February 15, 2018 6:30 AM
Morning Reads – Thursday, February 15, 2017
On this date in 1758, mustard was advertised for the first time in America.
Memorial service planned for slain Locust Grove police officer. <3
Peaches
- UGA President offers mixed feelings on free speech legislation
- ATL instead of MARTA? Maybe.
- Earn a “Nexus Degree” from colleges in Georgia – begininng soon
- Georgia says “No Thanks” to federal election assistance
- Deal’s latest criminal justice reform initiatives
- Intercept: GA Governor’s Mansion Within Reach for Dems
- Amazon bid and the corporate citizen.
Jimmy Carter
- Support for Trump, Republicans on the rise
- Intelligence agencies warn against Chinese phone use
- Another flag issue for people to divide over
- Advocacy groups are warning illegal immigrants about travel in Florida.
- A $5,600 fine for having chickens.
Sweet Tea
- Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in Georgia
- Horrifying tweets from Wednesday’s shooting in Florida
- Just here for the headline
- Taylor Swift wins copyright case in court
About Author
Jessica Szilagyi
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242 school children died from shootings in the 20th century
247 have already been shot and killed in the 21st
Indy, good point. For the first 85+ years of the 20th century (before Reagan curtailed it) our nation provided a robust mental health system with a network of hospitals and halfway houses, treatment, etc. I remember seeing people turned out on the streets of Atlanta who were not mentally capable of taking care of themselves — the genesis of homeless people sleeping on the streets that has snowballed ever since.
This guy was clearly crazy as a loon. In the 20th century, he would have been committed and received psychiatric care, perhaps rehabilitated by now. As would have been others of his ilk. Instead he slaughtered 17 teenagers yesterday and our nation mourns. This incident once again shows the 21st century US obviously needs a renewed, robust mental health system to keep these people off the street – and away from guns and public schools.
So you think one more law would have stopped this killer? Just one more? He broke so many laws, including the gun free school zone law and laws against murders, but one more law would have stopped him.
Leftist love these mass murders because they can roll around in the blood, virtual signal to their friends, and push for their disarmament/defenseless victim political agenda. CNN and the news media loves these murders because “if it bleeds, it leads”. Mass murder helps ratings.
These murderous cowards are executing these attacks for fame. They are looking for their piece of immortality to justify their sad sick lives. They attack where our citizens are programmed not to defend themselves and to not be bold and brave and where the adults around them have been rendered defenseless.
If we want to stop these attacks, then we need to stop what we’ve been doing ever since Joe Biden’s Gun Free School Zone Act was enacted.
First, we as a nation must insist the Media stop glorifying these killers and providing fame to them. We should insist that they never name the killer or show his picture, ever. Call him what he is …. murderous coward and never give them what they want, fame.
Second, we as a nation need to train our children to be brave, bold, and be willing defend themselves. We need to end “zero tolerance” where innocent kids defending themselves are punished equally as the bully. We need to teach our kids about Todd Beamer, Liviu Librescu, Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatosand and others who stood up and defended others. Show them examples of bravery and courage that they can live up too AND that we expect them too.
Thirdly, we need to repeal Joe Biden’s Gun Free School Zone Act. Ever since that bill was enacted, mass murders at schools have dramatically increased. Check it out. Its a fact. We need more adults carrying guns in schools. The claim that more people carrying guns in more places increases accidental gun injuries and deaths is patently false. Gun injuries and deaths have been decreasing dramatic even as more guns are sold and carried.
Fourth, each of us need to resolve that when the day comes we will fight, not hide. We will protect others, not run. A good start to learning what to do is attend the Marietta Police Department Active Shooter Response Training. It’s an excellent program that will save lives.
If you want to end this spate of mass murders but don’t like the idea of more guns, fine. At least join us in demanding the news media stop giving these killers what they want, fame. Will you do that?
OK, we can all train to be brave fighters? Super. And we allow every high school student to carry to school? Unclear if that’s what you’re implying.
But I’m not sure, Mike, where just bravery gets us. It is responsive to the problem, but not preventive.
