Gunman Shoots 4 at Middleton Software Company; Dies in Shootout With Police (madison.com) 385
Several Slashdot readers shared this report overnight: A gunman shot four people, none fatally, at his Middleton, Wisconsin workplace Wednesday morning before he was killed in a shootout with police, Middleton Police Chief Charles Foulke said. Authorities had not released the man's name or age, but police said he was from Madison and worked at WTS Paradigm, a software company at 1850 Deming Way where the shooting occurred. Police said a motive for the shooting was not yet known. Foulke said the shooter had been in the building before he began shooting at fellow employees around 10:29 a.m. One of the four people injured was just grazed by a bullet police say was fired from a handgun. Citing UW Health, a local NBC affiliate reported that two victims are in serious condition and one is in critical condition. "In a situation like this, you learn how great a community really is," WTS Marketing Manager Ryan Mayrand said. "We cannot thank the Middleton Police Department, the Dane County Sheriff's Office and other emergency personnel enough for their amazing response."
but (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this have to do with tech news?
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https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-WTS-Paradigm-RVW22558549.htm [glassdoor.com]
"[Pros] No positives I can think of"
"[Cons] Work environment is so bad you literally might be shot by a co-worker"
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> Cons
> Work environment is so bad you literally might be shot by a co-worker
It makes me wonder if this review was posted by the shooter, just prior to his going on the attack.
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PC LOAD LETTER?
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Emacs or vi.
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Those "four spaces" people always were a bit too touchy.
Re:but (Score:5, Funny)
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Hey, buddy....just what you see on the wall, eh?
Re: but (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much my entire team shoots or owns guns, and we're all California liberals. The fear of liberal gun control is a trick the NRA plays on people like the GP.
Re: but (Score:5, Insightful)
The fear of liberal gun control is a trick the NRA plays on people like the GP.
Um no. Your are very much the exception. Nearly all of my liberal friends are rabidly anti-gun, as are most liberal lawmakers.
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That so-called imaginary NRA "trick" you're talking about...
so is it not true that you can only legally own a 10 round magazine in CA? ...and if you carry a gun in your car, you have to do so such a way as it is effectively useless for self defense? (the ammo and gun have to be locked away seperately right?).
Seems to me like liberal-driven gun control is far more already happening in CA than just an NRA mind-trick. Given you clearly believe your assertionn, you might want to rethink who's actually doing th
Re: but (Score:2)
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Because guns! If only Linus had told them not to carry guns, this never would have happened.
It's the year of the Linux Desktop Murderers.
I'll settle this... (Score:5, Funny)
Vi is better than Emacs. There will not be any more arguments about this...
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FFS Editors. Where TF is Middleton? (Score:5, Informative)
There's likely to be a ton of towns called Middleton in the US and the main story links to local paper and even TFA doesn't say which Middleton. It was only looking at the banner of the TFA that I saw it was Wisconsin.
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Oh, I thought it was positioned between Uptown and Downtown.
It's 2018 (Score:2)
We say gunperson now, you sexist pig.
Women can shoot up places, just ask YouTube.
Captcha: concede
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Honest question (Score:2)
Since you're like the 5th person making fun of some sort of "code of conduct"... what the fuck is this? Do we now need to be told how to behave at work? So far we got along with simple courtesy just fine.
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I think they would just settle for fewer mass shootings, like most other developed nations.
Perhaps this is a good sign. You know you are losing the argument when all you have left is a straw man. The main push isn't even for disarmament, just some moderate controls on purchases.
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"...what they are planning on doing to you. But do it first!"
Bad timing... (Score:2)
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What was WTS Paradigm's policy on carrying while at work? I'll venture a guess that this is one of these 'gun free' zones.
Re:U.S.A. Where everybody has guns (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the standard employee contract clause is banning guns at company property. It's there to limit liability to the company in events like this and doesn't deter possession unless the carrier is an idiot. I've been carrying Glock 43 for years and non of my co-workers are non the wiser. You are personally responsible for your own safety. Society and laws are there to remediate after the crime has been committed. Police catch criminals after the fact and aren't there to protect you.
We have CC at our office (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah!! It should only take, what, several shots from the perp's gun before s/he gets gunned down by a law-abiding, gun-toting, rootin-tootin cowboy, who, if s/he's lucky, won't manage to knock off a few co-workers in the crossfire.
Re: We have CC at our office (Score:4, Insightful)
Why then does the gun control utopia of Chicago have such high rates of gun violence (but only some areas oddly), while there is a low rate of violence in places like... Plano, TX, where getting a gun is easy.
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Did you know that in Dallas and Houston, where getting a gun is very easy, the rate of violent crime is almost exactly the same as in Chicago? I bet you didn't.
