The shooter shot his way into the
elementary school. The first two fatalities and the first injury went
out from the school office into the hallway when they heard him shoot
the door open.
The mother was shot apparently at home before he drove to the school, with her own guns, which she had for protection, and which she took regularly to a local range. Her guns, which she was trained to use, did not protect her from her son, who had behaved in a way which caused her serious concern, and therefore regarding whom she presumably had some wariness.
Interesting question – would any of you be able to shoot one of your own kids if they tried to take your guns against your wishes, especially if you thought they might do something like this with them?
Another interesting concept, relating to people who carry, and the belief they have that they could stop mass shootings — Joe Doakes and I had an exchange about this a while back in the context of the Aurora, Colorado shootings.
There HAVE been armed, well trained people with guns in place at mass shootings, including one this past week. There was no problem with darkness, smoke grenades, or people packed together quite as closely as they were in the Aurora theater. He was quite close to the shooter when he drew his weapon, but following the safety rules of when you can and cannot safely shoot, he did not fire. He did see the shooter looking right at his drawn gun, before the shooter killed himself in that mall. The gun carrying gentleman did not shoot because there was too great a risk of hitting others behind the shooter, and was complimented on his decision by law enforcement and others who observed the placement of the shooter and the concealed carrier. All other things being optimum, except the proximity of others, he could not shoot.
There were armed cops in the building at Columbine during that massacre. There was a legal, trained 22 year old male concealed gun carrier at one of the shootings this week at a mall. There was, if I recall correctly, armed security at the Red Lake massacre at a school here in Minnesota. A concealed carrier came on the scene as the Tucson shooting by Jared Loughner was in progress.
There has been exactly ZERO instances of a person carrying a gun, civilian or law enforcement or security, that has ever stopped a mass shooting, much less a mass shooting at a school. The friend who got us started blogging on Penigma, Mitch Berg, was quoted in the City Pages newspapers describing a female friend who works in a school, and how she could have stopped this guy, despite his vest and weapons, with a 9 mm hand gun. That is ludicrous.
The problem I have with pro-gun advocates is they do not acknowledge how many shots people fire in a crisis that don’t hit their target, and they have an unrealistic expectation of what they CAN accomplish. They envision themselves as heroes – which is a laudable ideal, it means a willingness to put themselves at greater risk to save others. But it is not a realistic expectation, based on demonstrable facts.
There is however evidence that people who have attempted to intervene in these kinds of shootings have themselves been killed or injured, without having stopped anything, in some cases giving up their gun to add to the weapons of the shooter. What more guns in that school would have done, based on past events, was put one more gun in the hands of the shooter, and add to the body count.
The pro-gun guys bring up armed teachers in Israel as a model solution, but that is not a good comparison. We are not very much like Israel for a number of reasons.
What a number of other countries, not at war like Israel, and much like our country, have done is to reduce the number of firearms in the hands of citizens, and made acquiring a gun harder to do. THAT has resulted in a reduction of mass shootings in Australia to zero, in the UK to one, and reduced firearms deaths of law enforcement, dramatically homicides by firearms, suicides by firearms (and suicides generally, since it is well established in the literature that analyzes suicide patterns that people who commit or try to commit suicide do NOT usually make a substitution of method), reduced accidents with firearms, reduced deaths of children by firearms, and reduced domestic violence / intimidation of partners by firearms.
The solution to this violence is to reduce firearms, not more people armed. There is no plausible evidence that more guns work. If it did, we would have the lowest, not the worst statistics of any comparably developed country.
Time to hold right wing gun ideology to the standard of real performance, not fantasy.
Yes it is true that the desire to harm someone in anger or insanity or a mix of both is at the root of the violence, but we can’t do that much to change that. We CAN take away the means to do the violence, the guns. Without a gun they are just an impotent angry person, or crazy person, not mass shooters, murderers, suicides, victims of intimidation, or victims of accidents.
The mother was shot apparently at home before he drove to the school, with her own guns, which she had for protection, and which she took regularly to a local range. Her guns, which she was trained to use, did not protect her from her son, who had behaved in a way which caused her serious concern, and therefore regarding whom she presumably had some wariness.
Interesting question – would any of you be able to shoot one of your own kids if they tried to take your guns against your wishes, especially if you thought they might do something like this with them?
