Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

[GuppyShark]

There's also something to be said for the 'opt-in' nature of automobile deaths - the vast, vast majority of automobile deaths are for drivers and passengers of automobiles. If you are unwilling to accept the risk of automobile-related death, you can just opt not to enter one. You cannot opt out of the US gun culture without leaving the United States.

[Broomstick]

That has . . . absolutely no bearing on the point I just made.

Out of all the people who were killed with guns in the last year alone, how many of their deaths do you think were caused without any intent on part of the person using the gun? Or do you still want to insist that the car analogy is relevant?

A quick Google search shows that in 2007 there were 1,240 accidental gun deaths. 17,352 gun deaths during that year were suicides. While that is not accidental it certainly does not involve killing another human being, just the gun holder Presumably if guns weren't available those people would have found some other way to kill themselves, but hey, a gun was used so those deaths count. Those two categories accounted for 60% of the gun fatalities in that year. So, 31,224 firearms deaths total in 2007. With 250,000,000 guns in the US (estimated) that means 0.00012% were involved in killing someone, either accidentally or deliberately.

Compare that to cars, with an estimated 254,000,000 cars and for 2003 (the first year I found stats for) 42,643 fatalities for 0.00016% of cars involved in killing someone, even though cars are not "intended to kill people." Even in hyperviolent America you are more likely to be killed by a car than a gun.

It's really not that hard to find real numbers these days.

Anyhow, just to make it clear, I am not defending the current gun laws merely describing "gun culture". Personally, I would be comfortable with tightening up the restrictions and licensing (we require some demonstration of competence to drive or fly vehicles, why not demonstration of competency to own guns?) though I would still like the average law-abiding citizen to have the option of gun ownership. However, quite a few of my fellow citizens disagree with merely tightening the current rules. Indeed, the trend in recent years has been to loosen licensing requirements. I understand this is totally baffling to many outside of the US. Truthfully, it's baffling to a lot inside the US as well, as there are also people in the "ban guns for civilians" camp here.

A gallup poll from 2011 indicates that 47% of Americans own a gun, or about 141,000,000 people. Granted, that's yet another year's stats, but assuming gun death rates are roughly comparable from year to year that indicates the vast majority of gun owners in the US are handling their weapons in a safe manner and not shooting other people. That, by the way, is down from the mid-1990's when gun ownership rates were running 50-54% of the US population. Interestingly, 1994 was the year that 70% of homicides involved a gun, as opposed to 2008 where guns were used in 66% of homicides (based on FBI numbers) so there is a small trend downward for gun homicides (which means Americans used more of other means to off their fellow citizens in 2008). I haven't investigated this, but it does make me wonder if gun ownership rates have been going down long-term. If that is the case it may be that "gun culture" is slowly ebbing anyway and in a few decades imposing greater restrictions may encounter less cultural resistance. And while the percentage of bad gun owners (homicidal or even just careless) is clearly small, part of the problem, as this week's incident shows, is that guns can do a fuck of a lot of damage in the wrong hands.

If anyone is curious, "cutting or stabbing" is always the second-highest category of homicide methods in the US. Number three is "blunt object" and four is hands/feet/other body part. That's pretty consistent year to year. Clearly, eliminating firearms isn't going to stop murder but will probably drop the overall rates as the next most popular categories for murder methods requires the killer to get within arm's reach of the victim which makes killing more difficult. Those methods are also less likely to injure innocent bystanders as well which, of course, is just one of many reasons why homicides involving guns are so objectionable.

"Death by gun" is actually statistically unlikely, even in the US. Of course, a lot of people will say that even if it's a small percentage of the annual death rate it's in no way acceptable or to be tolerated because you can eliminate it by eliminating guns. I understand that viewpoint. However, given the sheer number of guns in the US "eliminating" them would be a Herculean task at best and would take decades to achieve even with the most draconian search-confiscate-destroy approach. There is also a problem that many look at the death rates and consider that such a small percentage of the overall deaths being a result of firearms is an acceptable tradeoff for the benefits they feel guns bring to them and/or society. I understand that to many here that attitude is baffling, nonetheless, it does exist whether you understand it or not. My friends who are hunters will argue that they are responsible gun owners, secure their firearms when they're not using them, and don't want to give up hunting for their dinner tables. My friends who are target shooters will say they are responsible gun owners, secure their firearms when not using them, and don't want to give up an activity they enjoy immensely. They are no more willing to give up their guns than they are willing to give up their cars or their TV's or their use of the internet, all activities that are arguably not necessary.

