Another horrific school shooting

[Guest MormonGator]

12 minutes ago, Grunt said:

I don't believe there would be as many tanks on the street as one might think.

Believe me, I hope I'm wrong. 

[Guest Godless]

4 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I'd go for abolishing public schools and have home, private, religious, and charter schools everywhere.

Does anyone know of a link outlining such a mass shooting at a school OTHER than a public one?  Honest question.

This is all I could find.

Drive-by shooting at a charter school in New Orleans last month. Students were targeted, but there were no deaths or gunshot-related injuries (one kid fell and got injured trying to run away).

Abolishing public school is an invitation for class warfare, imo. Because let's face it, there are countless parents who either don't care enough about their kids to do the work themselves, or who can't afford to keep one parent home (assuming the parents are still together). You can lament the disintegration of family values and the deterioration of the family unit all you want, but that's the reality of the society we live in. Taking away public school will lead to an even greater crisis of education than we're currently facing. Millions of kids will be forgotten, neglected, and abandoned. 

As for the abuse: What you're saying is (and, no, I'm not saying this to be snotty, but as a logical conclusion) that on the balance, you'd prefer kids get killed in mass shootings than be abused by their parents.  Think about it.  We're trying to get away from one bad consequence and run into another bad consequence.  It is just a question of which is more preferable.  If you're not saying that, then you can't say it is an either or.  There is a way to protect kids from random shooters AND the few from abusive parents -- even in homeschool environments.

This is an alarmist statement, imo. The percentage of kids who are victims of domestic abuse vs those who are victims of school shootings is very, very lopsided. So yes, I would prefer that children in abusive homes have a place to escape for a while, even if it means facing a 1 in 2,000,000 chance that they'll be shot. School shootings are a problem that absolutely should be addressed, but statistically a kid is more likely to be struck by lightning than be the victim of a school shooting. And this doesn't begin to address the issue of shootings in shopping malls, concerts, and churches. Again, statistically a very low risk, but the point is that this isn't just a school issue. School shootings just have more shock value because there are children involved. 

[NightSG]

1 hour ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Fascinating.  I didn't know that any schools allowed school personnel to carry.    I think this is a good option--allowing as you said teachers that are not comfortable carrying, not to carry.  

Argyle ISD made the news back in 2014 with this: 

Medina ISD put up similar signs last year, and at least a few other Texas districts have quietly allowed teachers and administrators to be armed.

[NightSG]

1 hour ago, MormonGator said:

Most people probably will meekly hand them in when the time comes. I don't see people starting a mass resistance over this issue, and even if they do-their 12 gauge isn't going to do much against an M2A2 Bradley tank. 

Nope, but that Constitution might do something about the men needed to drive that tank: AFAIK, the first line of each branch's oath of enlistment is strictly to defend the Constitution: the orders of the President and one's superiors come after that.  Given that, even if the majority did follow an order in direct violation of the Second Amendment, they're virtually guaranteed to have a large percentage only appearing to follow the order, while waiting for the most opportune moment to undermine that effort.  Plus there are a lot of veterans among the NRA membership with more and dirtier combat experience than most currently serving.  Plenty who'd take their chances defending the Constitution one last time, too.  

Then, there's a lot of local LE that wouldn't go along with a gun confiscation.  They know the territory and the people in it, and some of them have access to the sort of things that will stop a Bradley just fine.  A few more would likely join up the first time some fool made the mistake of lighting off a burst of 25mm from the Bradley at a "potential threat" and causing even the slightest collateral damage.

Remember, this is the information age; unless you can come up with the manpower to hit every gun owner at the same time, everybody not in the first wave is going to have time to load up, hole up and make themselves very costly targets.

[anatess2]

2 hours ago, askandanswer said:

I imagine that this  ^ or something worse, would be the same reaction as most families if they were to ever discover that they have a potential school shooter in their midst. 

Right.  So somehow, somewhere, these people lost connection to their families.  I cannot imagine a scenario when something this big and this wrong could’ve gone through unnoticed by the clan.  I can’t even hide a planned boob job let alone shooting up a school!  Yes, it can be annoying having hundreds of people in my private business but that’s better to put up with than finding out your cousin got so desperate and so lost and nobody cared enough to notice.

[JohnsonJones]

1 hour ago, NightSG said:

Argyle ISD made the news back in 2014 with this: 

Medina ISD put up similar signs last year, and at least a few other Texas districts have quietly allowed teachers and administrators to be armed.