Another interesting concept, relating to people who carry, and the belief they have that they could stop mass shootings — Joe Doakes and I had an exchange about this a while back in the context of the Aurora, Colorado shootings.
There HAVE been armed, well trained people with guns in place at mass shootings, including one this past week. There was no problem with darkness, smoke grenades, or people packed together quite as closely as they were in the Aurora theater. He was quite close to the shooter when he drew his weapon, but following the safety rules of when you can and cannot safely shoot, he did not fire. He did see the shooter looking right at his drawn gun, before the shooter killed himself in that mall. The gun carrying gentleman did not shoot because there was too great a risk of hitting others behind the shooter, and was complimented on his decision by law enforcement and others who observed the placement of the shooter and the concealed carrier. All other things being optimum, except the proximity of others, he could not shoot.
There were armed cops in the building at Columbine during that massacre. There was a legal, trained 22 year old male concealed gun carrier at one of the shootings this week at a mall. There was, if I recall correctly, armed security at the Red Lake massacre at a school here in Minnesota. A concealed carrier came on the scene as the Tucson shooting by Jared Loughner was in progress.
There has been exactly ZERO instances of a person carrying a gun, civilian or law enforcement or security, that has ever stopped a mass shooting, much less a mass shooting at a school. The friend who got us started blogging on Penigma, Mitch Berg, was quoted in the City Pages newspapers describing a female friend who works in a school, and how she could have stopped this guy, despite his vest and weapons, with a 9 mm hand gun. That is ludicrous.
The problem I have with pro-gun advocates is they do not acknowledge how many shots people fire in a crisis that don’t hit their target, and they have an unrealistic expectation of what they CAN accomplish. They envision themselves as heroes – which is a laudable ideal, it means a willingness to put themselves at greater risk to save others. But it is not a realistic expectation, based on demonstrable facts.
There is however evidence that people who have attempted to intervene in these kinds of shootings have themselves been killed or injured, without having stopped anything, in some cases giving up their gun to add to the weapons of the shooter. What more guns in that school would have done, based on past events, was put one more gun in the hands of the shooter, and add to the body count.
The pro-gun guys bring up armed teachers in Israel as a model solution, but that is not a good comparison. We are not very much like Israel for a number of reasons.
What a number of other countries, not at war like Israel, and much like our country, have done is to reduce the number of firearms in the hands of citizens, and made acquiring a gun harder to do. THAT has resulted in a reduction of mass shootings in Australia to zero, in the UK to one, and reduced firearms deaths of law enforcement, dramatically homicides by firearms, suicides by firearms (and suicides generally, since it is well established in the literature that analyzes suicide patterns that people who commit or try to commit suicide do NOT usually make a substitution of method), reduced accidents with firearms, reduced deaths of children by firearms, and reduced domestic violence / intimidation of partners by firearms.
The solution to this violence is to reduce firearms, not more people armed. There is no plausible evidence that more guns work. If it did, we would have the lowest, not the worst statistics of any comparably developed country.
Time to hold right wing gun ideology to the standard of real performance, not fantasy.
Yes it is true that the desire to harm someone in anger or insanity or a mix of both is at the root of the violence, but we can’t do that much to change that. We CAN take away the means to do the violence, the guns. Without a gun they are just an impotent angry person, or crazy person, not mass shooters, murderers, suicides, victims of intimidation, or victims of accidents.
Saw your comment on SITD. Well said. The reality of gun violence in this country itself will keep the social conversation concerning the gun-freedom issue alive. We are at a cusp; either we will regress to a wild west gun environment of violence and simply accept - not resolve - the root causes of violence in our society, or we will move forward - continuing to strive for a nonviolent social structure that seeks to truly address the causes of violence.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I prefer the latter.
Thank you. It was the place that it needed saying; here I worry I'm preaching too the choir, the audience that tends to agree. That comment was the bones for this post.
ReplyDeleteI prefer the latter as well. A polite society is not an armed society.
With all my heart, I hope our kids in Minnesota schools will be safe from all of this horror, here.
We need to get to the root causes of violence. We can also approach it from the aspect of stopping the 'how' of too many guns.
Be safe, and well. Wishing you and yours a safe and happy Holidays.