But I also don’t know as much abt the problem as I should. And I want to start the discussion with a question about young people and gun ownership- Is there any law or policy out there that creates a higher hurdle for young adult insofar as gun access? There are special hurdles for young ppl and driving licenses, especially when there’s a blip on their driving record. Young folks can also be especially emotionally volatile, and perhaps more linked to school shootings, if not others as well. I am thinking that restrictions on access (as in extreme vetting, parental consent, plus…?) through age 25 could be helpful, and by that age, maybe even any mental health issues would become clearer, so that issue could be more clearly addressed.
Don’t get fixated on guns. The important fact to know is that the majority of these killers are fundamentally cowards and weak. They almost always wilt at the first contact with resistance and that resistance can be armed or unarmed. We can teach students and adults how to take down an attacker effectively unarmed, provided they are empowered and educated to be brave.
(This video shows you how with a little bit of gumption we can defend ourselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2tIeRUbRHw ).
Sorry, Mike, I am not vesting the safety and lives of my children upon gumption- anybody’s random gumption- or the assumed will power of an unstable and ill human.
There is no restriction on doing this now. Are you saying make it a law? I didn’t think so. So a kind of ‘Just say yes to learning to be violent” campaign? Haha.
You’d have a better argument if you’d drop inflammatory lines about rolling around in blood and defenseless victim agendas.
I agree these people are looking for validation of their loser lives but I see no evidence at all that the media or anyone else is glorifying them.
You can train kids to be tough all you want but trying to take on a nutter equipped with a semi-auto rifle and multiple magazines with bare hands and attitude will just increase the body count.
Your suggestion that more guns = more safety might work with a small trained force but for 3000 hormone driven teenagers it’s ludicrous. Did you read that two cops were stationed at the school every day? How many more would make you feel safer?
The obvious solution would be to make it harder for potential nebbish-assassins to get their hands on semi-auto rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, but that approach runs counter to everything the NRA and other second amendment absolutists hold dear. They want no laws requiring training or limiting sales or requiring background checks. They see no difference between sporting arms and quasi-military weapons. So far, their money and clout have guided policy. Until we decide that yes, we really are not in favor of students and movie- and concert-goers getting butchered on a routine basis, then nothing will change and we can expect HS and club massacres to continue.
If more laws restricting types of guns have no effect on these mass shootings then please explain the discrepancies per capita between the US and Canada. Please explain why an 18-year old who is not in the military needs legal access to an AR15 or an AK with 20, 30, 50, or even 100 shot magazines.
There is abundant evidence from around the world that gun restrictions work. There is no evidence that encouraging more people to carry and engage hostile persons would reduce gun violence. It is a fantasy.
How are you going to stop the press for the reporting as you suggest? The very first amendment to the Constitution guarantees no interference, and it’s not nearly as ambiguous as the second amendment.
Frankly, it’s the media’s job to report it. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t know the many aspects and potential causes of the problem.
Ban all semi-automatic weapons. Full stop. Spare me your second amendment crap. A well “REGULATED” militia means regulated. Regulated means banning weapons of war not protection
I think we could at least consider the idea of banning hi-cap magazines.
Make an argument against that. If we have grandfathered rules then forget it.
Talk is cheep Mr. Pope. In some of these cases there were laws already on the books that might have help if the law had been applied. No law you can dream up will work if you don’t enforce it. Writing more laws is pointless and nothing more that a feel good measure if you don’t enforce the laws you have and that is where the pro-gun control lobby failed these children and all of us. What law or laws would have prevented any of these school shootings?
I think the threshold for reporting would have to be lower than expulsions. I think you’d have to vest some discretion in school administrators, probably make some reporting of incidents mandatory, like in abuse situations. That report then triggers a deeper dive during the background check, whether that means pulling up social media accounts or other school records or a personal interview. So the red flags can be checked out.
There is no way to identify who is the 0.001% that is truly a danger to society versus the 99.999% who have similar characteristics. A couple years ago, the Secret Service tried to develop a profile and in the end could only offer BROAD conclusions that would apply to most of the population.
