Legislation is being passed to ban semi-auto rifles like the ubiquitous AR-15 type. This fits perfectly with the neo-Marxist need to disarm possible future resistance. More legislation is being passed to “harden” schools, hire more cops for school defense.
At the same time a search is underway to find a way to absolve the school district police of the crimes of neglect of duty and frankly, cowardice, in not going into the school to save children. Politicians are the same everywhere and the Texas variety are no different.
What is being studiously ignored is the fact that the Robb School was adequately hardened and there was sufficient manpower in the school district police force to have prevented this terrible event.
The awful truth is that a teacher was very unlucky in that she (?) chose to go out the back door into the parking lot to retrieve here cell phone from her car. She knew the door’s hydraulic mechanism would pull the door shut and lock it behind her, so she propped it open with a wedged rock.
The madman Ramos arrived in the area of the school. On which side I know not and started shooting at the building. He did that for a number of minutes before approaching the back door. This is the door that the teacher had wedged open to prevent it closing and locking her out.
At some point before Ramos reached the door she pulled the rock loose. The door shut but the distance it closed was not far enough for it to gather enough momentum to lock automatically. And that is how Ramos was able to enter the building.
So, spare me the nonsense about guns, police, hardening, etc. pl
How many of these mass school shootings have actually been prevented/stopped by all these measures ?
I found some list on wikipedia and a few have been prevented, usually by fellow students reporting on a would be shooter that had previously made his intent clear.
In the last 7-8 years, only one case of a teacher seeing a student carrying a gun and informing the police.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_attacks_related_to_schools#Foiled_or_exposed_plots
They all stop once somebody shoots back.
Fred,
They generally don’t. The good guys with guns have rarely stopped the shootings.
https://time.com/6182970/good-guys-guns-mass-shootings-uvalde/
“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun,” NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre famously said after the Newtown shooting in 2012. LaPierre has repeated the line several times since. But expansive research out of Stanford University found states that passed right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws saw between a 13 to 15% increase in violent crimes in the 10 years after. The data spanned stats from the 1970s up until 2014. “There is not even the slightest hint in the data that RTC laws reduce overall violent crime,” Stanford Law professor John Donohue stated in the paper.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w23510
TTG,
“estimate the likely path of crime if RTC-adopting states had not adopted an RTC law. ” LOL – no actual proof.
The good professors have a ‘synthetic’ methodology to generate a “guess” that is not actual causation.
More importantly, given all this, have you disarmed yourself yet?
Fred,
Why would I disarm? I do have a few firearms I plan to get rid of before too long, but most are of historical and/or sentimental value. Same with my edged weapons. Of course I don’t walk around the neighborhood armed and on the look out for bad guys, or cosplay at right to bear arms rallies, either.
TTG,
Why should any concealed carry holder, the ones in all those states that enacted RTC legislation so troubling to Stanford law professors, disarm? That’s exactly what the democrats are pushing. There are millions of them out there and just like you they are not cosplaying , though a lot of them are keeping “situational awareness ” i.e. “on the lookout for bad guys.”
June 21, 2021. John Hurley of Arvada , Colorado killed a shooter in Old Towne. Hurley heard gunfire, retrieved a legally owned AR 15 and killed the shooter. Hurley was subsequently killed by an Arvada police officer who didn’t bother to ask him to drop his weapon. No charges against the police officer.
Mikew,
Mr. Hurley did not “retrieve a legally owned AR-15” to intervene.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/06/25/hero-johnny-hurley-was-killed-by-cops-bullet-source-confirms/
Mr. Hurley, a CCW licensed carrier witnessed, from across the street what was “going on” and intervened with his legally carried handgun.
However Mr. Hurley “failed to fully appreciate” the predicament he put himself into, and “good cops” will acknowledge this – as well as, for instance I know – if cop sirens are “easily within earshot” : Should one decide to intervene, it is an absolute “practice” that the intervening Party ‘remove’ from the visibility of responding cops, “the firearm.”
(Yes there’s “the problem” that, in the cases the ‘aggressor party’ seems to be ‘still capable’ but that’s precisely when the ‘discretion’ part and the ‘better part of valor’ part reigns supreme.
And I would allow as only a infantry combat veteran is capable of “recognizing the finer distinctions” But that’s just the way it is.
*General* rule-of-thumb being, If it’s not one’s own family or loved one – and yes it’s harsh [very harsh] … Allow them to fend for themselves when there’s responding armed forces within earshot.)
