Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

[Ziggy Stardust]

I don't want to turn this into another gun control clusterfuck, though that is probably inevitable at this point. But that said,



THIS is fucking sickening.

[Lonestar]

Which is why the 50 or so CCW holders at the Mall in Portland gunned the shooter down.


Wait, wait


No, they ran and hid...which is what you're suppose to do.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York have some of the toughest gun laws in the United States. You can't even own a pistol at all in Connecticut without getting a license first, the same for NYC. These are the states that do things by the Brady Campaign's book, and it didn't stop what is basically the worst school shooting ever from happening--worst ever because, well, fuck, these are just little kids... There may have been more deaths somewhere else but I don't really care.

The real culprit here is lockdown procedures, which do nothing but create easily concentrated targets for someone to mow down. The problem is, at a high school or college you could reliably expect students to run and evade if told to do so, which would prevent this kind of thing because the shooter can only chase a very small number of people and kill them and while he's doing it the others are all gone out of his line of sight. At an elementary school that isn't really an option, because, god, you've just got little kids and how the hell do you protect them? The only thing I can really think of is mandating armed guards at all elementary schools.

[Ahriman238]

Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York have some of the toughest gun laws in the United States. You can't even own a pistol at all in Connecticut without getting a license first, the same for NYC. These are the states that do things by the Brady Campaign's book, and it didn't stop what is basically the worst school shooting ever from happening--worst ever because, well, fuck, these are just little kids... There may have been more deaths somewhere else but I don't really care.

The real culprit here is lockdown procedures, which do nothing but create easily concentrated targets for someone to mow down. The problem is, at a high school or college you could reliably expect students to run and evade if told to do so, which would prevent this kind of thing because the shooter can only chase a very small number of people and kill them and while he's doing it the others are all gone out of his line of sight. At an elementary school that isn't really an option, because, god, you've just got little kids and how the hell do you protect them? The only thing I can really think of is mandating armed guards at all elementary schools.

Yeah, the lockdown procedure is pretty damn stupid in my school, where a quarter of the classroom doors don't even lock. Trying to get kids to cower quietly in a corner is harder than you'd think, when there's no obvious or immediate threat.

My condolences to the families.

Seriously, elementary school?

[Boeing 757]

The only thing that needs to be said here is that there are some truly sick assholes living among us. Heaven forbid that anyone find himself in such a situation.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It appears that this guy decided that if he was going out he was simply going to cause as much pain and misery for as many other parents as possible. And that was exactly what he did, with a truly inhuman remorselessness. There's probably serial killers with more scruples.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The only thing that needs to be said here is that there are some truly sick assholes living among us. Heaven forbid that anyone find himself in such a situation.

Sadly one less asshole tonight won't make up for what he did. Indeally he would have just shot himself and be done with it

[Formless]

Even where it would have been "preferable", I can't bring myself to ever call suicide "ideal".

[Themightytom]

It appears that this guy decided that if he was going out he was simply going to cause as much pain and misery for as many other parents as possible. And that was exactly what he did, with a truly inhuman remorselessness. There's probably serial killers with more scruples.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

It looks like he wiped out his mother's classroom and anyone who tried to intervene

[Korgeta]

The 18 children killed, they were that classroom that was unaccounted for. Butchery, I have no idea what they will do that man's body, will he buried under a unnamed tombstone or his body just cremented and that be it. I can't understand what would motivate someone to carry out such evil.

[Ultonius]

The only recent similar incident involving children of around this age group that I can think of was the 2006 shooting at West Nickel Mines Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where the victims were aged from six to thirteen. The scale was considerably smaller than this shooting though: five deaths, plus the shooter (who killed himself), and five wounded (one left severely disabled).

[Alyrium Denryle]

It appears that this guy decided that if he was going out he was simply going to cause as much pain and misery for as many other parents as possible. And that was exactly what he did, with a truly inhuman remorselessness. There's probably serial killers with more scruples.