The only solution is defense. People empowered, encouraged, supported, and trained to defend themselves. This would require the education establishment to turn 180 degrees in their philosophy. That is an area where the General Assembly can help and should help.
Finally, the argument that we should deny Americans certain of their inalienable rights because criminals abuse those rights is not a good path to go down. I could make the same argument about any and all rights from the right to remain silent to the right of free speech and religion. Criminals should not define what rights law abiding citizens have.
“The only solution is ….”
In the realm of public policy, that is the weakest and most unimaginative approach you can take. I recommend more public policy gumption.
Also, profiles would not work, but specific investigations of specific red flags would.
Also, no one is talking denial of rights. There is simply not enough time or space to dive into Constitutional law here, but suffice it to say that heightened background checks would easily pass Constitutional muster- and for good reasons. Having to wait a minute is not a denial.
Mike- every other ‘1st world’ country has figured this out. It is not a mystery at all. We know what works. Look it up.
You want to compare it to 1st amendment? OK. You still can’t yell ‘bomb’ on a plane. That is free speech restriction. There is a lot of speech that is restricted, for good reason. We definitely don’t want to go too far, but reasonable restrictions work. Just do it!
No one is doing a better at furthering Putin’s interests in the US than the NRA. They are making us weaker.
Inalienable rights are those conferred upon us by nature and/or God if you will. So you are saying that possession of a firearm is a God given right? Sorry, I can’t buy into that. In fact, I find it hard to believe that one of Christianity’s gods, namely Jesus, the Prince of Peace would carry a firearm. (What would your reaction be if the guy I have pictured as my avatar was walking down the street in a robe and sandals carrying an Uzi?)
Our civil rights are nebulously quantified in the Bill of Rights to our Constitution but as noted by others they each have their limits. Because of slavery the framers didn’t even include the inalienable right of liberty in the original Bill of Rights. Yes, they did include the 2nd, though of course with a fair amount of ambiguity, but this was a State granted right not a God given one. Restrictions on the right to bear arms were hardly necessary in the late 18th century as we all know if you wanted rapid firing you had to carry multiple weapons and/or reload for 2 shots a minute if you were extremely proficient. The framers couldn’t have even conceived of a situation where the owner of a firearm could kill or wound scores of people without being overtaken. There are already some restrictions on gun possession as you know but the bar is kind of high with the limits set just below rocket launchers though I’m not sure about mortar tubes since technically they are muzzle loaders… Pay a few extra bucks and you can even own a fully automatic machine gun. Pay a huge amount of extra bucks due to the cost of the weapon and ammo, not to the government, and you can legally own a minigun capable of firing more than 150 rounds per second. All I’m saying is that we have to bring the bar down to a level that we as a country can survive and live with each other without feeling the need for everyone to go around packing heat.
I’ve stated in this forum before that I personally don’t know where the limits should be as in my mind the genie is already out of the bottle. But we have to have the debate without the intractable NRA mantras being repeated ad nauseum or even the total bans coming from some on the left.
Number 1 would not have worked in this and most or the other cases. He was not classified officially as mentally ill. Number 2 all school expulsions are classified as behavioral including the kid who missed 1 more day that the rules allow for illness. Should that student be denied their rights because they were physically sick. Number 3. We have instant background checks now before it took 3 days. This not a kid, he is an adult who purchased his gun months ago, legally.
So, the only other thing you can come up with is more taxes, what about a 10 cent per gallon tax on gas for victims of distracted driving, a 200 dollar per TV tax on obesity to pay for weight watchers, A tax on birthday cakes to pay for the medical care because you are getting older. Also, pass a law that requires any taxes passed and collected for a specific purpose be only used for that purpose. See Georgia’s 911 tax, Tire disposal tax, etc.
One question? Where were the campus police? Did they have armed police officers on duty?
You may hate Wayne LaPierre but his idea would help. The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In Israel teachers carry Uzi’s.