[Broomstick]

There's also something to be said for the 'opt-in' nature of automobile deaths - the vast, vast majority of automobile deaths are for drivers and passengers of automobiles. If you are unwilling to accept the risk of automobile-related death, you can just opt not to enter one. You cannot opt out of the US gun culture without leaving the United States.

Actually, no, you can't. This site documents buggy accidents involving Amish in the US, a group that has, as you said "opted out" of "car culture" in the US yet clearly suffer car-related accidents and death on a yearly basis. Cars are even more ubiquitous than guns, after all. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration numbers from 1990 to 2009 indicate the number of pedestrians (that is, innocent bystanders, not drivers or passengers) killed by cars every year to fluctuate between 4,000 and 6,000. Fewer than are killed by guns, but more than are killed by other means of homicide in most years. That number does not include cyclists or Amish buggy drivers, either, just pedestrians.

So, sorry, your argument does not stand up to scrutiny. You can't "opt-out" of potential vehicle-induced death, it's a small but present risk in daily life. Opting out of "car culture" reduces the risk of death-by-car but does not eliminate it.

[Ultonius]

To add to what Broomstick has said, I would argue that non-motorists are far more vulnerable in car accidents than motorists are. There's usually a far bigger speed differential between an automobile/motorcycle and a pedestrian/bicycle/buggy than there would be between two automobiles. This means that the motorist has less time to react in order to prevent a crash, and also that a collision is far more forceful. Additionally, an metal automobile is far more strongly built than a buggy, which is usually made of lightweight materials such as wood and/or fibreglass, since it has to be light enough for a horse to pull for up to an hour or two at a time. If you look at the pictures on the site Broomstick linked to, you can see that several of the buggies have been completely demolished. It's partly for this reason that buggies rarely have seatbelts, since those inside may actually have a better chance of survival if they are thrown out by the impact rather than being restrained inside the buggy as it comes apart, and running the risk of being crushed by the impacting automobile. Pedestrians and cyclists of course lack even the slight protection of a buggy's frame if they are struck by an automobile.

[General Zod]

A quick Google search shows that in 2007 there were 1,240 accidental gun deaths. 17,352 gun deaths during that year were suicides. While that is not accidental it certainly does not involve killing another human being, just the gun holder Presumably if guns weren't available those people would have found some other way to kill themselves, but hey, a gun was used so those deaths count. Those two categories accounted for 60% of the gun fatalities in that year. So, 31,224 firearms deaths total in 2007. With 250,000,000 guns in the US (estimated) that means 0.00012% were involved in killing someone, either accidentally or deliberately.

Compare that to cars, with an estimated 254,000,000 cars and for 2003 (the first year I found stats for) 42,643 fatalities for 0.00016% of cars involved in killing someone, even though cars are not "intended to kill people." Even in hyperviolent America you are more likely to be killed by a car than a gun.

It's really not that hard to find real numbers these days.
>snip<

Since I obviously wasn't being clear enough: Show me that the amount of people convicted for vehicular homicide is anywhere equivalent to the amount of people convicted for murder by guns, and you might have a point.

[Broomstick]

Are you assuming that every death caused by a gun results in a conviction for murder? I'll tell you now they don't - gun deaths due to genuine accidents are seldom prosecuted for anything, and when they are it's more for negligence than anything else. "Negligent homicide" does exist as a category but is not the only form of negligence accusation. Gun deaths ruled self-defense carry no penalty at all. The statistics for gun deaths don't distinguish between those categories and finding actual numbers will be more difficult than raw totals.

Likewise, statistics regarding deaths from vehicles usually do not distinguish between criminal and non-criminal accidents. Car fatalities do not distinguish between accidents and suicide-by-car, either.

