FL school shooting

[Rommie]

So, I know most of us are rather cynical about gun control in the USA, but can we spend a moment to acknowledge how refreshing the teenage survivors of the high school shooting last week are in all this? I have seen and heard several speeches and interviews by these kids, and they're pretty awesome people and very articulate. I heard one of the girls yesterday on NPR for example, and she was very succinct in saying "I am still a child, and it is the job of adults and my community to protect me, and you failed." My heart really went out to her, and also admired how these are basically people who suddenly found themselves in a terrible situation that has also given them a unique platform, so they're able to keep this shooting in the national dialogue more than things have been.

I guess my point is, I wish them well, and while I'm not sure yet it will make much difference in the long run, I'm glad they're trying to do something. It's pretty hard to tell in tough situations which event will trigger change, even after years of a terrible situation. (See: Berlin Wall falling, Arab spring, etc.) If nothing else, I hope these teens can inflict some public image damage on politicians who damn well deserve it for kowtowing to the NRA, to the point where people are still discussing this closer to election time.

[Thumper]

At least one republican district chairman has been canned for calling some of the shooting survivors "actors." The youth are taking advantage of a somewhat unique opportunity and voicing themselves very vehemently. Even pubs will have to pretend to take notice. However, I doubt anything of consequence will be done about this in the state or federal legislatures. But I'm old and grumpy have lost most of my hope. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Rommie]

Exactly. I guess my point is, it's far easier to throw up your hands and say nothing will happen. So I admire those who are determined to see this through despite all that, and surely them keeping the dialogue going for longer isn't a bad thing.

[SciFiFisher]

I actually believe that these kids are going to grow up and change the laws about guns. The situation is such that gun owners are going to become pariahs unless they agree to reasonable restrictions and regulations. The conservatives are creating the very situation they claim they are fighting against.

And I agree. These kids are articulate and awesome.

[geonuc]

For the first time, I have some faint hope that things will change, and it's because of the students.

[Thumper]

I actually believe that these kids are going to grow up and change the laws about guns.

For the first time, I have some faint hope that things will change, and it's because of the students.

Woa! If Swift comes in here and says something similar, then all four of us can be completely disappointed when nothing changes. [Depressing sarcasm mode]

[Thumper]

[Swift]

I actually believe that these kids are going to grow up and change the laws about guns.

For the first time, I have some faint hope that things will change, and it's because of the students.

Woa! If Swift comes in here and says something similar, then all four of us can be completely disappointed when nothing changes. [Depressing sarcasm mode]

Prepare the Chamber of Disappointment!!!

I generally agree. I guess my official position is "we'll see" (insert the drawn out "seeeeee" and the little look of sarcasm ), but if anything is going to change things it will be these kids. To say I admire them is a vast understatement. The speech by the young Latina woman with the very close-cropped hair had me in tears.

And if they don't win this battle in the near-term, they will likely be activists for life, and will impact the political process in the future.

[SciFiFisher]

And if they don't win this battle in the near-term, they will likely be activists for life, and will impact the political process in the future.

Yes. Maybe not all of them. But, a lot of them all across the country have gotten thier first taste of actually doing something about the problems they face. And I think they will like that and want to continue it.

[SciFiFisher]

Sad moment last night. I caught a bit of an interview with one of the boys from Florida. The comment that stuck out for me was "This isn't the wild West! Except, for school kids it is!"

[Thumper]

NRA d|ck blames FBI and pretty much everyone but him and guns.

“What they want is more restrictions on the law-abiding,” LaPierre said

Everyone is a law abiding citizen right up until the point that they are not. The shooter in this latest case apparently violated no existing laws in obtaining weapons and ammo.

[Swift]

Trump had his "listening" meeting a couple of days ago and seemed to be supporting some reasonable gun restrictions.

But now he is really pushing arming teachers as a solution <eye roll>.

As someone on-line pointed out: virtually every US police officer killed in the line of duty was carrying a gun, yet they were killed. What is a teacher with a gun going to do against someone with an AR15.

[SciFiFisher]

Trump had his "listening" meeting a couple of days ago and seemed to be supporting some reasonable gun restrictions.

But now he is really pushing arming teachers as a solution <eye roll>.