Maybe instead of comparing a suburb of Dallas with an actual city like Chicago, you might compare apples to apples. Plano is basically the Sc
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I don't say this lightly, and I say it as a gun owner myself.
Here is some (seriously, not a joke or rick-roll) video of a simple confrontation between neighbors in Texas that turned deadly because guns made some jackoffs even bigger jackoffs. Notice that the two members of the well-regulated militia who are toting guns (but not shirts) had every chance to just turn around, and murdered a guy while they knew they were being recorded on video.
htt [rawstory.com]
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Look at your link again. It's not comparing Houston to Chicago, it's comparing Houston to Chicago Ridge, which is a tiny suburb of 14,000 people way outside Chicago. It's a bedroom community, and as someone who has lived in both Chicago and Houston, it
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Why then does the gun control utopia of Chicago have such high rates of gun violence (but only some areas oddly), while there is a low rate of violence in places like... Plano, TX, where getting a gun is easy.
Presumably, the gun laws are a response to the violence, not the other way around as your question wrongly suggests.
Not a lot of black people in Plano.
But this is obvious, so what is your point?
Re: We have CC at our office (Score:4, Insightful)
You think the gun violence in Chicago stems from Indiana guns imported legally? Let me tell you about a little thing called criminal behavior...
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Then, according to your logic, crime should be HIGHER in Indiana, since you don't even have to cross a state line. Funny how Lafayette, Indiana has a significantly lower crime rate than Chicago.
So, one city has an absolutely horrible problem, so the solution is to spread their laws nationwide. Does this mean that Google should copy Yahoo's business model? If you were cheating on a test, would you copy off of the dumbest kid in the class?
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Comparing one of Americas biggest urban areas (urban areas being the source of most of any first world country's crime) to a mostly rural state on crime.
That's just super
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Wait. Are you saying that there are things more important than gun laws? Thanks for proving my point.
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Putting words in my mouth!? How terribly clever of you!
No, I'm saying controlling for known key drivers of crime is necessary when making comparisons on crime. This is, for instance, why no one who even has a basic grasp on the subject of sociology would ever be surprised that Lafayette had a lower homicide rate than Chicago.
Re: We have CC at our office (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm...then I"m guessing that the gun crime and murder rates are exponentially higher in Indiana than they are in IL, or even just Chicago alone, right?
I mean, hell, they don't even have to drive the guns in there illegally do they?
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But, everyone said the gun violence problem in IL was due to easy guns from Indiana next door....it seems a valid statement I made.
Compare cities in IL to similar cities in Indiana....is the gun violence in the whole state of Indiana worse than in Illinois? Since guns are less restricted in Indiana, you'd expect so per the gun control arguments, eh?
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Yeah. Cheap excuse that's total bullshit.
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Citation, please.
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Except when they go on a shooting rampage, of course.
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Legal gun owners don't murder. That's what the best data available tells us. Which makes perfect sense if you don't suffer from liberal hysteria, because tracing murder by registered firearm is trivial.
Unfortunately, they get murdered. Statistics show that owning a gun makes you a much higher risk at being a victim of gun crime. Brandishing a gun or owning a gun that could get stolen is more likely to get you shot than not carrying a gun.
Re: We have CC at our office (Score:3)
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"It really is 100% true that if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns."
Of course in first world nations where there are very few guns there are also very few outlaws with guns as seen by there drastically lower levels of gun violence. Given this, your scenario is not terribly scary.
Love My 0, Troll Mod Level (Score:2)
I love that I got modded down to 0, Troll. There is clearly nothing Trollish about my post; no insults, harassment, or any other quality one associates with trolls. All I do is point out an easily verifiable fact in the context of showing that guns don't make us any safer.
It's really just a massive show of weakness on the part of those modding me down.
Re: Love My 0, Troll Mod Level (Score:2)
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Well sure, most territories and protectorates have standards of living comparable to third world nations. Just look at Puerto Rico right here in the US. No US state has a standard of living as poor as theirs.
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The standard of living in Puerto Rico is actually not that bad (well, until the hurricane, but it's coming back). The high crime is entirely drug related gangs (yay war on drugs). Most everyone has a car, the capital has public transit no worse than most US cities of that size, there's suburbs, etc.
The mountain regions are poor, but taking that as representative is that's like considering West Virginia hillbillies as reflective of the DC Metro Area.