It would be nice if those collecting and reporting such numbers did make such fine distinctions on a routine basis but they don't, which is itself telling. Unfortunately, this tends to lead to the assumption that all deaths from cars are accidents, and all deaths from guns deliberate, when in actual reality both types of items can result in either accidental or deliberate deaths.

[General Zod]

Are you assuming that every death caused by a gun results in a conviction for murder? I'll tell you now they don't - gun deaths due to genuine accidents are seldom prosecuted for anything, and when they are it's more for negligence than anything else. "Negligent homicide" does exist as a category but is not the only form of negligence accusation. Gun deaths ruled self-defense carry no penalty at all. The statistics for gun deaths don't distinguish between those categories and finding actual numbers will be more difficult than raw totals.

Likewise, statistics regarding deaths from vehicles usually do not distinguish between criminal and non-criminal accidents. Car fatalities do not distinguish between accidents and suicide-by-car, either.

It would be nice if those collecting and reporting such numbers did make such fine distinctions on a routine basis but they don't, which is itself telling. Unfortunately, this tends to lead to the assumption that all deaths from cars are accidents, and all deaths from guns deliberate, when in actual reality both types of items can result in either accidental or deliberate deaths.

Now you're just being obtuse. If you don't have the numbers just say you don't have the numbers. Fuck.

[Simon_Jester]

So, Zod wants information that compares deliberate gun murders to deliberate car murders.

I don't know why, though. Gun control advocates routinely use accidental gun deaths as evidence for tighter controls, and I can't blame them. Does it even matter whether people are dying on purpose or by accident, if the argument is "this kills too many people, we need to change our laws?" If fifty thousand Americans were dying every year in landslides, I'd damn well support anti-landslide policies. Who cares whether the landslides are someone's fault or not?

The real counter to "we need tighter car controls" is "that would be inconvenient, bad for the economy, et cetera." Which is all true. It would be. I'm not sure I want to tightly restrict car access to limit car deaths.

But once I acknowledge that kind of argument, it's no longer a straight relation of:
"this kills people" -> "this should be banned."

We're admitting that we can reasonably own things that are dangerous, not just to ourselves, but to other people. If there's a good enough reason, the danger matters less than the social need.

And the entire gun control debate swings back to debates about whether guns are necessary, about how much death really would be prevented by gun control, about whether it's practical to get rid of all the guns or whether they'll just slosh around on the black market for fifty years and make the law pointless.

That may not be what Zod wants, but I welcome it. It means we're debating gun control based on facts, not on this absurdly simplistic "guns kill so ban guns" argument.

[General Zod]

So, Zod wants information that compares deliberate gun murders to deliberate car murders.

I don't know why, though. Gun control advocates routinely use accidental gun deaths as evidence for tighter controls, and I can't blame them. Does it even matter whether people are dying on purpose or by accident, if the argument is "this kills too many people, we need to change our laws?" If fifty thousand Americans were dying every year in landslides, I'd damn well support anti-landslide policies. Who cares whether the landslides are someone's fault or not?

The real counter to "we need tighter car controls" is "that would be inconvenient, bad for the economy, et cetera." Which is all true. It would be. I'm not sure I want to tightly restrict car access to limit car deaths.

But once I acknowledge that kind of argument, it's no longer a straight relation of:
"this kills people" -> "this should be banned."

We're admitting that we can reasonably own things that are dangerous, not just to ourselves, but to other people. If there's a good enough reason, the danger matters less than the social need.

And the entire gun control debate swings back to debates about whether guns are necessary, about how much death really would be prevented by gun control, about whether it's practical to get rid of all the guns or whether they'll just slosh around on the black market for fifty years and make the law pointless.

That may not be what Zod wants, but I welcome it. It means we're debating gun control based on facts, not on this absurdly simplistic "guns kill so ban guns" argument.

Oh for fuck's sake, it shouldn't be this hard to follow. Broomstick made a stupid car analogy, and I pointed out that it's not relevant because most car deaths aren't intentional. Most shootings are done with intent. You can't just look at the body-count alone as a reason to ban something without looking at intent and cause, that's stupid.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'll compare the two only if you agree to accept drink driving fatalities as intentional murders.

