this is unfbeliveable! training Alice, of which I am also a recipient as a RN in NYC ER, demands from innocent people, often children to engage shooter, you are asking civilians to risk their life instead of TAKING THE GUNS AWAY!!!
20
Is this the new normal? Our young students putting their lives on the line and making the ultimate sacrifice to save their classmates? Sounds like a war zone to me. It’s too bad our government lacks the courage of these young men. It’s been shown time and again that our children are not as important as guns and assault rifles. What a disgrace this nation is.
17
Two weeks ago we had a lockdown in our school because a gunman was near the school. I had to keep 30 6th graders quiet, and in the dark with the doors locked, for 90 minutes. The saddest part of it was that it was just par for the course. The kids have become so immune to this that most didn't even seem alarmed.
I guess active shooters on school campuses is now part of our American culture.
38
Any politician who thinks a 180-days-a-year-just-don’t-do--it-here solution solves the problem of gun violence in this country does not deserve the public trust
4
It's time for the FBI and other authorities issue a white paper outlining the principal causes inspiring the perpetrators. Are they abused children? Are they neglected? Are they predominantly from a certain societal class? Are their parents responsible gun owners? What advice for parents is prescribed? Etc.
7
The difference between a handgun attack, as dreadful as it is, and an attack with a weapon like an AR-15 is significant, and measured in large numbers of human lives. For God's sake, let's begin SOMEWHERE. If we can't see that weapons capable of mass slaughter need to be banned, we will do nothing. And in the name of those who have already died, we must do something, and now.
6
With kids going through repeated active shooter drills, and thinking about this brave student, I can’t help but think they are the Owen Meany generation.
Our current social and political climate has encouraged, even nurtured this extremely violent, callously antisocial behavior. Add the fuel of social -media-mad outliers and the young being presented with a seemingly easy way to become noticed, and we have a firestorm that will not be extinguished..
The heroes who acted to save lives, like this young man are to be greatly honored by all of us, memorialized, and their names and lives publicized. If the press were being responsible, the names of the perpetrators would not even be mentioned. There is no good reason to publicize the sick malevolent, failure of lives and minds that could so carelessly kill others.
Finally, as a community of sane citizens, we need to bring the NRA PAC to heel. We should consider regulating gun ownership and sales be strictly regulated like we do driving with a minimum age of 21 (military excepted).
Many of the serious psychiatric illnesses appear in the teens so we could stop these young killers. Adults should be held criminally responsible for letting any underage or unlicensed person use their weapons - including their own children. As the sane and sensible, caring members of the community we must stop these attacks from becoming the norm.
7
No offense, but I don't want my kid to protect anyone when he goes to school. And I don't want the teacher to spend his/her time doing that either.
I want them to TEACH and to LEARN! I want them to find life long friends! I want them to have fun and go out on first dates. I want them to explore and find something that motivates them...After all, they are our future.
This rising generation of voters should step up and be a force! Out with the old! Vote out all the spineless politicians who are completely silent...they don't even have any thoughts and prayers..an all time low. OUT YOU GO!
10
A sense of hopelessness and futility has descended on us, the American people. Few of us ask or hope for change and instead we accept our violent nature, the power of the NRA, and the absolute corruption of the GOP.
1
The curse of violence in schools and universities must be tackled immediately in our country.The white house and the congress and the security authorities must act now or just leave their jobs for some one else to do.The situation is like a war in which the enemy has penetrated into education one of the most pious professions in the world.
2
It is time to subvert the NRA by having pro-gun safety supporters obtain a membership in the NRA. All we need is more than 5 million such members to vote out the current leadership, board of directors and their current destructive constitution and mission statement of gun chaos for all.
Indeed, we'd be able to take the NRA back to its roots of gun safety and supporter of common sense gun regulations and laws.
Isn't this the least we can do for all the hero students, like Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell who are standing up and paying the ultimate price to fight back and protect their friends and classmates? We can replace Heston, LaPierre and others in the current NRA hall of fame with these student heroes and all child victims of gun thugs.
6
The picture is complete. We've now created the ultimate cultural icon, the youth that sacrifices their life at the altar of gun violence, finalizing the sacred American cult of the mass shooting. We prefer celebrating heroes to dealing with our twisted gun culture. His blood is on our hands.
3
The guns used in the tragic death of such a great kid were taken from the shooter's parents.
It is high time that parents, who allow their guns to be accessed and used in the wanton murder of innocents face homicide charges themselves.
6
Another hero. Are we going to start having more young men give their lives to stop school shootings than we are losing in military action? Angry men with guns are acting more like professional hit men or private militias with intent on carrying out private vendettas. Anyone who shows signs of violent thoughts or actions should not have access to guns.
3
Kendrick Castillo's instincts were correct. It you cannot flee, you fight. In a classroom with a shooter you fight.
This only raises a larger question as these acts of violence are so impersonal. Their nature can only be described as random. The shooters are not acting out of personal animus but volcanic hostility.
You won't find the answer to the question why? by probing individual personalities. This is an instance where the individual expresses the larger phenomenon of social decay.
And this decay is lodged in social norms where people are valued less than things. People have become things to be used, abused, and then discarded.
How else can you explain it when society is overflowing with unimaginable wealth yet vast portions of the population both nationally and globally do without the necessities of life: proper nutrition, healthcare, education, housing, and most importantly - the love and respect of their fellow humans.
Yes - we no longer live in a frontier society and the super abundance of firearms including AR-15 style rifles is staggering. But that is only symptomatic of a more fundamental problem - social alienation.
Until the day comes that we value the planet and its inhabitants (all living things) more than our trinkets and bank accounts - nothing will change.
Marx was right. The means of production (social in character) are being strangled by the relations of production (private property). The working class must put an end to the latter with socialism.
4
I can't stop looking at the sweet, smiling, loving face of Kendrick Castillo.
I can't stop the tears that fill my eyes.
I can't stop wanting to just hold him and tell him he is a wonderful kid.
I can't stop thinking about his parents and siblings. How lost and empty they must feel.
I can't stop admiring his bravery and yet cursing it at the same time.
I can't stop wondering when the next school tragedy will occur.
I read and re-read this article and the one about Riley Howell because their names and acts of self-less love and courage should and must NEVER be forgotten.
8
Is there a site or q source that has a complete list of every politician who has receivwd or currently receives support form the NRA? Not just congresspeople but governors. state legislators, school board members, mayors, council people? And if not, how can we go about creating one?
4
It should horrify us as Americans that in practice,
on the biggest issues like immigration and gun violence,
we are choosing to let the lives of the young be sacrificed because
the adults in the room will not act.
5
Maybe it's time to for the media flip the majority of focus to celebrating heroes and spending time understanding what life experiences and character traits led them to make the ultimate sacrifice, and tp spend less time bringing fame and trying to understand motives (can there ever be logic justifying mass killings? Of children, no less?) of the villians?
The way to change this is with our votes.
2
This story needs to be the top story in every single newspaper in the country. NO CHILD should be trying to solve this egregious and solvable problem by DYING.
Every single American leader who has the ability and power to avoid the gun lobby and enact life-saving gun laws has the blood of this boy, and blood of all school shooting victims, on his or her hands.
The slaughter of young heroes CANNOT become some sick new normal in this uniquely American school shooting morass.
I fear for my children - and ALL American children - every day they go to school.
52
Mr. Castillo was simply exercising his 2nd Amendment right to stop a bad guy with a gun. He died so that others may have the freedom to participate in school lockdowns, become victims of domestic abusers, or die in drive by shootings. Maybe I will be fortunate enough to throw my body in front of a gunman at a concert or movie someday. Such small sacrifices we make in order to preserve the rights of others to fantasize about overthrowing the government someday. Thank you NRA and thank you Republican Party for preserving Americans’ right to be hero/victims of gun violence.
10
If we had any guts, this would be a Jacinda moment.
7
Thoughts and prayers over a shooting massacre coming from a politician with a 90% plus NRA rating is the same as the middle finger.
10
I salute Mr. Castillo, and my deepest sympathies to his family. His parents must be remarkable, to have raised such a brave, selfless person. I believe he has done better for himself in that one moment than most people do in their entire lives. I can only wish that I would have such power of mind in those circumstances. I don’t think I would, honestly.
3
My granddaughter attended the Highlands Ranch STEM for middle school. She transferred to another high school, so was not present for the killing this week.
I called her after the killing and asked how she was doing. She asked a hard question of me, "How many more teenagers have to die?"
I could not and did not answer her truthfully because the answer is "Many more." The reason is that the NRA and its enablers, mostly Republicans, value guns over children's lives, and the rest of us are too cowardly to defeat them politically. She was not ready for that answer on the day Kendrick Castillo died.
Until we disenthrall ourselves from the gun lobby, we will continue to bury our children because we really don't care.
91
@MSB
I agree that the Second Amendment must go. The current judicial interpretation of the Second Amendment puts the right to own a firearm on the same level as such basic human rights as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But easy access to firearms is NOT a world recognized human right. However, it is a basic human right to be able to go to school, work, your house of worship, public events, like concerts, or just hanging out in your neighborhood, without the threat of life-threatening violence. The right to own a gun should be a privilege, one that isn't granted until the potential gun owner can prove without a doubt that he can use and store his gun responsibly, and isn't a threat to anyone's safety.
7
When they ask you to participate in"Alice" training, say no.
I didn't. I should have.
1
The scary thing is that school shooting has become such a regular occurrence that they're now in the realm of headlines like "Car bombing in Iraq" or "Famine in Africa", tragedies that are now the standard and not the exception.
