, is the only religion that violent acts in its name (i.e., Jihad ) invokes thousands cheering in the streets, even when it is civilian men, women or children who just happened to be standing there when the bomb went off.
Back on topic I just saw a news report (on Neil Cavuto) that a neighbor of the Lanza's disclosed that the mother had said it was becoming too difficult for her to deal with her autistic son's rages and tantrums, and she was about to have him committed. Which he had just become aware of, and angered him greatly.
Adam Lanza was also very jealous of his mother's time spent as a substitute teacher caring of children at the school. So the slaughter was apparently in his mind slaughter and payback for her time he percieved the school and children to take away from him.
I don't know if they found this only from interviewing friends and neighbors, or possibly getting information from the family computer, or staff at the institution who disclosed or verified this.
NEWTOWN, Conn. – The gunman who slaughtered 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school may have snapped because his mother was planning to commit him to a psychiatric facility, according to a lifelong resident of the area who was familiar with the killer’s family and several of the victims’ families.
Adam Lanza, 20, targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown after killing his mother early Friday because he believed she loved the school “more than she loved him,” said Joshua Flashman, 25, who grew up not far from where the shooting took place. Flashman, a U.S. Marine, is the son of a pastor at an area church where many of the victims' families worship.
“From what I've been told, Adam was aware of her petitioning the court for conservatorship and (her) plans to have him committed," Flashman told FoxNews.com. "Adam was apparently very upset about this. He thought she just wanted to send him away. From what I understand, he was really, really angry. I think this could have been it, what set him off.”
A senior law enforcement official involved in the investigation confirmed that Lanza's anger at his mother over plans for “his future mental health treatment” is being looked at as a possible motive for the deadly shooting.
Flashman was told Nancy Lanza had begun filing paperwork to get conservatorship over her troubled son, but that could not be confirmed because a court official told FoxNews.com such records are sealed. The move would have been necessary for her to gain the legal right to commit an adult to a hospital or psychiatric facility against his will. A competency hearing had not yet been held.
Adam Lanza attended the Sandy Hook School as a boy, according to Flashman, who said Nancy Lanza had volunteered there for several years. Two law enforcement sources said they believed Nancy Lanza had been volunteering with kindergartners at the school. Most of Lanza's victims were first graders sources believe Nancy Lanza may have worked with last year.
Flashman said Nancy Lanza was also good friends with the school’s principal and psychologist—both of whom were killed in the shooting rampage.
"Adam Lanza believed she cared more for the children than she did for him, and the reason he probably thought this [was the fact that] she was petitioning for conservatorship and wanted to have him committed," Flashman said. "I could understand how he might perceive that—that his mom loved him less than she loved the kids, loved the school. But she did love him. But he was a troubled kid and she probably just couldn’t take care of him by herself anymore."
The Washington Post reported that the distraught mother had considered moving with her son to Washington state, where she had found a school she thought could help him. Either way, according to Flashman, Nancy Lanza was at her wit's end.
A separate neighborhood source also told FoxNews.com that Nancy Lanza had come to the realization she could no longer handle her son alone. She was caring for him full-time, but told friends she needed help. She was planning to have him involuntarily hospitalized, according to the source, who did not know if she had taken formal steps.
Multiple sources told FoxNews.com Adam Lanza suffered from Asperger’s syndrome , a form of autism, and other unspecified mental and emotional problems.
Adam Lanza has also been described by those who knew him as highly intelligent, and a spokesman for Western Connecticut State University told The Associated Press he took college classes there when he was 16, earning a 3.26 grade point average and excelling at a computer course.
Alan Diaz, 20, who was friends with Adam Lanza at Newtown High School, said the [Adaam] Lanza he knew was ill-at-ease socially, but not a monster.
"He was a wicked smart kid," Diaz told FoxNews.com by email. "When I first met him, he wouldn't even look at you when you tried to talk to him. Over the year I knew him, he became used to me and my other friends, he eventually could have full conversations with us.
"I've heard him laugh, he has even comforted me once in a hard time I had," Diaz said. “A big part of me wishes I never dropped contact with him after he left high school, felt like I could have done something."
Flashman said nobody will completely understand why Adam did what he did.
“No one can explain Adam Lanza besides God and Adam Lanza, and I don’t even think Adam Lanza could explain Adam Lanza, to be honest with you.”