[Simon_Jester]

Oh for fuck's sake, it shouldn't be this hard to follow. Broomstick made a stupid car analogy, and I pointed out that it's not relevant because most car deaths aren't intentional. Most shootings are done with intent. You can't just look at the body-count alone as a reason to ban something without looking at intent and cause, that's stupid.

And that's where we disagree.

Fireworks cause accidental deaths and injuries. In many states they are banned, or at least heavily controlled. Unsafe working conditions cause accidental deaths and injuries. They are banned. Certain chemicals and product designs cause accidental deaths and injuries. They are banned.

We ban things that cause only accidental death all the time. Why shouldn't we worry about accidental deaths?

[General Zod]

Oh for fuck's sake, it shouldn't be this hard to follow. Broomstick made a stupid car analogy, and I pointed out that it's not relevant because most car deaths aren't intentional. Most shootings are done with intent. You can't just look at the body-count alone as a reason to ban something without looking at intent and cause, that's stupid.

And that's where we disagree.

Fireworks cause accidental deaths and injuries. In many states they are banned, or at least heavily controlled. Unsafe working conditions cause accidental deaths and injuries. They are banned. Certain chemicals and product designs cause accidental deaths and injuries. They are banned.

We ban things that cause only accidental death all the time. Why shouldn't we worry about accidental deaths?

Did you only read the first half of my post? Or do you disagree that banning something based on the body-count alone is a stupid idea?

[Ace Pace]

I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother
Liza Long
Three days before 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year-old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

"I can wear these pants," he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.

"They are navy blue," I told him. "Your school's dress code says black or khaki pants only."

"They told me I could wear these," he insisted. "You're a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!"

"You can't wear whatever pants you want to," I said, my tone affable, reasonable. "And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You're grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school."

I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.
A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7- and 9-year-old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn't have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.

We still don't know what's wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He's been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood-altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.

At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he's in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He's in a good mood most of the time. But when he's not, watch out. And it's impossible to predict what will set him off.

Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district's most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can't function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30 to 1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18.

The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, "Look, Mom, I'm really sorry. Can I have video games back today?"

"No way," I told him. "You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly."

His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. "Then I'm going to kill myself," he said. "I'm going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself."

That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right.

"Where are you taking me?" he said, suddenly worried. "Where are we going?"

"You know where we are going," I replied.

"No! You can't do that to me! You're sending me to hell! You're sending me straight to hell!"

I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. "Call the police," I said. "Hurry."

Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn't escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I'm still stronger than he is, but I won't be for much longer.

The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork—"Were there any difficulties with… at what age did your child… were there any problems with.. has your child ever experienced.. does your child have…"

At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You'll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.

For days, my son insisted that I was lying—that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, "I hate you. And I'm going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here."

By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I've heard those promises for years. I don't believe them anymore.

On the intake form, under the question, "What are your expectations for treatment?" I wrote, "I need help."

And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza's mother. I am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris's mother. I am Jason Holmes's mother. I am Jared Loughner's mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho's mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it's easy to talk about guns. But it's time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.

When I asked my son's social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. "If he's back in the system, they'll create a paper trail," he said. "That's the only way you're ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you've got charges."

I don't believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael's sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn't deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population.

With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation's largest treatment centers in 2011.

No one wants to send a 13-year-old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, "Something must be done."

I agree that something must be done. It's time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That's the only way our nation can ever truly heal.

God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.

I'm not sure what to add to this, that isn't known. The U.S. needs better healthcare networks, and to understand that being "nuts" isn't a very funny insult in these cases.

[Simon_Jester]

Did you only read the first half of my post? Or do you disagree that banning something based on the body-count alone is a stupid idea?

No, and "sort of."

When you ban something, you should consider three things.

The first is the number of deaths and injuries it causes. How many cancers are caused by an industrial chemical? How many dangerous fires and such are caused by model rockets? How many people die in traffic accidents? How many people die or are ruined as a result of the trade in marijuana?

The second is the cost of the ban. How many people will be hurt by a ban on an industrial chemical? What is the impact on science education of banning model rockets? How will people get to work if we ban cars? How much money will we spend on law enforcement to ban marijuana?