3
So far, not one presidential candidate (democrats included) have suggested what is really necessary to stop these shootings. Complete repeal of the second amendment and a mass buyback of all semi-automatics and handguns (not just "assault weapons").
As long as gun ownership is guaranteed as a "right", this won't change.
5
Now our young students are heroes as they make the ultimate choice to save their classmates. Yes the parents should be very proud but this cannot keep happening. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We must regulate firearms and all the school shooters are young white males. This is just so frustrating. The access to firearms by children, mentally ill and etc. has to stop for the safety of future students. My heart goes out to the parents of this magnificent young hero their son.
3
Laws requiring (armed )guards at school entrances, and metal detectors could prevent many of these disasters
1
@Debbie I don't know if armed guards at a school will necessary stop violence within a classroom, but metal detectors may be a good idea.
This young man who died was brave, as they all are. Do we want our brave young men dying to protect their class-mates, or would we prefer their fearlessness as explorers, scientists or policy makers when they grow up?
3
Do the people who oppose sensible gun rules want more dead young heroes or more maturing into adulthood young men and women with values which don't have to be tested at the point of a gun? This young man and others are to be honored but death should not have to be reasons for such honors.
2
The community has a hero. I'm sure his family and friends still would rather have this yong man in their lives.
4
We've become a failed society. When our children can't (or won't) go to school anymore because they're afraid of being killed, there's little hope. That goes for churches, movie theaters, shopping malls, and other venues once deemed part of normal life. The violence we've brought to so many parts of the world, especially the middle east, is now turning in on itself. God save us.
4
I honor your article of this young man but my first reation is now that we are creating heroes during the act of gun violence we will let the act continue. This is how wars are sold to us. Brave young men who defend others from violence and upholds our core beliefs, etc. We don't sell wars in the number of civilian deaths and destruction of lives. But now we have gun violence heroes to sell the allowance of guns. Florida thinks teachers should have guns in the classroom. Beyond the stupidity of that is the underlying belief that once a teacher shoots someone they too will be heroes. Guns are an existential threat to who we are and how violent we are as a species.
4
More kids gunned down in school...
and not a single outcry for tighter gun-control laws and legislation that might prevent something like this from happening again?
As someone else said, "only in America".
Contrast America with New Zealand...
3
To the parents who have lost their precious children, I mourn your loss. I promise to help make this world a better place in honor of your brave children who have died senseless deaths.
If I was his mother I would say hide Kendrick,
If I was his mother I would say stay safe Kendrick for me for dad for all of us
If I was his mother I would say grow up find someone to love and who would love you
If I was his mother I would say have children
and know that life goes by too fast and to hold tight to it
If I was his mother I would pray he would come home that day, like any other day.
3
I am a mother and that is the first thing I said to my daughter: "hide. Adults are the ones who need to step up and put your lives over guns" I think what Kendrick did was extraordinarily brave and his parents raised a heck of a man but as a mother, I am not encouraging my daughter to sacrifice herself and die because some lunatics cant give up their guns. "Hide and when the time comes, college/university in any sane and civilized country, not something I can say about the United States these days".
1
Welcome to High School . By registering you give your consent to get killed by armed terrorists who are also students in the school most likely by the use of a firearm.
Disclaimer: This is not a draft for the military
3
There is something DEEPLY wrong with a society that allows this to go on, again, and again, and again.
Maybe when some senators grandchild gets shot...
5
This young man’s death is a tragedy. The commonplace nature of gun violence in this country is a national disgrace. The NRA is given far too much weight. Republicans stonewall nearly every effort at enacting common sense gun control laws. Enough has been enough for far too long now, yet Republicans sit on their hands. No one should vote Republican ever again.
3
How anyone can watch Kendrick Castillo's Dad talk about his son and not be moved to do something about gun violence and psychotic mental illness is beyond me. However, I have faith in Mitch McConnell to not do the right thing.
88
While I support strict gun controls, that is just one step in the right direction because anyone can still obtain them illegally. But to me, the problem is much deeper. There appears to be a need on the part of these adolescents to stand out and be noticed, even in infamy and if fatalistic - the 21st century version of being "cool". When I was in high school, some boys carried knives in their satchels but never used them. Why? Because is was "cool". This phenomenon has now been elevated to the ultimate tragic level. Guns now have to be checked by armed guards at the schoolhouse door like Tombstone AZ in the 1880's. What has this country become?
3
The new pattern of honoring the martyrs who demonstrate our best virtues is the well intentioned end of the gun rights debate.
As we cherish our lost, momentum that could be spent challenging the problem is replaced with the inviting balm of loss and sympathy.
Each smiling face of lost potential distracts us long enough to avoid any urgency to challenge the underlying causes.
The gun control debate is simply not as instagram-worthy as these selfless heroes.
3
From this article:
Mr. Crane’s method has been criticized precisely because it urges civilians to take such an aggressive approach against gunmen. Other training approaches emphasize running or hiding and letting trained law enforcement confront the attacker.
“But if they don’t do anything and they maintain a static, passive position, waiting for the police to get there — as in Columbine, as in Virginia Tech, as in Sandy Hook — I think you see the casualty statistics are much higher,” Mr. Crane said.
So, kids need to lunge and put their lives in danger because our society REFUSES to lock down (that is, keep exits unavailable from the outside) schools and hire highly trained armed guards? You have got to be kidding. No, no child should be the protector.
6
This is so sad and very depressing that our young students have to risk or give their lives to stop these killers. What does it take to get gun control with teeth in it? How many more shootings must occur when both Democratic and Republican law makers understand what is at stake and take real action. If it's the NRA backing alone that keeps them in line then it's our obligation to vote them out of office alone with this president.
3
The chase of the almighty dollar spawned this carnage, and only the loss of dollars, billions of them, can stop it. I call on people from all over the world to boycott all tourism to the U.S. until the Second Amendment is repealed and strict control of firearms is enacted.
7
I applaud this young hero, but are we encouraging these youngsters to jump in and risk their own lives at times like these? When we hold them up as "heroes," aren't we doing just that? Will the next kid think it's a noble thing to do and he'll get recognized, to boot?
How can we balance thanking this boy for his brave act but not inspiring other kids to do the same? Or is that what we ant to do? Will some one please explain?
I wish that all the zealous supporters of "gun rights" would see the issue from a human perspective instead of a political one.
3
If we cannot enact better enforcement of gun laws after Sandy Hook, this is what we will continue to endure. I try to call or write my senators and congressional rep after each mass shooting that I hear about. Is there no tragedy that will force McConnell to bring legislation to the floor of the Senate? He even refused to bring VAWA for a vote or for a debate as he would lose NRA support. The NRA is losing power, Mitch, it may be an opportune time to act. When a retired FBI agent told me to always carry a tourniquet and know my exit strategies, he was serious.
3
It is time for gun control in the United States. Enough is Enough. Children need to be able to go to school and not fear for their lives. Giving guns to teachers is not the answer. The NRA and right wing politicians need to held responsible for the death of every student, teacher, worshiper, customer...that has been killed by a rouge shooter. Our responsibility is to VOTE these politicians out of office. Trump MUST be a one term occupant of the White House. He promotes HATE.
Think about this. This generation of youngsters now have the same anxieties that we, who experienced war on our premises did, as kids. A pervasive undercurrent, always there. Lives in the hands of an uncaring bunch of adults who bow to the NRA. A pitiful example of responsibility!
2
We have a history of armed prevention and deterrence that once upon a time out West made police response after the fact of a crime unnecessary. It’s time we relearned that forgotten approach to domestic school shootings.
One wonders therefore where were the armed guards or armed adults protecting the students? Why was there no security system in place to detect the armed intruders or students? It’s hard to believe that there are still public schools in any state, much less a school in Colorado, only 8 miles from Columbine High School’s massacre, that has not installed security protecting innocent students and staff as much as federal government offices.
Our Secretary of Education ought to mandate that all public schools install either armed security or a security system in place in their schools to protect all staff and students.
1
The wild west complete with armed "sheriffs" shooting it out with the bad guys in our schools? I think there are better solutions. Frankly, I'm tired of gun lovers' wild west fantasies and I hope and believe the majority of Americans are too.
4
Read what you just wrote. Armed camps when the underlying cause is getting the damn guns out of our lives!
@debra
Wherever did armed sheriffs shoot it out with criminals in our schools in the Wild West other than in one’s imagination? How many judicial centers, federal, state, or local in your neck of the woods with armed security systems in place for access and exit have had a “Wild West” shootout? Restricting individual freedoms will not make us more but less able to defend our personal security choices as our right, as individuals and as collectively in our local communities.
Oh, Kendrick, how I wish you never became a hero this way. I wish I could hug you upon your graduation instead of writing these feeble words. I don't know you, but I admire your courage and abhor the senseless passivity our politicians show that took your life.
7
Mr. Kendrick Castillo, a young eighteen years old, a hero and save his classmates. He a sad hero.
But does American society needs these kind of heroes?
School shootings and gun killings have become of a common scene in the United States. Sad stories continue and no end is on the horizon.
Are the killings the gun rights activists are looking for? They indirectly kill people without taking any responsibilities.
Where are the victims' human rights? Do they deserve to be killed?
It's just absurd.
3
A true American hero.
2
@LawyerTom
An (almost) all-American tragedy. You shouldn't need young people to lose their life saving others in this way.
The Trump Administration has forced Americans to confront the
US Constitution and associated amendments with the realization that it does not cope well in a modern culture. It shouldn’t be this hard to get guns off the streets and the President out of the White House.
8
@BBB Yes it should be difficult to remove an amendment and get a president out of the White House.