[That’s why incidentally – if one even considers s/he might be “called” to intervene – that decision must have been made years in advance and the marksmanship skills to do a headshot already a self-assured skillset. No alternative.]
Then – immediately drop or otherwise get outta view – the “rescuing firearm” because otherwise the responding cops – 98+% of whom are trained to do mere ‘center mass’ will be leaving “the hero” to bleed out while the cops clear the scene.
Such is the state in the USA these days.
(Masaad Ayoob’s got a pretty good video on this very situation on YouToob up somewhere I’d recommend. Though he leaves out the “Can you live with yourself equation” out should you find yourself in that unfathomable situation.)
“They” say All things will pass but I’m yet to find out all do.
On Nextdoor a woman in my neighborhood has just had her purse stolen at Safeway. Other women are speaking about how they secure their purses in their baskets by passing the child straps through their purse straps. Because their purses are grabbed right from their hands. The country has been allowed to slip too far, and maleficence has been glorified for too long. Old fashioned remedies are needed, and they will be found.
It’s a general problem of fire doors being propped open for convenience.
So as compared with a teenaged demented cretin who fired away at the building with a submachine gun and then entered to slaughter 21 people, 19 of whom were children attending elementary school, it is the teacher who is the “villain,” not the mass murderer.
F&L
She is not the villain, but she is the proximate cause.
“At the same time a search is underway to find a way to absolve the school district police of the crimes of neglect of duty and frankly, cowardice, in not going into the school to save children.”
Well, fortunately – or unfortunately depending on which party’s perspective is deemed “the more important” & I at least believe which that’s going to turn out to be – there’s already established precedent where the “difficulty of such a search” is concerned:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/545/748/
https://law.justia.com/cases/district-of-columbia/court-of-appeals/1981/79-6-3.html
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/489/189
Turns out the difficulty is – not much.
(Yes there will be successful civil suits, even maybe considering a recent arbitrage outcome which I very much doubt is gonna be “favorably decided” by a Higher Court anytime soon:
https://www.thefinancialtrends.com/2022/06/08/geico-ordered-to-pay-5-2m-to-woman-who-got-hpv-in-a-car/
Time will of course determine ‘the ultimate at-fault[er]’ but I’m willing to bet my bottom dollar it ain’t gonna be the local LEO and it ain’t gonna be no politicians of any stripe.)
The only “fairly immediate” solution to hand?
What Fred said.
I am reminded of the incredible Golconda Fort in Hyderabad, India which stood for over 150 years, incredible design, with very sophisticated engineering and acoustic warning systems. It was the center for the fabulous diamond trade coming out of this area. It was highly coveted for conquest.
It was designed so elephants could not ram the gates. It was designed with secret passages for escape, and linked to a perpetual water supply in case of siege. It was designed to amplify even a scratch on clothing in the ruler’s presentation chambers in case an enemy drew a sword. It stood and stood against any all attacks for centuries.
Until, according to the guide, someone bought off one of the guards who left the back gate open. And then it finally fell.
I do agree that if that teacher had the wits about her in the face of an attacking gunman to ensure that door was locked shut, there could gave been a far better outcome. If the school resource officer was on site and alert, there also could gave been a far better outcome. Neither possibility would have guaranteed a better outcome.
This morning I had the opportunity to closely watch a local flock of Canada Geese in a nearby field. The sentinels were alert as always. As I got closer to the flock still with many goslings, more geese assumed sentinel duties. They all were giving me the stink eye. I didn’t approach close enough to evince any hissing or attacks, but if I did, I’m sure I would have been mobbed by a good number of angry geese.
Our schools, churches and supermarkets may employ one or two sentinels, but not nearly enough and they’re not nearly as vigilant as they need to be to be able to prevent such attacks as in Uvalde, Buffalo and elsewhere. One or two armed guards cannot maintain the necessary level of alertness for the extended time needed to protect such places from these threats. Maintaining that level of alertness is draining.
I think the best defense starts long before an attack is planned. It requires a much more long term vigilance among neighbors, family members and friends for signs of trouble. It also requires a society and government willing to do something when those signs of trouble are noticed. Unfortunately that flies in the face of the current “you’re not the boss of me” society. Our freedoms trump our community responsibilities damned near every time. Perhaps that situation should be remedied first.
