How the Lessons of Columbine Saved Lives At Arapahoe High School 894
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Ray Sanchez reports at CNN that the handling of Friday's shooting at Arapahoe High School, just 10 miles from the scene of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, drew important lessons from the earlier bloodshed. At Arapahoe High School, where senior Claire Davis, 17, was critically injured before the shooter turned the gun on himself, law enforcement officers responded within minutes and immediately entered the school to confront the gunman rather than surrounding the building. As the sound of shots reverberated through the corridors, teachers immediately followed procedures put in place after Columbine, locking the doors and moving students to the rear of classrooms. "That's straight out of Columbine," says Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services. "The goal is to proceed and neutralize the shooter. Columbine really revolutionized the way law enforcement responds to active shooters." Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson credits the quick police response time for the fact that student Karl Pierson, the gunman, stopped firing on others and turned his weapon on himself less than 1 minute, 20 seconds after entering the school. Authorities knew from research and contact with forensic psychologists that school shooters typically continue firing until confronted by law enforcement. "It's very unfortunate that we have to say that there's a textbook response on the way to respond to these," says Trump, "because that textbook was written based on all of the incidents that we've had and the lessons learned (PDF).""
Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
The first rule should be to not give easy access to firearms to the general public in the first place.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems obvious to most Europeans. And my emphasis is on 'easy'; not never no way ever, else I'd be all for unconditionally banning bleach and kitchen knives and human-driven cars too. This needs a more nuanced fix than most would like to admit I think.
I *never* want to see permits for concealed carry or similar in the UK, BTW.
Rgds
Damon
Re: Rule #1 (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer is obvious to a lot of people in the US too. Don't publicly and legally declare huge buildings full of people as defenseless. Schools are the only place in the country that I know of where firearms are unequivocally banned yet there is no security otherwise. This is the most dumbfounding lot obvious thing in the world...and despite shooting after shooting after shooting we don't do a thing about it. The article even points out that the most important thing is to confront the shooter as soon possi
Re: Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
I was hiking just the other day in the woods, and came across a pair of young men plinking with a handgun -- not legal in this park, by the way, but I'm not uptight about stuff like that. They were standing on on side of the path and shooting across the path at some soda cans they'd set up on a log. I excused myself as I crossed their improved shooting range, and they resumed firing.
It was then I noticed that even though they were standing only eight feet from their target they couldn't hit it. And this was with all the time in the world to draw a bead on their target.
Now in the hypothetical scenario where the good guy is called upon to draw his weapon to defend people from a shooter, the good guy is always a crack shot, but if it were one of these bozos shooting to save his life, the safest place to be when they were shooting is between them and whatever they were shooting at.
I'm fairly relaxed about guns. They're not my thing, but I don't get vapors if someone else has one. But it's been my observation that gun owners are like drivers in their skill self-assessment. Nearly all of them think they're better than average and it's quite common for them to think they're pretty darn amazing.
A school shooting that ends with only one critically injured student is a pretty good outcome. Expecting a *better* outcome with some randomly chosen gun enthusiast trying to shoot to save his life strikes me as unrealistically optimistic.
Re: Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments killed 20X the number of civilians as civilians killed civilians in the 20th century worldwide.
I think I know who to be concerned of thank you very much.
Re: Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
All the dead of WWI or WWII pale in comparison to the vast Communist genocides of the 20th century, all of which were committed on disarmed populations.
Get your facts straight. OP wasn't talking about war dead.
Re: (Score:3)
> And how would the residents of Dresden have fared during the Allied firebombing of their city if they had their small arms?
They might have prevented the 12 million that their own regime killed in deathcamps.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Rule #1 (Score:4, Interesting)
No, people looking for a way to people use guns to kill other people. More often than not because that's the most efficient way.
There's a pretty good example of this in Switzerland. Just a few years ago they had a pretty big (by European standards) gun murder problem (far less than US).
How did they take it down to European levels in spite of every man having an assault rifle at home, courtesy of Swiss army? They forbade owning ammunition and mandated that gun itself is stored in completely disassembled state. They also forbade taking gun out of the house without special permit, which is difficult to get.
Result: their murder rate went to European one, with gun murder collapsing. Because when the most efficient tool is disassembled and has no ammo, people use other more available but less efficient tools, which may or may not serve the purpose. It's very easy to kill someone with a gun. It's a lot harder to kill someone with a knife. It's exceptionally hard to kill someone with bare hands.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
In Israel, Switzerland and even the crime ridden South Africa, everybody has firearms at home and they don't have school shootings. It is something peculiar to the USA.
If the USAsians don't have guns, then they will gouge each other's eyes out with spoons...