Raleigh, in every policy – or lack of a policy- there are winners and losers. In this case, there there was a lack of a good background check policy, and the winners were a kid or two who would otherwise have to go through an extra and perhaps unnecessary background checks, and the losers are EVERYBODY ELSE. So, you get expelled from school a day for excessive truancy, and it takes an extra 2 weeks- or maybe even a month- for you to get a gun if all else checks out. Boo Hoo. Cry those tears in front of the parents of dead children and tell me some wait time certainly isn’t worth it.
Number 1 would not have worked in this and most or the other cases. He was not classified officially as mentally ill. An excellent argument for gun control.
Should that student be denied their rights because they were physically sick Yes.
an adult who purchased his gun months ago, legally. Exactly why we need further regulation. Given what I am reading about him, a better background check should have turned up a red flag or two. Smaller magazines. No semi-auto.
Well looks like some of the details are now being told and and a month even 3 months waiting periods would not have stopped this purchase. Something interesting did come out because it seems the shooter made a post which was turned over to the FBI and even though he sign his own real name they couldn’t find him? Really? It seem that mistake has happened at least once before. once again if the laws on the books were actually use this tragedy could have been prevented. Lesson here enforce the laws we have now.
The response at Columbine was complete failure by law enforcement. Rather than engage the killers, Law Enforcement cowardly waiting outside while the killing was ongoing.
After Columbine, Law Enforcement revamped their tactics 180 degrees. BUT, there is only so much LE can do until they get on scene. BTW …. Sandy Hook, that was a failure as well. They followed the Columbine playbook almost exactly, except a little faster.
I don’t get how people can think that a good solution is for these events is that the only person with a gun in a school is the one killing the children.
Ban assault rifles. He wouldnt have killed 17 people. Nobody needs to own one for any reason other than murder…full stop
A bullet tax would raise money but the argument is the same for the damage soft drinks, Gasoline, too much salt, good bar-b-que causes so take your pick where does it stop.
As far as Uzi and teachers in Israel I got that from engineers I work with from Israel It’s not me telling you your wrong it is those engineers so you can tell those citizens who some have children in school there how woefully uninformed they are. Ive never been there so I’ll take them at their word.
The only place where you and I agree is mental health. This individual should not have been able to have a weapon and and according to reports if the FBI had done their job this might have been prevented. Of course he might have just moved on the making bombs or using a car as a weapon like that is never happened……. evil will find a way. So if a Bullet cost 5000 dollars there is always cheaper and more deadly alternatives.
I think I, like a sizeable majority of Americans are sick of excuses. Existing law BS, 2nd amendment rights bs, more guns BS
Ban the Semi-automatic weapons…period. Get them out, and make penalties for possession of one stiff. All of these mass shootings involved these types of weapons and no one needs to have one…period
Get rid of every “gun free” zone ever enacted. Those are neon signs for folks (Criminal gun carrying predators) who want to create havoc. With the exception of courthouses, every person aged 18 and up, without a criminal record, can carry. Even in the sainted, pardon the pun, churches, even at Mercedez Benz Arena, every-damn-where. You a non-criminal adult? You can tote. It’s simplistic but true: Every bad guy with a gun’s nightmare is a good guy with one. Period. I carry…every day. I have two permits. Standard county authorized carry permit and GA PI License permit. I hope I never have to draw it much less use it. But I feel more secure in being able to protect myself and my wife.
Hey old man, if you ever pull that gun on me, I promise that I will shove it up your ass until it clicks.
As expected, the ’Bad guy/cowards’ VS. ‘Bad guns/bad laws’ factions are out in force. As long as each side thinks their side is the only ‘right’ one, nothing will remain the status quo of solving the issue.
Guns and Law are not my forte. However, Schools are.
Food for thought
• Gun free school zones don’t stop mass murders, but they do lead to putting your typical high school age gang member in jail. It is a tool used by law enforcement to protect schools from the mundane daily crimes, and LE will not thank you for making them go away.