TTG,
“If the school resource officer was on site and alert, there also could gave been a far better outcome.”
It’s confirmed. there was no school resource officer assigned to that particular school. “Hardened”? Yes.
“Enforced hardened”?
Not so much. For instance “some number” of monitoring systems, I’m reliably informed were never allowed to be interconnected into the LEO [in this instance ‘Law Enforcement Organization – read ‘local cops’ responsible to the county governing body] systems monitoring center.
*Cornyn’s only very recently – like the most recent 36 or so hours ago been informed of that “shortcoming” and I expect we’ll see the fruit of that finding probably about Tuesday of next week.
JK/AR,
Uvalde had six school resource officers. I don’t know how many schools they have. I guess six wasn’t enough.
It doesn’t look like monitoring systems would have made a difference. How many cops stoop around with their thumbs up their asses for near an hour before doing anything. They were on site monitoring the shooter killing children. How much more monitoring does one need?
“They were on site monitoring the shooter killing children.”
Fair point TTG, I for one can’t see any more monitoring would’ve helped much.
Only thing I wonder is how those involved in that enjoyed the sensation back at the homebase sucking their thumbs – whether, for instance, it was a individual action or whether it was done collectively.
By all appearances at *this point it would appear to be a CYAssemblage.
I’m of the opinion that you should concentrate there in USA to building more humane society that works for everyone and stop for a moment with the obsession of invidual responsibility and outrage about cadillac moms. Yes, any welfare system is gonna have bad apples abusing it, that’s always gonna happen. So if you cut down the welfare to punish these abusers, you are making many honest poors worse off as well.
Even many comments here seem to discuss this problem for the symptoms (this includes both the gun control and the harsher punishment side) and not for the causes. Why did the shooter do this? “Well he is a raving lunatic, that’s why” is a tad bit cheap explanation. If he was crazy, why didn’t get the treatment?
How about you just concentrate on making a society where everyone can concentrate on being the best themselves, and the people like this shooter get the help they need instead of posting armed sentinels everywhere and making schools in to more impenetrable fortresses than most military camps? Instead all I see is bickering and jealousy on all sides, poor being jealous and contempt of the rich and succesful for their riches, and rich being jealous of the poor for all the handouts they are getting. Rich have succesfully build USA to be a system where rich grow ever richer and elites are more obsessed of continued grow in property and stock equities (i.e. helping the well off be more well off) and then be angry that those worse off get anything at all, all this because of alleged merit. Modern day USA would probably be incapable of fighting World War I or II equivalent again, not only because of decreased productive capacity (being shipped to China because of ‘free markets’), but because of decreased feeling of belonging in a common shared society.
TTG,
the use of a firearm to defend oneself has been documented multiple times but often times use of a weapon is not reported. I have used a firearm in defense of myself and others. However, since I did not fire the pistol the police did not seem to care and it was not documented that I know of. The assailant was charged and arrested for assault. The report you cite only goes up to 2014. FBI statistics show a decline in violent crime from the 1990’s through 2020. At the same time more states expanded Concealed Carry rights and more Americans purchased even more firearms. It would seem that if access to legal firearms fueled increased violence then we would have seen a dramatic increase in law abiding citizens being arrested. I have not seen evidence of that. Crime has increased in some areas since 2020 but I don’t think that can be conflated with the increase in lawful carry of firearms. I am on the fence about 18 year old’s being able to purchased any semiautomatic firearm but I am absolutely against any so called red flag laws.
Biz,
I’m well aware of the many uses of firearms to defend against criminals, especially in home defense, often heralded in American Rifleman. It’s a valid and valuable use of firearms. I have no problem with it at all. However, with the increase in firearms ownership in the US, there is also an increase in suicides and homicides involving firearms, at least since 2014 or so. The lawful carry of firearms hasn’t slowed that increase. However, I believe the firearms related deaths were higher in the 1970s and 1980s.
I don’t have a problem with restricting 18 year old’s purchase of semiautomatic weapons. That doesn’t stop the purchase of weapons. But I’m very much in favor of red flag laws. I can’t see the wisdom in arming wife beaters, pet torturers and the like. Violent rhetoric on social media is more problematic. Who hasn’t uttered the phrase “I’ll kill that son of a bitch” from time to time. Most states have restrictions on felons. I do think it has to be based on state and locality to make sense.
“However, with the increase in firearms ownership in the US, there is also an increase in suicides and homicides involving firearms, at least since 2014 or so.”