Re: (Score:3)
It is something particular to certain inner city subcultures actually, that's where the majority of gun (and other) crimes are committed. These tragic school shootings are not the majority of gun deaths. I reject the notion that other people should have their guns taken away because of the actions of certain inner city savages without civilization, without regard for life or property or rule of law. To reduce crime in the USA those lawless and immoral people need culture change.
Re: (Score:3)
School shootings are much more of a suburban thing than an inner city thing. They are generally carried out by people who feel bullied. While the history of school shootings in the US [wikipedia.org] dates back to its founding, there are also quite a few shootings elsewhere [wikipedia.org]. Media attention has dramatically increased of course, but it isn't like they happen every day.
The answer to the problem is really anti-bullying training of students, and it happens now. There will always be something, but teachers carrying guns is
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Informative)
If you take a tiny handful of small neighborhoods out of the equation (places like Flint, Michigan) the United States is actually an extremely peaceful place
Your statement is completely false. Take a look at the murder rate by state and you will find that the lowest rate state is New Hampshire. Guess what? New Hampshire still has a higher murder rate (barely) than Western, Northern or Southern Europe. 42 of the 50 states have a more than double rate. 37 triple. 28 quadruple. 18 quintuple.
So no, taking a couple ZIP codes out of the equation will not get us to where civilized countries homicide rates are.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Informative)
A slight correction. My numbers compared states to Western Europe only. North and South are slightly higher in homicide rates, but still well below US averages and below all but one or two of US states
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
When out walking to and from the grocery store in the evening I would occasionally encounter a group of youths...I kept my eyes fixed on their eyes as I approached and walked past them...They usually stepped aside even when there was plenty of space between us to pass with them widening the berth. Apparently, a clean-cut guy wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and polished boots sent a message to them.
Hmm... sounds to me more like they wanted to have nothing with a crazy-eyed man who walks around looking like he's trying to pick a fight, while wearing polished boots in Texas heat.
There's probably some "veteran with untreated PTSD" vibe going on there.
As for guns, it's the same as with cars.
I have no problems with driving, owning or being in a car with a capable and conscientious driver if a car is in a working order.
It's all those who are "simply better" drivers, "smarter" owners and those driving drunk that worry me.
I could be walking through the park, just minding my own business, and still a drunk driver could run me over. Or someone "good enough" to drive with worn out breaks.
Some people simply shouldn't be allowed to drive.
Now, extend that same logic to guns, only take into account the range of guns, ease of use and carry, and number of projectiles a single person can "spread" across that same park I was taking a stroll through.
To turn that old saying around, if guns are allowed not only outlaws will have guns - nutcases will have them too.
A tragedy in any other country is success here (Score:5, Informative)
"Every country is unique, but Australia is more similar to the US than is, say, Japan or England. We have a frontier history and a strong gun culture. Each state and territory has its own gun laws, and in 1996 these varied widely between the jurisdictions. At that time Australia's firearm mortality rate per population was 2.6/100,000 -- about one-quarter the US rate, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the US Center for Disease Control. Today the rate is under 1/100,000 -- less than one-tenth the US rate. Those figures refer to all gun deaths -- homicide, suicide and unintentional. If we focus on gun homicide rates, the US outstrips Australia 30-fold.
The 1996 reforms made gun laws stronger and uniform across Australia. Semi-automatic rifles were prohibited (with narrow exceptions), and the world's biggest buyback saw nearly 700,000 guns removed from circulation and destroyed. The licensing and registration systems of all states and territories were harmonised and linked, so that a person barred from owning guns in one state can no longer acquire them in another. All gun sales are subject to screening (universal background checks), which means you cannot buy a gun over the internet or at a garage sale.
-
Australia didn't ban guns. Hunting and shooting are still thriving. But by adopting laws that give priority to public safety, we have saved thousands of lives."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/14/america-mass-murder-australia-gun-control-saves-lives [theguardian.com]
Re:A tragedy in any other country is success here (Score:5, Informative)
The UK isn't gun free as many think - if you've got a need for a shotgun or a rifle (eg farmers, sport shooters) then it's pretty straightforward to get a license. The big, lifesaving difference is that we don't just have guns lying around. Speak to anyone who holds a firearms license and you'll find they have much the same attitude as a range safety officer in the US, rather than the attitude of somebody who keeps a loaded pistol next to the bed in an unlocked drawer - if a gun in the UK is not being used it's kept locked in a metal safe, bolted to the floor, with the ammunition kept in a seperate locked box. The idea that people can just have a gun without adopting some obvious and strict responsibilities is the main difference.
Re:A tragedy in any other country is success here (Score:5, Informative)
I think you should probably visit the UK and Australia before posting any more of these ridiculous statements.
Regarding daily life, they're more free. There are fewer laws, a less-corrupt police force, a better justice system.