This shooting, this senseless death, took place in Douglas County, a county where the county commissioners opposed the state’s recently passed Red Flag law. This law will allow law enforcement or a family member to ask the courts to remove someone’s firearms for up to a year if that someone is judged a safety risk.
I am beyond disgusted that these county commissioners, along with a number of sheriffs (though not the Douglas County sheriff), are more concerned about their precious gun rights than they are the lives of our children, like Kendrick Castillo. They certainly don’t speak for me.
Kendrick showed that he had the right stuff. So did the young man last week, or was it the week before (I have lost track, so many shootings), who rushed the shooter and saved other lives. We should be deeply ashamed that these young men had to sacrifice their lives.
What is wrong with our country? Our founders would be apoplectic at how the Second Amendment has been perverted by the NRA and its supporters.
5
If elite, private schools faced the problems that public high schools did, I'm SURE Congress would change the laws!
3
@Rolling my eyes Private schools tend to teach discipline. Something that clearly helps prevent scenarios like this.
A thought on the anger of so many young people: I've wondered (I'm serious about this) if the constant interruption or absence of REM sleep due to the nonstop beeps, bings, zaps of cellphones and laptops at all hours is simply leaving too many kids completely sleep deprived in the most meaningful way. For anyone this eventually leads to depression, anxiety and irritability. This along with so many other troubles is a stew of trouble.
2
The problem isn’t cell phones, it’s guns.
1
The coverage that this tragedy has received is a sad commentary on how far we have fallen; how much we've come to accept events like this as 'normal life'. A few years ago there would have been days of intense coverage across all media. Now, a shooting occurs, one cycle of news coverage and then on to other things. Make American great again???
6
Listening to my grandson---age 8--- describe active shooting drills at his school is heartbreaking---I always believed in America greatness, not anymore---
7
@Amanda Jones America is a great country. To say otherwise is ignorant. It is not perfect, but it is leaps ahead of the rest of the world quality of life and opportunity. The U.S. is a melting pot of cultures from all over the world you find another country that is able to handle something like that as well as the great U.S.A.
Surveys show the majority of Americans are in favor of background checks for those who wish to purchase and own guns. Yet, the majority of congress votes in direct opposition to any form of background checks. To end the uniquely American epidemic that is gun violence, one must start by ending the careers of those politicians who are in the pockets of the National Rifle Association.
Every time a child dies at the hands of guns in schools, let's send a copy of that child's picture to the congressman of that state every single day until gun control legislation is passed. If you vote against gun control, you should be reminded every single day just whose lives you cost.
9
@Anymore Background checks are already required. I don't know why the argument always goes back to background checks when we already have them.
Better yet, let’s never vote for another Republican ever again.
2
When are these shootings going to stop? They are becoming absolutely normal. How can that be? So now the focus is put on the „heroes“, because the shootings aren’t really newsworthy anymore.
This ha to stop. A nation can not get used to these kind of atrocities.
2
Teenagers are probably quicker to pick up on trends than pollsters, and I’m terribly afraid that a new trend is developing that is just as deadly as vaping and swallowing detergent pods. I’m talking about young people trying to take down shooters in their classrooms.
We hail kids like Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell as heroes, and they most certainly are. But they should not have to be, nor should such selfless behavior be encouraged. Why not? Because they should not have to be responsible for taking on the burden of defending their classmates and teachers from gun-toting peers on a killing spree. They are not members of police departments or the armed forces, who know full well that they may die on the job. They are kids!
It is shameful that our lawmakers are perfectly willing to cede the responsibility for solving the gun problem to teenagers, content to have our kids make martyrs of themselves, rather than to take heroic action themselves to limit access to weapons of mass destruction to people who don’t want to murder other people.
6
Hear, hear. Well stated. The politicians in question are largely Republican.
I’m (once again) a college student and parent. Both my second grader and I have to practice “lock down” in case of an active shooter each semester. Yesterday I went to lunch at her school where a classmate (8 yo) informed me that if there was “one more shooting” her mom was going to homeschool her. I’m exasperated. I’m over it. I am losing the empathy and compassion that normally drive me. Mental health assistance needs to be absolutely free and accessible to everyone in this country. And guns and their owners need to stop having more rights than those seeking growth and education.
10
John 15:13 - "there is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends"
It is heartbreaking that kids in America are forced into this choice by an inert Congress.
Kendrick and Ryan, thank you for being so generous and so brave.
3
You’re absolutely right, but there’s one more layer of detail: It’s not the failure of Congress in general — specifically, it’s the failure of Republicans in Congress and in the White House.
1
The way shootings are taking place in our schools were to take place in any other country there would have been mass protests on the streets. No other country will tolerate these kinds of shootings in the schools. Our people have been brainwashed into thinking we are the greatest and richest country in the world and we can do no wrong when the wrong is seen everyday on TV. If I put on local news, out of one hour almost 45 minutes are about shootings, robbery etc. when are we going to wake up?
Many of my friends families who are looking to immigrate to US have changed their mind. They don’t want to go to a country that allows 5 year old kids to be killed in schools and nothing happens.
2
@Eraven Statistically you are unlikely to be shot or experience any kind of shooting. That being said mental health does need to be addressed in this country.
The NRA and the gun-toting wing of the GOP are casting the seeds of their own destruction. Millions of these kids, who undergo numerous active shooter drills, are eventually going to grow up and become voters. They will remember.
2
Dudes a hero! Thank you Kendrick.
To all the students and staff at this school... never forget what Kendrick did for you. Make his sacrifice worth it. Use your lives to promote peace, understanding and love. Lead good lives with positive outcomes. You cannot change the past, but you can change the future.
3
May God bless this hero, Kendrick Castillo, who left us far before his time.
How many more 18 year old heros have to die? Shame on our country for not protecting the children by strict gun control regulations as other civilized countries do. But how civilized are we really if we can't accomplish this?
4
My seventeen year old daughter got up and went to high school today. And I let her.
3
I am wondering why no news really covers the fact that the shooters were very anti Christian, lgbt who were not fans of DJT? It seems there has been more of these type shootings and massacres against Christians world wide compared to any other group. Makes me sad that the people in power do not address this head on but actual paint a narrative that is false.
1
Forcing this tragedy into the emerging global “trend” of anti-Christian attacks, by way of the shooters’ LGBT identities and apparent political beliefs, is wildly inappropriate. Misguided at least. Why compare this to, say, the attacks in Sri Lanka? It doesn’t do either situation justice; there is no trend.
4
More young people dead. More students and teachers with anxiety escalating every time they participate in another ALICE drill. Is this the America we want?
How can we keep asking our young people, teachers, church goers and others to make such a sacrifice and not demand that the NRA and their minions also sacrifice? It's so far beyond time that we put life before liberty to own guns.
2
@Sue You put a lot of power into the NRA. They don't do much in terms of donating to politician. The money they donate is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to other organizations. I think your are forgetting about the millions of other Americans that have nothing to do with the NRA that support the 2nd Amendment. What law could have possibly stopped this?
This gun violence in school won't change unless it starts to affect wealthy families and politicians' families directly . Classic example the opioid crisis. When drugs were killing poor folks nothing was done. Addicts we constantly thrown in jail and throw away the key they said. LIFE SENTENCES. But once it started to take the lives of wealthy parents children, all of a sudden it became a national crises. It was crime to be an addict if you were poor. And now its a disease that that needs to be treated with medication and therapy. So as long as gun violence in schools don't directly effect wealthy and political corrected families nothing will ever get done to resolve gun violence in schools.
2
@R
They send their kids to private school. They think they are safe.
They forget their kids will likely go to malls, concerts, crowded spaces, hotels, universities and many many public places…..and that doing so will enter their children in this macabre lottery of getting-shot-while out that we Americans play.
1
When will people. Adults. Do Something.
This epidemic requires “Airport Screening” methods at our schools.
4
That Americans are a brave people continues to be demonstrated and proven, time and again, now by our teenagers in high school. But these circumstances are ours to stop, yet we don't. To the gun advocates: what will it take for you people to wake up? Does your child have to get slaughtered at their school for you to finally understand that YOU are the problem? That YOU are blocking a consensus and national will to take measures to curtail guns and ammunition?
1
@debra The situation in Venezuela is the exact reason gun advocates don't want to give up their guns. Guns are not the problem. They are simply a tool. Find the real problem and solve that, and while you're at it start enforcing current gun laws.
This is a horror that my son will never have to confront in Sydney, Australia. Please America, stop pretending that gun ownership is a virtue! Australia has precious few positive lessons to teach the world, but gun control is clearly one of them.
3
We as a society are failing to protect our kids. Always lock up your guns so NO ONE but the rightful owner can ever get access to them.
3
I want the pictures of every man woman and child who was killed in this country trying to stop an assault by gun! I want these pictures on the from page of every newspaper in this country.
Just as the NYT spent over a year in the feature, "Portraits in Grief", portraying each and every loved one who died on September 11, 2001.
But I do not want these pictures of the slain to serve as only portraits in memoriam to try to comfort the grieving. I want them to serve as shaming for each and every public and elected official and wannabe-Democratic Presidential nominee who will not stand up to gun shootings and try to DO SOMETHING!
2
@Anne P How about all the heroes that saved people with a gun. You can't run a country on feelings alone. You need statistics and facts. Statistics on gun violence shows you everything you need to create an argument. BTW scenarios in which a gun was used for good far out way those where a gun was used for evil.
Courage and cowardice appear at any age and the cost of both is immeasurable, but relax kids, the adults in the NRA board room and the gun shows will take care of you.
2
In what universe is it normal for a school student to make a split second decision whether to attempt to take out an active shooter?!?! Shooting after shooting after shooting and nothing from corporate-bought politicians other than handwringing and thoughts and prayers. We send our children to slaughter when they go to school.