• Guns in school zones will not stop mass murders. These are planned attached in most cases. The guy yesterday pulled a fire alarm, lite a smoke bomb, pulled on a gas mask and fired at people through the smoke. An armed teacher might have gotten him, but unless you’re a trained tactical shooter you’re not going to take a questionable shot that may or may not have hit someone you don’t know for sure is the bad guy. For inschool armed staff to be effective in this case, an armed guard would be needed on every floor of every building on campus. That’s 7-8 building 2 to 3 stories each so 15 to 24 armed staff members in a corridor at the ready the whole school day, just for that one school. (all paid for by taxpayers who hate paying taxes for stuff they personally don’t use). A mass incident attacker bent on killing will plan around the issue of armed staff regardless of number and location.
• Health privacy laws have become so ridged that if a child did have an issue, the number of people allowed to know has become a lot smaller in the last 30 years, while schools have become at lot bigger to save money on costs for teachers, classrooms and admin. (Tax payers hate paying for stuff they don’t use.)
• When a school system cuts a budget, the first thing they cut are admin staff, like records & curriculum review personal, lunch room monitors, janitorial staff, yard workers – all the non teaching and sport related stuff. These folks are the ones who notice the day to day interpersonal ‘bad’ behavior, the loners on the fence lines, the folks picked on by bullies, the trends in attendance and changes in grades. My high school cafeteria ladies could stop a ‘mean girl’ in her tracks, and talk to/check in with the boy sitting alone, drawing guns and skulls in old notebooks. Every day they made a verbal report to an assistant principal. Today, not needs, so not funded.
• Schools are not designed as safe as they could be. Two reasons; Age and/or money. The school from Wednesday was an open campus multiple building school. Every 50 minutes kids leave one building and then walk the 300 feet or so to the next class. Why so many buildings? Any building built before 2000 does not meet current wind load codes, regardless of being on the coast or 400 miles inland. It’s not easy or cheap to add on to an existing structure that doesn’t met current structural codes, let alone, fire, electrical, plumbing HVAC. Plus connecting buildings requires air conditioned, sprinkled spaces with egress doors and special hardware, maybe even hurricane glass with hurricane level structure. ($150 to $230 a square foot per floor). Outside connectors require at the most a canopy or nothing over a side walk ($0 to $160 a liner foot for an extremely nice 12’ foot wide canopy). As a tax payer what would you want to pay for? None of you want to know how expensive bullet proof glass really is.
• The average school system in Georgia spends as much on high school football programs as a high school counseling programs. When designing new schools, the trend is a football coach suite for 1 person (office, small conference room, AV storage and review space, private restroom/shower) that in most cases is larger than the 4 offices and testing room for counselors (1 per grade on average in a high school). That one coach deals with maybe 100 kids a year 3 to 4 hours a day during the year. A councilor on average has over 500 students, including about a ¼ of the football team to interact with on a daily bases between classes, unless a student or arent sets up an appointment.
• We still see boys as having to be macho, strong, tough guys who can fight back. While the view of what a girl can do and be as evolved in the last 50 years, the view of an average middle class boy has not. (Most school shooters are boys.) If you’re not all what Mr. Silver believes you to be, then you’re weak and asking to be a victim. Your average 16 year old with no issues has no idea who they are to begin with. Telling an introverted student to toughen up, protect yourself is not the answer (At least it never was with me or my sibling).
Again, just a few thoughts on SCHOOLS.
As long as you know I’m judging you and your ‘MORE LAWS’ comments along with Noway and Mikesilver MORE GUNS, Your welcome.
And thank you.
Turns out this murderous coward planned the attack and exploited what he learned in active shooter training. https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-shooter-made-sick-use-of-schools-active-shooter-drill
Do you really think any laws would have stopped him? If you can’t stop him, how are you going to protect the children or yourself? Unicorns? Locked doors? Sorry, but the next killer will have a contingency for a locked door. They are always learning.
The only way to stop these killers are many good guys and gals with guns. The only way. Law Enforcement can’t be everywhere at all times and the killers always wait for when the odds are in their favor.
“When seconds count, the police are minutes away…”
There’s the “only way” cop-out again.
Look at it this way: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Just because the current set of laws and procedures failed doesn’t mean we should give up on finding the right preventive laws and procedures. And, yes, there is most definitely some set of laws and procedures that would have prevented this from happening.
