The action of the resource officer in ending this shooting exposes the idiocy of the liberal leftists who oppose arming teachers and school officials. A good guy with a gun... the best solution!
1
Neither of the victims WAS identified.
1
While substance control remains a tool, some have introduced safe shoot up spots and free needles. We already have schools designed for sports people, artists and mathematicians. How about schools for young gun lovers? Get them all together to keep an eye on each others and show the world that gun pride is wonderful.
3
Ah, ha. Another shooting in a gun-free zone, where 98% of mass shootings have occurred. But this time the gun-free zone had one gun in it and at the ready to contend with any potential mass murderer. And it worked. No mass murders. Two wounded, but it could have been much worse. Obviously, what is needed is the repeal of all gun-free-zone legislation, and more guns in schools in the hands of those responsible for students' safety.
5
Just a thought: years ago, when smoking was finally seen by every intelligent citizen as a medical threat to all of us, even non-smokers near smokers, big tobacco, which had profited mightily for the sale of these carcinogens, were made to pay for retributions to society. So, too, should gun makers, sellers, and support clubs, be forced to pay into society for the damage they have caused.
Of course semi-automatic weapons should be banned, and of course there should be effective universal background checks, and of course there should be mental health improvements, and of course, bump-stocks should be outlawed, and of course police should guard every school (a pity, but needed these days), but it's past time to imagine that present supplies of guns in the hands of the public will decrease, so it's my stance that, now that drastic defensive measures are needed to save our children and indeed, ourselves, that the providers and supporters of gun proliferation should now pay to help ameliorate the damage to which they've contributed.
Wouldn't be refreshing if we could count on congress to address this issue without worrying about what the NRA would have to say, or where their bribe money goes? Well, it's nice to dream...
3
16 and 14 yr old victims. Wow. This sounds a lot like the shooter was a spurned boyfriend whose emotions got the better of him. And why did he shoot? Because we are a society that is careering at supersonic speed toward total population armament. Just as we become inured toward violence, we have begun accepting guns in our public lives. A century ago, this young person would have poured his heart out in poetry that would have brought tears to your eyes. Or "gone west" to pan for gold. Or chosen another adventure to distract his broken heart. But no...back to the present. Don't like someone? Shoot 'em up. Ticked off at the world? Shoot a whole bunch of them up. Welcome to the U.S.A.
8
Trump's right. Political Correctness is literally killing us. As long as we're afraid to name these 'bad' people and kids; to call out certain groups and races for being more dangerous than others; to name certain districts as dangerous; to fail to arm schools like prisons; to admit that our educational system is not very good at the primary and secondary level; to be afraid to tell adults that they're bringing up their kids wrong; to allow all sorts of losers to prosper at our expense, to come into the country, and to constantly blame whites and exculpate minorities, we're going to have major problems.
3
This stinks. The "shooter," the "gunman," was also a child. We're praising someone for killing a child. How did this young person gain access to a weapon? Can his parents be prosecuted? We don't need more guns. We need more humanity.
10
Notice how the article infers that the security officer may have been the one to have shot the other student? Clearly the NYT is hoping for that to be the case to aid in their agendized pattern of denying a "good guy with a gun" is ever the answer.
4
The only way for Americans to live in safety is to leave America and start their lives over in a less violent country, as I did fifty years ago.
2
Has consideration that a contributing factor of these shootings are our schools MAY be caused by the political TENSION in the air?
The human brain doesn't finish developing until the person reaches 24-8 years old. That is typically when the three largest coronal sutures close/seal. Such, with this never seen before overload of vitriolic political stimuli, the most vulnerable are going to be the at-risk youth, no?
Before we start laying blame and finding excuses, shouldn't we ALL look in the mirror and adjust accordingly?
1
To quote a Parkland student...This is the USA not the NRA.
3
If we didn't live in a country where guns outnumber people, we wouldn't need armed resource officers to begin with. This escalation of arms is a cancer and the NRA and GOP are responsible. Vote them out.
3
Blah, blah, blah, gun control! Like a broken record the NYTs sees a disturbing trend of random violence in schools and do they present a deep analysis of the causes, societal or otherwise? No, it's just guns. Nothing else is wrong, and if suddenly no one is allowed to legally own them, then this problem will magically disappear. Wake up people!!!
3
Hello parents! God parents! Neighbours, friends
What is this CHILD doing with a GUN?????
4
When does the media start to take responsibility for the huge increase in children going into their school (or former school) and start shooting? The increase of all this madness falls squarely on the shoulders of the television and print media organizations that cannot wait to have a sensational shooting with mass casualties to increase their ratings or sell more papers, magazines, or internet flow. Something horrible and horrific like this occurs, and it is splashed all over giving it so much attention, and not long afterwards another kid, who is watching it unfold or reading about it, says to themselves, “hey, what a great idea. I’m going to plan something like this out as well, and all those people who did me wrong will pay for it and the whole world will know all about it.”
We are always talking about this and that to put an end to all the violence, but nothing ever happens. The media loves a great, bloody, story, the state and federal government are bribed by the N.R.A., people just forget about it for a little while until the next shooting happens, and we repeat the same old crap and nothing ever changes. Until the media stops worrying about a profit and lobbying is outlawed and guns are controlled nothing will ever change.
1
Doesn't seem that having "a good guy with a gun" was much deterrence for the same reason that death penalties for drug dealers won't stop drug dealing: Only fanatics don't care if they are caught and I doubt that the deceased shooter in Great Mills qualifies. All others who violate the law do so not expecting to be caught.
Maybe someone ought to do something about the supply side of shooting violence. It is beyond hypocritical, even by Trumpian standards, to talk about controlling an arms race with Russia while ignoring the NRA sponsored, home-grown variety.
2
Time to equip all classrooms with bulletproof large shields (ala 300 Spartans), and train the children how to use them to protect themselves somewhat from mass murder in our schools.
If this sounds like a crazy idea, I would say that it is immensely less crazy than us adults in the U.S. (Congress & State legislatures) allowing civilians to own and use military assault machine guns with the only intended purpose is to shred scores of humans and kill them as rapidly as possible.
A nation in state of disintegration
1
And if the gunman had used an assault rifle, think how many would be dead in that minute.
4
The NRA will claim vindication for their good guy with a gun theory. But this case is different from Florida, Sandy Hook and Columbine. Austin Rollins wanted to kill one girl. He had a handgun. In the other massacres, the shooters wanted to kill as many people as possible and brought the weapons they needed to do just that.
2
While still yet another American tragedy, perhaps part of the difference (1 dead rather than 17) was:
1. The state of Maryland bans the sale of semiautomatic "assault" weapons
2. The resource officer pursued and confronted the shooter
3. The shooter "only" had a handgun...
Yet the question is how did a 17 yo get his hands on a gun (minimum age for purchase in Maryland 21 yo)
MARCH FOR OUR LIVES - Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC - Sat March 24
5
And the NRA will make a big deal about "the good guy with a gun" nonsense. How often will your good guy with a gun just happen to have swat training and be stationed in exactly the right place? In all the shootings to date, my unofficial count is one.
3
Another school shooting and just a blip in the news cycle. It's become too commonplace and our outrage is stretched between the latest scandal of incompetence of the Trump administration, Russian meddling and identity theft. Where are the adults?
Overall, it is just sad. A kid dead. A kid who thought he had to rely on a gun. Two kids shot, one possibly by the police. The school children traumatized and living in fear.
It is time for all Americans to stand up reject and resist the NRA, Republican and Evangelical ideology and focus on uniting and healing our fractured country.
How? Think about it and develop your own tact. Say hello to people of other races. Give money to homeless people. Write letters to evangelicals and Republican politicians with your thoughts on how they have strayed. Don't be an aggressive driver and stop blowing your horn, tailgating, etc. Acknowledge to yourself that you are uncomfortable when you encounter others that are unlike you; disabled, mentally disadvantaged, poor. Confront yourself and ask and then answer with full honesty, "Am I the person I really want to be". I could go on, you get the point.
Lots of people just fall into a, "I don't care" mentality and it's understandable. The pressures on society to produce "more with less" at our jobs. The need for both parents to work. Uncontrolled property taxes, corrupt politicians, the list goes on. But I likely bore you by now. In closing, take whatever size steps you can and bring those around you and the rest of the country together.
1
"seed peace." ramsey clark - autograph
we must do this. we must sincerely try to be the best roll models we can be... 24/7. not only for our youth's sake, but for everyone's. we must be vigilant in this endeavor, for aggression, indifference, hostility, disparagement spreads like an infection, and boy we're sick.
nobody's perfect, but we need to get the word out to take it easy and be nice and kind whenever we can. life is much better if kindness spreads, and worse when evil consumes. so please try to "seed peace" whenever you can.
The only way to end the reign of the NRA and all the other corporations and special interests that openly bribe politicians, is to end all private money in politics. I propose the 28th Amendment: No person seeking federal office or serving in such office shall seek or accept any financial in in kind consideration whatsoever - before, during, or after running or serving in such office.
Only then will Congress represent the people, instead of special interests.
1
The details are not yet complete and already gun rights advocates are praising a gun fight in a public school, however; one thing is for certain. If the 17 year old shooter did not have access to one of more. than 300,000,000 guns blanketing America today, there would have been no shooting and no gunfight in a public school.
Call it idealism, and I am not ashamed to prefer the latter scenario over what actually happened.
Before anyone jumps to any conclusion about the efficacy of having/not having an armed person/s in schools I would hope that the shooting investigation determines who shot who. I believe both the 17 year old and the deputy sheriff were both armed with semi-automatic pistols. The 17 year old was reported to have a Glock, caliber unknown. The deputy works for an Agency that issues two different makes of semi-automatic handguns, one type is a 40 caliber Smith and Wesson. However, deputies can petition for carrying their own preferred sidearm.So, while not being a ballistic expert, I would safely conjecture that with recovered projectiles the shooters could be determined. Then the debate can begin about the possible deadly tradeoffs Americans can expect to have to deal with when you have gun fights in school hallways. This is the debate the “price of freedom” demands we have in our gun saturated culture. Is the death of a child bystander okay if it is the “good guy” with the gun doing the shooting when confronting the “bad guy?” I don't have an answer to that question. Or is it a matter of simply accepting the killing of one innocent to save the possible many, unless of course that innocent is your child.
I wonder how many commentators here are even aware that there are generally no armed guards at schools in civilized countries, and that gun ownership is regarded as being odd.
4
Is this story now over? I am surprised there is no follow up today. As a lead up to this weekend's Marches there should be more coverage of the gun-related violence that our kids are experiencing, particularly in schools.
The governor and the legislators continue to squabble, and the needs to protect our children goes unattended.
1
Interesting comments. Any bill to pass stricter gun control laws on top of the ones which don't work now should include an immediate elimination of all protectives arms from airports, government offices, including Congress, because obviously any increased gun control will eliminate all the dangers.
If the kids aren't worth protecting, neither are our politicians.
Wait for the autopsy findings before jumping to any conclusion. The student may have shot himself. The injured student may have been shot by the police officers stray bullet. Nothing will be clear until the investigation is complete which will likely take weeks.
When we bring backpacks or bags into baseball games, they're searched and we go through metal detectors. We need gun control and we also need funding for searches like these upon every school entry - and funding for bullet proof glass or screens on all classrooms. Tax all gun sales and charge annual firearms maintenance fees to pay for it.
2
What we seem to have forgotten,ignored, or deliberately mis-read by a well financed and politically strong NRA, is that the second amendment of the Constitution was written in the early years of our country, when we had no national Army, but only, a citizens militia to free our country from England, and protect it again in later battles, such as the war of 1812. It is, as originally intended, anachronistic and extremely deadly.
It was not intended to be taken advantage of two centuries later by the NRA. "WE THE PEOPLE" are currently without restraint of momentary emotions/ unstable people who use guns for vengeance or notoriety/ and many citizens who personally have more deadly guns than ever available to make our country free. Now it is sport to kill people, not to sustain liberty. A musket could have never mowed down hundreds of people in seconds. Where are the rights of citizens to be protected from gun violence?