Do you really think the US government would have any more trouble controlling citizens than the Australian government?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm an American, I've been to the UK. I used to live in LA, only place I was ever victim to violent crime (a mugging by knife) was in London. Never been mugged in the US, not even when living in LA.
I lived in one of England's larger cities for 18 years, and London for another 10, and the only time I've been a victim of crime is when someone stole my bicycle (when it was locked in the street). Anecdotes are a bit pointless.
But of course you guys always focus in on gun violence which is lower there, but ignore violent crime in general, which isn't.
That claim floats around, but it's not valid. See http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checking-ben-swann-is-the-uk-really-5-times-more-violent-than-the-us/ [skepticallibertarian.com] -- the US has a violent crime rate of 446/100,000. The UK classifies a much, much wider group of crimes as "v
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Very true.
I'm from Germany, were gun laws are much, MUCH stricter and therefore we aren't seeing such tragedies on a yearly basis like it's come to be anticipated in the US.
There's really not all that much you can do to prevent people and especially children from going psycho every once in a while. That doesn't mean you should stop trying, of course, but the main thing you'll first have to take care of is just this: If someone cracks, see to it that this person can't inflict that much damage on himself or h
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Mexico has much stricter laws than Germany, what a gun-violence-free paradise that is eh?
and before someone repeats lie of certain BATF official, most guns in Mexico in fact don't originate in the USA.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm from Germany, were gun laws are much, MUCH stricter and therefore we aren't seeing such tragedies on a yearly basis like it's come to be anticipated in the US.
In Swiss, every single person that once belonged to the army are not just allowed, but expected to have personal arms in home.
The guns aren't the problem. People are.
Guns are almost banned in Brazil, for example, and we have simply the worst ratio of firearm killed people in the world.
Banning firearms does no good. What EUA (and, yet more urgently, Brazil) should start to do is banning bad firearms owners.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Legally carried handguns are very, very rarely used in crimes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"There's really not all that much you can do to prevent people and especially children from going psycho every once in a while. That doesn't mean you should stop trying, of course, but the main thing you'll first have to take care of is just this: If someone cracks, see to it that this person can't inflict that much damage on himself or his environment."
Sure.
Now, I believe you are implying that having fewer weapons around serves this purpose.
That is not such a straightforward proposition however. Because th
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
will be hard to get rid of these days
You've nailed it: these days are the key words here. Guns were widely available in North America since before the U.S.A. was even a country. Yet those mass school shootings seem to be the thing of the last decade. There's the answer everyone is looking for: stuff has changed over time, and enough change in whatever is the underlying parameter (or parameters) has accumulated that in the last 10 years we've got more kids killed by gun in schools than there have been, apparently, in the previous 100 years (or so it'd seem?). I doubt that removal of guns will change much, because the underlying problem will still be there. We'll have mass knifings, mass strangulations (an 18 inch zip tie is all it takes!), etc. instead.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Schools are only gun free to the extent that there are no guns brought in from outside.
Europe has roughly the same population as the US and the murder rate is actually identical - if you exclude firearms deaths. The number of Americans murdered with knives etc. is pretty much the same as the number of Europeans.
The higher US murder rate is entirely due to the NRA and the politicians who are to weak in the spine to stand up to them.
The UK gun murder rate is essentially zero because it is almost impossible fo
Re:no you just have lots and lots of stabbings and (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually Europe has a much higher population than the US. The population of the EU countries is now over 500 million. If Europe is more unified politically, it will be the single biggest geopolitical force in the world.
Re:no you just have lots and lots of stabbings and (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. You ignore the elephant in the room. Take away the crimes of two inner city subcultures from the statistics and then the murder and violent crime rates are the same as Europe. You are focusing on a minute sliver of the pie of gun crime, and ignoring the real problem. Based on your myopic view, you would take away guns from people who have the right and ability to own properly own and use them.
Re:no you just have lots and lots of stabbings and (Score:5, Insightful)
Until you take away the crimes of the inner city subcultures from Europe then they go up again. You think Europe doesn't have ultra-violent ghettoes and a drugs problem? You need to get out more.
Re:no you just have lots and lots of stabbings and (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The UK gun murder rate is essentially zero because the UK police are drastically underreporting crime by a factor of 1/3 by conservative estimates. They have an investment in underreporting or failing to report violent crime.
Re:no you just have lots and lots of stabbings and (Score:4, Interesting)
Most obvious way: Don't count them unless the person is dead on the spot. If they die in the hospital they're not counted.
There are many ways. Murder count does not equal body count.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the UK, a few behaviors have been publicized in recent years.
1) Report multiple-victim crimes as a single crime. I.e. if 3 people die, only one is counted officially.