2
Tragically, this is the only directly effective deterrent to the school shooting fad.
1
This is exactly what we are taught to do in our health care facility during an active shooter situation.
If you can't run or hide you are to attack the shooter with anything you can, and if it's your body that is sacrificed so be it.
Expect a lot more sacrificial lambs in these united states.
I never thought that the color red of the Republican Party would become such an appropriate color. Blood red for a blood sport.
"Let's take a moment to honor the sacrifice of our brave children who lay down their lives to protect our rights to bear arms."
Saw that on a poster and think it says is best.
5
This, my friends, is masculinity in action: physical, brave, selfless, reckless, crazy, and indispensable. RIP, Mr. Castillo.
4
When are the pro-life people going to start protecting children from more school shootings?
It is inconsistent to claim that life begins at conception, and once the child is born claim the second amendment to allow gunmen to shoot them.
8
What will it take to have better gun control? This is unthinkable.
more blood on the hands of our Congress men and women.
5
We need to decide what we want the 2nd Amendment to mean.
First, a national referendum on guns: how much do we want them in our lives.
Second, a re-write of the 2nd Amendment if the majority decides it is needed.
4
Seeking to assuage the grief of those afflicted, physician and Congressman Ben Carson may have intoned: "Sadly, he just did not attempt to rush the shooter fast enough."
As in Oregon, where Carson was sure that, had he only been there to "confront" the shooter, the results might have been miraculously different.
While no-one can be to blame, two things stand out: failure to rush the shooter fast enough, and HIS failure to be there.
But tomorrow will bring fresh opportunities, and with our faith in that we can trust.
The single thing we can say with certainty about "the gun debate" in the U.S. is that the "more guns" argument is pointless. We have more guns now than ever, and it's not preventing the slaughter. Anyone working as an administrator in an educational setting--elementary through postsecondary--is now routinely playing out morbid scenarios and attempting to devise best responses. One realizes quickly how "real life" is far different from the talk around the issue. I urge people to quit thinking in abstract positions and play out actual scenarios. Breakdown the actual motions and movements across time, the chaos that occurs in a room when humans are experiencing blood and flesh splattering around them for the first time. You will learn that mere seconds matter greatly and that an armed instructor, for instance, will likely not even get their weapon unholstered. In rural areas we also think about how many ambulances we have in our county to respond to a mass shooting event, how many law enforcement personnel, and the minutes (which are eons) it would take to get them on site. In real life, it's horrifying, humbling, and saddening, and "the gun debate" is nothing but a useless national distraction away from action toward a resolution.
3
@Anna We do have more guns and crime is on a downward trend.
It is just unfathomable to me that this is something that could be prevented! Unfathomable. My condolences to his family and friends for their loss of this beautiful child.
3
Accepting that it is unlikely that the 2nd amendment will be repealed, let’s move to responsibility and liability. There have been lawsuits against manufacturers of other unsafe products (eg cigarettes), reckless users of legal but potentially deadly products (eg car drivers), those who incite others to commit crimes and laws passed to limit access to even legal products that can be used to harm others (eg pseudoephedrine).
It’s time to hold gun manufacturers, lobbyists, suppliers, and owners accountable. They may not care about dead children but they definitely care about the loss of dead Benjamins.
@GeriMD So you want to move the blame further yet again. What about the individuals perpetrating the crime? They are where your blame should be. Why do they commit such evils? Its not because a gun told them too.
I am horrified as a teacher, as a parent, as a human being, that this has become our reality now.
3
How many other countries suffer from monthly episodes of murder of students by students? 21st century reality in the US does not match up with 18th century views (2nd amendment) no matter how well intended were the ideas of the architects of the US Constitution. 18 year olds have no reason to need to purchase a handgun!
1
@Dave Steffe 18 year olds can not purchase a handgun. You need to be 21 in order to do so.
We have a generation now that has grown up with this gun violence and has decided they must fight back, not cower in the corner.
When will our leaders follow their courageous and self-sacrificing example?
What a shame! This is the new normal in America, can you believe it? We have become a nation of tribal bigots seeking big medicine from lethal force and the second amendment.
Why don’t we have a war on bullets as form of lead poisoning. Surely they are more deadly than Opiates. Keep the gun, but make it a little harder to buy ammunition. It won’t solve the problem, but if a heartbeat means no abortion it also means less access and not enabling gun slingers in schools too. Our children have fewer protections than the unborn. We have created an nation of first responders.
Can’t we just turn the tide on the NRA by joining, voting, and taking it over?
@BBB
Joining means paying the present leadership.
Forget about gun control. The powers that be would simply like you to throw yourselves into the line of fire. Your body will be our stand-in for legislative change.
Brave boys rush toward bullets to save friends that craven politicians flee to save votes.
6
Near as I can tell most of these shooters are under 25 and male. Maybe we should raise the age at which you can purchase a firearm to 30. Columbine shocked us, now it seems there is a school shooting every week.
1
And yet here in Georgia, there is the thought about loosening restrictions on conceal carry. Students with permits are already allowed to conceal carry certain types of firearms in my classroom. What's next - armed students upset about their grades visiting me during office hours, guns at athletic events and in fraternity and sorority houses? Bad ideas all especially given the pressure that some institutions including my own place on students. I have been in college classrooms for 33 years and have seen the results of this stress in a handful of students. I love my job, but I am relieved to be close to retirement.
3
Such a shame. People in America carry guns like chewing gum in their pockets. Zero value for human life. For LIFE, period. America a land where people from all corners have converged as immigrants representing humanity, lacks the core basic value of humanity: respect for human life. Instead in the name of freedom and liberty people just cling to guns, such a shameless behavior, such a facade of machoism or manhood or whatever they think having a gun means. Terrible. Awful. If America does not clean its act, it’s a disgrace on all representatives who have chosen to come to this land of dreams, it is more like nightmare these says.
1
@petey tonei Guns do not equal anti-life. Pretty much the opposite. Regarding the second amendment, they protect our way of LIFE from the tyranny of a government. See Venezuela for more details.
How sad is it that these selfless kids have more courage than the pathetic, feckless, cowardly adults who refuse to take action to rid us of this scourge? And what does it say of us that so many of our citizens have such a low sense of self-worth, that their means of dealing with the fear is stockpiling instruments whose sole purpose is death. We are a sick, sick nation.
3
It is so hard to read about this, yet another, school shooting.
1
The NRA response will, predictably, be to arm teacher and students.
The better response will come after November 2020, when we reverse laws that protect firearms makers.
1
So we are training school kids to be sacrificial lambs; jump the shooter to minimize casualties. We are a pathetic society and need to take a long hard look at ourselves.
5
OK, Thursday morning, wonder where the next School shooting will be, now that it's a weekly occurrence
Remember: Republicans carry the banner of Pro-Life.
5
@Lissa Yes, they are not Pro-Murder.
My ex-girlfriend attended Columbine during the shooting. She was left ‘uninjured’, but 20 years on, she still struggles with trauma from that fateful day. We count the newly-dead on an almost weekly basis, but thousands THOUSANDS of children are left living and permanently damaged from our gun crisis. At this point, I consider our politicians to be accessories to murder.
7
A high school student tackling a gunman is the embodiment of our nation. Both the good inherent to such a sacrifice and the bad because a child has more courage then most of the adults politicians in this country.
8
Kendrick Castillo sacrificed his life to save others. His family will mourn this loss for the remainder of their lives.
What have we wrought when schools have become sites of mass shootings and students sacrifice themselves to save others? As a senior in high school in 1968, I was focused on going swsy to college and waiting for the next chapter to begin. What has happened in this country to produce so many young, angry, murderous men, armed and ready to shoot up a school? Something is very rotten in the U S and it is tragically and deeply sad.
I extend my sympathies to the Castillo family and to the entire school and community.
3
In 53 years this country has not been able to accomplish what New Zealand did in 26 days.
And the reason is because for 53 years people have supported the Republican Party. A group which, decade after decade, has put itself and it's own interests above the lives of innocent children.
The GOP may not have pulled the trigger, but they and the NRA have done everything in their power to keep guns within the reach of mass-murderers.
I hope Republicans enjoy those checks from the NRA each year. You know, the ones covered in the blood of thousands of dead children.
If you support the GOP, then you support the mass-murder of children. There are no two ways about it.
9
So it seems official now: schools have become battlegrounds and students the frontline soldiers. Regardless of the merits of countering active shooters, the fact that this has become the new normal state of affairs is rather nauseating. That students should need to worry about using their own bodies as human shields is Kafkaesque.
Meanwhile, the politicians and firearms industry continue with their thoughts and prayers. They continue to obfuscate. They continue to misinterpet the second amendment and mistake freedom to kill with fredom to bear arms. God forbid they get a B+ rating from their paymasters at the NRA...
2
How incredibly maddening and sad that our government is content with its complicity in the deaths of these young men in Colorado and North Carolina. My heart goes out the families and friends.
3
God bless Kendrick Castillo. Now let's show some of his courage and stop this gun madness in America. Too many guns.
3
So heartbreaking to see yet another school shooting. When are we going to finally get some sane gun laws and help young people who are suffering?
3
no more "beautiful" heroes let's get the right laws
3
If I were the commandant of the Marine Corps, I would make this young man, Kendrick Castillo, an honorary Member of the Corps.
His actions were in keeping with the traditions of selflessness and courage that are instilled in Marines.
6
I am on the local school board. Our district is about to do a referendum for the sole purpose of upgrading our security features to reflect the new reality.