In the wake of a monstrous crime like a madman's mass murder of defenseless women and children at the Newtown, Conn., elementary school, the nation's attention is riveted on what could have been done to prevent such a massacre.
Luckily, some years ago, two famed economists, William Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale, conducted a massive study of multiple victim public shootings in the United States between 1977 and 1995 to see how various legal changes affected their frequency and death toll.
Landes and Lott examined many of the very policies being proposed right now in response to the Connecticut massacre: waiting periods and background checks for guns, the death penalty and increased penalties for committing a crime with a gun.
None of these policies had any effect on the frequency of, or carnage from, multiple-victim shootings. (I note that they did not look at reforming our lax mental health laws, presumably because the ACLU is working to keep dangerous nuts on the street in all 50 states.)
Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the death rate from such crimes: concealed-carry laws.
The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder rate generally.
Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun.
You will notice that most multiple-victim shootings occur in "gun-free zones" -- even within states that have concealed-carry laws: public schools, churches, Sikh temples, post offices, the movie theater where James Holmes committed mass murder, and the Portland, Ore., mall where a nut starting gunning down shoppers a few weeks ago.
Guns were banned in all these places. Mass killers may be crazy, but they're not stupid.
If the deterrent effect of concealed-carry laws seems surprising to you, that's because the media hide stories of armed citizens stopping mass shooters. At the Portland shooting, for example, no explanation was given for the amazing fact that the assailant managed to kill only two people in the mall during the busy Christmas season.
It turns out, concealed-carry-holder Nick Meli hadn't noticed that the mall was a gun-free zone. He pointed his (otherwise legal) gun at the shooter as he paused to reload, and the next shot was the attempted mass murderer killing himself. (Meli aimed, but didn't shoot, because there were bystanders behind the shooter.
In a nonsense "study" going around the Internet right now, Mother Jones magazine claims to have produced its own study of all public shootings in the last 30 years and concludes: "In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
This will come as a shock to people who know something about the subject.
The magazine reaches its conclusion by simply excluding all cases where an armed civilian stopped the shooter: They looked only at public shootings where four or more people were killed, i.e., the ones where the shooter wasn't stopped.
If we care about reducing the number of people killed in mass shootings, shouldn't we pay particular attention to the cases where the aspiring mass murderer was prevented from getting off more than a couple rounds?
It would be like testing the effectiveness of weed killers, but refusing to consider any cases where the weeds died.
In addition to the Portland mall case, here are a few more examples excluded by the Mother Jones methodology:
-- Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas, this week: Jesus Manuel Garcia shoots at a movie theater, a police car and bystanders from the nearby China Garden restaurant; as he enters the movie theater, guns blazing, an armed off-duty cop shoots Garcia four times, stopping the attack. Total dead: Zero.
-- Winnemucca, Nev., 2008: Ernesto Villagomez opens fire in a crowded restaurant; concealed carry permit-holder shoots him dead. Total dead: Two. (I'm excluding the shooters' deaths in these examples.)
-- Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third to tackle him. Total dead: Three.
-- Santee, Calif., 2001: Student begins shooting his classmates -- as well as the "trained campus supervisor"; an off-duty cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.
-- Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school; assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points it at the gunman's head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.
-- Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.
By contrast, the shootings in gun-free zones invariably result in far higher casualty figures -- Sikh temple, Oak Creek, Wis. (six dead); Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. (32 dead); Columbine High School, Columbine, Colo. (12 dead); Amish school, Lancaster County, Pa. (five little girls killed); public school, Craighead County, Ark. (five killed, including four little girls).
All these took place in gun-free zones, resulting in lots of people getting killed -- and thereby warranting inclusion in the Mother Jones study.
If what we care about is saving the lives of innocent human beings by reducing the number of mass public shootings and the deaths they cause, only one policy has ever been shown to work: concealed-carry laws. On the other hand, if what we care about is self-indulgent grandstanding, and to hell with dozens of innocent children being murdered in cold blood, try the other policies.
I didn't even know about that 'concealed-carry at the mall' shit.
I watched Martin Bashir on MSNBC today. It was comedy gold the way he cited exactly what Ann Coulter described, and selectively omitted the facts in exactly the way Ann Coulter described above.
It has become axiomatic that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. In the case of the first responders to the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, it was 20 minutes, to be exact.