2) Report murder as a lesser crime such as manslaughter.
3) Fail to report the use of a firearm.
There are other serious issues with crime reporting in the UK, but those are the most pertinent and egregious ones I can remember.
Re: (Score:3)
By classifying the affected as "pining for the fjords"?
Re: (Score:3)
More like the systematic 5-crime-per-person cap that the BCS uses to arbitrarily limit the number of crimes that are counted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6239864.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Since the number of violent crimes has not jumped 84 percent since then, I can only conclude that the practice continues.
Fuck off.
Re: (Score:3)
And calling the entire population "100% dead as human beings"? What does that even mean? The most favorable interpretation makes you look like a loon.
Re:no you just have lots and lots of stabbings and (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Last I heard gangs in parts of the UK were trying to make their own ammo at home and the result was of a much lower quality that killed far less frequently than professionally manufactured ammo.
They must be idiots, then, since at-home reloading is very common in the U.S., you have many catalogs and sites selling reloading supplies. I've yet to hear that the reloads are somehow fundamentally inferior.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh and BTW the schools are 'gun free zones'
The schools *should* be gun free zones. Obviously, they aren't.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
The huge numbers of countries that have strong gun control are not suffering with school massacres being committed with bombs instead.
Where do you get a lot of people setting off home made bombs? Places where there are also a lot of guns. Iraq in the last decade. Northern Ireland in the 70s/80s. etc.
Bombs are not gun alternatives. Cutting guns does not increase bomb attacks.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you know that with some kind of explosive (preferably one that you can remotely detonate) and some coins (easily available) you probably can kill or severely injure a lot more people than you can with a firearm? The ensuring explosion is like a frag grenade, except you can make it a lot bigger and lethal. Bonus points for triggering it in a cafeteria o some other kind of eating place with lots of people.
As another poster said, this requires a lot more premeditation. A nail bomb is pretty easy to assemble with ingredients that are readily available in most industrialised nations, but doing so requires (at the very least) a few hours of work. If you want timed detonation, that's more thought and planning, and you need to be quite calm while building the bomb or you're likely to just blow your hands off. Most people, by the time they've even got as far as thinking through how they'd go about blowing up their school will have calmed down enough to realise that it's a bad idea.
In contrast, if a gun is readily available then you just need to pick it up and, while still angry, got back to the school and start shooting. You don't need to think hard about what you're doing. That's one of the rationales behind laws that require a 24 hour or 7 day period between ordering a gun and getting it - if you want to kill someone in cold blood, you'll find a way of doing it with or without a gun, but if you're thinking of doing it because you're stressed or angry, then there's a good chance you'll have changed your mind by the end of the cooling off period. Of course, if you go ahead and buy the gun, there's nothing to stop you the next time you get stressed...
Re:that's been tried. Rape is bad, m'kay (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with your statistics is that the gun culture in the UK was drastically different to the US before the ban anyway, as basically no one could ever be expected to be carrying a firearm on their person, and the increase in reported crimes comes hand in hand with a change in how crimes are recorded and reported, and increased immigration due to EU law changes.
Before the ban in the UK, firearms were still highly regulated and controlled - the police would visit your home to ensure you had a gun safe, and check to see you were correctly reporting your ammunition counts etc, and if they saw a problem then you had your license revoked. There never was a culture of people carrying guns around in their purses or coat pockets, so nothing changed there in potential threats to attackers. Concealed carry licenses are still available today, exactly the same as they were prior to the ban - you can still apply for one, and the rules haven't changed on whether you would get one or not.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with your statistics is that the gun culture in the UK was drastically different to the US before the ban anyway
I'd go even further. The overall culture in the U.S. is very different than in Europe. It can be best observed in the unfortunately very popular gospel of prosperity [wikipedia.org] approach to life here. Some "churches" (I'd call them money congregations) in the U.S. would be subject of wide ridicule elsewhere in the world, and especially in Europe. So there's something very fundamentally different about the way people here "think".
I'd say that there's a much lower level difference in cultures between the U.S. and the re
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Interesting)
School shootings are basically suicides.
It has been observed that suicide is kind of like a disease. Those prone to suicide copy the methods used by others. Suicide that gets publicity often brings on a wave of copycats.
For example, in Germany, the 'ghost driver' suicide method is an occasionally problem (deliberately driving wrong way on the autobahn killing themselves and those in the oncoming car). In most of the world going the wrong way on the highway is about being very drunk or very senile, in Germany it's an angry bastard killing him/her self and taking out a random car full of people.
IMHO we give these bastards too much publicity. It's partly on the gun grabbers that run the media.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I've got my popcorn...