“The only way to stop these killers are many good guys and gals with guns. The only way.”
10000% agree. This sentence is right. Anyone who disagrees with it is wrong.
“Law Enforcement can’t be everywhere at all times and the killers always wait for when the odds are in their favor.”
Right again. And those odds go up exponentially in these idiotic “gun free zones”. A Lib Policy that has directly resulted in measurable numbers of deaths…
Really Mike, please. Why are you saying this? What is your point?
There are not really very many people that want to ban all guns. Just a more robust regulation regime is all most are asking for.
Mandatory training?
More thorough background checks with authority to require evidence of competence?
Restrictions on the most deadly types of weapons?
What is wrong with that? Why wouldn’t we do that? In the name of what principle would you sacrifice children so that people can have completely unnecessary but deadly toys?
Your premise that nothing else works except more guns is patently, obviously, and easily shown to be, false. Many countries have implemented regulations that minimize this type of disaster. Pretty much ANY country you choose. Nothing is perfect, but we can do a lot better.
Isn’t there any regulation acceptable to you ?
What surprises me is that we haven’t made resistors to gun regulation absolute pariahs of society. Maybe it will come.
A ban on assault rifles would have kept him from killing 17 people
If you note, I didn’t ask for a law change Mike.
I pointed out better design will slow the guy down and/or protect rooms and spaces from an active shooter. However; it costs money to do so. We can add storm shelters to protect children from tornadoes, but again, no one wants to raise their taxes to pay the extra $1.5 million a school to do so. The point he even had access to a pull station to activate the alarm tells me that fire system is more then 20 years old. But why spend tax payer money to have a system security upgraded when the one you have is serviceable and still works…
Explain to to me how your many good guys would have taken down this guy after he pulled a fire alarm, waited until the third floor hall was filled with smoke and hundreds of teenagers then started firing. If your child was running in a panic in a smoke filled 14 foot wide unlit corridor lined in metal lockers with hundreds of teenagers, do you feel confident enough to let the many, many good guys with guns with unknown levels of training (if any) start aiming at a target they can’t identify through a dark murky cloud? What if a good guy to the north of bad guy and a good guy to the south don’t know there is just one bad guy, even though multiple people are firing in their directions? How do they not take each other out in the smoke filled dark?
This good guys every where theme sounds all peaches and cream when you say it Mike, but life doesn’t work that way in reality. What you can do is improve your odds, limit access points, ect. A rates 60 min. fire door or wall doesn’t put out or stop a fire. What it is made to do is slow the fire from spreading to your side of the door a tested time (of roughly 60 min), so either you have time to get out of a building or a fire department has more time to save you. A mass shooter is like an explosion. No rated door (unless a $$$$$$$ blast door) will save you from an explosion that no one can predict in a place it should not happen.
I no more believe in unicorns then the mythological vigilantly horde of good guys. See the only difference between any good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun is the good guy hasn’t done anything bad -yet. I’m a good gal. I know how to fire and load a few types of guns. Should I have a gun on me at all times? My skill with a Glock is remarkable (ask my brother). I once aimed a gun at a target directly in front of me, and the bullet put a whole in my brother’s boat directly BEHIND ME. How safe do you feel knowing that about this ‘good girl with a gun’?
You are right, law enforcement can’t be everywhere, and neither can some one with a skill set like Noway. (Idiots who thing they do such skill however…). SO the best route is always slowing down the hazard until the actual professional gets there.
The difference is, one side is saying “do something” and the other side is saying “do nothing”. The “do something” side is proposing many and varied ways to change the landscape a little, the other side will not budge one iota from the status quo.
Restrict the press? Not going to happen.
Train children to fight back? Really?
Repeal Gun free school zones? All anyone has to do is get a permit and they can carry at school.
All these suggestions are like Hallmark sympathy cards. There’s no actual meaning there, it’s just a gesture. If you want to make a difference it takes more than a gesture.