That’s the picture that is emerging from the 911 calls from that terrible day. Twenty minutes. I have tried in vain to imagine my 7-year-old grandson, his defenseless classmates and their equally defenseless teacher being shot to death one by one while waiting 20 minutes for police to arrive. It is a scenario too terrible to conjure in my mind. To imagine local law enforcement personnel taking a full one-third of an hour to respond to such a monstrous event is infuriating. And yet, there it is. Those who wish to protect themselves and their loved ones in almost any situation should not depend on government. How many times have we seen it before?
On September 11, 2001, government failed to protect the unsuspecting victims on those four airplanes, as well as those on the ground. On Flight 93, it was courageous passengers, taking matters into their own hands, who stopped those Islamist monsters from making that day even more infamous.
In September 2005, government — federal, state and local — completely failed the people of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city’s poorest section. Those who were willing and able to take care of themselves and their families were spared. Many of those who counted on government simply perished.
Even the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last September, was a case study in brave volunteers, not government — especially not this government — making a difference.
And in every mass shooting, in every school or other public place, in every corner of this country, government has betrayed the very people it is sworn to protect, usually by declaring a “gun-free zone” or some other absurd control on the right of private citizens to render protection for themselves, their families and their neighbors.
On October 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas, an assailant drove his pickup truck through the front window of the Luby’s Cafeteria. He then shot 50 people, killing 23 of them, before turning the gun on himself. Two of those victims were the elderly parents of Suzanna Hupp, whose revolver was useless to her because it was 100 feet away in the glove compartment of her car. Hupp later was elected to the Texas Legislature on a platform of allowing Texans to carry concealed handguns, legislation she successfully pushed through and which then-Governor George W. Bush signed into law.
On April 20, 1999, in Littleton, Colorado, two misfit high school students decided to murder as many of their teachers and classmates as possible. Their subsequent rampage — again carried out in gun-free zone — left 13 innocent victims dead.
On April 16, 2007, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech), a lone gunman shot and killed 32 people, wounding 17 others. Another school, another gun-free zone.
A few months later, just before Christmas, on December 5, 2007, in Omaha, Nebraska, a 19-year-old loner walked into the Von Maur department store at the Westroads Shopping Center and murdered eight innocent shoppers. As I wrote in a column at the time, “This individual looked at the ‘no concealed weapons’ sign and read, ‘Murderers welcome here. Please come in and shoot as many people as you like. No one here is capable of stopping you. Even our mall security officers are not armed.’”
January 8, 2011, at a Tucson, Arizona, supermarket, 6 people were murdered and 13 others wounded, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who miraculously survived a bullet through her brain.
July 20, 2012, Aurora, Colorado, in a movie theater that does not allow law-abiding citizens to carry their licensed, concealed firearms, 70 people were shot, 12 of them fatally, by a single shooter.
And now, most recently, we have Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, with its horrendous toll of 26 dead — 20 of them 6 and 7-year-old children. As usual, no one there was allowed the tools to protect them. One of the teachers reportedly huddled with her students in hiding and assured them, “The bad guys are here now. We just have to wait for the good guys to get here.”
Sadly, the good guys didn’t arrive for 20 minutes.
I'd agree that it pays to be armed and have the option to defend yourself.
You can still keep your distance and wait for the cops to arrive. But have the ability to protect yourself if they don't.
We just had a little kid kill his brother with one of his dad's guns. More guns isn't always the solution and articles that promote it leave out all the accidental shootings & deaths that happen like that one. Like anything else it's not a black & white issue.
They're just as hazardous, if not moreso, than firearms. More people die from car accidents everyday than from weapon malfunctions. The logical step, from your point of view, would be to increase regulations when it comes to vehicles as well as restrict the sale of certain types of cars that don't meet your chosen standard of engine power (analogous to rifles and high capacity clips).
You can make some comparisons but you could do that with almost anything.
My main reason for posting about the shooting is I've seen so many of these one sided pro-gun articles that omit all the accidental deaths that happen because somebody had a gun.
We just had a little kid kill his brother with one of his dad's guns. More guns isn't always the solution and articles that promote it leave out all the accidental shootings & deaths that happen like that one. Like anything else it's not a black & white issue.
I think it should be a law that you have to keep a lock on your gun to prevent it from being fired when you are not carrying it, especially when there are children or teenagers in the house who can find them in the closet. And that if someone does not secure their weapons, and they result in killing someone, that the owner is accountable for not securing the weapon, that allowed the crime to occur.
Not banning weapons across the board, but legally requiring gun-owners to personally be responsible for securing their weapons.