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the fact that some of those shooters are simple psychopaths.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold - pretended to show promise after they attended the anger management classes, even writing a letter of apology to the van owner. At the same time, they wrote in their journal about their god-given right to break into a van in the middle of nowhere. Other bits of motive exist, with them generally claiming things persistent with narcissism.
Granted, most of the problems could be avoided by people paying attention. Obviously, the person providing the firearms should have known that something was wrong with purchasing a semi-auto pistol and a shotgun for two minors who had a questionable history.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
"People going on a shooting spree are as much a victim of society as the people they kill."
With that statement, you simply assume that all people are good, and that no people are evil. And, that idea is so terribly naive, so stupid, that we shouldn't have to discuss it.
The FACT IS, evil little children grow into evil teens, who grow into evil young adults, who then mature into evil adults, and eventually evil old bastards.
You may pretend that no child is evil. You and society in general may pretend that all children are equal in all respects.
I'll go with Darwin, and survival of the fittest. Some kids are simply unfit to fit into society in any way, shape, or form.
And, I suspect that every member of Slashdot who happens to be a mother, or hopes to be a mother, will hate me forever now.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, sorry, I don't know the American Constitution by heart, although I' ve read it at least once (since it is a great document - too bad it does not apply post-9/11) and I know what it says. But to correct things (and it is actually more restrictive - it talks about "well regulated"):
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
So, the forefathers in one sentence put two very significant but non-related r
Re: (Score:3)
Columbine was a horrible disaster, but they would have used explosives if they didnt have guns, we were not stopping them by getting rid of guns, we would have stopped them with better mental health
As for Zimmerman, perhaps trayvon should not have attacked him, Now you are against a man defending himself as well?
What is the liberal fascination with differentiating "gun deaths
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're the one to misread the constitution:
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"
This was clarified in District of Columbia v. Heller:
"The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#District_of_Columbia_v._Heller [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, when I said "misread" I did not mean just a few people in the US. I meant a lot, including the majority (5-4) of the SCOTUS. Read the dissenting view of the same case. It says the exact opposite, which is basically the obvious if you are not trying to please the NRA. Allow us non-Americans to read your constitution as it was meant. It is not like you cherish it that much anyway, more and more parts of it are abolished (or "clarified" if you wish) in the name of "safety" or whatever other excuse.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Fortunately, not only did the founding fathers author the Constitution, they also transcribed their struggles in each side fighting for what they believed belonged in the Constitution. These were called the Federalist Papers, and demonstrate how completely wrong you are.
Not to mention the numerous state constitutions at the time that were worded more bluntly regarding the individual right to bear arms.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Informative)
This is a common argument that stems from, I believe, not only a lack of historical context but also the absence of actually reading the plain language of the Bill of Rights or in understanding it's underlying architecture and design purpose.
Most people don't know the preamble to the Bill of Rights which starts:
"The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution."
For some reason, there exists a widely held belief that the Bill of Rights grants rights to the people when, in actuality, the Bill of Rights places specific restrictions on the government. The plain language of the individual amendments support the preamble:
Amendment I - "Congress shall make no law..."
Amendment II - "...shall not be infringed."
Amendment III - "No Soldier shall..."
Amendment IV - "...shall not be violated..."
The Bill of Rights is not a list of rights retained by the people but is rather a list of prohibitions placed upon the government so they don't misconstrue and, therefore, misapply, the powers the document granted to the government.
The overall architecture of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights does not in any way support the argument that the second amendment is a grant of power to state militias. In Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court finally acknowledged as such.
You should take this opportunity to read the U.S. Constitution and its amendments. You may gain an appreciation for the beauty of the document and what it actually means. You may even gain a better appreciation for the argument many of us espouse about the presumption of liberty.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Rule #1 should be....keep armed law enforcement in schools at all times.
I'd honestly rather not make schools more like prisons than they already are.
School shootings are rare, even if the media makes it seem like they occur often and are the cause of an untold number of deaths. Other than perhaps improving mental health care, I don't think much else should be done. Keeping armed law enforcement in schools would just be a waste of money, in my opinion.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that depends on how you look at it. You're restricting people's freedoms to stop a few people who abuse a tool, and barring extraordinarily catastrophic situations, I just can't get behind that.
So, around 10,000 homicides by gun EVERY YEAR, plus around 20,000 suicides by gun EVERY YEAR. Just under 3,000 deaths on 9/11 justified gutting the bill of rights, invading a country or two, but you don't think the 130,000 homicides by gun SINCE 9/11 is an "extraordinarily catastrophic situation"? How in the world do Americans become accustomed to such carnage? I guess it's true; we suck at putting things in perspective.