The solutions are so obvious. Countries all over the world have effective gun restriction laws, and people still get to own guns. Usually they just have to show a reason to have one, or prove competency, or have some training, or not be insane. This is not unreasonable and there are many ways to get there and different degrees of intrusion into our lives. It would be difficult at first- there are a lot of guns out there and a lot of people making money from guns. But we have enacted safety standards for cars, restricted chemicals into the atmosphere, removed lead from paint… we can do this too.
I am a gun owner and I intend to remain one. But I am prepared to submit to some sort of competency exam, get a carry permit (again), and/or other reasonable measures. And if I can’t buy an AR15 I think my life will be OK.
I know there are a lot of legitimate issues that have to be dealt with but it’s been done and we can do it too.
Nuther subject entirely: Those of you with Amazon Prime need to watch their series called “Absentia.” Starring Stana Katic (Beckett from Castle…). It’s great! I binged it yesterday. 10 episodes. She’s an FBI agent who disappeared for 6 years and is now back.
And if Fed wins his next two matches, well, he’s #1 again. At 36. Crazy…
I thought it was a little more pleasant around here yesterday for some reason.
Be nice, he was in the ER after all on Tuesday night, and you put him there if you recall.
Meanwhile, the White House is telling one of our senators (Isakson) what to do…
https://www.axios.com/wh-to-senators-drop-support-bipartisan-immigration-99913934-4021-4714-9d61-01e50b81168b.html?source=sidebar
A well-regulated militia?
The point is that guns can be regulated. Assault rifles should be banned
Or certain classes of weapons should be highly-regulated.
Of course, that’s the part of the 2nd Amendment no one wants to talk about.
It’s been out of style for a while now, but will have it’s day.
Those who love the 2nd Amendment should embrace all of it.
CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION: Why don’t schools use magnetic swipe security cards for entrance by each student and teacher, like office buildings all over the country do? Card gets deactivated as soon as student or teacher drops out, graduates, moves, etc. Had this been in place, that guy couldn’t have just walked in yesterday. Don’t make it easy for maniacal nuts, who probably wouldn’t go to the extra trouble to foil a security system.
This is a deterrent that can be put in place immediately by local school systems to protect our kids every day. It provides some level of discouragement to physical access, and losers won’t bother. Real positive action instead of all the “I’m right, you’re wrong!” blathering about guns!
I suspect we will be seeing a lot of schools do this, as well as add security officers at entry points. I can’t say how much of a deterrent turnstiles will be, or if having officers here or there will just push the violence to other parts of the campus/school. Or to movie theatres or other targets. Following that logic and trend, we would need armed security at virtually every public place. Which is not a very inspiring vision. That’s literally every pound of cure, with not an ounce of prevention.
No solution is perfect, but at least this is much more than an ounce of prevention in making school a safe place for kids.
I would say that’s more like taking a cough drop after you’ve caught the flu, rather than washing your hands so you don’t get sick in the 1st place.
In yesterdays case, they move 3000 kids every 50 mins. through multiple exit points in each one of their 8 different buildings in under 5 minutes. This would require every door to have a staff member make sure every student swiped their card.
The run anywhere from $60,000 to $250,000 for a 150,000 SF school to install depending on number of doors, level of security, number of allowable access oints and amount of data cable run between the hardware to a seerate main frame, and the fire alarm system. By default, any ‘lock door’ on a path of exit is required to unlock when a fire alarm is activated. The best you can hope for is a 15 second delay on the lock once activated. You also have a yearly fee to maintain the software, you need trained staff that can ass a back ground check to update cards, and replace the ones that get lost. And unlike a private office building, the public school system needs your tax dollars to pay for it to be installed, the software fee, and the staff.
Example, Cobb county Schools have 16 high schools per their web site. Lets say each one is 150,000 SF, and each has full student access, plus extra security levels for teachers, janitors, contract workers like kitchen help, coaches, managing level admin, clerk and record level admin, ect. $200,000 to install per high school is $3.2 Million just for the high schools, and I’m being conservative in size and cost. Then $20,000 a year to ugrade and maintain software lisence and, $30,000 for the staff member who runs it, which is $50,000 per school or $800,000 a year to make it work. If you are a Cobb county taxpayer, will you fork over a mileage increase on your house or business to pay for it? Keep in mind all it need to happen is for one card to be stolen or a pisted off nerd with mid-level hacking skills to make it all end badly.