Our children are safer in the school than they are out in the middle of a populated area PROTESTING!
Focus on their EDUCATION not POLITICS. Parents focus on means of protecting them.
IF you are tired of the status QUO CHANGE side vote differently GET the stagnant Representatives, Senators and governing bodies out of power, and vote for people that will make change!!
If Hogan were a Democrat he would be accused of "politicizing" the tragedy. Luckily, the shooter did not have a more lethal weapon. Put a luxury tax on guns and bullets sufficient to pay for needed security.
1
I'm very surprised this story made the mainstream news.
Defensive shootings happen everyday. Almost none make the news.
2
When I was still teaching in NJ, we had two resource officers in the high school building. It was reassuring to know they were there, and the students well as teachers liked and respected them. I am sure that their presence was a deterrent to any student who might have thought of bringing a weapon into the building. I did wish that we also had metal detectors at the entrance as an added form of protection from violence.
4
One child is dead. One is either going today or face a long, expensive and painful recovery that will alter her life forever. A third has been shot and will also never be the same. The SRO prevented nothing, deterred nothing, and may have even been responsible for more innocent blood being shed. How many more children will die, how many more billions of dollars will taxpayers shell out because of gun violence, before America figures out that guns are the problem?
9
Seems the NRA was correct: Competent, armed officer in the school put an end to the threat within a minute or two. Parkland had same, but not an officer with the same courage or training. Seventeen dead is the difference.
5
in parkland, he had a gun designed to fire hundreds of bullets quickly and he had lots of bullets. he stopped killing when his gun jammed, not when he ran out of bullets after hitting five dozen students and firing more bullets.
in this case, the shooter had a hand gun and a limited number of bullets. he could never hurt many students because he had few bullets.
the cop did fire, but he is not certain he hit the gunman.
he was armed with a gun and nearby but never deterred the gunman as the NRA promised an armed good guy would.
basically, the two cases prove the NRA is wrong.
I am willing to allow the NRA as many guns as they want, but no more than five bullets per person. to buy bullets you get background checked and sold five bullets. to get more, you return the shell casings to buy replacements.
if you can't hit your target with five bullets, you can't handle a gun.
gun ranges would sell as many bullets as you can afford to fire at the gun range.
The shooter was still able to shoot Two people too many, before the officer even got to him. If the shooter had a semi-automatic, even more would have been shot, before any officer 'got to him'. The officer may have put an end to the 'continued threat', but clearly not to the initial threat, which the shooter was able to carry out on two innocent people.
The obvious solution? No one should have a semi-automatic to begin with. We need to ban such weapons for the general public. And we need to reconsider the minimum age at which someone should be able to purchase Any type of gun.
Maybe. "And while Sheriff Cameron initially suggested that Mr. Rollins had shot both the 16-year-old and the 14-year-old victims, he said later that he was unable to confirm who had injured the 14-year-old, who was transported to a hospital in stable condition."
Armed guards look out for precious assets. It is obscene that we have them in banks and not in schools. This incident is an object lesson in what happens when one of these would be mass murderers is confronted by a trained armed protector. The only one who died was the one who deserved to.
4
What’s obscene is that we need armed guards in schools. A student should not have to see a gun during the school day.
2
The schools need security persons at the extrances to the school property. The shooter in the Great Mills case should have been halted before he was able to enter the school. Carrying weapons into schools should be banned.
3
A 17 year boy with a gun goes into a school and shoots a girl.
Did he get it from a negligent parent who didn't lock it up? Did he buy it at a gun show? Did he buy it at a retailer? Did he get it on the street? Who knows, but it shows that simply raising the age of purchase from 18 to 21 will do little to nothing.
Guns are too prevalent and in the hands of too many irresponsible people. The 2nd Amendment calls for the militia to be regulated. It says nothing about 17 year old boys having an unfettered right to bear arms.
The number of guns being used is directly proportional to the number of guns available and in circulation. Keep making them, keep selling them, and people will keep using them. Anyone talking about improving school safety who won't also talk about regulating gun availability is a fool and will never improve school safety. Chase it all you want, but you will never catch your tail.
22
I too would like to know how a 17 year old got a gun.
I'm thinking of the recent shooting in Mississippi where a 9 year old boy got his parent's gun from the bedroom and shot his sister over a video remote control.
“Mr. Hogan proposed putting $125 million into school protection and $50 million to pay for school resource officers. He complained that the State Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, had not passed legislation to do so.
‘It’s outrageous to me that we haven’t taken action yet on something so important as school safety,’ Mr. Hogan said.”
What?!!
Actually, it is outrageous that schools have become unsafe due to irresponsible gun laws.
8
But it was not immediately clear, the sheriff said, whether Deputy Gaskill’s shot had struck Mr. Rollins. And while Sheriff Cameron initially suggested that Mr. Rollins had shot both the 16-year-old and the 14-year-old victims, he said later that he was unable to confirm who had injured the 14-year-old, who was transported to a hospital in stable condition.
Translation: Deputy Gaskill fired a gun at close range and missed, striking an innocent bystander. And Rollins killed himself.
15
"Police said Austin Rollins, 17, shot at two other students who were injured. Gaskill fired at Rollins, who almost simultaneously fired back with a handgun, Cameron said. Gaskill was not injured during the incident, which unfolded in less than a minute."
Per the Baltimore Sun. You should apologize to Deputy Gaskill.
1
We are probably the only country in the world that eats its own children!
8
Unfortunately, we are not the only country in the world that "eats its own children."
It is easy to understand metaphorical hyperbole given the lies told by those against regulation of firearms.
However, let's not let our outrage override the facts. This is not even the only country where children's lives are in danger at school. In many countries, they are in danger of much more (e.g., being forced into becoming child soldiers).
Please, friends, consult Human Rights Watch (hrw.org) - child rights, and donate what you can.
As to the lies told by those opposing regulation of firearms, one example: the Second Amendment does not prohibit the banning of assault rifles. They were banned by Act of Congress from 1994-2004, when Congress let the ban expire.
1
Well what will the idiots who want to be caged by the system say now?
1.) The Second Amendment was NEVER about hunting or self defense it ALWAYS intended the citizens to maintain MILITARY grade weapons capable of preventing a government out of control (somewhat like we have now)
2.) The School resource officer did his job, armed force was met with armed force. We protect our legislators and our money with guns why not our kids.
3.) It is NEVER about what teachers have on their plate it is about the right of a person to defend themselves. You have taken the right of citizens to defend themselves away and you can't guarantee their safety. Shame
5
Nice spin -- but it's incorrect. It was about the need for citizens in the 18th century and in underdeveloped colonies (that were just becoming a country) to have a standing militia. It's not about entertaining yourself with the hideous notion that you have the right to own any sort of modern weapon you want -- hence, it has always been illegal to own a cannon. It's also illegal to own a missile launcher. What's even more absurd is that you would think any gun will stop a tank or aircraft that an "out of control" government might have. It is what it is ... and what it is, according to the Ninth Amendment, is whatever we need as a nation at any given time.
You think the answer to this "out of control" government is a few people with AR-15s? Really? Is the 2nd Amendment the only part of the Constitution you read? Seems so, and that is unfortunate. Read more. The answer to this "out of control" government is "vote."
Let's stay away from the Kool Aid!
The Language of the Second Amendment amply refutes the argument that the Amendment was intended to empower citizens to resist the government. It says: 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.
The "free State" is NOT the freedom of the individual to do what she pleases. It is not so the individual can resist the tyranny of the government, state or federal. It is so that the state can call our a well-regulated militia.
Why would it want to do so? (1) To repel foreign invaders, as in the war of 1812 (e.g., at the battle of New Orleans, Jackson led the Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana militias).
(2) to fight Native Americans (e.g., Jackson led the Tennessee militia at the Battle of Talladega during the Creek War - weather permitting and the Creeks don't rise) (3) to put down slave revolts (e.g., Wade Hampton I led Louisiana Militia to put down the German Coast Uprising in 1811) (4) to repress citizen revolts (e.g., the Whiskey Rebellion, 1794, George Washington led militias from PA, NJ, MD, and VA against the tax protesters who had taken up arms).
If one wants to have access to military arms, she can join her state's National Guard, defined as part of "the militia of the United States (10 U.S.C. Sec. 246).
To interpret an historical document it pays to know some history and to give meaning to the entire text.
1
Can we all get behind a tax on firearms and ammunition to pay for armed school safety officers? Seems fair to me. Why should individuals who don't want to be armed pay to mitigate the risks arms create?
22
This is a text book case study in why conceal carry for all law abiding citizens is a neat idea. The perp was offed by a good guy who was packin.
9
If only in the last few decades, our government had been allowed to do gun research and gather gun-related statistics, we might have had some clear answers. The NRA had good reason to keep such research from happening.
10
A PROFESSIONAL good guy. That's very different than an AMATEUR good guy. Besides, everyone is a good buy until he or she goes bad, and that is an unpredictable moment in time.
The "perp" was a 17-year-old child who wouldn't have brought a gun to school at all had he not had access to one.
Thoughts, prayers, teddy bears. Hey, we've got it covered. And speaking of covered, what does it say about our values that this article about a school shooting - so commonplace now! - takes a back seat on the NYT front page to Betsy DeVos's attempt to neuter the DOE and Ben Carson's dining room table.
11
This is just crazy. So, you are annoyed with someone and the answer is bring a gun and shoot that person and anyone else you see??? I hate to say it, but I don't remember this behavior 40 or 50 years ago.
18
“But some opponents argue that a police presence in schools increases the chances students will be arrested unnecessarily for minor infractions.”
The price of safety. Get used to it or do something about the killing epidemic in our schools.
6
Why do we give so much authority to long -dead men (many of whom owned slaves thereby calling into question the clarity of their thinking and the status as moral beings) who could never imagined the kinds of weaponry available at the local superstore today? They wrote about muskets and well-regulated (why do “gun rights” never refer to that part of the amendment?) militias. Why does what they wrote from deep within an entirely different world have more authority than what we ourselves see happening almost every day? There are principles, sure, but this adoration of the second amendment borders in fetishism. And why are gun rights so sacred when voting rights are constantly under threat.
21
Because it was the gun which kept African-Americans in chains, and kept them in their place even after emancipation, and perhaps continues to do so now (Black Lives Matter).
It was the gun that let Native Americans be driven from their homes and lands and herded onto reservations.
These were two of the jobs of state militias or of later citizens' militia groups (e.g., KKK)
1
My thoughts and prayers are with all the students and parents tonight - even the shooter's. It's good that the resource officer stopped the shooting. He had to do that, if it were my kids in their school I would have wanted the same.
However, and I know it isn't going to be a popular thing to say, but rather than promoting the 'good guy with a gun' mantra - this event seems to underline that kids should not have access to guns. Most children (and some adults) can have out-sized emotions and when they have access to weapons that kill emotional encounters can become deadly. The shooter targeted someone he had a prior relationship with. At what point do we realize that extreme anger, hurt, jealousy, etc. can cause people to do disastrous things. It's great that the resource officer stopped the shooting at the school. I cannot say enough how good it was that he was there. But what if the shooter had targeted his former girlfriend at a park instead?
My husband grew up in a house with guns. They were in a locked safe. The other day he told my parents "the first thing we would do when we were kids and my parents were away is go play with the guns. My parents thought we didn't know how to get to that stuff, but we did - of course you do. Kids figure that stuff out."
We need to take this seriously. We cannot let the NRA hold this country hostage any longer.
16
hardening schools doesn't prevent someone from shooting their partner or shooting up a church or a hospital or a restaurant or a park or a sidewalk. this is not just about schools. at this point it's about places of worship, concerts, movie theaters, a public lands interpretive center, your homes and just about any other place you might be at any given point.
Yes, kids are especially vulnerable, but the way things have been going, all these guns pose a threat everyyone, anywhere in the US. Wake up people.
12
Officials are now talking about spending millions to put metal detectors and trained staff in all schools.in all schools.
Officials are talking about urgently needed infrastructure updates.