Cars are just as dangerous as guns, in the hands of someone using it irresponsibly, on drugs, alcohol, mentally agitated, texting, or otherwise driving carelessly.
I don't offhand know the statistics for auto deaths annually, but I'd wager they're at least tenfold higher than gun deaths.
My main point was those types of "everybody needs a gun" articles omit all the deaths that occur because more people do own guns. Why leave those gun deaths out?
You can get into all kinds of niches like "handgun violence", more broad "gun murders", and "accidental shootings", but together it was about 12,000 gun deaths for 2007.
Car deaths were about 37,000 for 2008, And 33,000 for 2009.
So auto deaths are about 3 to 4 times the number of gun deaths. And I didn't see the number, but elsewhere I saw that 2011 had the lowest number of auto deaths in decades.
The point being, cars are statistically more dangerous than guns. Which I believe was Pariah's point.
My main point was those types of "everybody needs a gun" articles omit all the deaths that occur because more people do own guns. Why leave those gun deaths out?
I don't believe I left anything out. That 12,000 number includes both gun murders and accidental deaths.
It not that everybody needs a gun, but that everyone should have the option --every adult-- to own a gun for self-defense. And short of banning guns, I advocated laws to force them to own and store guns responsibly, kept in safes or gun-locks when not carried as a concealed firearm. I think what I proposed is pretty reasonable, and I've never heard anyone from the Left or Right propose it.
We just had a little kid kill his brother with one of his dad's guns. More guns isn't always the solution and articles that promote it leave out all the accidental shootings & deaths that happen like that one. Like anything else it's not a black & white issue.
It seems to me all the laws to prevent this sort of thing are already in place. What happens is that the laws are ignored. What would make a ban on the future sale of assault rifles any different?
The gun control party really seems callous to me on this issue.
These guys are nuts, but they are not dummies. That is why they don't attack a police station, or their local armory. They attack where guns are not.
They are cowards who mostly shoot themselves when the police arrive most likely out of fear of a gun fight.
It takes two seconds or less to swap out a magazine, it takes police at least 3-10 MINUTES to just GET to the scene.
You can talk prevention, enact any gun control laws you like, but unfortunately the day will come that the system fails and another gunman will begin a mass murder.
So my question is; What do you do once the shooting starts?
Is your answer really to wait while a maniac is turning children into tiny corpses?
I don't think anybody is talking about just passing out pistols to the faculty and hoping for the best. It would at this time be a help to have somebody at the school for the sake of security that is trained in the use of and carries a firearm.
As for the story you mention, the gun didn't fail the household, the father failed his children by being irresponsible with his firearm.
Just like the Newtown shooter's mother failed her child, and her community by being irresponsible with her firearm.
This presents some interesting facts I didn't know, about Lanza's mother being a survivalist, and his father being a wealthy executive who provided for his wife and son, so that she didn't have to work. And that the father was a witness in a large lawsuit.
I agree that Obama manipulated the Sandy Hook shooting to push for tearing down the 2nd Amendment, which fortunately failed.
But beyond that, this video goes way the fuck off the deep end into Alex Jones territory. ("MK Ultra" is supposed to be some kind of widespread government mind control program since at least the 1970's using drugs to program people, and this is the first time I've seen it mentioned in the same breath with the Sirhan-Sirhan shooting of RFK.) But entertaining, to be sure.
The real and largely unexplored point in this topic is how Obama politicized and exploited this, and tried to turn it into a push to crush the 2nd Amendment. Which, fortunately, failed, and created some loss of political support for the Democrats. And even cost two anti-gun Colorado Representatives their seats in recall elections.
This political cartoon captures the full irony of this, in view of Obama's "Fast and Furious" scandal, Libya policy and Syria policy:
How this president gets even 37% support at this point just amazes me.
The issue of firearms has, at times, taken a high-profile position in United States culture and politics.[90] Mass shootings have continually generated political debates about gun control in the United States. There is a sharp divide between gun-rights proponents[91] and gun-control proponents.[92] This leads to intense political debate over the effectiveness of firearm regulation.[93] Democrats are more likely to support stricter gun control than are Republicans.[94]
Incidents of gun violence and self-defense also generate debate. In 2007 12,632 murders were committed using firearms and 613 persons were killed unintentionally.[95] Surveys have suggested that guns are used in crime deterrence or prevention around 2.5 million times a year in the United States.[96][97][98][99] The American Journal of Public Health conducted a study that concluded "the United States has higher rates of firearm ownership than do other developed nations, and higher rates of homicide. Of the 233,251 people who were homicide victims in the United States between 1988 and 1997, 68% were killed with guns, of which the large majority were handguns."[100] The ATF estimated in 1995 that the number of firearms available in the US was 223 million.[101]
They fail to note that while 19,000 people die of gun-related deaths annually, they are still less than 40% of gun deaths. The majority -- 61%-- of gun deaths are suicides.