…..even if we get the money we need, it won't protect us. There are so many opportunities for a motivated shooter. Our aim is never going to be to stop the shooter; just to minimize the carnage.
Let's face it. Thanks to the NRA's poisonous influence, going outside is LITERALLY playing Russian Roulette. I guess there is a reason why the Russians fund the NRA after all, right? I am going to guess it has nothing to do with our right to bear arms. It's about killing our children and dividing our nation.
A friend of ours is so pro guns that it has permanently affected our friendship. It's hard to stay friends with someone once you've understood the depth of their selfishness, stubbornness, inability to see facts, and inflexibility of thought.
I am not sure I will ever forgive the Republican Party for this.
12
I teach. And on one of my campuses, there is no way for me to lock the doors to my classrooms, so I have often wondered what I would, or wouldn't, do if the worst should happen. This sweetly smiling heroic boy humbles me because I seriously doubt I would have his courage.
7
They say time changes everything. Well, not gun violence.
2
I am an 18-year-old student from Australia.
I can barely begin to imagine life as a student in America. Each time a headline comes out on a school shooting I am eerily unphased. Looking from the outside in it is difficult to understand or empathise with the fear of mentally ill classmates having access to firearms.
It is when I see the names and faces of students that put themselves in harm's way, the text messages to parents from inside the classroom that I find myself deeply disturbed.
What is it going to take for the US government to step back and see what the rest of the world sees?
Another young life stolen, RIP Kendrick Castillo.
223
@Emma Gillman, we weer in Melbourne at the time of the Newtown CT school shootings, Dec 2012. Our friend's son had just applied for MBA programs to the US. He instantly withdrew his applications, he said he was not going to study in a country where even university and schools are not safe. All the people we met expressed their shock disgust helplessness that America has lost its moral compass. In the name of Christianity Americans profess values but right before their eyes, someone like George W Bush, a born again Christian, orders war against Iraq, where untold countless people died.
26
@Emma Gillman So well Said Emma & at a tender age! I'm 60yrs old w 6 adult children & 11 Grandchildren and i'm as confused and disturbed as you are... I have No answers but DO have Hope your Generation WILL PREVAIL !
5
It's a way of life here Emma, we all have different challenges in our respective countries.
Sadly, I have given up on the current generation’s willingness to make any meaningful, long overdue, change to gun laws. It will take a massive generational shift in power to millennials and younger to fix the tragic and disastrous mess that we have wrought. And I trust that the solutions will not be arming teachers, adding more risk.
5
The nation should fly our flags at half staff for every hero and victim we lose in a school or public place shooting or bombing.
5
Young boys should not be put in a place where they need to be heroes. Enough already. Vote blue for change.
May his memory be a blessing . May he initiate change/
6
It's class and the students are watching Princess Bride? What kind of education are these kids getting? Is it connected to the mindset of the killers?
1
@Ella
It was 3 days til the last day of school. Pretty typical fodder- it was when I went to school in Fairfax County Virginia and I graduated 30 years ago.
3
Personally I wouldn't criticize the method for civilians to take an aggressive approach against gunmen. There would be a lot of situations where running or hiding is just not effective enough like in a closed room, so logically it would be best to find a way and stop the gunner from doing damage. This is only recommended if the gunner's motive is to kill rather than taking hostile of course since waiting for law enforcement is better if gunner aren't firing at all. Also, I wouldn't say that stopping the gunner is either the student or the teacher duty, only those whose duty is to protect like security. This victim sacrifice even though it is not his duty but purely selflessness, and for that I have massive respect for him. RIP.
2
The two teens who committed this crime clearly have serious problems and should not be anywhere near a gun. It is critical to find out where they got the guns from, as whoever owns the guns is also responsible for the resulting death of this young man and for the injuries that others suffered.
8
It’s hard to believe that these kids who leap at their attackers unarmed are represented in Congress by those who cower in front of the NRA, 2nd amendment nuts and the gun lobby.
The second amendment is an anachronism that has long outlived it’s usefulness and relevance to the modern state. Of many American innovations in democracy, that’s one that no one else has sought to replicate.
To paraphrase Lincoln, if it’s possible to preserve the 2nd amendment and still regulate weapons we should do it, if not, it’s time for the 2nd to be repealed. These young lives are paramount.
22
@gizmos You say it outlived its usefulness like Venezuela isn't thing. That is the exact reason the founders created the 2nd Amendment, and to think something like that can't happen in the U.S. today is foolish. The problem is NOT guns. Statistics point to the contrary. You need to create an argument from facts rather than feelings.
I think it is way past time for the press to consider changing how it reports these things -- it seems clear to me that the motive for this kind of pointless killing is celebrity, a sense that the individual matters in the world. It has a lot in common with taking selfies. (Yeah -- and really strict gun control, too, of course).
4
@Rachel Kreier I don't believe there is any easy solution to this problem. I think culture has big part in it, as well as the constant stories idolizing these killers in the news. Many of them just want to make themselves heard, and what easier way than making national news.
I feel fairly confident that in any state where qualified adults are permitted to concealed carry a weapon (including at the school), there will be no “school shooter” scenarios. I am not aware of evidence that mass shooters are bold enough to attack a place with potentially armed men and women who can help them calm down using their gun. If there is such evidence, reply below.
1
@rjs7777 Your confident feeling is misguided, and you provide no evidence to support your claims. Your solution to gun violence is to arm more people, even in schools, as a deterrent. Where is your evidence that having "qualified adults" with guns in schools makes students safer? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (i.e. no shootings). And what does it mean to have qualified adults with guns in schools? They practiced on a firing range? Do you really think that is going to prepare them to face heavily armed gunman? The real solution, the only way to honor the memories of those have died and those who sacrificed their lives, is to radically reduce the number of guns in our society.
20
@Lee and can you mention which school shootings happened in a place where concealed carry is allowed in schools? Let’s wait for more evidence, I agree. I agree that we should confiscate guns, if shooters do enter armed schools. Rather than foaming at the mouth and subjecting ourselves to potential criminal government abuse forever, let’s be sure that school shooters really are as brave as you say. I personally believe they are cowards, and tend to be pensive, nerdy types who can be deterred.
1
@Lee Statistics actually point to no real correlation between amount of guns in a country and gun violence. The U.S. for example has been steadily increasing gun ownership while gun crimes has gone down.
I know most here don't support guns in schools, but will the idea of armed teachers deter shooters from entering a particular school? I suspect it will. And if we are truly interested in protecting students -- versus promoting our personal views on guns -- then we should take whatever steps are necessary to protect students.
It's much easier to deter a crazed killer with a few gun carriers than to try to infringe upon the rights of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding gun owners across the country. That's reality.
1
There are plenty of shootings at military bases. You are assuming mad shooter are rational enough to think :"better not do it. might get hurt"?
3
@AACNY As a teacher, I'd pose this question to you: would you rather classroom teachers be thoughtful instructional designers, curious, with deep subject knowledge, who practice kindness and compassion; or would you rather we overlook these qualities if they don't coincide with handgun comfort and/or training? Arguably violence is already part of the US school curriculum. Arming teachers will codify this.
1
@AACNY “ then we should take whatever steps are necessary to protect students.” DUH! Repeal the second amendment.
2
There are only 5 Million members in the IRA and they are holding the other 323 Million people in the country hostage. Some organizations do a lot less to get on the Terrorist list. The cost of NRA membership is $45/year... not nearly enough to buy all the votes they need accross the country to manipulate the local, state, and federal government. Hmmm. But on the website look at the benefits offered and the companies associated with their membership offers. Aside from joining and changing it from the inside, citizens for sensible gun control need to call these associated corporate sponsors what they are: Complicit.
16
Two astonishingly brave, caring, promising young men were killed this week. Imagine what they might have accomplished if our nations gun policy had not put them on the front lines of an increasingly futile cause.
My greatest respects to his family. We are poorer as a whole for this loss.
21
"Greater love..." Salud, Kendrick, and peace and comfort to your family and friends.
10
While the numbness we feel every time this happens only becomes greater, we still feel the pain. Yet the gun lobby continues to greedily sell us more and more guns under the guise of the Second Amendment.
Effective gun control can only begin once we put people before profits. How many lives, especially young ones, could be saved?
Countless.
Vote.
10
The senator for Colorado, Cory Gardner (R), received over 3.8 million dollars from the NRA and has an A-rating from him. His reelection is up in 2020. The Democrats control the House. If we can get a majority in the Senate as well then reasonable gun legislation can be passed. I would strongly recommend that we start with Gardner, if we want change to happen (a lot of these students are high school seniors, I suspect they would be eligible to vote by 2020). Please vote.
18
An American hero who gave his life to save his classmates, while we have a child for president who has neither courage nor heart to stand up for what is right.
22
Students who step in where professionals have failed should receive no less than the death benefit a newly hired police officer in the jurisdiction would receive. It is not acceptable compensation, but it is the least the community can do. In reality, students deserve so much more than what they are being handed in the compulsory educational environments of the public education system. It’s time to change. Sure, ask me how.
7
Kendrick Costillo,
I'm so sad tonight, looking at your bright and shining face. America needed you, not as the sacrifice you became, but for all your promising years--everything you had to offer. We've all been robbed. Again.
And it's time to put up some statues. This is what a hero looks like. Not a victim, but someone who acts and tries.
22
In less than a month we have had two boys die in school shootings while trying to stop others with guns. Taking on fights that were not their responsibility. I think they felt it was their jobs to rush in where no child should have had to. Some have questioned when will it be enough for republicans to act on gun control. It won’t happen. We have only to have seen Sandy Hook to know they were not then nor now interested in doing their jobs and protecting this country, the children, adults, all of us. Do not count on them. Something far more than any measure they have put forward needs to be done. It isn’t right these boys had to go where most men haven’t had to. We have had fifty killings in our city since the first of this year. What is the answer? More guns?