“Homicide is the killing of a human being due to the act or failure to act of another.” (I’ve been witness to an instance of that myself when an MD – in [his/her] own words and sincere fear of “Whatever I do, being as for the mere fact I am an MD, my *protections provide me no recourse except to avoid any intervention.” (In pre-Medicare Ages MDs generally expressed no such fears. – Good Samaritan Exclusion – And one needn’t get into the library of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not to find caselaw evidencing just that!)
https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/homicide/
Far as suicide goes, ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’
Ten extra-strength acetaminophen tablets and a pint of [good] proof vodka for instance – And I once watched a poor soul jump off an overpass.
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-study-2000-2013-1.pdf
And then there’s the trusty ol’ ‘Suicide By Cop’ I figure don’t need a link but – Ask & Ye Shall Receive!
“However, I believe the firearms related deaths were higher in the 1970s and 1980s.” [TTG]
https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis
*Prior to 1980 figures for homicide by firearm and homicide by explosive were combined.
TTG,
“Unfortunately that flies in the face of the current …”
Soft on crime policies of the left. Fixed that sentence for you.
“Our freedoms trump our community responsibilities damned near every time. ” wrong again. You might take a look at Loudoun County, the FBI is investigating parents for complaining at school board meeting about rapes on campus, which the school had covered up. Just days ago Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge James Plowman removed Commonwealth’s Attorney Biberaj from a criminal case for egregious conduct; that’s just one county in VA. Then there’s all the things the DA in San Franciso did, or more precisely did not do, that got him recalled by voters. Chicago, NYC and lots of other cities run by the soft on crime left aren’t “willing to do something when those signs of trouble are noticed” The left’s leadership is however quite willing to avoid enforcing the law where it suits their objectives.
If you don’t want a back door to be used for anything other than as an emergency exit then you put a screamer on the door. Rather discourages the use of a brick to prop open that door.
Something to look into in the inquest, I would hope.
For some reason the discussion of the role the door played in this incident brought to mind one of Steven Willett’s posts here, specifically his translation of a paraklausithyron (lament besides a door). Although the poem belongs to the genre of love poetry, it struck me that the device using an inanimate door as dramatis persona could very easily be employed to narrate a tragedy too. In this case the door’s lament would be the fact that it had not been properly closed, and perhaps an appeal to absolve it of blame.
There could be a connection to Aldous Huxley’s book,Doors of perception.
This one is called….Bain’s blight
The touch on white silver rings loud
There is a windjack ķnock on my door
I see his shadowing in the gap proud
He has come before
It sings a trill in tricksters song
Calling a bell that peals from tower
To the shadows does it belong
Sounds of dark power
From the cup of black water
Droplets to the floor fall
I call upon the sun’s daughter
To cast a flaming ball
In the heat of shimmers desire
I glimpse bane’s blight
Tis the wind of smoke and fire
That pursues it into the night
‘Red Flag’ laws are extremely problematic. Can my lefty loon neighbor call the county sheriff and bear false witness about me and my guns and get a judge to sign off on a search warrant and the SWAT team raids my house and confiscate my arsenal?
“Can my lefty loon neighbor call the county sheriff and bear false witness”?
Unfortunately Mr. Turner owing to a situation I currently find myself in I can’t offer [on advice of counsel] any personal experience However I have seen that movie before.
But the evidence would suggest yes indeed a neighbor may do just that. And it can be far far worse – search the term Swatting
Fortunately for purposes of illustration I can provide another person’s experience:
https://areaocho.com/trouble/
https://areaocho.com/prohibited-person/
&
https://5aial.com/ice-hockey-a-fan-shouts-shoot-shoot-his-neighbors-call-the-police/
Some minutes ago (30? – 100?) I left a comment in reply to Mr. Turner.
(Yes Colonel Lang, TTG, I’m aware y’all got better and/or importanter things to do than sitting around all day at the computer yea’ing or nay’ing comments. Personally I hope y’all are sitting on a creekbank fishing.)
It’s simply that I think it incumbent on myself to provide *documentary evidence that, I have expressed, in the past, *support for what DC & the media are now calling “Red Flag Laws.”
https://malcolmpollack.com/2018/02/27/common-ground/
While, on the whole I remain cautiously supportive of the proposition in theory I also must say my views have “modified.”