Officials are talking about billions for a wall.
Officials are talking about millions for a parade.
Our elected leaders gave taxpayers a tiny tax cut and a massive tax cut to corporations.
We are borrowing almost $100 billion just for this year.
We need to keep children safe. We need to keep cities like Austin safe. We need to support our teachers, resource safety workers, police, agencies, and agencies such as the FBI and the ATF funded and trained.
Nobody is coming going to step up and save us. Nothing will trickle down. No fantasy resurgence will suddenly provide enough income to fund all our needs. No imaginary savings will pay for that multi-billion dollar wall.
Elected officials will simply delete services and raid social security and raise our taxes. While enriching themselves.
We must stop hating, fighting, killing each other and allowing ourselves to be manipulated and used. We have no other choice.
14
I don't know if he was a "gunman". A 17 year old high school student in this day and age doesn't really qualify as man.
"Gunchild" doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?
My kids are 2 and 5. They are about to enter the school system. When our oldest was born, we moved back to the USA from Australia to be with family. The gun debate specifically is more and more making me regret our decision.
This is so deeply sad.
15
The difference here is the bad guy with a gun had a handgun, and nly wanted to shoot one person. If he had a semi-automatic assault rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition, the outcome may have been Parkland all over again. A resource officer with a handgun is still no match.
Oh, wait, I know: the NRA will say school resource officers should all carry assault rifles. No problem with that!
15
A would-be murderer is dead. I'm OK with that.
7
Or, more generally, to paraphrase the Son of God: He who lives by the gun shall die by the gun.
Perhaps that explains why 2/3 of the gun deaths in this country are suicides.
1
We have created a culture of violence in America that other than war zones has no equal. First of all there is no silver bullet solution. There are too many causes of these tragic shootings. The only thing they have in common is easy, all too easy, access to high power, semi-automatic weapons. I would like to know what the home environment is for all these shooters. Do they come from single parent homes? Are the parents divorced or drug abusers? Are they middle class kids? Why aren't we able to screen out some of these shooters before they act? But what I find most troubling is that the kids who do the shooting seem to think that they'll get away it or, literally, die trying. What are they thinking?
Crime dramas on TV paint a fantasy of brutal murders solved by fast thinking police and others who bring a quick end and notoriety to the criminal. And they wrap it all up in 30-60 minutes. Totally unreal. Do kids really buy into that? Does that influence them? What about bloody video games? Are the shooters engaged in those violent video fantasies? What is corrupting our young people?
Somehow kids are indoctrinated into believing that violence is a cool answer.
Our kids are not safe in school. Let's put our heads together and fix that. Let's put in the officers needed to guard our kids. Let's screen them as they enter the buildings. Let's do some psychological profiling. Let's get parents involved and get them to buy in on securing firearms. Let's do something. Now.
5
Yup, a goood guy with a gun put a quick end to the rampage. The Liberal media was all over the story of the Maryland school shooting, until they found out that an armed school officer put an end to the shooting. At that point, they went back to trashing President Trump. The ending didn't fit their hysterical agenda against the 2nd Amendment.
12
Wait a minute--one student was killed and two others wounded. Was that death and those injuries, which may well result in lifelong physical and emotional consequeces, some kind of sick tradeoff to you because "only" one died?
12
Ummm...how about we prevent rampages from happening instead of trying to make them less bad. One child "merely" grazed by a gun is too much. A kid threatened by a gun will have PTSD for life. Only two children being shot and still alive and another dead is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
And Donald brings all this criticism upon himself. Could someone take his phone away already?
7
My sentiments exactly. when Fox news sent me a notification about this event, I checked to see if NY Times had sent a Breaking News e-mail about it. Nope. But I did have a "Breaking News" article from NY times that some Playboy Model was asking to break her agreement to not discuss her interactions with Donald Trump before he was president. According to the NY Times, that's more important than a school shooting. (really? REALLY?) I actually submitted a comment to this article asking the NY Times or any reader to explain to my why one was worthy of a breaking news announcement and the other wasn't. It said I'd receive an e-mail if my comment were posted. I never got that e-mail. I guess that kind of answers my question.
The high school here in Brooklyn NY has metal detectors and there is ONLY 1 door in and ONLY 1 door out, with a school police officer at that door, EVERY student must wait in line to go in, rain, snow, cold, hot, they wait on line to go into that school. These are city kids and they are used to this, AND I LOVE IT. EVERY school has a PTA, they should all fund a drive to raise money for their school to buy metal detectors at the front door, and have a local contractor help install the front door, foyer area. STOP WAITING for someone else to act!
13
Well, you see, it used to be only those "inner city kids" who had to be controlled that way. "Suburban kids" were so much better than that. After all, many of their parents moved out of the cities to protect them from the violence of those "inner city kids". It does explain why none of these mass school shootings have occurred in large cities.
It's like the opioids crisis. It was only when places like New Hampshire became "drug infested dens" that just locking all the users up for years ceased to be the proper and adequate response. Of course, the opioids that are killing them are not prescription pain killers. They are heroin and Herron laced with fentanyl.
2
yep, or we could raise the bar for gun ownership so your kids don't have to go to a school that's like a prison.
Sounds to me like a case of juvenile suicide by cop. And this is our future: frequent re-enactments of 'Gunfight at the OK Corral' at a public school near you.
We truly do live in an exceptional nation.
5
With a handgun, 2 injured, 0 killed.
With an AR-15? Impossible to know except more killed and injured. Many more.
10
And the Republican governor employs the magic phrase "school safety", as opposed to "gun control."
7
School gun violence - The kids are taking to the streets this weekend and they need our support.
March for Our Lives is happening Saturday March 24 with over 700 EVENTS nationwide. Help support March for Our Lives in your community.
Adults are supposed to take care of children — not only keep them safe, but make them feel safe. It is shameful that the kids lead on this issue with common sense solutions. Adults, not so much.
9
So a resource officer with above average training was able to neutralize a presumably untrained student using similar weapons? I can't say the outcome is surprising, nor does it necessarily prove or disprove either side's point on any of this. An AR-15 based semi-automatic rifle would have likely at the very least leveled the playing field between the officer and the perpetrator. And in a sign of the times, this doesn't even count as a "mass shooting" using the generally accepted definition.
6
It will be interesting to see if the "good guy with a gun" injured one of the kids.
8
Gov. Larry Hogan said his office was closely monitoring the situation, and that he was praying for the victims and the Great Mills community.
“But prayers are not enough,” Mr. Hogan said, in an emailed statement. “Although our pain remains fresh and the facts remain uncertain, today’s horrible events should not be an excuse to pause our conversation about school safety. Instead, it must serve as a call to action.”
The 'fact' is kids got shot!
2
Guns are a plague
8
So now all schools will have to buy metal detectors. Add this societal cost to the billions of dollars the US already spends every year on the gun victims who survive. And all because the NRA wants to push guns on all of us. At taxpayer expense. On what planet is this OK, when the simple solution would be to increase gun control. Guns are the problem, and lack of guns is the only obvious solution.
80
I remember my high school installed metal detectors in 1985. Zero shootings since then.
6
The suspect is dead.
So we can forget about a ten year legal drama, endless appeals, and calls to be lenient on 'kids.'
5
“On this day, we realize our worst nightmare,” the sheriff said, “that our greatest asset, our children, were attacked in one of our places, a bastion of safety and security, one of our schools.”
in America? What a joke.
7
While it's great that the armed deputy intercepted the shooter, the shooter still had the opportunity to shoot two people (not mention he could have shot many more with a high-capacity weapon!) before the deputy even got to him.
So whether or not we should have armed security in our schools or not, does not change the fact that regardless, a shooter can potentially maim/kill a number of people (if not dozens with a semi-automatic) before any armed security even intercepts him.
This all once again demonstrates that we need to tackle the problem at its source...the unfettered, untracked (i.e., national database) access to and purchase of weaponry.
9
“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in 2015. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
22
So now we have old western style shootouts in our schools. Please tell me again why we have guns in our society.
10
Why do other civilized nations have so few gun deaths? They make it very hard for people to own guns.
Next question, please.
17
Power and money first. Human lives, a distant second.
11
A Deputy with the will to fight. At least he didn't run and hide. Thank you.
4
PLEASE STOP PUBLISHING THE NAMES OF THESE SHOOTERS. It seems to be a hot topic that can only lead to copycat crimes. They deserve anonymity.
Focus on the victims and survivors stories, there is plenty to tell there.
1
Publishing the shooters' names doesn't lead to copycat crimes. Having almost no barriers to accessing guns leads desperate people to make unbelievably bad decisions. This isn't about fame and it's much less about 'mental health' than it is about too many people having easy access to too many guns. Get a clue.
6
anya...I don't see the harm in NOT posting their names. if it eliminates one copycat (I know you don't believe such a thing exists) then isn't it worth it? It is a simple, free, non-political answer that might just save one kids life. As we all know, no politician has been able (or willing) to address gun control. Not even Obama when the democrats had the house and senate.
"Thoughts and prayers" are meaningless throw away lines every politician uses as a sanctified shrug indicating nothing more will be done.
Stop using the appeal to an imaginary god as the catch phrase which translates to "nothing we will do about it folks, we are in the gun lobby's vest pocket"
The old men who run our show and have allowed this wound to fester won't cure anything and need to be moved out of the way.
For the sake of our kids, if no one else, we have to vote this political cancer out of our system.
4
All we get from Trumpster idiots and Republicans is hopes & prayers. Paul Ryan's phones have been off the hook forever. Mitch McConnell's office doesn't respond to constituents when they call. How's are these Republicans making American Great Again? One hand gun at a time... Let's make it one voter at a time removing them from office.
12
How long until liberals blame guns and not the gunman for this shooting?
5
What??? I'm a liberal and most definitely believe guns are the problem...just like all my liberal friends. Was this a typo??
7
So this shooter illegally possessed a firearm and attempted to murder children. He did not use an assault rifle. He used a handgun.
Now is the time for Democrats to propose the repeal of the second amendment.
6
somehow he had access to it. at some point there was a breakdown in the system that should have kept it out of his hands. most likely, someone bought it legally at some point. where's the accountability here? some sort of registry would help us do this. (it's laughable that we have a registry for cars but not guns.)
and if you really really are so afraid that you need to possess a handgun then you should be responsible enough to lock it up in a safe. and if you lose it, and it is then used to commit a crime, you are complicit in that crime and you should be accountable.
let's raise the bar for gun ownership.
8
A very sad, tragic day for another American school and for all involved. The fact that this shooter had a handgun, and not a military style weapon, like an AR-15, allowed the security officer to deal with the situation, rather than being outgunned. Doesn’t this suggest the wisdom of stringently regulating such weapons?
8
“In my mind, it’s a school shooting in the classical sense, but the investigation will have to determine if there was any connection between the shooter and the victims,” Mr. Cameron said.
Many news outlets including the Pittsburg Post Gazette are reporting this portion of Sheriff Cameron's statement. It must be shocking to everyone's sensibilities that we starting to classify our school shootings, one of them being "classical". It must be.
11
Governor Hogan is in a great position to do more than just improve school safety. 90 miles to the north Baltimore is still under siege. With his incredibly high 70% approval rating in a solidly Blue state he could take the lead with a sympathetic legislature and and an even more aggressive Attorney General to mount a three branch assault on the NRA and their lock on regulation.
10
Maybe if our society didn't make so many crazy nutjobs then we wouldn't need to talk about preventing people from having to exercise personal responsibility.
We didn't have people shooting up schools until 20 years ago. Our society is sick and the symptom is mass shootings.
I'm all for new gun regulations and such, but sick people can turn anything into a weapon. Is the goal just to lessen the amount of people a sick person can kill, or to look into our society and find a way to make sick people more whole?
I just don't want to be in a situation a year from now where we have banned AR-15s and feel good about ourselves because sick people can only kill 5 or 6 people at once instead of 50.
5
America....the mass murder capital of the world....we're number one!