17
Sandy Hook was the turning point for me. A country where little kids get gunned down in their classroom while the "right" of crazy people who get a sick thrill from owning a deadly weapon is "sacred" is a very sick, unhealthy, uncivilized ugly society.
3
We must all stand up for gun control.
Responsible gun owners, call for gun control to protect our children.
Gun industry workers, you must do the same to protect our children.
It's everyone's moral duty to call for gun control.
19
@BLOG joekimgroup.com yep stand up for your rights and cause others to be mowed down. All other countries were gun ownership is managed and not a free for all have seen massive declines in most and particularly mass shooting incidents. See Australia European countries the UK....
1
So agree!
I weep for your and my country where insanity rules. Here in relatively saner New Zealand a smart and steady Prime Minister banned all military style weapons in 21 days plus began a nationwide buyback and gun registration program. New Zealanders aren't smarter than folks back home. They just don't have to contend with the NRA. Congress needs to act now to investigate the NRA and get Ollie North to testify against Wayne LaPierre. This insanity has got to stop. Let's not continue to trade the life of children for votes. These kids have the real Right To Life.
39
I can't imagine a worse stain on our country's standing as a free nation than the blood spilled by our innocent children because of guns.
Time to rebuff claims of the NRA, and the pro-constitutionalist law high court jurists interpretations support of gun ownership..
The second amendment was ratified December 1791 as part of the bill of rights to establish,"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."
America has changed in 228 years.
In this our country's 21st century, we now have private community guards, city police force; county, state, and all levels of federal law enforcement agencies to provide security for all citizens. We also have five branches of the military to protect our "free" United States of America.
In this our country's 21st century, we no longer need guns to hunt for food because we now have supermarkets, or online outlets to buy groceries, and every product imaginable for our needs.
It is clear to me, the only other reason to "bear arms" is for individuals shoot one another - whether accidentally in the hands of a young child playing with their parents gun, or by people intent on murder. Does it really matter what the motive is for killing another person, including self-protection?
Time to abolish the outdated 2nd amendment.
I want Kendrick Castillo's smiling face to be memorialized for finally changing our country's gun laws.
21
And you Trump and your alt-right, white nationalists and racists buddies out there: take a good look at Kendrick's face. No matter how many walls you build or how many rallies you hold or how white your skin might be, no matter how many insults, how many bias attacks, not one of you is or will ever ever ever be a 10th of the man this child was. Kendrick Castillo is a true American Man and Hero.
49
And the White House remains silent.
31
@S Woody
The White House is very involved in fighting crime. It has made valiant attempts to prevent violent MS-13 gang members from entering our country and passed landmark prison reform. Rarely has one party's efforts included both ends of the process like this. It's a small miracle.
If you could remove the angry blinders from your eyes, you might actually get somewhere on gun violence.
It would be appropriate for you to put Kendrick Castillo’s name in the headline in place of “Colorado school shooting victim.” Why didn’t you?
20
America was founded on violence and has justified violence since its founding. It will continue to be violent to itself and others.
6
um, the that's seems to be the rule rather than the exception. #humanhistory
The founder of an active shooter training program claims that tackling a gunman "might be the best approach to end a deadly tragedy"?
In the two most recent school shootings, it's fair to say that the two young men who lost their lives while "disrupting the gunman" were surely evidence of a horribly deadly tragedy. One dead child is enough of a tragedy; why must some Americans now view tragedies as only those incidents tallying multiple deaths?
8
Twice in a week a student sacrificed himself to protect his fellow students from a moron with a gun. Meanwhile Tiger Woods gets the Medal of Freedom for knocking a little ball around and becoming a multi millionaire. This country is sick.
Mr deepest condolences to the families of both these men.
54
I don’t hear anything from the White House eulogizing this extraordinarily brave young man.
18
Rest in peace Kendrick Castillo. My prayers go with you
17
This situation is becoming more and more insane, and crazier by the day. The problem is now taking the shape of a disease in our country. Parents, now have one more worry on their hands. Each day, parents have to stay anxious, until they know their children have left school for the day, and are safe at home.
Students and Teachers, as well as others either working in the Schools, or visiting the Schools, have to stay vigilant, concerned for their safety.
The Colorado School shooting is the second incident in an educational institution, within several days, in our country. Victims at both locations, sacrificed their innocent lives, trying to stop the assailants.
Those of us who have children and grand children, at school, find it very hard to comprehend, why this is happening. This is a growing concern. We are all so very fed up and have no words to describe the frustration.
Each time there is a shooting incident, our political leaders, including the POTUS, the NRA all come forward with their statements, words of sympathy or arguments on gun control and mental health issues. This is the same tape recording that is being played over and over again.
Will there ever be a solution to this continuing problem?
6
Yet North Carolina keeps voting red. And do not forget, your neighbor, South Carolina, proud home of one of the biggest sorry excuses of a man ever currently in Congress: Lindsay Graham.
sadly this story barely lasted in my day to day consciousness because I'm only human and my species is designed to survive repeated horror by becoming inured.
3
It's absolutely absurd and tragic that we are relying on boys and girls in our schools to protect their classmates from violence.
This is what we have come to . . . we are failing to protect our children.
Instead of opposing what the second amendment has wrought in our country, we have decided we will put our children in danger every day.
Does anyone care about the children? The injury, maiming, and murder of our children?
Are guns so very important that we value them more than the lives and well being of our children?
Children across the country are fearful of being gunned down in their schools. And they are not comforted by what has become a common practice of rehearsing shooting drills in their classrooms.
Our children are being traumatized.
We have a very serious problem and an inability to do anything about it.
11
No person should have to confront what Kendrick Castillo did. His bravery was uncommon. He was heroic. But we do not benefit when people like Kendrick leave us like this.
I hope people will try to be as selfless as Kendrick and Riley instead of demanding that others simply do things their way or refuse to do anything constructive.
We must address the fact that hundreds of millions of guns are in the hands of people we know not who. We know that some unknown number of people who have guns will do harm with them but we have no knowledge about who they might be. While a lot of people just want to get rid of all of the guns, as many use guns and never pose any risk to anyone and deserve to be trusted unless there is good cause have doubts.
However, unless we know where all the guns are and who has them, we cannot do much to prevent the harmful use of them. People who fear guns and gun owners must learn to trust people who keep and use them reasonably. People who own guns must trust those who abhor guns who trust them to secure their guns from being used to do harm. Then we can gain control over our gun violence problem.
3
Every person I know that carries a gun is a soft, weak person and they know it, that’s what the gun compensates for.
22
@Paulie
I know no such gun owners. The ones I know are much more responsible than the average person. They are more knowledgeable about gun safety than all-anti-gun advocates combined.
I would argue that it's the anti-gun advocates who are fearful and weak in the face of guns. They just want to make them to disappear. An unrealistic solution.
I don't know about that, I know a group of guys that you would hardly call soft that carry guns
The NRA has to take responsibility for this. They spend so much time and money making sure the country is flooded with guns. They make sure every troubled teenager, racist nut, and angry ex-husband has full access to lethal weapons. What are they doing to stop this senseless violence ? Where is their accountability.
9
By the way, this hero's ancestry, one of those immigrant groups than Trump and his sheeple love to demonize. This kid of Hispanic descent was so much more of a decent, stand up man that sorry excuse of an adult, Trump will ever be.
26
To Kendrick’s family:
I would like you to know how desolate we are
as a family for your immeasurable loss. We
must not allow his death to go unmarked. The
correct solution will require repeal of the
second amendment and strict control of firearms.
It is a cause worthy of the effort.
18
A given in our country now, mass shootings of innocent people, often minors with dreams and their full lives ahead. Another given, thoughts and prayers from our leaders in Washington and nothing more...
5
The NRA can help us out here. In every election, look at each candidate's NRA grade, and vote for the person with the lowest grade.
14
Parents of children that are of school age, when are YOU going to show some muscle and demand your poliitcians to act! Mobilize and attack this issue with the ultimate goal of repealing this arcane, mindless and irrelevant Second Amendment. Protest....and more protest....
5
@David Ryan
Sure, blame the parents who are doing everything they can to protect their kids while the politicians collect money from the NRA and other lobby groups.
We saw plenty of mobilization and protest after Parkland. Going back to Sandy Hook there have been vocal parent groups lobbying for change. What exactly is it you want parents to do when faced with the financial influence of groups like the NRA?
This victim blaming is not only sad, it shows a complete failure to understand the political/financial climate.
1
@ not blaming parents and sorry if you misunderstood. My point is that to wake up the politicians and its sponsor the NRA, parents, and the many that happen to be Republicans, need to say ENOUGH!
1
Things won’t change until Millennials hold the majority of seats in Congress.
9
Chilling. That the best (the only?) way to keep deaths at their lowest number is for at least one courageous child to be willing to sacrifice his or her life. This is the cost of “freedom” America is willing to pay, and it is far too high.
9
Utterly tragic that our children are sacrificing their lives to protect each other from guns.
7
At some point we need to start paying students combat pay
9
Breaks my heart....
My sincere gratitude to him and his family. What a wonderful young man....
Where are the courageous politicians?????
5
@Endeavor4
"Courageous" and "politicians" are mutually exclusive terms.
This is NOT okay.
6
America is sick and Trump fuels this ugly disease.
Remove the guns and you remove the risk of children dying by gun shots.
Any first grader can figure that out!
8
It’s not so simple as just flipping a switch and removing all the guns. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in America.