A long article, with many details. Even police and paramedics trained to deal with violence had trouble dealing with seeing the aftermath of the crime.
It's difficult just reading the description of it.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to shield a major arms manufacturer from potential liability in the 2012 school shooting that left 26 students and educators dead in Newtown, Conn.
The justices' action allows a lawsuit filed by parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims to move forward at the state level, on the allegation that Remington Arms marketed the military-style rifle used in the mass shooting "for use in assaults against human beings."
The case tests the reach of a 2005 law passed by Congress to protect firearms manufacturers from being held liable for crimes committed by gun purchasers. That law was hailed by the National Rifle Association, but it included exceptions, including one for violating rules related to marketing and advertising.
Kind of deceptive, you have to read into it a ways to see they're talking about the Connecticut State Supreme Court, and not the U S Supreme Court.
Even with the CT Court's go-ahead on a lawsuit, that seems to me a very tough needle to thread. You have to prove that the gun manufacturer is directly responsible, despite that they only manufactured the guns, guns that then went through distributors and retailers, that the mom went through a background check and obtained multiple guns legally, that on top of that she trained her son how to use them responsibly. The obvious responsibility is with the mentally ill son, and the mother who had arms around her son, despite his clear Asbergers autism illness, and his anger at his mother for not being able to adequately care for him herself that made her plan to institutionalize him, that he knew about, that triggered his killing spree, first against his own mother, and then against the students she took care of at school.
To me this is just exploitation by Democrat/Left gun control fanatics. And perhaps judges who are gun control advocates as well.
Originally Posted By: article
Gun control advocates have said a victory by the families in the long-running dispute could lead to more lawsuits and damaging disclosures involving the firearms industry.
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in March that Remington can be sued because of the way the AR-15-style Bushmaster rifle was marketed. The families' lawsuit contends that Remington glorified the gun in advertising aimed at young people, including in violent video games.
The Sandy Hook killer, Adam Lanza, was 20 when he shot and killed his mother at home, then went to the Newtown school and gunned down first-graders and educators. Lanza then killed himself.
I'm just not seeing a basis for a lawsuit here. The mother, not Adam Lanza, purchased the weapons, and went through multiple background checks to purchase each of them. She taught her son responsible use. There is no evidence that Adam Lanza ever saw the ads the families' lawyer cites. Again, a very tough needle to thread. Adam Lanza's motive was mental illness and personal revenge against his mother, not how tha guns were marketed. How the guns were marketed seems irrelevant, since his mother, not Adam Lanza, is the one who bought them. That seems to me to throw the case out of court from the outset.
Yeah, a bit more clearly phrased in the Reuters article. I still don't follow the logic of the lawsuit or why the U S Supreme Court would confirm the decision of the CT Supreme Court, as the mother purchased the guns, not Adam Lanza, and therefore the advertising marketing of the guns is irrelevant. Even if Adam Lanza saw the advertising, it would have to be proven that it is what motivated Adam Lanza, and yet his motives again are clearly mental illness and revenge against his mother.
I've increasingly seen that judges are often not the detached objective protectors of the written law we would like to believe they are. Perhaps it was ever thus, or perhaps they have increasingly become judges who cave in to public opinion rather than enforce the legal standard (John Roberts, in his written decision about Obamacare), or judges who twist the law to conform it to their own liberal ideology or identity politics (Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg), or as can be observed watching any number of episodes of Judge Judy, a judge can takes a personal dislike for a plaintiff or defendant and that colors their ruling.
I'm sure there are many good judges who believe in the rule of law and enforce it, just as there are good cops, good doctors, good teachers, and a select few who let their biases twist their decisions. Or even good judges who occasionally make bad decisions.
But I have to admit, I increasingly see the law as something often twisted by corrupt actors to conform to their personal agenda, whereas 15 or 20 years ago I had near-absolute confidence in its being uniformly and fairly enforced. Now I see it as quite often a tool of revolutionaries who have infiltrated the legal system.