And about deJesus Cruz:
*FBI was aware of his online posts, had been reported to them, did nothing.
*Expelled from school for “disciplinary reasons”.
*Physically abused former girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
*Prohibited from wearing backpacks to school due to policy violations (carrying ammo, knives, etc..).
*Received professional mental “treatment”.
At what point does gross negligence by authorities become intent – or at least accessory before the fact?
Put another way- what other procedures should be in place for the schools and LE? Given they both had awareness of a problem, one procedure seems obvious- have this info loaded into a database that would then not permit anyone to sell him a gun.
Here’s the problem. He’ll kill someone who does have a gun and take it (Sandy Hook). Metal Detectors at the entrance of schools, the killer will shoot the people manning them first (Red Lake MN). Police paroling inside a movie theater, the killer will move onto an undefended theater (Aurora CO). Police in school, they’ll wait until the cops takes their lunch break (Columbine).
Every idea you can come up with, there is a good example of how a determined killer overcame the obstacle. These are not nice people. They are determined and committed killers, often pretty smart.
To those who want to ban guns, there are many examples of mass murders committed with knives, machetes, and clubs. Set aside your animosity toward guns and FOCUS ON THE KILLER. What will stop him once he starts? What will deter him to move onto softer targets?
Guns are the great equalizer. A 100 pound woman is as powerful as a 300 lb man when she is armed. Those who talk about confiscating guns, really are advocating for a return to jungle justice where the strong prey on the weak.
With that said … if a killer attacked your place of business or child’s school, what would you want? a gun or a phone? Answer it honestly.
That is why the gun folk will never acquiesce to those who confiscate guns. Basically, its life or death to us.
PS …. if you chose the phone, recognize that the time between when the shooting starts and the killer is stopped runs 13 minutes. Can you survive that long?
If you find yourself calling others names, that is a good sign you lost the argument.
Don’t feel bad though. In the years after Columbine, I was part of an informal working group of law enforcement officers, law enforcement researchers, journalists, and others that studied active shooter events for any clues about how to stop them from occurring and what to do when they start. Our work helped change police tactics which is really cool to see. So you could say, I know more about active shooters than the average buffoon.
To your points though
* Some of those countries did indeed confiscate privately held guns which I include AUS that paid for the guns that would be illegal to own after a certain date.
* Those countries have not been immune from mass murders with guns and not. Japan had a mass casualty event that involved a KNIFE attack in 2016: 19 dead, 26 wounded. I think was a big knife attack in China too.
* Actually, when we looked into citizen hit ratios, we found they are very high (upwards to 80%). Remember a citizen shoot is much different than a LE shoot. Citizen’s will wait until the last possible moment to shoot meaning the targets are at bad-breath distance. Hard to miss when a killer is very close to you and closing the distance. LE are usually have distance and obstacles in the way. Suspects often are fleeing. We shouldn’t make a comparison between the two because they are apples vs. oranges.
Deplorable Buffoon Out
They don’t need yet more procedures — they already have authority to maintain the peace, just have to communicate with each other. His own mother had notified police of his infractions on several occasions, had them come out to her/their home because she could not manage him. Looks like her flu death in November let the dam break after all these neglected stop-gaps.
He clearly stated on youtube that he was going to become a school killer, and he would have gotten his hands on a gun no matter what — unless stopped somewhere along that path I laid out. But I do believe the swipe-card security system I laid out is the most expedient way to deter nuts like him who do not otherwise get stopped.
The world’s population is over 7 billion, of which 4.4% are US residents. There are according to The Guardian 644 million civilian-owned guns in the world, of which 42% are owned by US residents. Gee, there are only 15 times more guns per person in the US than the rest of the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list
Actual data to contemplate:
“Compared with the 10-year period before the (assault weapon) ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/15/its-time-to-bring-back-the-assault-weapons-ban-gun-violence-experts-say/?utm_term=.244bef91065b
We have to start somewhere.