14
Was the shooter in the school's JROTC program? Had the shooter been approached, or targeted, by military recruiters? When I say targeted I mean was he identified as a person who would be suitable for recruitment by the military. You'll have to ask the military recruiters who worked that school and the NJROTC instructors at Great Mills High School. Do the school's teachers or administration identify individual students that may be of interest to the military for recruiting efforts? Had the student ever expressed interest in the military?
All high schools are required to submit personal information on all of their students to the military for recruiting purposes, since 2002.
3
And we will do nothing.
10
What if Scott Beigel was armed, what if Aaron Feis had a gun and what if Chris Hixon was allowed to be properly trained in order to defend his life and the life of his students?
3
@John S: Life is not a role-playing game or a Western movie. For a teacher to take out someone with an AR-15, s/he would have to be highly trained and on constant alert. I'd rather a teacher be thinking about teaching my kids, not constantly keeping a hand on a gun, poised to shoot at any moment.
3
So, never again is 5 weeks? or so?
11
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS I bestow this name on the Trump Administration and all the rest of the crooks, thieves, liars, assassins and bloodthirsty shooters who support the ongoing slaughter of the innocents in schools, where kids are supposed to be the safest. The NRA, established in 1871 has abandoned its founding principles as an organization to help train soldiers in shooting more safely and accurately and maintaining their guns. The NRA president, Karl Federick, an olympic champion shooter, testified before Congress in 1924 that he was in favor of strict gun control and severe restrictions on ownership. The NRA has morphed in to a terrorist organization that each year supports the slaughter of 10 times more people on US soil than were killed on 9/11. The NRA is the #1 terrorist threat to homeland security.
22
You are aware that during the Obama Administration, there were 162 school shootings, right? This is not a Trump issue, it's a parenting issue.
3
yes, and it's an issue of hardly fettered access to guns. get a clue.
5
The two most powerful men in America are Wayne LaPierre and Donald Trump. Horrifying. Enough to call a national strike. I’ve always said if 4 million people would shut off all their computers and cell phones for a day, this would cease to be the autocracy it has become. Simply because technology runs the economy and those two meatheads do not.
6
It’s just bonkers people, just bonkers. Is the USA ever going to sort this out. This happens nowhere else. Nowhere.
11
For Maryland voters who think Republican Governor Hogan is “okay enough” to merit re-election, his wholly empty “thoughts and prayers” mantra in the face of this latest school shooting is just one reason why these voters should instead choose to support one of our many excellent Democratic candidates, such as Rushern Baker.
1
Never thought I'd see the day when the typical NYT reader would be almost giddy that a cop shot a 17 year old to death, regardless of the circumstances.
I'm afraid on some level, you've all taken the bait.
7
Another day another reason to march this Saturday. As a high school teacher it is hard not to feel worried each time the door to my classroom opens. Should I keep the door locked and let the fear win? When I walk around the campus at my school here in California, most of the blinds are drawn and the windows to the doors are covered in posters or butcher paper. What a sad commentary on our society.
10
How about a new monument in D.C.?
Let's name it "My Death Supported the 2nd Amendment."
We can list all the names, DOB & DOD and the name of the school where the innocent children were murdered.
We will need a VERY LARGE monument to place all the students names that were murdered and plenty of space for the ones that will be murdered.
Suggest the inscriptions are in color, say blood red.
Underneath the name - "My Death Supported the 2nd Amendment" - let's have a note of special thanks to the NRA & the Republican Party.
24
#EndNRAwelfare: insurance for each gun, liable for damage caused by failure to safe guard their weapon. yearly fee for each gun to pay extra security in schools malls, etc. Gun owners should pay their own way.
13
This is not a sign of a normal, healthy society. Everybody needs to be alarmed and doing their best to find a way to stop these events before they begin. It might, actually, be necessary also to find ways to stop these attacks more quickly once they start, but that's the lazy way out it won't solve anything in the long run. There's so many conditions that contribute to attacks like this such as the availability of guns (NOT the legality of them), male rage, the violent culture of the USA and the pathetic complacency of most adults and politicians who've given up and now accept this as normal. How hard can it really be to stop this, really?
4
A 17 year old born in America, raised in America, exposed to American culture, a culture that glorifies all forms of violence, opened fired in his high school on his fellow students. Yet nobody asks why This keeps happening with the children of “ The greatest country in the World “ I guess they will blame mental illness and leave it at that. As though mental illness was just something you were born with, like Freckles . Mental illness is an acquired disease, and a lot of young Americans seem to be acquiring it. The question is why. And why now.
9
On vacation in Vienna as I write this. Opera House; train from Budapest to Vienna; train from Prague to Budapest: zero metal detectors.
2016: number of homocides in Austria = 46.
I know Austria doesn’t have a second amendment, but they also don’t have a first Amendment, either. Yet, they manage to understand which is most important.
7
Then stay there.
2
In fact, we don't have a second amendment either, not as the pro-gun people would have you believe. We can ban assault weapons, we can institute waiting periods and universal background checks, we can limit gun magazine sizes, we cam require gun registration None of those have been determined to be unconstitutional. Read every single Supreme Court ruling ever, including the Heller decision. Each says the the second amendment is not without limits.
13
Exactly Alan! That's why they are called amendments--they can be amended.
This attack demonstrates the inadequacy of state age limit and waiting period laws. The Baltimore Sun notes that Maryland prohibits firearms purchases for anyone under 21; it also requires a 7-day waiting period. This kid was obviously not the gun's owner, but he got his hands on the weapon anyway. So Florida Republicans should not be patting themselves on the back just yet for passing age restrictions similar to Maryland's. Citizens should demand more. On the other hand, this attack may also demonstrate the value of an assault weapons ban, as other commenters have suggested. Maryland bars assault weapons and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. It would be helpful to know whether the two wounded in this awful attack could have survived similar wounds with an assault rifle. It's also worth asking whether the brave resource officer who engaged the shooter in this attack would have had much chance of surviving if the shooter had had that kind of fire power. How many rounds could he have fired in the time he had? The Times would do well to try to answer these questions to the extent possible. The answers could matter in the continuing debate over assault weapons.
6
While Maryland residents who want to purchase a handgun need to be at least 21 and such handguns are subject to registration and permit, when purchasing rifles the minimum age is 18 and no permit, registration and license are required. BTW, the AR-15, the weapon of choice in mass shootings is not classified as an assault rifle. It's about time the AR-15 is banned like it was before the assault weapons ban expired.
2
According to reports, it remains unclear at this time whether the 14 year old victim was shot by the shooting suspect or by the resource officer who responded to the attack.
The officer did his job and should be applauded for his bravery. But this does not change the fact that having guns at school is a bad idea, regardless of who has them.
I can't understand how anyone these days can still get onto a school campus with a gun. How many deaths does it take to make schools as safe as courtrooms?
14
this isn't just about schools. it's also about concerts, movies, churches and home invasions. maybe i should get a metal detector for my front door? oh wait, there are now plastic guns.
how about we raise the bar for gun ownership and heal our broken society?
3
the successful neutralization of the gunman by the resource officer in this instance should not give anyone confidence that such officers will keep our kids safe. this shooter with a pistol seemed to be after a specific target and was not a mass shooter, armed with an assault rifle, intent on maximizing casualties. while he did not have the heavy firepower of an AR15 to outgun the resource officer, he did manage to get a round off simultaneously with the officer, highlighting just how dangerous it is for anyone trying to intervene. Finally we know he did not strike the officer but we don't yet know who shot the 14yo. And we don't know that stopping him actually prevented any injuries - he might simply have fled. your kids are not safe. more resource officers will not make them safe. keeping assault weapons out of civilian hands will help. getting most guns out of civilian hands will help more.
12
Another gun-school tragedy.
How do we protect our school children from violence?
How do we identify youth at risk of serious mental health problems that make them a danger to others and themselves?
What best efforts can be taken to keep guns away from those who show signs of being dangerous?
Why can't we outlaw sale and ownership of semiautomatic weapons?
Simple questions but the answers are complicated. And when possible remedies are obstructed by the NRA and politicians who accept their dirty money we have what happened today - ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING!
I say declare the NRA a terrorist organization therefore prohibiting politicians from taking their dirty money.
7
The Second Amendment was created in order to protect the people, not condone the possession of firearms for unqualified individuals. Created in 1791 when it was necessary to hunt, and well before the advent of modern firearms, the Second Amendment states that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." However, this amendment was created when the fastest and most professional soldiers in the Continental Army could fire around 3 times a minute and when automatic and semi-automatic weapons were things of science fiction.
13
Says Gov. Hogan: “Although our pain remains fresh and the facts remain uncertain, today’s horrible events should not be an excuse to pause our conversation about school safety. Instead, it must serve as a call to action.” Dear Gov. Hogan, please say instead that we should not pause our conversation about gun control. THAT is the issue. This should be a call to action. On gun control.
6
From what the pro-gun, anti-regulation supporters propose, this incident is exactly what should happen on a regular basis in this country. This is what "good enough" looks liked: a shooter, whose actions we can do absolutely nothing to prevent, whose damage is limited by a "good guy with a gun." One teenager dead, another wounded with life-altering injuries, and one more with minor injuries.
I understand the concept of harm reduction, and I know that no rules, laws, or changes would bring gun violence down to zero. However, does this incident represent "good enough" to you? Is this the normal you want? If not, then we need to get serious about real harm reduction measures.
14
I am glad there was a resource officer present and that a larger number of people were not hurt. That being said, the shooter had a handgun. That is what made all the difference in this case.
It is time to ban guns and accessories that allow the rapid firing of a large number of bullets. Events like this cannot be stopped. But the damage they do be limited.
This coming weekend we will March for Our Lives to make a change. You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one. I hope you'll join us.
6
The NRA and its republican henchmen will claim credit for "stopping" this shooter, ignoring the fact that it's a lot easier to be a good guy with a gun when your opponent has only a handgun and no body armor. This sounds like a passion shooting which likely might have ended where it did regardless. If the shooter had had an AR-15 or other assault style weapon, it would likely have had a very different ending, regardless of the bravery of the individual resource officer.
In any event, it changes nothing in the ongoing gun control debate. Nor do the phony "prayers" of the party in power.
7
Once again the President and the Congress are complicit in their ABSOLUTE refusal to do ANYTHING to curb, or address the issue of gun violence. One can only draw the conclusion that the President and the Congress are rejoicing that teenagers are attempting to murder other teenagers in our schools. The repeated "our thoughts and prayers are with you" is total B.S. They are so far up the NRA's ass it is a betrayal to the citizens of this country.
3
“In other news...” section of this website, below Playboy model and porn star articles. That about says it.
2
A police official said the shooter used a semi-auto pistol. Some such pistols can hold upwards of 15 rounds. I hope the lesson from this is that banning this or that firearm cannot have any impact on school shootings. And we see here, if an AR-15 is not available, or is too difficult to conceal, one turns to a pistol. Some might say that if an AR-15 were used, there probably would not have been survivors. But before making that leap, I note that in Parkland, there were 14 injuries. We are not going to reduce the rate of school shootings if the insistence is to do something that will have absolutely no effect.
5
An armed responsible adult stopped a shooting in progress...
What a concept...
You fools who are sooooooo willing to give up your right to bear arms, move to Australia..
Do you even understand what the Constitution is? Do you even know why the second amendment was put in there?
You can't be that stupid to just say here, take them all..
Can you??
No law, fees, regulation or as one idiot said, liability insurance is ever going to stop these nut bags..It only hampers the law abiding person..
5
Yes the 2nd Amendment was to have a "well regulated milita" and if you can't make your point by calling people stupid, maybe you're not so smart yourself. And it was not just an armed adult, it was a trained officer, not Rambo.
10
I think the NRA's famous rating system for politicians could now be used against them.
5
'“But prayers are not enough,” Mr. Hogan said, in an emailed statement.
There needs to be a total ban on automatic rifles and there needs to be VERY strict safety gun laws that make it difficult for anyone to purchase a gun. If someone wants it badly enough, have them jump through the necessary hoops. Oppose the NRA and their fear tactics to come up with more reasons to make people buy guns.