This is barely a week after a mass shooting in a Buffalo, New York supermarket.
The Democrat/Left as usual is leaping to exploit the event, to push their agenda of gun control, even before the facts are known of the shooter and his motivations. Michael Moore, knowing nothing but his preconceived ideological agenda, used the shooting to call for abolishing the 2nd Amendment. Democrat leaders similarly exploited the event --again: knowing nothing-- to call for further gun restrictions, including President Biden, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), Sen Chuck Schumer (D-NY), on and on.
George Orwell's liberal media is also hard-selling the Democrats' propaganda talking points. Again: knowing virtually nothing of the crime or its motivations.
If Democrats and their propaganda wing in the media can propagandize any given shooting as a "right wing extremist/ white supremacist" -motivated event, they are quick to do so, even when in more than 90% of such cases the facts almost always disprove that "right wing/white racist" narrative within 24 hours as the full facts become known. And conversely, they have absolutely no interest in covering the story as soon as a black, muslim, hispanic, transgender/gay or otherwise liberal/Democrat /nonwhite person is (more often) revealed as the shooter, at which point they cease covering the story, as if it never happened.
Only if the shooting fits their "white racist/right wing" narrative do they continue to cover it.
On the selective coverage of mass shootings, the media's eagerness to portray shootings as a "racist white supremacist/right wing"-caused trend, while selectively omitting coverage of black, asian and minority racially motivated shootings of whites, such as the recent New York subway shootings by Frank James, or California shooter Christopher Dorner, both of whom posted extensive hate-filled online manifestos, and even named many of their favorite news anchor inspirations who stoked their rage on CNN and MSNBC. Waukesha parade killings, anyone?
A clear media and Democrat double-standard on their coverage of hate crimes, and their selective politically motivated outrage. And their burying coverage of any cases that don't conform to their "white supremacist/right wing terrorist" narrative.
I've said it before: Republicans are the scapegoated Jews in Obama's (and now Biden's) Germany.
I think using dead children as props with which to vent my partisan spleen is perfectly normal.
With all due respect, is pointing out the stated fanatical ideological goals of the Democrat-Bolshevik Left, their stated goals to demographically bury the white majority in an ocean of third-world immigrants as part of their Cultural Marxist overthrow of the United States, to replace our Constitutional republic with their marxist revolution, to create a permanent Democrat majority as a stepping stone toward their authoritarian Stalinist-marxist utopia, is that a "screed" ? Or is it not screed or spleen, but simply quoting and citing what the actual facts are, of the Left's own heavily documented stated intent. Stated in books, speeches and published writings for decades, by those in the Democrat/Left.
Cited above by Tucker Carlson, with many listed sources.
Cited also by Pat Buchanan, 20 years ago now, in his book DEATH OF THE WEST, particularly in the chapters "Catechism of a Revolution", and "Four who made a Revolution".
The Democrat/Left's stated goals have been clear since the 1920's as laid out by Gramsci, Horkheimer, Fromm, and Marcuse, the ideology pushed by the Frankfurt School, their pushing of Critical Theory and other marxist revolutionary strategies, that the Frankfurt School brought to the United States in the 1930's. And became the ideological bedrock of the Democrat party beginning in the 1960's. And becoming even more obvious in the stated goals of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, as clearly stated publicly by the entire controlling majority of their treasonous party. Joseph Biden campaigned in 2020 as a "moderate" alternative who would reign in the fanatical stated goals of the Democrat-Bolsheviks that dominate his party, but instead he proved himself to be a Trojan Horse to enable it, to unleash lunacy and chaos that this country, and the entire world, has been enduring for the last 18 months, and counting.
Biden and the Democrats have not only deliberately brought hyperinflation, skyrocketing energy costs, an illegal immigration crisis, whipped-up racial conflict, and very possibly economic depression to the United States. But also, by design brought war to Ukraine, enabled acquiring of nuclear weapons by Iran. And ( by crippling oil production in the U.S.) allowed Russia and Iran to seize that oil and natural gas market to reap trillions in profits they can channel into wars and terrorism worldwide. And quite possibly cause a global nuclear war.
Those are quantifiable, cited, documented absolute facts.
I'm still waiting for one of these psycho school shootings to be the beginning of the end of songs about blazing guns, including 'love songs'
Vince Staples, R. Kelly, Diddy, I'm talking to you.