Yes. Serial killers at least have a "type" and it is not usually children. Lockdown procedures... yeah, they should not be a matter of policy. They can work on a case by case basis though. My high school for example has no external windows in the main building, all the doors arelockable fire doors, individual rooms have very limited hall-facing windows and everything was made of brick (there were even causeways as the only access to the second floor. I swear they designed the thing to withstand zombie sieges). A lockdown could work there, should it become necessary. But an elementary school with big good-for-children's-mental-health windows and an open campus? Not so much.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

We can't really do anything to the guy anymore, he's dead, at least the first report said... This is a picture perfect death penalty crime, but he's already dead. And this isn't the 17th century where we hang, draw, and quarter corpses after the person has died for particularly infamous crimes. No, all we can really do is accept the fact that the primary cause of this violence is America's cultural of individualism, which dehumanizes other people in society to individuals and removes the social supports for families in times of crisis.

[JME2]

Just turning into the news.

This is...I'm sickened by what's happened and my heart goes out to the victims' families/

[Boeing 757]

Who the hell cares what he used? Twenty-seven people are dead now because of a sick fuck and they will never be going home. Attack the sickness, not the choice of weapon.

[Isolder74]

Associated Press



NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) - A gunman opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school, killing 26 people, including 20 children, by blasting his way through the building as young students cowered helplessly in classrooms while their teachers and classmates were shot.

The attack, coming less than two weeks before Christmas, was the nation's second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.

The gunman killed himself and another person was found dead at a second scene, leading to a total toll of 28, authorities said.

Panicked parents raced to Sandy Hook Elementary School, about 60 miles northeast of New York City, looking for their children in the wake of the shooting. Students were told to close their eyes by police as they were led from the building.

Robert Licata said his 6-year-old son was in class when the gunman burst in and shot the teacher.

"That's when my son grabbed a bunch of his friends and ran out the door," he said. "He was very brave. He waited for his friends."

He said the shooter didn't utter a word.

A photo taken by The Newtown Bee newspaper showed a group of young students – some crying, others looking visibly frightened – being escorted by adults through a parking lot in a line, hands on each other's shoulders.

Stephen Delgiadice said his 8-year-old daughter was in the school and heard two big bangs. Teachers told her to get in a corner, he said.

"It's alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America," he said. His daughter was fine.

Andrea Rynn, a spokeswoman at the hospital, said it had three patients from the school but she did not have information on the extent or nature of their injuries.

Mergim Bajraliu, 17, heard the gunshots echo from his home and ran to check on his 9-year-old sister at the school. He said his sister, who was fine, heard a scream come over the intercom at one point. He said teachers were shaking and crying as they came out of the building.

"Everyone was just traumatized," he said.

Richard Wilford's 7-year-old son, Richie, is in the second grade at the school. His son told him that he heard a noise that "sounded like what he described as cans falling."

The boy told him a teacher went out to check on the noise, came back in, locked the door and had the kids huddle up in the corner until police arrived.

"There's no words," Wilford said. "It's sheer terror, a sense of imminent danger, to get to your child and be there to protect him."

At the White House, a tearful President Barack Obama said he grieved about the massacre as a father first, declaring "our hearts are broken today." He promised action to prevent such tragedies again but did not say what that would be.

The scene in the White House briefing room was one of the most outwardly emotional moments of Obama's presidency.

"The majority of those who died were children – beautiful, little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old," Obama said.

He paused for several seconds to keep his composure as he teared up and wiped an eye. Nearby, two aides cried and held hands as they listened to Obama.

"They had their entire lives ahead of them – birthdays, graduations, wedding, kids of their own," Obama continued about the victims. "Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children."

___

Associated Press writers Jim Fitzgerald in Newtown, Pete Yost in Washington, D.C., and Michael Melia in Hartford contributed to this report.


(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Looks like is much worse then anyone thought. From the looks of everything there was really nothing anyone could have done to stop this insane monster from doing this.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, those of us who go "maybe if there wasn't easy access to guns, this mightn't have been as bad" we're the terrible ones here.