The third is whether there's any civil-rights or other 'wild card' argument for NOT banning the item, which can't be measured easily on a balance sheet. Banning the Internet would curtail free speech, for instance. Does that matter? It depends on why we're thinking of banning it. It's not worth it if we're just trying to finally win the war on pop-up ads. But it might be worth it if we were facing a robot apocalypse.


What does NOT matter, or doesn't matter much, is whether the item we're talking about banning is killing people on purpose or by accident. You're just as dead if some fool takes your head off by mistake as if he did it on purpose.

[General Zod]

What does NOT matter, or doesn't matter much, is whether the item we're talking about banning is killing people on purpose or by accident. You're just as dead if some fool takes your head off by mistake as if he did it on purpose.

Look at it another way. If people are dying in car-crashes because of a lack of safety features, are you going to ban cars, or are you going to install safety features?

[Nephtys]

Oh for fuck's sake, it shouldn't be this hard to follow. Broomstick made a stupid car analogy, and I pointed out that it's not relevant because most car deaths aren't intentional. Most shootings are done with intent. You can't just look at the body-count alone as a reason to ban something without looking at intent and cause, that's stupid.

And that's where we disagree.

Fireworks cause accidental deaths and injuries. In many states they are banned, or at least heavily controlled. Unsafe working conditions cause accidental deaths and injuries. They are banned. Certain chemicals and product designs cause accidental deaths and injuries. They are banned.

We ban things that cause only accidental death all the time. Why shouldn't we worry about accidental deaths?

Nobody's even attempted to approach my point.

Cars create an incredible amount of economic value. I go to work in a car. Most people do. Every single item in every single store was brought there by an automobile. People shop for groceries and luxuries alike in automobiles, as it gets you farther, faster, and cheaper than anything else. This is a serious improvement of the quality of life.

Fireworks are items almost entirely used for fun. Likewise, firearms are items almost entirely used for fun.

There's an EXTREMELY fundamental difference between objects which create some risk due to their massive benefits to public health, happiness, and social order... and objects that are basically 99.99 percent of the time used in recreation.

[Aaron MkII]

Its because that falls into the "rights" argument, so the 2nd Amendment handwaves that away. In a way I suppose it could by considered an argument over property rights, the right to do what you want with your property, whenever you feel like it. Provided your not a danger to other people.

Which will quickly become "who is qualified to judge whether I'm a danger"

Property rights are the way we go here, by the way. Because Canada doesn't have a 2nd Amendment to instantly shut down discussion.

[Simon_Jester]

What does NOT matter, or doesn't matter much, is whether the item we're talking about banning is killing people on purpose or by accident. You're just as dead if some fool takes your head off by mistake as if he did it on purpose.

Look at it another way. If people are dying in car-crashes because of a lack of safety features, are you going to ban cars, or are you going to install safety features?

The latter- but that's simply because I would always try to pick the best way to handle the dangerous item.

If you think that the sensible way to handle gun violence is banning the guns, and I think various other laws would be enough, that there's no sense trying to ban them outright for a mix of reasons, then that's going to be a source of disagreement.

Nobody's even attempted to approach my point.

Cars create an incredible amount of economic value. I go to work in a car. Most people do. Every single item in every single store was brought there by an automobile. People shop for groceries and luxuries alike in automobiles, as it gets you farther, faster, and cheaper than anything else. This is a serious improvement of the quality of life.

Fireworks are items almost entirely used for fun. Likewise, firearms are items almost entirely used for fun.

There's an EXTREMELY fundamental difference between objects which create some risk due to their massive benefits to public health, happiness, and social order... and objects that are basically 99.99 percent of the time used in recreation.

Yes.

Cars have tremendous economic value tied up in them. Guns have something else- the question of rights, of citizens' right to self-defense, of whether the state should have a total monopoly on force or just a near-total one, of how far we can trust law enforcement to protect us, and so on.

It's very easy to show the economic value of cars using a spreadsheet. It's a lot harder to do that with guns. But is that becuase all the rights elements are irrelevant? Or because it's hard to convince people to value a 'new' right, whether the right has intrinsic value or not? I bet you could get a lot of people to devalue even a "real" right that has great importance and value, if you came at it from the right angle...

[Broomstick]

Now you're just being obtuse. If you don't have the numbers just say you don't have the numbers. Fuck.