And yes, Ponce is Puerto Rico's Detroit. Don't ever go t
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Your description of Puerto Rico isnt matching the statisitcs I'm seeing
Chief of which is a poverty rate at close to 50% and a declining population due to people fleeing the country for the mainland to find work. https://datausa.io/profile/geo... [datausa.io]
Sure, there are poorer third world nations but if Puerto Rico was a nation on its own it certainly wouldnt be considered a first world nation with those stats
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There's statistics, and actually "boots on the ground" observation that can't be captured by statistics. The cost of living is very low, you can get locally grown food at markets at prices unheard of in the US. Bottled beer at a bar for $1. Rents are low, houses are cheap while still being fairly sturdy (often made of concrete). The poverty rate is high because a lot of people work under the table to avoid taxes while collecting benefits (none of that locally bought food is in anything other than cash).
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Oh yes, the statisical blip that is Londons current homicide rate. For the past 7 decades at least London has had a drastically lower homicide rate than New York. After that, if you compare any other major first world city in another country to New York, New York is back to looking pretty bad.
So in summary, your comparison between two individual cities does not accurately reflect the reality of homicide rates in the US versus that of other first world nations with much stricter gun control
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It's called "Your one warning".
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Why is liking firearms any different from archery? Or golf? Or auto racing?
It's a hobby.
Because you could kill someone with a gun?
You can kill someone with a bow and arrow. You can kill someone with a golf club or ball (I've seen it happen). People die in auto races.
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Do you normally carry a gun to work?
If yes perhaps you could also tell us the line of work.
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Remember that gun-free zone is not the same thing as security-free zone. Schools, malls, etc. still have armed security.
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Which is counter to normal firearm safety practices.
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I think we must immediately begin once again, calling for the ban on AR-15 and other scary looking rifles, and banning standard 30 round capacity magazines!!!
I mean, this is usually what the anti-gunners start yelling after a shooting, right....?
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They're reporting "at least" three dead.
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They're reporting "at least" three dead.
From TFS: A gunman shot four people, none fatally, at his Middleton, Wisconsin workplace Wednesday morning before he was killed in a shootout with police, Middleton Police Chief Charles Foulke said.
Re: wait (Score:4, Insightful)
American is doing great. Though, it would be even better if more responsible people were armed instead of just criminals.
Re: U.S.A. Where everybody has guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that's why there's so many more mass shootings in Israel.
Oh... wait a second...
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Funny. I've been around guns for decades.
I've had exactly zero shootings.
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Actually, the percentage of US households owning guns has actually dropped significantly since the 1970s, largely reflecting a historic decline in hunting. Overall the rate of gun homicide has also dropped since the 1970s. But the size of gun collections has skyrocketed, particularly after Obama was elected, so now there's more guns in America than people. Half those guns are owned by 3% of the population.
Like many real-world scenarios, when you look into it the American gun situation is complex, far mo
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Or life just became too drab to bear, and he ran out of Middleton dreams.
The office door closed early
The hidden bottle came out
The salesman turned to close the blinds
A little slow now, a little stout
But he's still heading down those tracks
Any day now for sure
Another day as drab as today
Is more than a man can endure
Re: U.S.A. Where everybody has guns (Score:2)
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BTW: Where the f*cc is Middleton?
Wisconsin. It is a suburb of Madison, and about 5 km from the University of Wisconsin.
Re: U.S.A. Where everybody has guns (Score:2)
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It is somewhat more difficult to stab someone to death, not to mention drive a truck in an office building.
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Yup, four shot. Horrible. If four people had been stabbed, or four run over with a truck, that is OK somehow.
It's a lot harder to mass murder someone in one go with a knife or a truck than with a gun. You risk immediate injury to yourself and are more likely to fail. Guns are much better murder weapons- that's why people don't warn you about taking a gun to a knife fight.
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But against unarmed victims, they all work great. Nice, France: 86 killed with a truck. Manchester, England: 20 killed with a homemade bomb.
But those are OK because nobody used a gun, right?
London is cracking down on KNIFE ownership. You ban the guns but still allow criminals to walk the streets? They don't join a quilting circle: they use a different weapon. The homicide rate in London recently topped that of New York City. So, clearly they need to ban another weapon instead of actually doing anythin
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But against unarmed victims, they all work great. Nice, France: 86 killed with a truck. Manchester, England: 20 killed with a homemade bomb.
But those are OK because nobody used a gun, right?
Oh, hello Mr. Strawman! Why, what a load of crap you are! I don't know who told you that it is legal to kill people with knives or trucks, but you're pretty gullible if you believe them.
Regarding "they all work good".
You point a gun at an unarmed person- you have very little resistance and a very high chance of killing your victim.
You try to stab someone with a knife- you stand a reasonable chance of failing, being disposed of your knife, and suffering wounds yourself. And if you do make contact- it's h
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Please explain to me how somebody stabbed to death or killed with a truck is less dead than somebody shot to death.
I will wait.
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Why is someone who you disagree with a "nut"?