The NRA is buying out GOP Congress and they are gutless unless average people have finally had enough and Congressmen/women start worrying about their jobs.
Currently anyone can get a gun within an hour. Less if you live in my town. There is a gun shop about 10 minutes from my home. It is one of the major suppliers of illegal guns in Chicago. [I live in NW Indiana, one hour from downtown Chicago.]
How many people need to die needlessly before those in power start caring? . First graders shouldn't be mowed down anymore than teens. Black children and adults can be shot by just walking down the street.
There is no need for guns except for hunting. The rest is just fancy dressings on enabling gun fanciers to show their lack of manliness by holding a gun in their hands. There is no shame in the number of innocents who die because of this continuing love affair. Stop the killing. Congress has the power and does nothing.
5
And once again the politicians, who could actually do something about this if they wanted to, are offering their "prayers". Thanks for nothing, folks. I'm amazed they still have the nerve to even utter the word.
5
Amazing how this shooter was killed but the one who indiscriminately took the lives of 17 individuals was taken into custody. Probably got a meal en route to the station and is undergoing psychiatric evaluation. Why not wound the teen rather than kill him? Shoot in the arm, the foot ... to disable the ability to fire the gun. Shouldn't officers be trained to do this?
This shooter seemed to know his victims (the two were targeted) but the Florida shooter's intent was random and much more deadly with a much more powerful weapon.
More "good guys" with guns, arming teachers, more security guard in schools, metal detectors or a deputy at the school's front door is not the answer. Armed persons give a false sense of safety. Too many of us live in fear already and the presence of armed and over-militarized individuals and vehicles only adds to that fear and anxiety. That kind of strong-arm approach encourages confrontation. The proposed "solutions" thus far are knee-jerk reactions to situations that require much more thought, foresight and courage to act. Aren't we outraged enough yet to put a end to this kind of violence?
3
When you're being shot at and in a life-threatening situation discussing shooting someone just to disable them is idiocy and nearly impossible. Every notice how many bullets cops fire in a firefight?
this wasn't a firefight. One person. One shooter. One handgun. Familiar victims. Over in one minute. Sometimes cops fire a lot of bullets even when the person is unarmed, or after the person is handcuffed, on their stomach, face on the ground. Shoot to kill only applies to some.
I'm a gun owner and a believer in 2nd amendment rights. But I'm appalled at the NRA for their mindless support for gun manufacturers by saying that we should arm teachers or post armed security guards and metal detectors in all schools.
I propose that we force gun manufacturers to pay a surtax on their profits and a tax on all gun sales, public and private, to pay for these metal detectors and guards.
After all, passengers have to pay for a security fee when they buy an airline ticket, why shouldn't gun buyers and manufacturers also have to be charged for the extra security at schools?
15
How did a 17 year old get a gun?
The NRA likes to say that people are the problem, not guns. They are right to some extent. A person can be dangerous without a gun, but a gun is nothing without a person. So let’s make sure that only people who can have a gun are safe and competent with that weapon. In other countries, buying a gun requires someone to actively prove they are not crazy, that they are competent and that their weapon will be stored securely. The U.S. must do the same. It should also be illegal to give or loan a gun to someone who has not been vetted, and if you do then you become an accessory to any crime committed with that weapon.
Conservatives love personal responsibility. Well, let’s insist that gun owners take personal responsibility for their firearms.
Whoever let this kid have a weapon has blood on their hands.
9
You're right. It's illegal for a 17 year old to have a gun. So, how did those gun laws work out today?
2
Other media report that the shooter's father, Rocky, had an Air Force career and was a strong Second Amendment advocate, according to his social media postings. I doubt this was an illegally acquired gun.
2
For the record, the Virginia Tech shooter was armed only with handguns and killed 32. Many (most?) handguns are semi-automatics and many are high-capacity. And the vast majority of shootings involve only handguns.
11
So are you implying we should ban all semi-automatic firearms regardless of whether they are handguns or rifles such as the AR-15. If so I'm in complete agreement.
One fatality in a self-driven car, or of five in an helicopter crash, both tragic, and the entire country and the institutional machinery of the nation moves into the action, and so very rightfully so. That is the American Way. That is the American Way this American By Choice has always appreciated and respected.
However the daily sacrifice of our best and the brightest at the alter of the Second Amendment is met with continued Thoughts And Prayers.
To the constitutional originalists who want to read the Second Amendment the way it was written about a quarter of a millennia ago, please do so! Let us go back to the single-load muskets. And there is that thing about the well-regulated part in there too.
And please don't forget: Before reading and interpreting the Bill Of Rights that we all cherish, we have to read through the Declaration that got us there - with something about Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness.
7
Also Raj, take into account that when the constitution was written and spoke about the right to bare arms, those were the days of the musket, and it was necessary then. This is not the case now. There is no real reason to own a gun, unless you're a cop.
2
By what criteria is this kind of encounter acceptable? Is this the new "normal" for public schools? It's not my normal, and i sure wish the Trump "base" felt the same way. What have we become?
4
apparently guns don’t kill people. At least that’s what the NRA says.
It is impossible to shoot people without a gun. Even with one it is pretty hard. It is easier if it is a military weapon with tons of ammo. The NRA wants guns that make it easier to kill people. They want to bring them everywhere so they can always protect themselves and everyone. They want to have guns so that they can kill bad people. They think that if there are more good guys with guns than bad guys with guns then everything will get sorted out. Each one of them knows that if they see a bad guy they will kill them. They’ve rehearsed it in their minds a million times. Nobody ever gets killed but the bad guy. They support the police but don’t understand why the police don’t want them killing the bad guys for them. It is a quandary.
6
Show me a mass shooting that did not involve a gun and I’ll believe that guns aren’t the problem in mass shootings.
6
Perfect example of the liberal gun control advocacy at work in the "objective" Fourth Estate.
"At the beginning of an early afternoon news conference, Sheriff Cameron said Mr. Rollins had shot both the male and female victims, but in response to questions from reporters he said he could not say with certainty whose gun had wounded the male victim."
This is classical propaganda method, plant the seeds of doubt and suggest an alternate narrative.
3
As I stated just the other day, although Maryland has some of the most restrictive gun laws in America, the DC and Southern Maryland (and Northern Virginia, by the way) area is a war zone.
Factors causing this are too many to list, but they include:
Too many people crammed into too small an area.
A huge, effective criminal segment of the population with ineffective law enforcement. Stolen, black market trade in weapons in the area surpasses most, but not all other areas in the United States; other examples include Chicago and New York City.
Too much competition in all facets of life.
Too little attention to morality teaching, yes, including, but not only, religious observance as a suggested GOOD thing. There are many other ways than religion to be moral but none are presented in schools as a matter of course.
Anger. At society, at others, at self. With no harmless outlet, adult attention, or counseling.
Today's attention to all the wrong paths with no attention to morality.
The list can go on and on but the summation could be: this is a sick area as are so many large, crowded metropolitan areas. They highlight first the degradation of societal, moral values. This sickness starts in these areas where, like the plague, it can spread the quickest - then it spreads to the rest of society.
I pray we don't all perish before we find a cure.
1
yeah, or we could have less guns available out there and more support for kids who are struggling.
3
I hope policymakers will listen to law enforcement. Arming teachers will not get us the results we want. Even with many hours of training and practice, police officers struggle to hit human targets nearly two-thirds of the time. Teachers (unless they are combat trained and experienced former service members or former LEOs) will just end up injuring themselves or students who are not the target. I can't imagine the trauma that will occur for everyone in the school should that happen..."will I get shot the next time, either by my teacher or the shooter?" This option, while much safer, costs more money, but putting an armed school resource officer (SRO) in every school in the US will create jobs. Will every result be as good as this one? No. Is safety even the primary function of an SRO? No--it's building relationships with kids. If we pursue putting armed adults in schools, I believe it cannot be teachers. Let's hire veterans and add thousands of slots at newly created SRO training programs in community colleges around the country...paid for by the gun manufactures who make up the NRA.
2
or we could make guns less available in general and people could pay more attention to their kids. that would cost a lot less money and actually build a better society than putting me cops in schools.
3
This is not my preferred course of action, but politicians don't care what we think. If they decide *someone* in a school has to be armed, it shouldn't be a teacher. My proposal is one of risk reduction, not perfection.
A sixteen year old girl is in critical condition because her ex-boyfriend had access to a gun. In most western societies, she ran the risk of being battered, even in school, but not of being shot. And one of her classmates is injured and her assailant is dead, outcomes that would also be less likely without America's infatuation with guns. Also at the root of this tragedy is the failure of almost all societies, including those with much stricter gun laws, to curb violence against women by their current or former partners.
15
One dead, two seriously injured. That is a good outcome for a day in an international armed conflict, but not such a good outcome for a day in a high school.
9
And again today another reason for so many students, who attend school in order to learn, are finding more reasons to be fearful in this country of "guns everywhere." We don't know what is behind this yet, but the myth of feeling safe cannot be reestablished without a reduction in the number of guns available. Students, concert or movie-goers, believers at churches, young people at a club, there seems to be no end in sight and it is tearing us (the US) apart.
7
High school students need to walk out of classes indefinitely and not return until gun restriction laws are enacted.
14
1. It is a tragedy that will keep happening since there already 300 million guns in the US
2. The security stopped the tragedy in time
3. But NO security measures can truly provide security when there are too many guns available
10
The teachers in West Virginia walked out for higher wages. I wonder when teachers will walk out to be sure their schools are safe and they and their students aren't potential battlefield casualties.
But, of course, we know that between money and lives which is more important
5
everyone should be protesting both these tragedies--gun violence in schools and teachers who can't afford to feed and house their families.
4
Teachers should walk out out of self preservation. Teachers as human shields. That is nuts. But teachers have died while trying to save the lives of children over and again. And you?
A 17 year old committed this crime. Where did he get the handgun? Will his parents or legal guardian be held responsible? Will the owner or seller of the gun be held liable? This, after we learn that the sister of Dylan Roof was arrested for bringing loaded guns to school on the day of the student walkout, having posted on social media that she hoped the protesters would be shot. This madness must end! For the record, I was trained by my father in the proper handling of hunting rifles when I was only 12 years old. A different matter altogether, and only Dad had a key to the gun cabinet.
4
It says a lot about the GOP's priorities that they'd much rather make it harder to vote than make it harder to get a gun. Both are Constitutional rights, but only one puts money into politician's campaign coffers. The other is merely essential to our representative form of government.
Actually, the GOP isn't too keen on the latter notion, so perhaps there's no surprise here at all.
6
Another young man, easy access to guns plus relationship abuse. Women in America are more likely to die at the hands of their partner than in any other "civilized" county, 16 times more likely and a lot of that has to do with guns, guns, guns.
Parkland shooter may have been motivated in part by a romantic breakup as well.
6
Clearly, there's a whole lot of copy-cat going on here among today's disaffected young males. We do not generally find middle-aged men with jobs and families engaging in this behavior.
This particular shooter had the decency to get himself killed (unlike the previous one, who just walked out the school with his classmates, invisible to law enforcement). The dead shooter's picture belongs on the front page of every major newspaper, preferably in color.
Let the next teenaged copy-cat study the bloody corpse for inspiration. And we need a new sentence for convicted school killers: life without parole, breaking rocks. Prison cameras can live-stream the no longer famous malcontents, trudging to and from their back-breaking work.
Maybe that will make shooting up schools seem less enticing. It's turned into a fad, and limiting the discussion solely to availability of firearms is mistaking means for motivation. Generations of Americans have grown up in households with firearms, and never thought to injure another human being. What has changed? That's the question which so far, at least, has gone unanswered.
4
You can cater to fears, making every school a fort and employing guns-for-hire who are used in a situation like this an average of zero times, maybe once in a 35-year "career."
Or we can just get rid of the guns.
7
How did this 17 year old get this gun.
One of the most unfortunate parts of Scalia's Heller opinion was his forbidding requiring guns in the home not on the person be secured.
There have been too many instances where a child has picked up an unattended gun and killed himself or others either accidently or deliberately.