Fuck off, chuckles. I actually had to work today instead of fucking around on the internet. I not only did you the courtesy of telling you I didn't have the numbers I told you WHY I didn't have those numbers. Now, given some time I might have attempted to dig something up but since you've made it abundantly clear you don't want to discuss this in a rational manner to hell with that. Go back to yelling GUNS BAD! RARRRR! If you can't wait even a day for me to do a little research why should I bother?

[General Zod]

Now you're just being obtuse. If you don't have the numbers just say you don't have the numbers. Fuck.

Fuck off, chuckles. I actually had to work today instead of fucking around on the internet. I not only did you the courtesy of telling you I didn't have the numbers I told you WHY I didn't have those numbers. Now, given some time I might have attempted to dig something up but since you've made it abundantly clear you don't want to discuss this in a rational manner to hell with that. Go back to yelling GUNS BAD! RARRRR! If you can't wait even a day for me to do a little research why should I bother?

I'm actually against draconian gun control, but hey why stop at one strawman?

[Tomzilla]

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

Since I work at an elementary school, I'll answer this:

No current elementary school policy would have prevented this. If there's an intruder on school grounds, all you're trained to do is gather your kids (which could prove very problematic if you're outside with a large number of them), get them inside a room you can lock and hopefully secure, and wait for the all-clear. That's what our school lockdown procedure instructs us to do. As you can see, it's more of a response to a threat; it was never designed to prevent a threat from happening in the first place. If it prevents anything, it prevents the threat from escalating.

Now how could we prevent this from happening in the first place? If we put our minds and resources to it, we could make it harder for a psychopath to murder a bunch of kids at an elementary school. We could turn every elementary school into a military installation. We could do all this and more but does that mean we should? Hell no. It'd be a waste of manpower, resources, funding, etc. It'd also sabotage the very ideas and principles we instill in children. We shouldn't have to fear for our children's lives when they're at school.

No, I think the problem goes a lot deeper than improving school policies, which should still be looked at regardless. If there's a way to make schools safer without compromising just what makes schools a fun and safe place to go to learn, then I'd like to see it.

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

An unwillingness to recognize the true culprit behind these shootings, which is mental illness. Some of my students have autism, ADHD, and asperger syndrome. I won't act like they're not a handful, they are. But that doesn't change the fact they need our help. Checking them into clinics, getting psychological examinations, pumping them full of drugs and medications--these are all temporary solutions at best. What they're in dire need of, aside from easier access to healthcare, is a cure. Now there are many, many people trying to find a cure for these illnesses right now. There could very well not even be a cure. Nevertheless, we'd have a better understanding if our country made it one of its top priorities. It's worth the effort.


I have a question for all of you: Should someone diagnosed with a mental illness, namely the kind associated with gunmen responsible for school shootings and other massacres, be afforded the same rights and privileges as the rest of us?

[General Zod]

I have a question for all of you: Should someone diagnosed with a mental illness, namely the kind associated with gunmen responsible for school shootings and other massacres, be afforded the same rights and privileges as the rest of us?

The problem is the gunman didn't even purchase the weapons, he got them from his mother. I can't think of any sort of legislation that would have prevented that from happening.

[GuppyShark]

Requiring weapons be stored securely, only accessible by the owner, with regular inspections?

[Lonestar]

His idiot mother left her firearms freely accessible to her angry, autistic son. I'll be the asshole that says it, quite a bit of the blame rest on her for not keeping her firearms locked up(I'll walk back this statement if the cops think he forced the combo out of her).


A few years ago there was a guy on a Police Community Website decrying the lack of very simple measures taken to improve security at schools.

“How many kids have been killed by school fire in all of North America in the past 50 years? Kids killed... school fire... North America... 50 years... How many? Zero. That’s right. Not one single kid has been killed by school fire anywhere in North America in the past half a century. Now, how many kids have been killed by school violence?”

So began an extraordinary daylong seminar presented by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a Pulitzer Prize nominated author, West Point psychology professor, and without a doubt the world’s foremost expert on human aggression and violence. The event, hosted by the California Peace Officers Association, was held in the auditorium of a very large community church about 30 miles from San Francisco, and was attended by more than 250 police officers from around the region.