I grew up decades ago, so it was a very different culture back then.  When I grew up, every other kid had a gun somewhere they could access. Most of them knew how to shoot it and were pretty good shots (and part of that had to do with the fact that the older kids grew up during the depression years and one of the ways they got food was to shoot it, and the rest of us younger ones grew up in their shadow, but luckily not with the hardships they had experienced.  I had a much better and easier life than the prior generation).  It may be that we didn't have the internet, but we didn't really have any shootings that I could recall.  If we did, I'm thinking it wasn't in the numbers we have now. 

If some fool had come to a school planning on shooting it, that fool probably would have gotten a shot or two off (better make it worth it because that's all he is going to get off) and he'd have been full of lead right after that.  It's probable even the principals and others had guns on them or nearby they could access.

When my kids were growing up they always had around two security officers (or police officers that would be there during school hours) that were constantly at or available at the school.  They did not normally show their weapons, but they were always armed.  They actually had a kid try to shoot someone at the school once (the kid got a bullet off and it went through an individuals hand if I recall) but they were QUICKLY taken out by the security officers.

Even then, most kids might not have had guns in the school, but by High School many of the kids had guns in their vehicles outside and in the parking lots.

I know schools have become no gun zones, but it strikes me odd that they wouldn't even have the basic police officers there like schools did (or maybe it was just where we had our kids going to school at??) in previous decades.  Or is it that the officers are being taken out that easily and quickly?  It doesn't take an entire school to be armed to take out a single armed gun man.  When I hear of some of these school shootings I wonder what happened to the police or security officers that should be there...or is it something that is not done in the rest of the US these days?

[Just_A_Guy]

1 hour ago, NightSG said:

Nope, but that Constitution might do something about the men needed to drive that tank: AFAIK, the first line of each branch's oath of enlistment is strictly to defend the Constitution: the orders of the President and one's superiors come after that.  Given that, even if the majority did follow an order in direct violation of the Second Amendment, they're virtually guaranteed to have a large percentage only appearing to follow the order, while waiting for the most opportune moment to undermine that effort.  Plus there are a lot of veterans among the NRA membership with more and dirtier combat experience than most currently serving.  Plenty who'd take their chances defending the Constitution one last time, too.  

Then, there's a lot of local LE that wouldn't go along with a gun confiscation.  They know the territory and the people in it, and some of them have access to the sort of things that will stop a Bradley just fine.  A few more would likely join up the first time some fool made the mistake of lighting off a burst of 25mm from the Bradley at a "potential threat" and causing even the slightest collateral damage.

Remember, this is the information age; unless you can come up with the manpower to hit every gun owner at the same time, everybody not in the first wave is going to have time to load up, hole up and make themselves very costly targets.

Not to mention that a bunch of nutcases with used Kalashnikovs and improvised booby-traps came darned close to fighting the United States Armed Forces to a standstill in two different countries within the last decade.  The lesson from that, as well as Vietnam, seems to be that if an armed insurgency can avoid being completely exterminated for a couple of years the American public will grow bored and demand their government find a way out of the mess.  (An exception is if you do keep doing stuff that threatens your opponents where they live and/or really ticks them off—like firing unprovoked on Fort Sumter, or invading Pennsylvania.)

And in a sense, even before full-scale revolt breaks out; if you can force the gubmint to break out the tanks and choppers—you’ve already won.  David Koresh seems to have thoroughly deserved his crispy ending; but the prospect of “another Waco” has haunted the DOJ’s operations ever since.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Just_A_Guy

[NightSG]

3 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

It doesn't take an entire school to be armed to take out a single armed gun man.

No, but the more armed defenders there are distributed throughout the campus, the better the odds of one of them having a clean shot early in the incident.  One of the first things that becomes apparent when you're the lone security officer on a huge site is that it wouldn't be any effort at all for a potential intruder to track your movements, and plan to enter when you're as far from the initial incident as possible.  Depending on communications, that could mean a 3+ minute response time.  I know we've run drills at the range to show how many times a typical shooter can fire well aimed shots and reload in three minutes; suffice it to say I could empty three 18-round magazines, two 32-round extended mags, holster the 9mm, run through a full cylinder and three speedloaders in the .357, and still have time left to manually load another 5 .357s before the "fast backup response time" buzzer.  That's 144 aimed shots, and I probably could have doubled it if I'd had more mags.

[NightSG]

7 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Not to mention that a bunch of nutcases with used Kalashnikovs and improvised booby-traps came darned close to fighting the United States Armed Forces to a standstill in two different countries within the last decade.  The lesson from that, as well as Vietnam, seems to be that if an armed insurgency can avoid being completely exterminated for a couple of years the American public will grow bored and demand their government find a way out of the mess.