As someone on-line pointed out: virtually every US police officer killed in the line of duty was carrying a gun, yet they were killed. What is a teacher with a gun going to do against someone with an AR15.

Why Swift... Everyone knows that a good person with a gun can outshoot a bad person with a gun.

[Thumper]

There was an armed, deputized agent assigned to the school that day. He apparently knew the situation, and did not go into the area or in any way try to engage the shooter.

For anyone who claims, believes, or otherwise supports arming more or all people to make them safer, I only have to bring up two examples:

The 2009 Fort Hoot Shooting. It took place on a military base where maybe not everyone was armed, but all had been exposed to firearms training. There was an active shooting range with training in progress when the massacre occurred. Several of the victims were armed security guards.

The 2011 Tucson Shooting There was a trained armed individual in the crowd with a CCL. Interviewed after the incident, he stated he drew his weapon and was about to engage when in the chaos, he determined that he was not confident enough in his target to open fire and holstered his weapon. Upon further questioning, he admitted the target he almost shot at was not Loughner.

I have more. Apparently I'll need them as this ridiculous argument keeps getting thrown at us again and again.

[Thumper]

This is where we're at: 10 Year olds.

[SciFiFisher]

There was an armed, deputized agent assigned to the school that day. He apparently knew the situation, and did not go into the area or in any way try to engage the shooter.

apparently he was close to retirement. According to a press release by the Sheriffs department he went to the building where the shooting was going and waited 4 minutes (the shooting had stopped) before entering the building. He was placed on suspension pending an investigation. He has already filed his retirement papers.

Once upon a time I was a Military Policeman. In those days in similar situations we were taught to never enter a building like that alone. We were REQUIRED to wait for back up. Fast forward 35(ish) years and what I hear is sort of sad. They are now teaching policemen that it is their duty to go up against a heavily armed suspect alone. Frequently outgunned. In other words the best we have been able to come up with in 35 years is tell cops that they are supposed to act like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Except, those situations rarely go the way they did for the hero in Die Hard. Literally, we are telling people that they must die or kill the shooter. And most police departments probably aren't doing nearly enough training to help their officers react the right way in those situations.

I understand why they want the lone cop/good guy to rush in. SWAT won't be there for 15 minutes or maybe longer. The shooter will do maximum damage in the first 5 minutes of the incident. But, that response is a REACTIVE response. It means the bad guy gets all the momentum and has a head start. The best strategies are PROACTIVE and we really should be looking extremely hard at prevention and minimizing the potential harm the shooter(s) can do.

What is also disturbing is that this shooter gave plenty of advanced warning. There were several points where the system could have engaged to prevent this. Last year he put a gun to a persons head and the fucking family refused to press charges. There were a couple of other instances where the system received reports but there were misfires. In one case he apparently put up a YouTube video showing himself handling guns and announcing he wanted to be "A professional school shooter". Unfortunately, the video was reported to the authorities in Mississippi instead of Florida. Other misfires occurred.

[Thumper]

I did not intend to disparage the officer involved. Though sadly, I know others are. My point was the was a trained, armed, law enforcement officer on the property as the tragedy unfolded. He could not/did not prevent innocents from dying. Neither did the trained, armed law enforcement officers at Fort Hood. So the the flippant, dangerous suggestion that we just give teachers guns and all will be safe is ridiculous and insulting. Teachers barely have enough time for lesson plans, teaching, and counseling. How are they expected to train in the safe use of firearms and practice frequently enough to make themselves remotely effective?

Fisher, thank you for your informed response.

[geonuc]

I don't know, but I think if you're an armed sheriff deputy assigned to protect a school and a shooter is actively killing students, you have to go in and do what you can. Yes, that's pretty risky but why else is the deputy there? The job is to defend civilians.

The argument dovetails with my issue concerning cops who shoot people and then claim they 'feared' for their life. Even though the victim was unarmed or did not brandish a weapon. The job is to protect people, not shoot them, and that requires overcoming fear for your own safety and maybe getting shot in the process.

This deputy should have gone in as soon as he knew there was a shooter. Unless I learn something that excuses his inaction, he's a coward. His boss, the sheriff, seems to agree.

[Rommie]

This is where we're at: 10 Year olds.