Grossman’s talk spanned myriad topics of vital importance to law enforcement, such as the use of autogenic breathing, surviving gunshot wounds, dealing with survivor guilt following a gun battle, and others. In coming months, I will present a series of articles addressing many of these subjects, but violence among and against children was how the day began, and so it is in this area I will begin my coverage...

“In 1998,” Grossman said, “school violence claimed what at the time was an all time record number of kids’ lives. In that year there were 35 dead and a quarter of a million serious injuries due to violence in the school. How many killed by fire that year? Zero. But we hear people say, ‘That’s the year Columbine happened, that’s an anomaly.’ Well, in 2004 we had a new all time record — 48 dead in the schools from violence. How many killed by fire that year? Zero. Let’s assign some grades. Put your teacher hat on and give out some grades. What kind of grade do you give the firefighter for keeping kids safe? An ‘A,’ right? Reluctantly, reluctantly, the cops give the firefighters an ‘A,’ right? Danged firefighters, they sleep ‘till they’re hungry and eat ‘till they’re tired. What grade do we get for keeping the kids safe from violence? Come on, what’s our grade? Needs improvement, right?”

Johnny Firefighter, A+ Student
“Why can’t we be like little Johnny Firefighter?” Grossman asked as he prowled the stage. “He’s our A+ student!”

He paused, briefly, and answered with a voice that blew through the hall like thunder, “Denial, denial, denial!”

Grossman commanded, “Look up at the ceiling! See all those sprinklers up there? They’re hard to spot — they’re painted black — but they’re there. While you’re looking, look at the material the ceiling is made of. You know that that stuff was selected because it’s fire-retardant. Hooah? Now look over there above the door — you see that fire exit sign? That’s not just any fire exit sign — that’s a ‘battery-backup-when-the-world-ends-it-will-still-be-lit’ fire exit sign. Hooah?”

Walking from the stage toward a nearby fire exit and exterior wall, Grossman slammed the palm of his hand against the wall and exclaimed, “Look at these wall boards! They were chosen because they’re what?! Fireproof or fire retardant, hooah? There is not one stinking thing in this room that will burn!”

Pointing around the room as he spoke, Grossman continued, “But you’ve still got those fire sprinklers, those fire exit signs, fire hydrants outside, and fire trucks nearby! Are these fire guys crazy? Are these fire guys paranoid? NO! This fire guy is our A+ student! Because this fire guy has redundant, overlapping layers of protection, not a single kid has been killed by school fire in the last 50 years!

“But you try to prepare for violence — the thing much more likely to kill our kids in schools, the thing hundreds of times more likely to kill our kids in schools — and people think you’re paranoid. They think you’re crazy. ...They’re in denial.”

Teaching the Teachers
The challenge for law enforcement agencies and officers, then, is to overcome not only the attacks taking place in schools, but to first overcome the denial in the minds of mayors, city councils, school administrators, and parents. Grossman said that agencies and officers, although facing an uphill slog against the denial of the general public, must diligently work toward increasing understanding among the sheep that the wolves are coming for their children. Police officers must train and drill with teachers, not only so responding officers are intimately familiar with the facilities, but so that teachers know what they can do in the event of an attack.

“Come with me to the library at Columbine High School,” Grossman said. “The teacher in the library at Columbine High School spent her professional lifetime preparing for a fire, and we can all agree if there had been a fire in that library, that teacher would have instinctively, reflexively known what to do. But the thing most likely to kill her kids — the thing hundreds of times more likely to kill her kids, the teacher didn’t have a clue what to do. She should have put those kids in the librarian’s office but she didn’t know that. So she did the worst thing possible — she tried to secure her kids in an un-securable location. She told the kids to hide in the library — a library that has plate glass windows for walls. It’s an aquarium, it’s a fish bowl. She told the kids to hide in a fishbowl. What did those killers see? They saw targets. They saw fish in a fish bowl.”

Grossman said that if the school administrators at Columbine had spent a fraction of the money they’d spent preparing for fire — if the teachers there had spent a fraction of the time they spent preparing for fire — doing lockdown drills and talking with local law enforcers about the violent dangers they face, the outcome that day may have been different.