And that's an armed insurgency where any collateral damage is definitely not to innocent Americans trying to go about their daily lives.

7 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

And in a sense, even before full-scale revolt breaks out; if you can force the gubmint to break out the tanks and choppers—you’ve already won.

Right.  Start rolling artillery down Main Street, and watch what happens to public opinion.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, MormonGator said:

It's tough to tell a non-American how fixed in our culture gun ownership is-and again, remember I am a gun owner and do not support gun restriction laws, so this isn't an insult. But it's very hard for someone not from America to understand that. So I can totally see where @Blossom76 is coming from. 

FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!!

[Guest MormonGator]

1 minute ago, Carborendum said:

FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!!

In ten-twenty years the government might take you up on that. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, MormonGator said:

In ten-twenty years the government might take you up on that. 

From my perspective, I hope so.

[NeuroTypical]

Hey Utah people: How many of you know that it's legal for random citizens with conceal carry permits, to secretly and legally carry in public schools?  Is it surprising to you that Utah has had armed teachers, staff, and parents for like 15 years or more?  Nobody measures it, those who carry don't advertise it, pretty much nobody talks about it, it's pretty much not in the news so nobody is freaking out about it.  I remember hearing the news after I had moved out of Utah, and I was jealous at the maturity y'all were showing.

https://bci.utah.gov/concealed-firearm/general-information/concealed-firearm-permit-frequently-asked-questions/

http://www.newsweek.com/utah-teachers-can-carry-guns-school-and-not-tell-anyone-269923

 

Anyway, the fastest way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is with a good guy with a gun.  It's a pity there wasn't one around.  It takes time to kill 17 people, in various areas, in and out of a building.  Dang shame someone wasn't able to draw their gun and run towards the sound.  

Edited February 15, 2018 by NeuroTypical

[Guest MormonGator]

16 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

From my perspective, I hope so.

For obvious reasons, I hope it never comes to that. The calls for gun restriction and people demanding that "something must be done" deeply disturb me. 

[zil]

36 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Hey Utah people: How many of you know that it's legal for random citizens with conceal carry permits, to carry in public schools?  Is it surprising to you that Utah has had armed teachers, staff, and parents for like 15 years or more?  Nobody measures it, pretty much nobody talks about it, it's pretty much not in the news so nobody is freaking out about it.

https://bci.utah.gov/concealed-firearm/general-information/concealed-firearm-permit-frequently-asked-questions/

http://www.newsweek.com/utah-teachers-can-carry-guns-school-and-not-tell-anyone-269923

I remember hearing the news after I had moved out of Utah, and I was jealous at the maturity y'all were showing.

I knew this.  And, yeah, nobody makes a big deal about it.  The last big deal was when a stupid teacher accidentally shot herself in the loo.  Minor flesh wound.  Hopefully she served as an example to others of what not to do.

Edited February 15, 2018 by zil

[ldsguy422]

I'm sure this has been discussed before,  but I don't frequent this board very often. How do you all respond to people who scoff and mock those who publicly send thoughts and prayers to the families of victims? 

[Jane_Doe]

19 minutes ago, ldsguy422 said:

I'm sure this has been discussed before,  but I don't frequent this board very often. How do you all respond to people who scoff and mock those who publicly send thoughts and prayers to the families of victims? 

(Making sure I understand your question right).

"Mike" prays for the families of the victims, and some jerk wants to mock Mike for that?  Frankly, such an troll/idiot doesn't deserve a listen to or second thought.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

30 minutes ago, ldsguy422 said:

I'm sure this has been discussed before,  but I don't frequent this board very often. How do you all respond to people who scoff and mock those who publicly send thoughts and prayers to the families of victims? 

I don't think those people are mocking "Mike" or any run of the mill citizen. They are mocking government leaders  (of both parties,  I believe) for "sending thoughts and prayers" rather than using their positions to actually facilitate change. I agree with them. 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Godless said:

This is all I could find.

Drive-by shooting at a charter school in New Orleans last month. Students were targeted, but there were no deaths or gunshot-related injuries (one kid fell and got injured trying to run away).

Abolishing public school is an invitation for class warfare, imo. Because let's face it, there are countless parents who either don't care enough about their kids to do the work themselves, or who can't afford to keep one parent home (assuming the parents are still together). You can lament the disintegration of family values and the deterioration of the family unit all you want, but that's the reality of the society we live in. Taking away public school will lead to an even greater crisis of education than we're currently facing. Millions of kids will be forgotten, neglected, and abandoned. 