What is terrible is not the idea.

What is terrible is how predictable and repetitive it's gotten, and how it's used as a rhetorical bludgeon to drive away anyone who might want to talk about the shootings and isn't pro-gun control.

Can we talk about culture? Can we talk about school policies? Can we talk about anything on this issue except the "if we banned pistols there wouldn't be any and this wouldn't happen" argument?

It would be nice to think so. We were talking about those, an hour or two ago.

[Havok]

OK. Let's talk school policies. Which school policies at an elementary school would have prevented this?

What is the fundamental issue with our "culture" that allowed this to happen?

[Lonestar]

OK. Let's talk school policies. Which school policies at an elementary school would have prevented this?

What is the fundamental issue with our "culture" that allowed this to happen?

Damn near zero accessibility to mental healthcare for most people would be a good place to start.

[Themightytom]

OK. Let's talk school policies. Which school policies at an elementary school would have prevented this?

What is the fundamental issue with our "culture" that allowed this to happen?

Damn near zero accessibility to mental healthcare for most people would be a good place to start.

What? No, those people are weaklings, until they commit crimes, then they are criminals.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Yes, those of us who go "maybe if there wasn't easy access to guns, this mightn't have been as bad" we're the terrible ones here.

What is terrible is not the idea.

What is terrible is how predictable and repetitive it's gotten, and how it's used as a rhetorical bludgeon to drive away anyone who might want to talk about the shootings and isn't pro-gun control.

Can we talk about culture? Can we talk about school policies? Can we talk about anything on this issue except the "if we banned pistols there wouldn't be any and this wouldn't happen" argument?

It would be nice to think so. We were talking about those, an hour or two ago.

Policy wise I'm not sure there's much you can do for a situation like this at least not at the individual school level. Lockdown gets you people trapped in relatively confined spaces. Evacuation à la a fire drill leaves you with clumps of people outside probably exposed in the open, to say nothing of potential issues with tramplings. Exercises of the policy are likely to not be taken seriously, or if they are they'd probably scare the children which creates its own set of problems. Architectural features designed to mitigate this kind of incident are likely to cause issues in other emergencies and probably wouldn't be all that condusive to a positive learing environment. Probably the best that can be hoped for are societal changes on the view of mental health issues, which would hopefully prevent such this from even happening.

[Lonestar]

What? No, those people are weaklings, until they commit crimes, then they are criminals.

Well,

I'd say that's a cultural bias that needs to be rectified as well.

[Havok]

OK. Let's talk school policies. Which school policies at an elementary school would have prevented this?

What is the fundamental issue with our "culture" that allowed this to happen?

Damn near zero accessibility to mental healthcare for most people would be a good place to start.

This is absolutely correct.

[SCRawl]

There's no point in mucking up this thread with another discussion about gun control that will devolve into poo-flinging. I've split that discussion into another thread.

[Broomstick]

There are two issues here:

1) Access to weapons. As long as the US insists on defaulting to "allow weapons", only taking away access after something goes wrong, the odds of such things will be greater than in a society that defaults to "do not allow weapons" unless a citizen can give a good enough reason [insert criteria of your choice] to posses and use them. Note I say "weapons" without specifying what particular weapons. If you have ready access to, say, knives you'll have more knife crime than if you restrict knives. Rinse and repeat for any weapon. Of course, since many weapons can also be used as tools (and vice versa) it's not practical to remove all potential weaponry from the citizenry (and if you do, the peasants might well figure out to kill people barehanded)

2) Trigger for violence. THIS is the root cause here. The type of weapon or violence is the symptom, the triggers are the actual cause(s). As noted, lack of access to mental health care, stigma associated with asking for help, social isolation, abuse of one sort or another, and so one are the true root causes of this sort of thing but US society doesn't want to do the hard work of really digging into these root causes, nor does it want to question certain cultural memes such as "self-reliance" to the point of becoming pathological.