Perhaps the Court might consider changing this part of the Scalia Heller opinion.
13
"Nor, correspondingly, does our analysis suggest the invalidity
of laws regulating the storage of firearms to prevent
accidents."
Heller held that a person could keep a gun in the home in a condition that rendered is useful for lawful self-defense. There's nothing in Heller to prevent a law requiring safe storage of a gun not under the direct control of a lawful possessor. The DC law required that guns kept in the home be disassembled and stored in a locked container.
Per Heller and common sense, you can't exercise a right to self defense if you're required to lock up the handgun that provides it.
You can have, and most states do, laws that hold parents accountable for negligent storage. But those provisions are more effective at stopping 10 year olds from accidents, than 17 year olds from willful murder.
If you want to carry a hand gun on your person, that is your choice but you should be prohibited from leaving a loaded gun unattended.
Scalia forbade requiring unattended guns to be trigger locked.
As another commenter pointed out, this is the difference between a handgun and an assault weapon. It's also the difference between a law enforcement professional being right there, as opposed to a few minutes away, as another commenter noted. But perhaps as much to the point. it's the difference between a law enforcement professional and an armed teacher who visits the gun range to practice when he/she can, when he/she isn't grading papers, preparing lessons or filling out teaching's endless paperwork.
21
Reading the reports on this, I'm also starting to think it could be the difference between a person who intends to shoot up a school and a person who doesn't.
Every report I've seen -- from the sheriff's quote in this article to quotes from the students themselves on other articles -- claims that "a shot" was fired. Then two more were fired in the exchange with the armed officer -- one in each direction.
We'll know more in the coming days, but you have to assume that if the person wanted to shoot up the school, then he would've gotten off more than one shot.
Obviously I wasn't there, but it sounds possible that the initial shot was an accident, especially given that the shooter and the more seriously injured of the two victims had a "prior relationship."
Low-capacity handgun. No additional ammo. Apparently only took one shot -- and did so apparently in pretty close range of the armed officer.
None of these facts point to a person calculating a mass shooting.
2
Shooting is absolutely a perishable skill and I would fully support the same training and periodic qualification requirements that police use for any teacher volunteering to carry in the classroom.
1
Explain how the VA Tech shooter killed more people with handguns? Yep not a "ASSAULT WEAPON" please stop begging for communist rule and educate yourself
We would not have to continually confront these tragic horrors if one simple act were performed on every person entering schools without exception every day: A search of their person and everything being brought into the building, either by hand or via mechanical detectors. If the latter is too expensive, the former can easily be arranged. While time may be lost, if lives are saved that is an acceptable trade off to me, both as a parent and a human being.
11
I have worked in high schools where everyone had to put his or her bag, coat, etc through a scanner and walk through a metal detector, then submit to a handheld wand scan it the alarm is triggered.
It’s still possible to smuggle contraband, including guns, into a school. Even persons banned from entering the school can get inside, with a little planning. And everyone is able to avoid the cameras for that matter. None of that is hard.
Security guards are a fact of life in urban public schools. Resource officers are also present, along with security personnel.
It feels like walking into a prison, frankly. And all those dollars are for naught if there’s not enough money for social workers, guidance counselors, and a school psychologist. And money for special training for teachers and paraprofessionals on how to manage behavioral issuers. This is the reality.
You see, kids carry with them all the stresses of messy lives: no safe home or a balanced meal at the end of the day, a parent trying to manage two jobs to pay for the apartment. Etc.
There’s the problem of the occasional taunt or arranged fights between rivals. Or being scared to walk home from school in a neighborhood where gun violence is omnipresent. Poverty creates a lot of victims and gun violence is a constant.
We, The People, have to decide what is more important to us: Guns or Kids? And why is that even a question?
7
And maybe some people have to answer an equally troubling question: What’s more important, a stable home or a career?
We would not have to continually confront these tragic horrors if one simple act were performed: Get rid of guns. Repeal the Second Amendment. There, I said it. Now back to your regularly scheduled slaughter.
1
Hang on... Let me check something...
I wanted to make sure that the politicians have given their "thoughts and prayers" to the families on this one, too. I looks like they have, so their work here appears be done. Now can we just please move on to more important things like tax cuts for the insanely rich and the dismantling of our safety nets? Please.
70
What about "Well regulated"??
21
Don't show your ignorance go read the Founding fathers quotes regarding the purpose of the Second Amendment. It is to protect the rights of the citizens not about hunting or self defense those were given rights never questioned.
Sure he only had a handgun.
But a shooter with a handgun that has seventeen rounds in a magazine can just walk into a crowded classroom....and he might as well have an AR-15.
And then he can reload.
12
What?
The AR-15 can fire faster, it can rip internal organs to shreds, killing those that might otherwise be injured, and has higher capacity magazines.
He can reload? While he is reloading people around are attacking him. That is the difference. The AR-15 keeps people at bay. A handgun can do it, but not nearly as well.
This is the difference between a handgun and AR-15. As we see here, 2 injured, none killed. With an AR-15, want to guess how many killed and injured?
The answer is very simple - more. Many more.
136
Bullets from AR-15s do far more damage and are harder to treat than ones from handguns like a 9mm (assuming they are not immediately fatal).
6
Hand guns are much, much harder to aim than an AR-15, especially when trying to shoot many rounds quickly. They become more accurate at very close range, which leads to the person being more easily taken down.
5
Comments are spot on! Imagine if this person had a semi-automatic spewing bullets at a rate that increases the probability of hitting intended targets, random or not. There are already "counter protests" planned alongside the march this Saturday by "good christians" intending on bringing their semi-automatic guns just to make sure the young folk of this movement are clear about what "bullies" look like! The NRA and its members are just that, bullies that need guns because they are weak and have contempt for other Americans. It's amazing to me that the 2nd Amendment is interpreted as giving limitless ability and ownership of all types of guns while the other amendments are interpreted by degrees. The manufactures and retailers love that! They are arbiters of death. And I'm not talking about hunters or target shooters. However, people who go out to kill animals just for sport are evil!
27
There are bullying on both sides, pushing your agendas, be honest now. Great example to the kids. This is yet another example were we failed a child who is deeply hurting, yet all you all want to spout off about is the guns. I hurt for those who were shot, but also hurt for the child that shot as well. How did this child get to this point and what can we do as a society to make sure no child ever feels the need to kill others. Everyone is parroting each other about guns and nothing said about getting to the root of the issue. All these children matter, those shot, those killed and those doing the shooting. Where did we go wrong? This just proved that restricting guns doesn't work. I do agree there is no need for an AR15, the bullets pulverize organs and victims rarely survive. Florida, FBI notified numerous times, yet no one in uproar over it. Mass frenzy over guns instead of dealing all the other things that need to be address. If it isn't guns, it will be a knife, poison, bomb, etc. Wake up America and actually think for yourself instead of copying what other say. Until underlying issue address, this violence will continue and Society will continue to get reminder of how they are failing these children. Everyone is at fault until we deal with the root issue.
The handgun was semi-automatic.
1
I'll bet you a nickel that the shooter did in fact have a semi-automatic. About 95% of handguns are semi-automatic.
Schools are a reflection of the rest of our society. There is also the fear of basically over a generation of school terror incidents spilling over in to all of our public places - and it has. While our president sows fears of immigrant terrorists, the real threat of american born killers has become a reality in our schools, airports, work places and shopping centers. Until the anger of the perpetrators is ever fully understood or dealt with, we will have to live in fear. Controlling guns is a step forward, but why do so many feel it's there last resort? Isolation? Powerlessness? Hopelessness? Unfulfilled entitlement? The glorification of how anger and revenge are resolved in violent movies and games coming full circle?
8
Before the recent shootings, the officer would have hesitated and held back worried about the second guessing from the New York Times crowd about why didn't he attempt to disarm by shooting at his limbs instead of killing him.
Now, officers don't have to care about what the NYT crowd thinks.
Even the NYT crowd is applauding the shoot to kill with the occasional prayer for everybody.
How the world turns.
10
You make unfounded assumptions.
1
To turn what you stated on its head, why were police in general so gung-ho about shooting unarmed black men/teens but were hesitant to shoot active shooters? One would think it would be the other way around.
I am struck by the report the shooter had a hand gun -- not a semiautomatic assault rifle (or whatever they're called). The result is less injury than if he had the latter. Gun restrictions will impact the damage done. We have all heard the repeated argument that guns don't kill, people do. I would add that the guns with which those people will kill do matter, and thus, strict restrictions are valid.
19
Maybe it's different because he wasn't going in trying to hurt or kill as many as possible?
1
At the root of this incident, it would seem, is yet another young man in pain, unaware and unable to find a healthy outlet.
10
The vast majority of mass shootings have involved young men who are on psychotropic medicines. Why don't the media give us some background on the comparison of vitamins vs. psychotropic medicines in treating personality disorders. Proper vitamin therapy (e.g. Q96) would save lives.
2
Wait. Not just the meds. In fact, the vast majority of the shooters — young and old — were the “product” — for want of a better term — of dysfunctional homes... No rational person can dispute the fact that there are far too many guns out there. But let’s stop tilting at windmills. The guns are there and there they’ll stay. Let’s get to the root of the problem. Too many of those guns are in the hands of people who ought never to be near a gun or any other form of weapon... Let’s all take a deep breath and look in the mirror and ask ourselves whether it’s just the guns that are problem....
And DeVos’ budget plan calls to cut counseling services.
1
This country averages a mass shooting with 10 or more killed or wounded about every six weeks. As sad as it is that two children are wounded and one child is dead; as tragic as it is that an officer will live the rest of his life reliving the moment that he had to aim and fire at a child; as stressful as it must have been for everyone in that school and as anxiety provoking as it must have been for everyone outside waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones; this shooting doesn’t count. Parkland was 34 days ago; we should probably expect something worse than this within the next couple of weeks.
6
Further carnage was stopped because the school security officer was carrying a firearm. That is the only way to counter mass shootings.
3
This MUST stop. The student-sponsored "March for Our Lives" is this Saturday in cities, towns and communities across America. Any American that believes guns have no place in schools - or any public place in OUR United States of America - must march with the kids to show OUR lawmakers that WE THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS PEOPLE of all ages, colors and political persuasion will NOT let this go on.
There is a king-of-hate jock named Dori Monson at KIRO radio in Seattle. I purposely tuned into his show a few days ago to see if he was talking about the school shooting in Florida. Yes, of course he was. He had statistics about kids actually killed in school shootings - he said in 2017 there were ONLY four kids killed. ONLY four. He was defending guns in schools.
Mr. Monson, I sincerely hope YOUR child is never one of the ONLY four.
You can see where marches will be held in your area at the link below:
https://event.marchforourlives.com/event/march-our-lives-events/search/
71
"King of hate jock," is a little strong, don't you think? I lived in Seattle for a brief period - before fleeing - and trust me, there is no local right-wing talk radio. What passes for "conservative" in Seattle would be die-hard liberal in other parts of the country, even California. Conservatives in Seattle live in the shadows like the unconverted Jews of Spain during the 15th century.
Last week an armed school officer mistakenly shot a student in the neck - this week an armed school officer killed a shooter. That's pretty accurate - police have about 50% accuracy, which is far higher than the civilians Trump and the gun companies he's colluding with to increase their sales want to arm.
Relieved the shooter did not have one or more AR-15s, or many more would have been killed, including the officer - outclassed by a factor of hundreds to thousands of bullets.
38
Keep in mind that, at this point, it's not known if the shooter was killed by a bullet from the deputy's gun, or from his own.
10
Agreed, MJZ
1
You're lying a bit when you said a school officer "shot a person in the neck." Reality was negligent enough - he fired at the ceiling and metal debris ricochet'd to the neck, leading to the laceration.
...thankfully he only had a handgun.
25
...thankfully, he only had sixty seconds before someone else with a handgun responded (rather than say 15 plus minutes for a 911 call).
14
This is the difference between an assault rifle and a handgun.