Another concern I worry over is the tendency of Congress-Critters to add amendments. Example : When Obamacare was being debated Mrs. Pelosi famously said “We’ll have to pass the bill to find what’s in it”!
JK/AR
“You all” is just me and authors concerning their own work.
Yes Sir.
Keep in mind the nutty shooter was from California and we do have some form of “red flag” laws in this gun-control state -which in fact are very leaky sieves.
So how did this guy slip past any “red flag” gun ownership warnings before he even left the state line? Plus the guy had a nasty knife too – and we also have increased in knife and machete attacks here too – will their be red flag laws for machete or steak knife and French chef knives too?
We need to concentrate on the nut case profile and spend all proper efforts getting these people off the streets and out of our harms way. Everything else has proven not to work.
The latest news, along with pictures/video, show the police were fully armed and equipped to break the door down but sat outside for an hour. “Just obeying orders”. What a familiar line. No wonder they tried keeping all the evidence away from the public. On a related note Senator Corynn of Texas was soundly booed for a minute and a half at the state GOP convention.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-sen-cornyn-booed-crowd-state-gop-convention-negotiating-gun-control-bill
fred
Her panic and stupidity was compounded by their cowardice.
Yes. She couldn’t go without her cell phone for a couple hours while teaching kids?
Fred,
The teacher went to get food out of her car for lunch. Don’t know if it was her personal lunch or food for the school lunch. The video showed her pulling the door shut, not just letting it shut. Was the lock broken? Was she supposed to pull a Hodor and continue holding the door shut herself with the armed intruder trying to get in?
TTG,
She wasn’t supposed to use that door at all.
Fred,
Why not? Was it labeled fire exit only?
TTG,
I suggest you ask the principal to explain how that door essential to school safety was supposed to be used by the staff and whether that was a school supplied rock or just one lying around the grounds.
Fred,
I haven’t read anything that said that door was not to be used. If it wasn’t supposed to be used at all, I would think that would be pointed out by now.
“Attorney Don Flanary told the Express-News that the teacher, who hasn’t been named publicly, used a rock to prop open the door while she briefly left the building to bring food from the parking lot to the school just before lunch last Tuesday. She then saw Salvador Ramos crash his truck in a ditch near the school, Flanary said, and went inside to get her phone and call 911.
The teacher was on the phone with the emergency service when she emerged again from the school and was confronted with a frightening shift in the circumstances, as the truck’s driver approached the school with a rifle.
“The funeral people next door are yelling, ‘He’s got a gun,'” Flanary told NPR on Wednesday. “And then she looks over and sees him throw a backpack over the fence and then sees him with the [AR-15-style rifle] slung over his shoulder, sees him hop the fence and start running towards her. So she immediately ran back inside, kicked the rock out and slammed the door.”
There is video of the teacher slamming the door shut. What was she supposed to do? Hold the door shut against an active shooter? Was her name Hodor?
TTG,
I’m am glad to that learn that her hearing was good enough to clearly distingush what someone was yelling at her from 100 yards away.
I see Greg Ellifritz weighs in with some additional information.
I haven’t TTG reviewed our past “discussion” where the school resource officer was concerned – I believe I wrote “there was no such officer on site that day” which as I recall you disputed. Which may, may have not been the case, so far as our discussing the details then are concerned. However Item #5 on the included graphic states “School cop drives past Ramos 11:32 AM” then on Item #7, “Ramos enters school 11:33AM”
https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/uvalde-updates
(Publish date : June 21, 2022)
JK/AR,
I believe I said the resource officer should have been on site. I based that on the observation that the school cop drove past the shooter and was obviously not at the school. I don’t know why he wasn’t at his post. Perhaps he was the resource officer at several schools which would be an absolutely idiotic policy.
Reviewed ours above now TTG, (See your comment of 8:57 17 June and my reply). I’ve slept since then but I think now at the ground level we really didn’t have much of a dispute, if at all.
This sort of thing, when there’s so many unknowns, (and really even at this point we’re all so to speak, still [much] in the dark) it’s too easy to fall into a “pit of unnecessary contention” I just wanted to acknowledge to you I might well have been ‘speaking out my arse’ so to speak.
JK/AR,
I thought we were headed to the same destination, just by different paths. No sweat. I still don’t understand how those coward cops are still on the job, taking the community’s money and facing those people every day. If I ever put myself in that position, I’d pack up in the middle of the night and take off for parts unknown.