Re:Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)
10,000 firearm related homicides, and a total yearly mortality rate of over 2 MILLION! Thats less than 0.5% of all annual deaths in the US. Most of those are probably due to gang warfare, which isn't going to stop even if you could magically remove all civilian firearms in the US. Speaking more directly to firearms. Most estimates say that there are at least 270 Million civilian firearms in the US, that means that only 0.0037% of firearms are misused each year. You want to penalize probably in the neighborhood of 100 Million people for the actions of less than 10,000. If you're really looking to save lives we need to fix hospitals, medical malpractice is estimated to kill almost 200,000 a year.
Sick kids (Score:5, Insightful)
We should be reading the text book on how to prevent this kind of tragedies. Treat cause and not sympthoms.
I don't see saved lives but 2 lost lives.
sad (Score:5, Insightful)
So sad the news is
Columbine really revolutionized the way law enforcement responds to active shooters.
instead of
Columbine really revolutionized the way society identifies and treats those in need of psychological support in order to avoid them turning into active shooters.
Re: sad (Score:3)
Re: sad (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's that simple.
It's easy to buy somebody a military-grade weapon to respond to a shooting. A few buck, one-time charge to a department that wants to spend it. Heck, just think of all the uses that one-time charge would provide!
It's not easy to reform our health system (look at how they tried, then completely failed because of the political battles and lobbyists), where there would be an ongoing charge that people would be reminded of each and every year when they pay their taxes. Regardless if they get better services (like mental health services) for the same if not lower prices -- it became a perceived burden that is subject to the political whims each and every year there is a new congress that wants to push their current agenda.
In my mind, the reason why the USA has all these problems with guns is not because of the guns. It's because of the people (guns don't kill people -- people kill people). All of the comparables that you can look at in Europe, Asia, etc. where firearms are available (or even in many places where it is not), if somebody has a mental illness there are actually resources available to help them. In the USA getting any help for mental illnesses is discouraged either due to lack of insurance, the incorrect insurance (service A is covered, but you need service B, which is not), or even the fear that they find something worse and you end up having to sell your house to get basic coverage. I have a few friends that are taking care of others who have severe mental issues -- and even though they have good jobs they have to live like paupers because of all the stuff that isn't covered by the insurance they can afford (and even them, the people they are helping get treatment are only getting the bare minimal treatment) . A fellow engineer who makes $100k/yr is living with his mother who has dementia barely has enough to pay for gas each week. Her medical bills alone after insurance is still $5k/month. If that doesn't discourage you to get treatment, I don't know what will.
So what have we learned (Score:5, Insightful)
The way to deal with shooter situations is having a better emergency procedures? What about all the hidden surveillance and monitoring and CCTVs and metal detectors and RFID tags? What did they do to help?
Re:So what have we learned (Score:5, Insightful)
Ensure reelection of officials by pretending to do something?
Re: (Score:3)
Do tell me about all the shootings these intrusive things stopped.
This shows we still haven't really learned (Score:5, Insightful)
Our current health care system fails miserably at this. The Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2010 (aka "affordable care act", aka "Obamacare") does almost nothing for this problem.
I Thought Lesson was "Don't Publicize Shootings" (Score:5, Insightful)
"But it shouldn’t require another Sandy Hook to make us realize something has to change. The school shooters are committing a grandiose form of suicide. Media, traditionally, doesn’t cover suicides, and is very careful when it does. It’s a long-standing custom, borne out of numerous studies from groups like the Suicide Prevention Resource Center and the National Institute of Mental Health.
“More than 50 research studies worldwide have found that certain types of news coverage can increase the likelihood of suicide in vulnerable individuals,” the NIMH concluded. “The magnitude of the increase is related to the amount, duration and prominence of coverage.”
mental illness ignored again (Score:3)
Why are the police are claiming "credit"? (Score:5, Interesting)
It appears that the timeline is:
Shooter enters school and shoots 1 student.
Shooter kills himself.
Police respond.
Police claim credit.
Unless I'm missing something here, it doesn't look like the police response accomplished anything. They arrived after the crime was over and done with.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: police arive within 'minutes' (Score:4, Informative)
Feel free to live in a city/county with strict gun laws with a high violent crime rate while the rest of us with guns live in one with a low violent crime rate.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/
But no amount of facts will convince you I'm sure, since you want to "believe" guns are bad.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, I'll call your bullshit. Do you realize the data you're pointing to does NOT validate your argument?
If you want to say that more guns = more safety, then compare more relevant data, like the number of homicides by fireweapon in countries with diferent approaches to gun control.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime [unodc.org] has some interesting statistics. The latest data shows there's over 3 homicides by fireweapon per 100k population in the US per year. In Canada, Australia, and every single country in Europe, that
Re: police arive within 'minutes' (Score:5, Informative)
What do you mean? Are you saying you combine all the US states but only consider EU members states individually so none of them get into the hundred plus million? Or do you really have no idea how many people live in Europe?