I saw this, and honestly, stuff like this makes me so hesitant to come back to the USA if I am going to start a family in the next few years. I just do not want my kid to be thinking about this in such detail, because while school shootings are more common than they should be, WTF is the point of this kind of detailed drill- does anyone really think a 10 year old is going to stop a gunman?

Like, we learned how to crouch up in the hallway in a tornado drill once, even there is an almost 0% chance of a tornado ever hitting suburban Pittsburgh, so I understand by that logic you'd do a school shooting drill these days. But this is a bit beyond "turn off the lights and everyone be quiet," and illustrates very well a culture of fear I don't think is healthy.

If they end up arming the teachers, I will really know my answer.

[Thumper]

My elementary school was a fallout shelter. We had fallout drills where we crouched under our desks in preparation for if the Soviets ever dropped the big on on us...

[Swift]

My elementary school was a fallout shelter. We had fallout drills where we crouched under our desks in preparation for if the Soviets ever dropped the big on on us...

I've been thinking a lot about that too, and I think it a very good analogy.

I grew up in the age of "duck and cover". We had fallout drills when I was a kid in elementary school in the 60s, where we would hide under our desks, or more often, go in the hall and stand with our backs against the wall (so that when the windows blew out from the explosion you weren't hit by the glass fragments).

These drills, and the thought of nuclear armageddon terrified me, and I'm sure in some deep way left their marks on me (and probably my whole generation). Meanwhile the adults didn't solve the fundamental problem of MAD and not terrifying their kids. I suppose the slogan was "A good country with Nuclear Bombs can stop a bad country with Nuclear Bombs".

And I guess some of the older kids become the anti-war movement of the 60s. They only succeeded so much with that.

These kids have a new terror, and the adults are doing an equally bad job of dealing with the problem. I hope this kids have more success.

[Swift]

This is where we're at: 10 Year olds.

I had seen that too. The wisdom of children...

[SciFiFisher]

I did not intend to disparage the officer involved. Though sadly, I know others are. My point was the was a trained, armed, law enforcement officer on the property as the tragedy unfolded. He could not/did not prevent innocents from dying. Neither did the trained, armed law enforcement officers at Fort Hood. So the the flippant, dangerous suggestion that we just give teachers guns and all will be safe is ridiculous and insulting. Teachers barely have enough time for lesson plans, teaching, and counseling. How are they expected to train in the safe use of firearms and practice frequently enough to make themselves remotely effective?

Fisher, thank you for your informed response.

I did understand that was your point.

I

[Rommie]

I've thought about the nuclear drills as well, but as someone who didn't live it I wasn't sure if it was in fact the same sort of analogy.

I do think there's something to the fact that outside a small percentage of people who grew up with AR-15s lying around the house (I'm sure they exist), exposing a kid to this kind of stuff would make you really afraid of guns. (I mean, that tornado drill was scary and made me think they were far more common than they were in Pittsburgh, because kids are not really good at distinguishing threat probabilities.) The NRA likely got as insanely powerful as it did because older generations didn't have such a visceral anti-gun reaction as a kid who grew up doing this would.

Also, btw, what's with the "we are now going to ban AR-15s for those under 21" thing? Seems a dumb solution given that the Vegas shooter for example was well over that age.

[SciFiFisher]

I don't know, but I think if you're an armed sheriff deputy assigned to protect a school and a shooter is actively killing students, you have to go in and do what you can. Yes, that's pretty risky but why else is the deputy there? The job is to defend civilians.

The argument dovetails with my issue concerning cops who shoot people and then claim they 'feared' for their life. Even though the victim was unarmed or did not brandish a weapon. The job is to protect people, not shoot them, and that requires overcoming fear for your own safety and maybe getting shot in the process.

This deputy should have gone in as soon as he knew there was a shooter. Unless I learn something that excuses his inaction, he's a coward. His boss, the sheriff, seems to agree.

I suspect that there was an element of cowardice. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I agree that he should have moved in as soon as he was aware there was a situation. I am betting he has had some form of training/review that indicated he was supposed to do just that. But... I don't know everything. And I will probably get on my judgmental high horse again. Probably tomorrow. But, today I want to beleive that the officer had a moment and froze. I have also heard a speaker on MSNBC saying that as quickly as everything happened the officer still would not have been able to save any of the people who were killed or injured even if he had rushed in. I am sure there is going to be lots of back and forth about this aspect of the shooting.