1
Imagine that you watch your son be born, get up in the middle of the night to feed him, give him all of the love in your heart, a love that he shows to those around him, give him values to live by, and then loose him at age 18 to a murderer with a gun in his school, where you have sent him because you think it is safe. Oh My God.
Yes, Kendrick was a hero. Why did he have to be one in high school? This makes me very angry. His life as worth more than gun ownership.
20
"I don't care," said LaPierre.
6
How many deaths? How many more deaths? How many more times do we mumble "thoughts and prayers" and "second amendment rights"? Yes, gun deaths can also happen after taking away guns from homes and streets, people can die from knives too. But, at that time, as a nation of adults, we will be able to say that...we did everything that we could. What is our logic now?
7
Mr and Mrs Castillo. You raised such an outstanding young man. Kendrick was a true hero. He sacrificed his life to save schoolmates. This is the first time that I have ever responded to a story in NYT. But I am proud to do so do so to honor a brave and loving and sweet and kind guy. I know how heartbreaking this is for you. RIP Kendrick. You will be greatly missed.
27
We will pay for armed guards to protect lawyers at court houses but we refuse to do so for our schools to protect children. Says something--and not a very nice something about us.
12
True the probability of dying in a mass shooting is pretty low, perhaps much lower than the probability of dying in a car accident. But this doesn’t mean people should feel even remotely complacent about it. Mass shootings are preventable if there aren’t so many guns circulating in our country and the weapons are not so easily obtainable by people including a minor. There is no amount of mental health screening or background check that could effectively prevent this from happening over and over again. It’s almost certain at this point that another senseless killing in the US will appear on the front pages of major news outlets in the next month or two. We could sit back and think that it’s just another isolated event with the odds of it happening to me 1 out of 10 million, but how do you feel inside? Right now I feel anger. Precious young lives lost so tragically and senselessly over something that is so preventable by policies and legislations. Remember that people make the rules of how they shall live. Some of those rules were made in 1791 and it’s time we remake the rules. It’s a cliche to say when there is a will there is a way. It looks like we just don’t have the will to make the new rules.
11
So Sad.
I've got 2 daughters in elementary school. My wife always has to remind m the code to get into the school when I occasionally have to enter the buildings.
Its a keypad on the outside of all the doors. I am not sure if they have specific drills if there is an active shooter, I think not...
I will take my chances with this level of security. Maybe I am naive to the chances but I don't want my kids worrying about the possibility of a school shooting in class.
Statistically, school shootings are random and the chances being involved must be statistically insignificant , yet it does seem to be getting more common in the news media.
Perhaps like one of the readers expressed, we should sue every party involved, mfg, dealers, including the parents (Erickson’s parents). Increase in lawsuits may encourage the insurance of all arms, making it financially straining to own a weapon in society.
Kendrick. Godspeed.
4
@Oella Saw and Tool
The problem is the shooters tend to be students at the school. Not always, but they were in this case and they typically are. Any "security" which only keeps out random members of the public can't protect against the school's own students.
You should ask your daughters if they have active shooter drills. All of my kids have, in public and private school. I think it has sadly become standard.
1
It is clear that our society values its guns more than our children. Parents must wrestle with the fear of sending their kids to school every day, and the children must confront the reality that they may face gun violence in their classrooms on any given day because our legislators lack the will to take decisive action to protect them with sensible gun control legislation. I have to think this is not what the founding fathers envisioned when they created the second amendment 240+ years ago, and societal norms are lightyears away form that time. No amount of spin will mask the enormous failure of our politicians to protect our children.
13
The only positive thing I can think of in this incident is that they did not have higher powered guns available to them. The fact that so many Americans don't believe that the violence can be reduced with stricter controls over the type of weapons, without having to ban guns or sacrifice the 2nd amendment is baffling.
5
I am just glad that the headline emphasizes the heroism shown by this young man instead of giving a murderer more publicity.
God bless you Kendrick Castillo. Rest in peace.
17
What a good person Kendrick Castillo was, and what a wretched waste of a life. My heart just breaks for his family and his classmates who will never forget what they went through that day.
18
Such a brave, selfless young man.
How can so many adults continue to support a political party that refuses to implement gun safety laws? It’s incomprehensible. Infuriating.
14
He was a child at school.
So wrong.
6
If, after one of these murderous attacks at a school, someone releases photos or videos of the blood splattered children our country will finally face the full horror of what is occurring.
When that happens, the iron grip that the NRA holds on firearm policy in this country will finally be broken.
5
I don't understand how can we raise kids if we might lose them in school. When I was growing up, school was a safe place.
I don't want the government to limit my rights but I am happy to give up my right to own a gun if that means I don't have the fear of losing my children. When will my fellow citizens make the same choice?
8
No because they are mentally unstable people who use a deadly toy as an stand-in for manhood under the excuse of "hunting" "protection" blah blah blah when at the end of the day is nothing more than a sick thrill of owning something that can kill another living person or animal.
3
How much gun violence would these children and young adults be exposed to if our Congress members experienced a mass shooting once a month?
21
And that is the most infuriating thing: gun owners who think the NRA and Republicans protect their right or their manhood-compensating toy are not allowed to have them when talking to their "defenders" but they do not see the hypocrisy.
4
So unbearably tragic when our youth are forced into a position where they act as soldiers on the battlefield. In peacetime! In our own country! It is outrageous. Of course the only thing left now is to repeal the Second Amendment. The time for compromise is over.
9
So the new normal has come to this. Students and teachers are expected to sacrifice their lives so politicians can continue to pocket money from the NRA and hide behind their desks while the students run at the bullets. I can only ask Congress: Have you no shame?
29
Abolush the 2nd Amendment. Now!
16
Brave student rushes gunman to try to save his classmates and is killed, meanwhile cowardly, on the take members of Congress don't have the guts to pass laws ending the sale of guns in this country. Ghastly.
15
Harmony will return once our species is gone. No one will be tapping their foot or checking their watch impatiently; it will just happen.
We are all guilty of extreme negligence. Our children are now used as human shields so we can hold on to our right to bear arms.
We don't deserve the many gifts of this remarkable planet.
We deserve Trump and the vicious dictators who destroy all that is sacred.
Don't sleep well tonight.
3
It's way past time for our political leaders to have the courage of the New Zealand Prime Minister and start limiting the sale of guns. Far too many innocent people are dying.
8
We need to stop publishing the names of the shooters. To give acknowledgement is to give them strength and the attention they seek. Let’s only speak of the dead and wounded.
5
Military honors please.
6
What are Mr. Crane's views on gun control? Are we just supposed to encourage young people to sacrifice themselves as this slaughter continues?
1
RIP hero.
3
Just looked at the accused's FB page. He is a child. He isn't done growing. He's got issues; his family has issues, and I'm getting the impression that he's got developmental problems. And our society puts guns in his reach. Why are we surprised that this is happening every month?
930
@Allison school shootings have happened every single year since the 1860s
@Allison He doesn't have "issues" - he has "PROBLEMS" - serious ones. Try to avoid Millenial New Speak.
39
@Allison He's 18; old enough to vote, to join the military, and apparently to kill. He is not a child;and an insult to the millions of people of all ages who struggle with mental issues and family issues and yet who do not decide to murder people.
50
Guns are not only issue. Here are more:
Isolation caused by "social" media
Family dinners gone by the wayside
The violence of slaughter-'em games
Easy access for children to porn sites
The unraveling of our religious lives
The attraction and availability of drugs
Media that peddles trash and horror
Alienation from next-door neighbors
And so on. We have a crazy-making life style and should not be surprised when it delivers.
7
Every other society deals with these issues.We are the only ones sick enough to make guns a sick "right".
1
@Rosie
No, not every other society deals with these. Ours is a highly permissive and materialistic society where family is no longer the center. You're wrong.
1
This is unspeakable barbarism but we must speak out. What is this doing to our children? How can a parent prepare a child to run towards a shooter to save her friends and her teacher? We need to organize. We need strong and moral leaders. We need educators to say enough-this is not our burden.
6
It is heartbreaking when children have to be the heroes, when children are the ones who have to display courage, bravery, and sacrifice; while legislators stand by, campaigning for re-election with thoughts, prayers and empty platitudes.
12
Mr. Castillo is being described as a hero for his courage. While his courage is certainly admirable and remarkable, maybe he is better described as a "martyr". One definition of the word "martyr" is: a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of a cause." In this case, Mr. Castillo was put to death by those who steadfastly refuse to enact stricter gun laws in this country, and his parents, relatives and friends are left to endure the pain of his murder. Referring to Mr. Castillo as a hero rather than a martyr also seemingly glamorizes the situation he found himself in. Unlike soldiers, police officers, and fire fighters from who we generally expect acts of heroism simply by the nature of their freely chosen profession, Mr. Castillo found himself in a situation he did not sign up for. He was just doing what kids his age ordinarily do: going to school, ordinarily an act devoid of major bloodshed, and a space where kids are generally safe. So as brave and unselfish as Mr. Castillo's action was, let's NOT normalize it by labeling it "heroic". Because apart from law enforcers, no one should have to find himself or herself in the position that he did, and certainly no teenager.
30
Very perceptive. Thank you for this comment.
3
The Second Amendment is archaic and needs to be repealed, and nothing less will stop this madness.
15
Agree. However, reality is, it will never be repealed because of the power of money, and of those who sell arms. The arms Industry, and The American Rifle Society are certainly the most powerful organizations in the USA. Greed and power are above the value of human lives.
2
If an enemy sent undercover assassins to attack at will our schools, universities, churches and public gatherings we would rise up as one to do whatever was necessary to protect our people. We would declare war!