This is an alarmist statement, imo. The percentage of kids who are victims of domestic abuse vs those who are victims of school shootings is very, very lopsided. So yes, I would prefer that children in abusive homes have a place to escape for a while, even if it means facing a 1 in 2,000,000 chance that they'll be shot. School shootings are a problem that absolutely should be addressed, but statistically a kid is more likely to be struck by lightning than be the victim of a school shooting. And this doesn't begin to address the issue of shootings in shopping malls, concerts, and churches. Again, statistically a very low risk, but the point is that this isn't just a school issue. School shootings just have more shock value because there are children involved. 

Three things.  Three responses.

1) I found it interesting that a couple of the students were arrested for suspicion when they themselves were victims.  I found it refreshing that a couple of kids were involved with guns at such a young age.  GPR and live ammo.  Oh my!  What will they have next?  A class 2 "look-alike" firearm?  What the heck?  Why were they even arrested?  Why was a student (who was one of the victims) subject to search or testing for GPR?  Makes no sense.

2) There was nowhere NEAR the level of class warfare prior to public schools as there is today. Public schools does nothing more than aggravate it.  Because let's face it, a faceless bureaucrat couldn't care less if your child has a decent education.  They only care about their numbers looking good.  You can lament the disintigration of trust in the political process all you want, but that's the reality of the public education system we live with.  Taking away public education will cause people to actually have to pay attention to education and find ways that work for them.  And the millions of kids who are currently forgotten, abused, and left behind will actually have a chance to get a real education.

3) I find the liberal talking point "Well, we HAVE to do SOMEthing!" alarmist.  Look at the pattern of the discussion.  A) Problem of gun violence in schools is stated.  B) Leftist says "We have to do something." C) I suggest that since violence in non-public schools is at a MUCH lower rate, that we should look at those options.  So, make a choice.  I was not the one saying it was an either or situation.  But if we followed my suggestion, we would have to acknowledge that there would be MUCH less violence against our school aged children. The statistics support it.

3A) Domestic violence rates at homeschool and other schooling options are MUCH lower than the domestic violence rates of the public at large.  Public schools are actually worse, but thanks to bureaucrats covering their tails, they under-report it.  So, to get the true number, you actually have to dig instead of just looking at what schools themselves report.  In addition, domestic violence rates in public schooled families are also higher than homeschooled families.  Laws, foster families, public schools, public awareness campaigns, PSAs, and other methods have done almost nothing to stop or even reduce it.

[NeuroTypical]

2 hours ago, ldsguy422 said:

How do you all respond to people who scoff and mock those who publicly send thoughts and prayers to the families of victims? 

People can scoff and mock whoever and whatever they want.   I don't have to respond, much less give them a seconds thought.

Edited February 15, 2018 by NeuroTypical

[SilentOne]

2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Hey Utah people: How many of you know that it's legal for random citizens with conceal carry permits, to secretly and legally carry in public schools?

I also knew.

[ldsguy422]

2 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

(Making sure I understand your question right).

"Mike" prays for the families of the victims, and some jerk wants to mock Mike for that?  Frankly, such an troll/idiot doesn't deserve a listen to or second thought.

There are lots people on Facebook and other social media sites that ridicule congressmen and others that are publicly sending condolences. Essentially they're trying to send the message that thoughts and prayers don't make the situation better. 

[Jane_Doe]

1 minute ago, ldsguy422 said:

There are lots people on Facebook and other social media sites that ridicule congressmen and others that are publicly sending condolences. Essentially they're trying to send the message that thoughts and prayers don't make the situation better. 

(My personal bluntness below)

Such people are idiots.  While it is true that a we (as individuals or a society) shouldn't just say "I'm sorry" and and nothing else, still acknowledging and praying for is an important thing.

[NeuroTypical]

This continues to be good advice when "lots of people on Facebook" are off doing things:

 

This is also good advice (especially what starts at 4:08).

If you've already let yourself get upset, then we all should sing this song to you.  

Honestly, these are gospel truths I'm suggesting here.  Take a look.

 

Edited February 15, 2018 by NeuroTypical

[Just_A_Guy]

3 hours ago, ldsguy422 said:

I'm sure this has been discussed before,  but I don't frequent this board very often. How do you all respond to people who scoff and mock those who publicly send thoughts and prayers to the families of victims? 

You tell them that yesterday, at least 150 people—and maybe as many as three thousand people, depending on which statistics you use—used firearms to avoid being killed, beaten, raped, and/or robbed; and you ask them to name at least 150 people who should have died yesterday so that these fifteen victims could live.

Tomorrow, log back in and tell them to name another 150 people.  

Keep doing this, day after day, until they either quit being a dipweed or until they block you.  

Edited February 15, 2018 by Just_A_Guy