56
Today a gun in the hand of a resource officer saved lives. Place more armed guards and trained veterans in schools. Arm the teachers and staff that are willing also. WHY is the fact that a gun actually SAVED lives today is not national headlines?
10
I'm wondering how the headline would read if no guns were involved. Remove both guns from the equation and the story (which wouldn't get reported) would probably read: spurned adolescent confronts object of his desire, punches another kid and gets hauled off to the principal's office.
The score from this incident is: one dead minor; two wounded minors (one critically) and a school resource officer forced to kill a child (and I suspect wounded in his own right).
Hardly a ringing endorsement for more guns in schools.
6
Hmmm.... so guns don't kill people, people kill people. But people don't save people, guns save people.
2
This only worked because the shooter had a handgun, not an AR-15. Then it would have been an entirely different story.
27
Today a gun in the hand of a resource officer saved lives. Nothing to do with the fact of a hand gun over an AR. Place more armed guards and trained veterans in schools. Arm the teachers and staff that are willing also. WHY is the fact that a gun in the hands of a trained officer saved lives???
4
More importantly Gary, why was the teen able to obtain a handgun?
It's time for some serious gun control measures.
The Virginia Tech shooter used handguns to kill 32. Many handguns are high-capacity semi-automatics, just as deadly as assault rifles and far easier to carry.
3
I read elsewhere that the Governor of Maryland is proposing spending millions, many millions, on "school safety." This is money that in a real society would go toward increasing the educational elements in schools. Instead, it is going to - lockdowns, armed guards, etc., etc. Think about this. What is the purpose of education? To increase individual knowledge and prepare a generation of young people for guiding their country in the future. I went to school in the 1940s and 50s, my children went to school in the 1960s and 70s. I grew up in a rural area, and I was taught gun safety and how to shoot before I was 15. Many of the children went with their parents hunting, and they ate what they killed. Not once, to my recollection, did anyone enter a school and kill students and teachers. Millions of dollars? Pay teachers a living wage, develop top-of-the-line science laboratories, increase the reach of libraries and computer programs that teach vital information. This country is run by people who believe in the power of guns. So let the federal government pay for the safety measures we might never have needed if the restrictions on war weapons and ammo had not been lifted. If I were a parent today, I would leave this country.
305
It's not either/or, SFR. At reasonable cost, we can have both quality and security. It's not that difficult.
2
All that's needed is some metal detector wands and some officers present at the entrance.
The same safety measures used by court houses and some inner-city schools.
This is the most proven way to defend against mass shooters.
8
Not sure I understand your post....a kid with a handgun walked into a school today and shot some people. What suggestions are you making that addresses that?
In the preamble to the U.S. Constitution: "We The People...in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."
Your right to bear arms cannot supersede everyone else's right to domestic tranquility, general welfare, and the blessings of liberty. While I support the right to bear arms, it can and must be limited. Our Congress seems to have forgotten why we have a constitution in the first place.
384
I agree with you but would you support some limits on other amendments as well that may interfere with tranquility/general welfare like unlawful search and seizure, unpleasant speech, etc.?
3
My sentiments exactly. Thank you Ken.
1
The reason we made a constitution in the first place is to protect ourselves and stand a chance against an abusive government if they ever decided to cross the line which is why we had a revolution in the first place. DUH.
Seems the government doesn't trust us all while their soldiers murder innocent people around the world and their police murder civilians here when it's the people who should not trust the government. Ever.
Politicians ignore the solutions to further push their personal agendas.
The solution is metal detectors and bag checks for high schools since this is where mass shootings happen the most.
The constitution must be protected.
2
Hopefully the name of theresponsible individual will never be published. Kids tend to imitate each other, and they are always on the lookout for ways that they will be remembered , more so then by merely winning a few football games-which few can do. If the identities of such persons-most are males-are suppressed until they and their generations have long since passed away, maybe the very idea of obtaining fame and "a name" in history will lose all luster, as no one will ever know who they were or , after they are dead, no one will be interested. and they won't be around to crow and brag to their cellmates and the guards in their prisons.
I make this suggestion in the knowledge that during the original Olympic Games in Greece, when wars and mundane activities were suspended, to allow performers to pass through Greece unmolested to participate in the games, , winning an Olympic eevent was considered the closest a human could get to becoming immortal. Their names were carved on stone and spread throughout all Greece,(the civilized world), and many made livings as trainers and professional athletes.
If People really are alike then as now-I suspect many who think they can obtain eternal "fame" through violence, might change their minds if they realize their names would be ignored and actually suppressed, until it ceased to matter.
8
Now watch the the NRA and their puppet Trump spin this to validate their misguided ideal that the solution is to arm everyone. This will do nothing to lessen the trauma that those kids have had to endure today and the scars that it will leave, both physically and emotionally.
17
When I was a high school student I never gave a thought to being gunned down in school. That clearly has not been the case here in the land of the free in quite some time. THAT is a serious loss of freedom that can be laid at the feet of Second Amendment crazies that continually boast of their freedom to own guns to protect.... wait for it.... their freedom.
The majority of Americans do NOT own guns and their freedom is being taken away by the Second Amendment freedom fools. Enough. The majority wants their freedom back. It's time to see if the majority does indeed rule on this issue.
73
Saddened to hear of another school shooting so soon after the Parkland shooting. Having armed officers in a school still seems wrong and currently, it is unclear who shot who in this incident. Why are we not having metal detectors at schools? Surely that would be helpful and a major step in the right direction?
3
If Republicans don't develop a little backbone we're going to be predicting school shootings like we predict the weather. "It's partly cloudy with a 10% chance that your kid won't come home alive, back to you Ted." "Thanks Jim, sounds like the kids will need to be bundled up with extra kevlar today."
65
It is certainly fortunate that there was a competent armed resource officer in the school who was prepared to respond to this incident.
15
Agreed. And the NRA should be paying for him and all others across the Country.
6
It was certainly unfortunate that a madman had easy access to a gun so he could turn a place of peace and learning into a psychotic shooting gallery.
Good luck developing the other half of your cerebrum.
22
This is how you limit school shootings. You have an armed officer on the scene, and you engage. Why is this so difficult?
11
There was an armed officer on scene in Florida. It didn't really help there did it?
13
Please let me know if this approach helped at all at Parkland, Fla. Oh, wait, never mind! It most certainly did not.
And even if it is implemented, then what? Will you have 1, 2 or a dozen armed guards on campus? Will that be enough to cover all parts of a school campus which can be pretty big? And what about the morale of students? Should children be okay with their schools becoming glorified prisons? Will that not traumatize them? What if one of these armed guards goes rogue and guns down the children he or she is entrusted to protect?
And what about college campuses? Those are usually very huge with hundreds of buildings. Should colleges hire mini-armies now? What about shopping malls, or movie theaters or concerts or nightclubs or churches? All these places have also had tragic mass shootings! Should every part of the US become a mini-army? Does that sound like a sensible solution? Or does it sound like the mad, deranged plans of a lunatic, who is drunk on the power of guns??
Do you see any other civilized country suggesting such a proposterous solution!? Why is it so difficult for you people to realize and accept that guns are the problem and more guns are NOT the solution? Why this irrational love for these killing devices??
24
Why allow a gun in the school in the first place?
Why not stop it before it can even begin?
Ever hear of mass shootings in court houses?
That's because they have metal detectors and bags checks at the entrance with police present.
Time to adapt.
2
It is WAY PAST TIME to deal with guns.... the following should be done.....
1 - Every device that can fie a bullet should cost at least $5000.
2 - The NRA should be taxed out of existence.
3 - Owners of rifles/guns should be able to turn their device in to the local police department and receive $2500 per device. The devices will then be destroyed.
Then PERHAPS this country will no longer be a shooting gallery.
43
That is pretty crazy. We need better regulations, like licensing, liability insurance, but taxing them out of existence is not going to get any traction in US politics. Be real.
3
Nah, the constitution does cover the modern musket which is the AR-15/M4 platform so it's protected which is why we have them in the first place.
The lie that is doesn't has been debunked.
Ever hear of a mass shooting at a court house?
That's because they have metal detectors and bag checks at the entrance with police present.
If judges are worth protecting, how much more our students?
Time to adapt.
Our city is having a gun buyback soon,
Yessiree, folks, it's Friday night at the OK Corral in the gold ole US of A.
10
This is happening so often that it is being woven into the fabric of American life like some sort of Americana. Have the Republicans sent thoughts and prayers yet? Maybe the NRA or Republicans can weave a big second amendment quilt and add all the names of the children who are martyrs for the second amendment?
53
Ok. So let's arm teachers now. If Pres. Bone Spurs was at least consistent he would have called for the NRA to pay for it.
3
Thank God for our armed Resource Officers. But even with a police officer on duty two students were still shot and an entire building of students and teachers were traumatized and put at risk. This school system and community now just join the list of other schools and communities that have been victimized by someone who wanted to even the score, take revenge, or commit suicide by cop. The fact that we as a country continue to put up with this day after day, week after week, and year after year shows to what extent the NRA and gun manufacturers continue to control our culture and values. It is not only a sad fact, but it is a deadly one for our children and educators.
22
Meg: Look this up on your computer. The Gun Manufacturers and their Marketing Adjunct the N.R.A., "The Merchants of Death", own Trump, the Senate, and House "leadership" plus 100's of other Senators, Representatives, Governors and State Legislator with their contributions (bribes) of Millions of $$$$$. Trump, $35 to $50 Million, Senators McConnell, $9.2M, McCain, $7.7 M, Burr, $7.1M, Blount, $4.6M, Tillis, $4.4M, Gardner, $3.9M, Rubio, $3.2M plus 100's of others. After a massacre, particularly of children, these politicians always offer their "Prayers and Condolences", plus so-called "solutions" to these horrid murders, by babbling about more mental health studies and/or arming teachers. But, - never - about banning the civilian ownership of Military Type weapons, ammunition and clips that make this slaughter possible. These political Ghouls value N.R.A. $$$$$ more than the lives of children and everybody else. Until we rid "our" government of these hollow, hypocritical creatures how do you think murder-for-profit will change !!??
89
NRA contributions aren't remotely near the quantities you list. They are a small player. Citation, please.
You are absolutely right. NRA contributions totally control our GOP legislatures at all levels of government. The results--no gun safety legislation year after year show the effects of that money and lobbying.
2
What was the most important aspect of this shooting which kept the body count down - the armed officer in the school, or the limitation of the handgun vs an assault style rifle for the shooter.
Ante up the debate a notch.
174
It's a good day in the U.S. school system when "only" a handgun is the weapon of choice. Any other country there would be outrage for the regularity of these events. In the U.S. it's business as usual, a little collateral damage for the right to bear arms. How sick is that?
26
My guess? The limiting factor was probably that the shooter had specific targets and wasn’t simply going on a rampage.
A pistol fires at the same rate as an AR15 (as fast as you can aim and pull the trigger). Pistols typically have smaller magazines, which demands more reloading and reduces the effective rate of fire. Their accuracy is worse at a distance, but in a typical classroom it won’t matter that much.
If you want to kill lots of people, an AR15 is moderately better. A pistol is better if you want to kill a specific person because it can be concealed while you get into range. My guess is the latter is what happened here.
How effective an armed officer would be depends on how good they are and how close they are to the location of the shooting when it starts. In this case, he was very effective. At Parkland he was useless. An armed officer isn’t reliable enough to count on, in my opinion.
The most reliable solution is to make it very hard for angry children to get firearms of any kind. A ban on assault weapons only isn’t going to make much of a difference and disarming the country entirely won’t happen. The most reasonable solution is to force gun owners to prove they are competent and responsible, and make them legally responsible for any crime comitted with a weapon they loaned, sold or left unsecured.
6
Wait for an autopsy to see if this was a suicide.
1
An important fact not addressed by the article: were either of the wounded students hit during the shoot-out with the armed "good guy with a gun"?
Surely the GOP will tout the shoot-out as proof that arming school officials works to end shooting, but there's every possibility it only resulted in more shots fired.
7
How can you possibly know that?