Here's the population of some of the larger countries. Slashdot won't let me post them all because of the spam filter. Total population in the EU is over 500 million.
Germany: 80,640,000
United Kingdom: 64,231,000
France: 63,820,000
Italy: 59,789,000
Spain: 46,958,000
Poland: 38,548,000
Romania: 19,858,000
Netherlands: 16,795,000
Belgium: 11,162,000
Greece: 10,758,000
Portugal: 10,609,000
Czech Republic: 10,519,000
Re: police arive within 'minutes' (Score:5, Informative)
Ok, so we let you cherry pick - you can remove the two regions with the highest murder rate - DC and Louisiana (whose rates are 150% of the 3rd highest state [wikipedia.org] - you get a rate of 4.11/100k
In fact, you have to remove the top 12 states before you get below the European level of 3.5/100k. But wait, if you get to remove your outliers, so do we, so I remove our top two - Greenland and Russia (Europe has really expanded since I left school) - which gives us 2.5/100k. The US would have to remove *half* of the states as "outliers" to get to that level.
However, I disagree with the gun control advocates - removing guns won't reduce your murder rate by much - you'd just find a different way to kill each other.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It simply means the problem is extremely concentrated and has very simple and obvious solutions. It is not endemic to the US nor is it a problem of overall violence. It is specific, highly-localized violence with solutions that are clear, scientific, and easily attainable.
Hint: the solutions do not have anything to do with guns.
Are you really questioning whether European countries are more homogenous? Really? Good lord.
Re: (Score:3)
Depends which European countries you're talking about since there are many and there has been a great deal of mass immigration to the richer countries in the last 60 years. The problem of violent crime in Europe is fairly well concentrated in the bad areas too so your argument falls down. I tell you what let's pretend that the US has no crime then you can say that Europe is more violent than the US.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
OMFG, what a delucion you have! You have low violent crime rates? Bwahaha, give me a break.
And yes, I feel perfectly happy - and safe - living here in Finland where we have much stricter gun laws and much smaller violent crime rates, thank you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you only want to give criminals the right to carry guns?
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:5, Interesting)
I suggest that people with your attitude just GROW UP. I submit that people are dangerous. Almost all people have the capacity to kill, given the proper motivation. The people who are made infamous by these school shootings have found that motivation. A lot of the victims of these shooters have found the motivation as well, but they were denied the tools by society, and by people like you.
You act as if guns are the only tools which might be used by a mass murderer. This is slashdot - why don't we submit a survey, to find out how many people know the basics for making a bomb? It's not terribly complex, after all. A novice can collect a few pounds of explosive material, and design a simple time delay fuse, or even an impact fuse. A novice in junior high school can find the basic instructions on line, and begin to refine those instructions into a plan. I'm wondering how many elementary school fifth and sixth grade kids could do it, given strong enough motivation.
Then, we have gases. If guns are hard to get, gassing a school may become a more inviting method of mass murder. Or poison.
I've got a better idea. Instead of pointing fingers at the NRA, take a good look at Hollyweird. 24 hours a day, movies are playing that make teen idols of people shooting up shopping malls, residential areas, downtown areas, office buildings - you name it. I submit that the MPAA has invested untold billions of dollars, brainwashing the less stable elements of society to use firearms as a solution to their problems.
Of course, you can come to my house to confiscate my weapons.
Oh, what's that? You're not going to do that? You're going to send some other mother's children to do the confiscating? Yeah, that's what I thought. All mouth, and no action. You want to give money, and give guns, to young men who desire power and authority so that THEY can come bust my doors down, and take MY weapons.
If and when you and yours have achieved this Utopian police state that you dream of, I hope you enjoy it. I can see it now, Chicago Land all across the United States.
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:5, Insightful)
"Its just a hobby, you folk don't have the right to cause 50,000 deaths a year for your hobby"
Change 'hobby' to 'social drinking'. How about we take this logic and apply it to alcohol (as it relates to deaths due to drunk driving)? Any takers? If not, why not?
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:4, Informative)
Change 'hobby' to 'social drinking'. How about we take this logic and apply it to alcohol (as it relates to deaths due to drunk driving)?
In 2010 there were 32,885 [wikipedia.org] vehicle fatalities. 10,228 [cdc.gov] were listed as alcohol related. And those statistics are even skewed since if anyone involved, whether they were the cause of the collision or not, had any level of alcohol it's marked as alcohol related. The problem isn't drunk drivers. The problem is irresponsible drivers drunk or sober. If you're going to look at traffic fatalities address the real issue rather than the neo-prohibitionist agenda of certain groups. If you fix the maniacal driving problem and make people responsible for their actions when driving drunk driving won't be an issue.