How is it a strawman? Dead is dead.
He's not arguing against gun control. Gun Control is a dead issue.
Anyone pushing revision of the 2nd Amendment has their career destroyed.
Additionally, we have the ability to 3d print firearms. Sure, they're primitive and mostly useless.
But their very existence is the death knell of the Gun Control issue.
And sorry if the availability of legal firearms offends you.
It has exactly JACK SHIT to do with most shootings, which are o
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He hired a prostitute through an online service who provided ID to prove she was 18. It sounds more like a government setup, like Assange, than a pedophile.
Re:Enough (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if four people were stabbed, would you want fewer knives in this country? No, I am not being sarcastic. In England, they have "sane" gun laws, but now they are cracking down on knife ownership. You can't make this stuff up!
https://www.met.police.uk/Stop... [police.uk]
So, you go after the weapon, and the criminals choose another weapon. In France, they had a HIGHER death toll that America's worst mass shooting using just a TRUCK! If only they had sane truck laws, with mandatory training and licensing, that would not happen, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Cherry picking. The overall murder rates in both countries are lower than the US, you are just selecting individual incidents.
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So, if four people were stabbed, would you want fewer knives in this country? No, I am not being sarcastic.
Yes I would, and no I'm not being sarcastic either. The vast majority of stabbings are done with specific knives used for a specific purpose i.e. being concealed on the body in a way that doesn't cut the holder. Guess what, many sane countries have restricted the carrying of these too.
Would I want kitchen knives reduced? No and that wouldn't make sense either since the vast majority of children* don't carry kitchen knives as weapons.
*Children in this case used to describe the people who think they need to c
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So the Secret Service officers are children, since they carry guns for protection? That says everything that I need to know about you.
I have friends that have had to draw their guns to deter crime -- no shots fired, just showing that you are armed will often cause criminals to choose a different victim. Are you saying that they would be better off as a victim? I will ask one of my buddies if he would prefer to have been beaten or robbed. I will get back to you and let you know if he regrets not being vi
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Oh, by the way. Less than two miles from my house is a place where a good girl with a gun stopped a criminal intent on becoming a mass murderer.
But according to you, the criminal should have been the only one armed. That woman probably saved a dozen lives, but you would rather the shooter be safe from his victims. Are you planning on killing a bunch of people some day, and you want as much time as possible to kill people before the police arrive?
Re:Enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but there is MORE of a difference between the two countries than JUST gun laws.
Using your logic, Japan has no guns, but a much higher suicide rate. Clearly, if they had easier access to guns, suicides would drop, right? England also has a different economy, different culture, and different health care system. I guess that none of that matters, right?
Back when they had easier access to guns, they STILL had a lower homicide rate. Simply stated, if you look at the big picture instead of cherry-picking a few numbers, the data doesn't back you up.
In America, you are as safe as the safest parts of Europe, as long as you avoid the "wrong" neighborhoods. Most areas of the US are very safe, as most of the crime is concentrated into a few, small areas.
If you avoid areas with a high population density and high poverty, you will be OK.
Check out this headline: "Murders in US very concentrated: 54% of US counties in 2014 had zero murders, 2% of counties have 51% of the murders"
https://crimeresearch.org/2017... [crimeresearch.org]
If you want to reduce violence, then improving the economy would be a big step in the right direction.
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Having a strong economy doesn't necessarily correlate with a low amount of poverty. Mass shootings represent a tiny portion of the firearms related homicides in the USA, and as such aren't worth really focusing on.
I don't particularly care if you have heroin so long as you aren't pushing it on children, and use it responsibly. I also don't care if you have a radio jammer of any type, so long as you don't use it illegally.
Nuclear weapons are a bit more of an issue because a single bomb can pose an ongoing co
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I don't know why they worry. The government has thousands of nukes, I've only got three.
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Let me come at you with a prop knife or a baseball bat. Then tell me how easily you can stay away from me.
Let me chase you down the street in a car. Then tell me how easily you can stay away from me.
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Baseball bat and car is easy. Knife not so much ...
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Try taking a course in self defense where they teach knife fighting.
I think you'll find it MUCH harder to stay away from some crazy with a knife than you'd ever imagine.
Re:Enough (Score:4, Insightful)
If it happened because of the existence of guns, or because non state agents have some, you would have some kind of point.
Since it didn't, it's just you politicizing a murder.
Re:Enough (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Taking bets this guy was an angry alt-right los (Score:5, Insightful)
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The ones that survived 'draw mohommad' were likely pretty sensible. Not 'alt-right' but not stupid lefties either.
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As a nerd, I don't find this newsworthy. Did Elon Musk take the day off or something?
He was the shooter.