Rhetorically he asked the assembled cops, “If somebody had spent five minutes telling that teacher what to do, do you think lives would have been saved at Columbine?”

Arming Campus Cops is Elementary
Nearly two years ago, I wrote an article called Arming campus cops is elementary. Not surprisingly, Grossman agrees with that hypothesis.

“Never call an unarmed man ‘security’,” Grossman said.

“Call him ‘run-like-hell-when-the-man-with-the-gun-shows-up’ but never call an unarmed man security. Imagine if someone said, ‘I want a trained fire professional on site. I want a fire hat, I want a fire uniform, I want a fire badge. But! No fire extinguishers in this building. No fire hoses. The hat, the badge, the uniform — that will keep us safe — but we have no need for fire extinguishers.’ Well, that would be insane. It is equally insane, delusional, legally liable, to say, ‘I want a trained security professional on site. I want a security hat, I want a security uniform, and I want a security badge, but I don’t want a gun.’ It’s not the hat, the uniform, or the badge. It’s the tools in the hands of a trained professional that keeps us safe.

“Our problem is not money,” said Grossman. “It is denial.”

Grossman said (and most cops agree) that many of the most important things we can do to protect our kids would cost us nothing or next-to-nothing.

Grossman’s Five D’s
In the next installment of this series, I will explore what follows in much greater detail, but for now, let’s contemplate the following outline and summary of Dave Grossman’s “Five D’s.” While you do, I encourage you to add in the comments area below your suggestions to address, and expand upon, these ideas.

1. Denial — Denial is the enemy and it has no survival value, said Grossman.

2. Deter — Put police officers in schools, because with just one officer assigned to a school, the probability of a mass murder in that school drops to almost zero

3. Detect — We’re talking about plain old fashioned police work here. The ultimate achievement for law enforcement is the crime that didn’t happen, so giving teachers and administrators regular access to cops is paramount.

4. Delay — Various simple mechanisms can be used by teachers and cops to put time and distance between the killers and the kids.

a. Ensure that the school/classroom have just a single point of entry. Simply locking the back door helps create a hard target.
b. Conduct your active shooter drills within (and in partnership with) the schools in your city so teachers know how to respond, and know what it looks like when you do your response.

5. Destroy — Police officers and agencies should consider the following:

a. Carry off duty. No one would tell a firefighter who has a fire extinguisher in his trunk that he’s crazy or paranoid.
b. Equip every cop in America with a patrol rifle. One chief of police, upon getting rifles for all his officers once said, “If an active killer strikes in my town, the response time will be measured in feet per second.”
c. Put smoke grenades in the trunk of every cop car in America. Any infantryman who needs to attack across open terrain or perform a rescue under fire deploys a smoke grenade. A fire extinguisher will do a decent job in some cases, but a smoke grenade is designed to perform the function.
d. Have a “go-to-war bag” filled with lots of loaded magazines and supplies for tactical combat casualty care.
e. Use helicopters. Somewhere in your county you probably have one or more of the following: medivac, media, private, national guard, coast guard rotors.
f. Employ the crew-served, continuous-feed, weapon you already have available to you (a firehouse) by integrating the fire service into your active shooter training. It is virtually impossible for a killer to put well-placed shots on target while also being blasted with water at 300 pounds per square inch.
g. Armed citizens can help. Think United 93. Whatever your personal take on gun control, it is all but certain that a killer set on killing is more likely to attack a target where the citizens are unarmed, rather than one where they are likely to encounter an armed citizen response.

Coming Soon: External Threats
<blah blah blah terrists> </snip>

As a country and as a culture, the level of protection Americans afford our kids against violence is nothing near what we do to protect them from fire. Grossman is correct: Denial is the enemy. We must prepare for violence like the firefighter prepares for fire. And we must do that today.

[Lonestar]

Requiring weapons be stored securely, only accessible by the owner, with regular inspections?

That was part of the DC gun ban that was struct down, so that's DOA. You would have to word the law in such a way that doesn't explicitly say "the firearms have to be in a safe". I like "take away the right to own firearms if a minor in your custody gets ahold of them unsupervised"(I would expand this to include "someone in your domicile who has a mental illness") as a phrasing, personally.