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:4, Insightful)
"The vast majority are suicides and accidental shootings. Making guns illegal would practically eliminate those causes of death."
This is naive and illogical. I suppose you think the first suicide came after the invention of the firearm? There are many ways to commit suicide, and many, many dangerous items with which one can kill oneself accidentally as well.
Suicide is an act of hopelessness. If you want to prevent it, you should act to give hope to the hopeless, not to take what little they do have away from them. And accidental deaths are best addressed with safe handling training. People that handle firearms carefully and correctly are not the problem there.
Less guns, less suicides (Score:4, Informative)
You may find this article interesting: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/12/gun_ownership_causes_higher_suicide_rates_study_shows.html [slate.com]
Yes, less guns means less suicides, as everybody who has ever talked to anyone whose suicide attempt failed will understand.
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:4, Insightful)
Its just a hobby, you folk don't have the right
I think you will find that, legally speaking, we DO have the right.
Having the ability and means to protect your household from others is a pretty fundamental thing, and its scary that so many people are prepared to trivialize it. As has been pointed out so many times, the premise that you can just cede all of your rights to the government and trust them to do the right thing has turned out to be wrong a million times over.
What, do you suppose the second amendment was written to allow people to hunt as a hobby?
Re: (Score:3)
"if there ever was a fascist takeover of the US"
You obviously haven't been paying attention. Are you and your jackbooted thugs going to come take our guns away? Are you going to use guns to do it? I bet those state gun registry databases that were "accidentally" shared with the feds will be useful. Not to mention, it will be pretty hard to communicate and plan resistance with the complete monitoring of our communications.
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools today treat the kids like goats staked out for lions to kill and eat. If I want to cause mayhem and kill, where do I go? A "gun free zone"!
Hey, everyone, come here and perpetrate your crimes, no guns here to worry about!
Yeah, that's why schools all around the world are, basically, the biggest crime zones with huge death tolls...
Oh, wait, nope, school shootings are mostly the proud US tradition, with shooting incidents from all over Eurasia for all time [wikipedia.org] counting less than US shootings just in past decade [wikipedia.org].
"Solution to shootings? More guns for everyone!"
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The fact is that US school shootings prior to the last couple of decades were... unheard of. It's a very recent phenomena.
Actually that's not really true - the earliest listed on Wikipedia was in 1764. [wikipedia.org] It is, unfortunately, not a new problem, although I'm certain it has received much more sensational news coverage in recent decades.
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:5, Informative)
Do you even read this stuff and try the laugh test before you post it?
Local tribesmen raided a school. Not someone at the school going off shooting, wild 'indians' raided it. Not the same thing at all.
And then the next item is a guy that shot a headmaster so abusive that the jury acquitted him. Sounds like an interesting case but barely relevant here.
That list doesnt actually get going until much more recent years.
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly, it's not so recent as you think, just the media hype is more recent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Re:police arive within 'minutes' (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a cultural sickness, a culture that glorifies violence, that disparages the peacemaker and worships the killer.
The guns are just a tool. Without them we would have fewer gunshot wounds and more stabbings, more people with their heads caved in, etc.
But as long as we can blame it on the guns, and on law-abiding gun owners who never hurt anyone, we can keep distracting ourselves from the national illness and keep pretending we are fine. It's just those nasty guns, and these silly hicks that dont want to give theirs up. No need to re-examine our values and way of life, no need to think hard questions. Just outlaw the guns. That'll do it.
Not.
Re: (Score:3)
Most armed teacher proposals i have seen include a gun safe which the weapon is stored in until needed. In fact, probably just instally the gun safes with no armed teachers and jyst the suggestion of them could likely have the same deterent effect. However, the knocked out and gun taken problem can happen with the police also. It is not unique to teachers who would be trained. Cops often enter the schools with their side arm to deal with students who are seriously unrully. It would be the same as a teacher
Re: (Score:3)
This!! This!! I'm not a gun nut, but I do believe that fair is fair, so if the 2nd amendment only applies to items extant at that time, so does the whole EFFING constitution and the amendments thereof. So no more internet free speech or right to assemble (bye bye Yahoo Groups, no one will miss you), no more keeping your phone private - the police may take it at any time. For that matter, your car may be stopped at any time and searched as cars didn't exist back then, so clearly they're not covered.
Re: (Score:3)
You seem to be operating under the assumption that psychiatry is a science. Stop that.
Also realize the history of psychiatry being used as a mechanism for police states.
Make shrinks available for parents and kids to call on. Leave it at that. I know crazy parents are part of the problem.
Repeal laws that more or less require patients to lie to their doctors. e.g. unexplained loss of consciousness, automatic six month drivers license suspension. Result: nobody reports unexplained loss of consciousness