That's kind of like how Matt Damon and other Hollywood-Left actors bemoan the second amendment and call for banning guns. And then make movie after movie laying scorched earth to cities and slaughtering dozens with the same weapons they bemoan the use of.
The cop killing songs are born of intense black racial hatred of white America. As long as groups like Black Lives Matter exist, and that mentality in black America, those songs are never going away. I wish the were, but they're not. That "white racist" and "police war on blacks" narrative is still too strong, and not criticized enough, in a liberal media, in a Hollywood elite, in a Democrat party leadership that still fronts that lying narrative, for their own purposes. And a Republican party that mostly sits on its hands, because it is more afraid of being called "racist" than it is incentivized to do or say what needs to be said.
Fucking disgraceful coward cops. Taking down parents whose kids were being murdered because they’re too afraid to engage an actual threat.
That cop at Stoneman Douglas high school in early 2018 was at least stripped of some benefits, while still permitted to take immediate retirement and keep his pension. Then he sued and won, and got his full benefits back. It's deeply frustrating to watch. How much more frustrating, for the parents whose children were killed?
One parent got past the cops outside the Uvalde school and got her own two children out.
A Texas mother of two students at Robb Elementary School pushed past a police line and jumped a fence, rescuing her two children during Tuesday's mass shooting in Uvalde, according to The Wall Street Journal. Angeli Rose Gomez, a farm supervisor working nearby who has children in second and third grade at Robb, told the Journal that she drove 40 miles to the school when she heard about the shooting, only to see an apparent lack of response from law enforcement as the gunman barricaded himself in a classroom.
"The police were doing nothing," Gomez told The Journal. "They were just standing outside the fence. They weren't going in there or running anywhere." Chilling reports have emerged of parents pushing past law enforcement to rescue their children by any means, their efforts growing increasingly dire as the gunman remained in the school. Law enforcement officials have given conflicting accounts of what was happening during the 40 minutes the gunman was inside – as groups of police remained outside.
According to The Journal, Gomez was put in handcuffs by federal marshals for "intervening in an active crime scene," as she and other parents demanded officers enter the school. Gomez persuaded Uvalde law enforcement officers to release her, and she moved away from the crowd. Gomez then hopped the school fence, sprinted inside the school to grab her children and made it out of the school with them alive.
Another parent was pepper-sprayed as he attempted to get into the school, and a father was tackled by authorities, Gomez told The Journal. The Uvalde Police Chief said on Thursday that officers responded to the shooting at Robb Elementary School "within minutes," but did not specify whether those officers entered the school building and engaged the gunman in that timespan.
On Wednesday, Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw said that roughly "40 minutes" to "an hour" elapsed between the time the shooter breached the school and when a US Border Patrol agent killed him. The shooting suspect shot and killed 19 students and two teachers, and 17 people were also injured in the attack.
As Tucker Carlson said, making the case for the 2nd Amendment and armed citizens to defend themselves, trusting the state to protect your children doesn't work, because they're not the state's children, and you will always be far more committed to protect your children from harm more than the state will. In the examples of Stoneman Douglas high school, and the Uvalde school, police are more incentivized to wait outside and protect themselves and their pensions, while the shooter kills your kids.
The cops were detaining parents, tazing them, and actively stopping them from rescuing their children. Do you honestly believe the cops would have allowed a parent with a gun anywhere near that school?
More guns isn’t the answer. Less guns and a ban on AR’s. Leave military weapons on the battlefield where they belong.
Politicians instigating mass shootings to get support for the gun laws they want. Maybe the shootings will stop while many politicians are busy jacking off again about Trump.
Cops in the case were in a damned pickle that would've made them wrong regardless of what they did here. Not sure what all they knew about the shooter at the time, but I can see a solid case for them feeling the need to pause if they knew only of the "assault style weapon" and a tactical vest (whether they knew it wasn't lined is another question all together). There was that guy who ambushed a bunch of them in TX a few years ago. Not being equipped and possibly thinking of that situation may not have helped in the decision making. There is also the issue of how we'd be talking about them today had it turned into a firefight and kids died in the crossfire. We can know that wouldn't have been the case because the dude was a schlub with a gun looking back, but they didn't necessarily know that at the time. Police botched this big time, but I have to say we created a lot of fertile soil for botched police reactions in conversations regarding law enforcement for the past decade.