3
no assault rifle.
what a difference.
in this case, it looks like the school security officer actually had a chance to disrupt the shooting.
32
We knew the next Parkland was inevitable...and the next...and the next. Nothing "great" about an America in which school shootings are the norm. And our "leaders" are still asleep at the wheel...scared into submission by the NRA. We should all be scared: by the utter ineptitude, polarization, and paralysis of the people we've elected.
20
I want to thank the NRA for fighting for our 2nd Amendment rights that allowed this school resource officer to armed and stop this evil gunman from committing more injuries or deaths. Also very thankful for his bravery.
8
Will you also condemn the NRA for fighting for the 2nd amendment rights that allowed the student to get the handgun in the first place that caused the injury of two innocent students, one of whom is in critical condition, and the trauma and pain inflicted upon a whole student community? Let us be consistent while we are at it, shall we?
6
The Second Amendment has NOTHING to do with the school resource officer being "allowed to be armed". Typically, school resource officers are sworn law enforcement officers who, by statute in every state in this country, are authorized to carry firearms.
The Second Amendment, which is really about maintaining a militia in the 18th century (despite what the NRA and Supreme Court say), is how individual rights to bear arms (single shot muskets, perhaps) are secured.
12
That's like saying we should have been thankful that the tobacco industry allowed the medical profession the ability to reduce heart attacks.
8
Quick, let us all wring our hands and blame mental health or video games or movies, but let us not do a thing about the easy access to weapons we all have.
15
The solution is very simple and proven yet rebuked by politicians because they want these shootings to keep happening to push their anti-gun agendas.
Adopt the safety measures courthouses and some inner-city schools have which are metal detectors and bag checks at the entrance with armed police officers present.
Do this for ALL high schools since the majority of mass shootings happen in high schools.
I would advise all colleges to build tall walls around their campus and only allow people into it after going through a metal detector and a bag check.
For elementary and middle schools simply do not allow anyone in who does not have any business there.
Lanza was a friend of the Sandy Hook elementary school and built up trust their and was actually allowed in the day he killed his mother for her rifle and shot up the school with it.
The background check worked which stopped him from purchasing his own rifle.
You have to be proactive and adopt these safety measures before a mass shooting come to your high school. Waiting can cost lives.
Shooters are always looking for soft targets so make your schools HARD TARGETS.
If price becomes an excuse then I ask how much does it cost for 4 metal detector wands and 4 cops present in the morning, 2 preforming bag checks and 2 on guard?
Be the change you want to see.
Who knows by your town adopting these measures it influences other towns or states to do the same and it ends up saving lives.
2
Well, I, for one, don't particularly want to live in the world you describe. There must be better solutions to this than turning our schools into fortified castles. How about we address why this happens here and not in, say, Canada, before we all retreat to our respective bunkers. It's not about money, and it's not entirely about guns; it's about our sick society.
5
There is a word for facilities surrounded by tall walls with armed guards and metal detectors with a single entrance: prison. Yes let’s become the only society on earth to turn our schools into prisons and turn students into prisoners so that the real criminals, gun owners, remain “free”.
5
How does a metal detector stop someone who shows up with body armor and an assault rifle? Seriously, have you thought about that? A gunman (who was a psychiatrist, not an infantryman) killed multiple people on a US Army base, where weapons and training are right at hand and an everyday thing. When someone unpredictably opens fire with a weapon of war it's nearly impossible for those in the immediate vicinity to do anything but duck or run. Why did the "American Sniper" get gunned down at a shooting range? His had a loaded gun right on him.
4
It's a good thing that the shooter didn't have an automatic weapon; otherwise, the school guard would be dead.
25
Yep he just had a fully semi-automatic handgun.
I cannot imagine what goes through the minds of young people today as they become perpetrators or victims.
Yes, we do need security at schools and colleges like TSA officers with opening backpacks and metal detectors. Do I like this, no I don’t, but is it necessary, seems like it is so, yes.
Our taxes should be used for better teaching environments, new books, and computers, music and art classes, and quality teachers.
They should also be used for qualified guidance counselors, social workers, and psychologists at schools.
I cannot speak to the pressure that young people must feel growing up in today’s society and environment. It must be very intense, fast, pressured, and disenfranchising.
I am glad I don’t have children so I have no one to lose.
5
It seems to me that if there are to increased costs to install metal detectors, guards, etc. then I want a surtax on gun manufacturers to pay for it. Seems reasonable to me.
2
"Gov. Larry Hogan said his office was closely monitoring the situation, and that he was praying for the victims and the Great Mills community."
How about praying for sensible gun regulations, Governor, and then telling your Republican friends in Congress to pass sensible gun regulations ?
I know...too much to ask for.
"Our children must die...so our guns can live"
Brought to you by right-wing campaign finance corruption and the National Terrorist Association.
Vote on November 6 2018.
177
Hey...let's make it 50 instead of 21. Make it 80. That law will have the exact same effect that the current law (legal age of 18 for handgun ownership) did. None! The kid was 17. Not legal age, not legal location, not legal discharge of a firearm...even if everything else was legal.
Laws are for the law abiding. Murder isn't legal. Having a firearm in a free fire...er...gun free zone isn't legal. Reckless discharge of a firearm isn't legal. A seventeen year old with a handgun isn't legal.
Does it really make sense to anyone out there that making something that isn't legal in the first place MORE illegal is going to be a deterrent? It doesn't to me.
And I've seen it said here that this shows the difference between a shooting with an AR-15 and a pistol. Possibly. But it definitely shows the difference between a response time of ten plus minutes and someone properly trained and armed on site immediately.
Take on five minutes of research, and find out what happened when Israel adopted armed guards in schools. The results will not fit in with an anti-gun agenda...but still...statistics and stuff.
5
Or you could do 5 minutes of research and find out how all the other western societies have prevented the epidemic of gun violence that's an everyday event in the USA.
We restricted and controlled gun ownership, it's that easy.
No need to turn your life into an armed fortress, simply restrict and control firearm ownership.
5
This 17 year old did not get a pistol from a vacuum. He got it from a friend or a parent, most likely. Either it wasn’t secured properly or some idiot gave it to him. That, in my mind, makes the gun owner liable for this crime. If we demanded that legal gun owners take responsibility for their weapons then maybe we’d find fewer people running around with them illegally.
If you lose your weapon in the army, you will be punished and can be prosecuted. If civilians want the same weapons, they should take the same responsibility.
5
Yet another school shooting leaving more students dead. This the latest in a long line of such disasters.
Each time such massacres occur, The New York Times should make it a headline front page story giving it the number as the most recent shooting.
What will Congressional Republicans say now after offering their putrid 'thoughts and prayers?'
221
Where do you see a fatality?
1
Huh? Did you read the story? The shooter is the only fatality. Pretty good result.
5
So only one child is dead. Is that your point? That is still done too many even if he were the actor.
4
Get ready for the over-reaction - now there will be calls to turn all of our public schools into lock-down prisons with armed teachers and guards. What a way to raise our children! Enough is enough with guns and our violent culture. America is exceptional only in its lack of values other than money and power.
178
Finding in this another excuse to hate America. I suspect the hatred was there beforehand. The excuse is opportunistic.
2
Quite the contrary, "Generallissimo." Those of us who love our country simply want to see our children grow up to enjoy it.
15
sure you do
Yet again we see that a "good guy with a gun" is useless...
Oh... Wait... Never mind.
19
A useless anecdotal success story, Eric.
Talk to the families of the 17 slaughtered Americans at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Talk the families of the 58 dead and 851 injured from the 2017 Las Vegas massacre.
Plenty of 'good guys with guns' there, too; didn't make a damn difference.
Grow a heart.
144
But it wasn't a "good guy with a gun." It was a school law enforcement officer. It's OK for them to have guns. But the officer still did not prevent three people from being shot and one from being killed. Only denying access to guns in the first place would have done that.
107
Can we always trust that the officer will identify, engage and neutralize (kill or disable) the shooter? Better to deny the insane guns in the first place. Even here where the officer acted with courage and competence two children are in the hospital.
31
“The notion of it can’t happen here is no longer a notion,” Sheriff Cameron added.
When was it ever a notion? The sheriff needs to stop spouting homilies. The good people went for Traitor Trump 2 to 1. They all want their guns and the NRA.
What more need be said?
80
No they did NOT go for Trump 2 to 1. The deplorables did but the decent people of this country voted for the competent woman who believes in sensible gun laws, and there were more of them, by about 3 million, than deplorables.
What the sheriff said is far deeper than a homily. Basically he has announced our entire country is a war zone and all our schools are battle fields. And every person suggesting that each school be made into a fortress instead of that we enact intelligent gun laws like every other sensible first world country wants it that way.
1
suicide by shooting? Just take me out, a way to exit while also killing others? Never mind all the rest to come, for a day until another shooting takes this story's place, about guns, mental health, arming teachers, officers at schools, prayers, etc. A kind of suicide it is. We can't speak to the person now to know his thoughts (if we ever could, despite the inevitable but short-lived interviews with family and friends to come). We just know he's dead (presumably a male, as they all are), and wanted to take others with him. Violent suicide is as much a part of this epidemic as any other factor. We have kids disconnected to real people, connected only to machines and false impressions, and we wonder -why this one? why my child? but he was so...(fill in any word). But did we talk to them? I mean really talk? or were they just another passed-over kid who got ideas from the news and decided somehow to end this way. I'm sorry for everyone, and am thrilled I have no grandkids of this generation.
7
Little to be thankful about--other than the fact that the shooter didn't have an AR 15 semi-automatic rifle.
189
So death is OK if dispensed by a deer rifle, a shotgun or a revolver orautomatic pistols? As long as bullets come out slower then the pop-pop-pop of a rifle?
In fact, a militaRy style rifle is no more deadly then a regular rifle, a large caliber handgun or , worst of all, a pump or "gas operated" automatic shotgun.
Most Americans in big cities are often very naive about the nature of weapons. In fact, the first big killing spree using rifles , some with telecopic sights, was in the Texas CLock Tower back in the 60's. The guy responsible had been complaining for some time, to his doctor and others that he suffered from a powerful, apparently maddening compulsion to kill. He had no AR 15 or M-16, merely a collection of long guns for hunting , that some friendly guy helped him to carry to the top of the tower.. In this time and era, such mass murders were all but unknown. It aint what you call a gun that counts. it's what it does after you pull the trigger. And then anyone shot won't care if it was a automatic or a muzzle loader.
4
"In fact, a militaRy style rifle is no more deadly then a regular rifle, a large caliber handgun or , worst of all, a pump or "gas operated" automatic shotgun."
meloop, you don't appear to understand the differences in the ballistics and firing capacities of these weapons. All are capable of fatalities, but the military weapons guarantee, 1 bullet = 1 death.
2
No doubt the NRA will claim vindication for its "good guy with a gun" approach, but it is cold comfort to those kids injured and traumatized today.
Maybe the reality is with millions of guns on the streets, armed resources officers are now needed in all our schools, but let's make the NRA and gun manufacturers who created and profit from this mess pay for it.
365
Complain about the people who defend the constitution that protects you all you want. It won't bring change.
Court houses and some inner-city schools have proven that metal detectors and bag checks work.
Let's protect our children like we protect our judges.
2
It might not be so to the parents of the dozens of kids that weren't shot because an armed officer was there and brave and professional enough to confront the shooter.
Metal detectors work only if they are manned constantly, and only if the building is locked down so there is only one possible entrance. Even then, you have to make sure windows can't be opened, so people can't pass contraband (such as guns) through windows to others.
All that requires a lot of time and money, for equipment and and staffing. Do you think school districts have the resources for that? Especially when some states are cutting school budgets?
2
There is no sadness nor sympathy in my heart for the deceased shooter. But there is a HUGE sense of relief for the officer stationed at the school who directly prevented this tragedy from progressing further than it had. He saved countless number of lives today.
I sincerely wish the two students wounded a complete and quick recovery.
27
Agreed, but since he had a HANDGUN and not an AR-15 with high-capacity magazines, it is unlikely he would have shot countless people.
1