The corpses that now lay in the mass graves that are dug from sea to shining sea from home grown assassins have been excavated by our complacency and a defference to an antiquated ammendment.
We would not be reading this if written with pen and quill. Times have changed and our needs now necessitate changes to our way of life. No one wants a war, but our enemy is within and more dangerous than any from a foreign shore.
Hunt for game if they must, but not in our public squares. It's time to declare war on our home grown terrorist and WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction). Our lives depend on it.
5
How many unnecessary "heroes" we need to martyr before we recover our sanity and let this anachronistic and outdated 18th century 2nd Amendment be abolished. Why are we deifying the Constitution's outdated and irrelevant tenet that much? That document was amended multiple times to make it reevant. Why this religious devotion to this particular one? Spare me lectures on "citizenry against tyrannical government" nonsense.
8
With 300 million firearms circulating of which 100 million are estimated acquired illegally how is it possible to reduce homicides. No other nation has anywhere near that amount in circulation. Moreover, Americans seem fairly indifferent to the estimated 6,000 gun homicides in our inner cities. Even Black politicians don’t keep inner City gun homicides on the front burner.
With TV and American culture prone to displaying violence at every turn we have a de facto gun oriented violent culture. Not likely amenable to change by Congress. Americans like their guns. So we pay the price.
We also pay the price for tens of thousands of auto deaths. And Opiod deaths. But the difference is that we work hard to reduce fatalities in those areas. Maybe future generations will question the “wisdom” of allowing 300 million weapons in circulation.
4
So, kids out their lives on the line so the NRA-istas can have more unfettered access to guns. I hope the NRA is proud of that trade off.
11
And still,..the republicans do their rumba on the graves of the folks who are slaughtered.
Instead of playing ring around the liar they should be working to prevent these atrocities. Vote Them OUT !
12
A true hero, brave well beyond his years.
Pray for the day that no more innocent-victims die at the hands of crazed-gunman. I don't know what the answer is, only that we need a solution -- WAY too many innocent people dying like this. It has to stop.
1
@Fortitudine Vincimus.
Our schools need armed guards. Period. And, no, I am not a Republican nor NRA member.
I am a realist. No child should have to lose his or her life because we fail to protect.
Enough with the mythology that somehow more gun laws would end this atrocity.
4
It is absolutely unconscionable that a country of adults remains so divided over gun freedoms and controls that we'd rather stand by as young people lose their lives than come together on commonsense, compromise actions. I had been uneasy about armed guards in schools; I now believe that this is critical to keeping children shielded. It is Pollyanna-ish to pretend that "hopes and prayers" are enough. The family of this courageous young man has sustained an horrific loss that is an incomprehensible tragedy. How many more?
6
My heart felt sympathy to the family of Kendrick Castillo. You raised a hero, and the world is lessened by his loss. I hope their is justice for your son.
Sidenote:
Not one word from the White House. No condolences, no praise for the the 18 year old who gave his life to save others. I guess his last name of Castillo tells me why.
12
This young man represented the best of us. May his family find peace.
7
This is such a tragedy. I feel deeply sad for this brave young man and for his family.
I feel that we, as adults, are letting down this generation so much: inequal access to education and healthcare, a dire environmental situation, and now they have to die trying to protect their fellow students, because who else will stand up for them? Because I lived most of my life in France with recurring terrorist scares, I am painfully aware that my kids' schools and most public places are quite vulnerable to gun shooters. Of course we can install bulletproof walls and doors, buy the kids bulletproof clothes, turn our cars into tanks, but where will we find the money to do that? And more importantly, is this the kind of life we wish upon our children? Do we want them to live in a country at war?
Adults are supposed to protect children. The only way is to take back a lot of guns.
6
Please stop implying that every student is at risk of being shot by a classmate. I know it sells newspapers but you are stoking unjustified fear. Post a statistic that shows how many young people have attended school since 1999 and have not been shot. This is yellow journalism. We are not in an era of school shootings just like we are not in an era of terrorism. It's like grounding all planes after three planes hit buildings on September 11th, 2001. People say perception is reality but that's an excuse. News like this is the stuff of old men drinking coffee together at six in the morning, repeating the same story over and over as a reminder of how empty and pointless their lives are. It's like pushing the term of the steroid era in baseball when six people were caught. Is that an era? Another example is the few priests who molested children. The incidence of paedophilia is smaller in the Catholic Church than in the larger society. I do agree that the failure to report is newsworthy. One positive that could come of all this is serious questioning of what is news or actually representative of one 24 hour period. If it is just to stir up emotion or further a political agenda that is not news, it's entertainment.
3
This only changes when republicans say they too of their kids being shot dead.
1
If you can, leave. It’s a big planet.
3
The attack happened in Mrs. Harper’s English classroom. Where was Mrs. Harper? Why wasn’t she part of this story?
I’m sorry to you Kendrick that you lost your life when you had so much of it before you. You shouldn’t have had do this. Thank you for your courage. May we all hope to have the same.
3
"Ms. Giasolli said a cluster of boys then tackled the gunman, allowing her and others to flee the classroom.
'I don’t have enough words,' Ms. Giasolli said in her living room on Wednesday. 'They didn’t have to risk their lives to save the 15 of us who were left.'”
Another example of toxic masculinity.
3
No, I think I’ll go with “brave young men making a valiant choice to try to stop mass slaughter”.
1
With 22 or whatever Dem. candidates we should hear from one or two of them that have a lucid gun policy that counteracts the NRA's influence among both GOP and Dem. Congresspersons. Why isn't this as large of an issue as immigration? Why hasn't this "non-conformist" president seen what has happened to this country's children and not used his forceful personality to help our young people be safe? Does it have to happen at his child's prep school before he takes this issue seriously?
You people in government, who are looked to when events like this happen, need to stop sitting on your hands and do something besides thinking and praying. I'm thinking and praying that the lot of you get voted out of office. What is the sense of having power when such an incredibly decent thing to do is legislate this nonsense out of our lives?
Regulate guns like you do automobiles. Each gun has to have insurance. Each gun owner has to be instructed in the proper use of the weapon. Each gun owner is liable if their weapon is used in a crime - no matter who perpetrated the crime. If the weapon is used in a crime the person who owns the weapon serves the same sentence as the perpetrator.
5
Teens are also under attack by vaping companies. Juul and others are peddling addiction right under their parent's noses to the degree one in three teenagers have vaped in the last year.
2
@Paulo A student was shot dead protecting others. How cold and callous are you to compare vaping to a tragic school shooting? Pathetic.
5
I wish they wouldn't even name the suspects or the shooters. Give them nothing in the media. Celebrate the heroes, remember the dead. Make no mention of the shooter, other than that he was a gunman or whatever other generic noun, and that he was apprehended, in court or whatever.
2
@Syliva: It's important to mention the person's name and even give some details. A: it's a small country, and people want to know if this is somebody they have met, or lived near. We can't keep their names secret, and just have a couple of people disappear from the neighborhood with no explanation. B: It makes somewhat of a difference to the rest of us whether an event like this stemmed from private craziness, or some well-known system of hate and resentment, or something new on the scene. We have a legitimate interest in understanding what was going on. And there are plenty of people ready to provide a fake explanation, if the real one isn't forthcoming.
All that said, you're right, there is no need to go into obsessive detail, no need to make them celebrities or give free publicity to their lunatic causes, if any.
I just want to add another voice to praise this wonderful young man who did such a brave and selfless thing and who did more to stop gun violence in a few seconds than the millions of passive and selfish adults in this country who have refused for decades and still refuse to act to put sensible gun restrictions in place. How many more brave young people have to die?
6
Answer: thousands and thousands because the NRA’s goal is to put more guns in the hands of more people. That adds up to many more shootings - everywhere.
7
@GinaK
Absolutely agree.
3
The goal of the NRA is to continue making money for gun manufacturers. If gun owners think that terrorist organization represents their interest and not of their masters, gun manufacturers, they are very stupid.
1
Oh, that precious little sweetheart. Look at those sparkly eyes, the bright future, of Kendrick Castillo. Just too much for me today, I'm afraid.
13
@Ellen Same.
5
Sure, the DA, George Brauchler, may want to try the perps as adults. But what does he say about gun control? You can't have municipalities making up their own gun control laws or challenging the 2nd Amendment, he says (https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=FwduyQ0rxIU). Of course, he's not a student of 18th century history or language, but he knows what he knows about our right to bear arms in the 21st century --no matter how crazy it is to bear arms instead of bear the burdens of responsible communal citizenship.
4
The other culprit behind these types of shootings (besides the NRA and all the politicians who don't act) are video games and violent films. I was a special education teacher at different grade levels--I had 10 year olds terrified of The Purge who I had to convince that they weren't going to be killed and 12 year olds playing Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. In those games you kill people. They are very realistic and becoming more so each year, especially with virtual reality. The games numb children to violence--that is why students can walk in and kill someone. They've been doing it online for years before they do it person.
10
These young adults who sacrifice their lives to save others are the ones who should be receiving the The Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the families should forever be recognized for having loss a child in a country that values gun ownership over human life.
10
If lawmakers won't lift a finger to impose sorely needed controls on the ready availability of guns, students should not sacrifice themselves to stop killers on school campuses. They should simply run for their lives and hope for the best. (Thanks, Republicans!)
2
The constitution says guns should only be part of a well organized militia, no matter how twisted the lawyers and gun manufacturers make it. Read it if you can read. This country stinks because its citizens are either stupid and easily fooled, or smart and greedy and not caring about fixing the messes caused by the stupid people. Nobody is keeping America great. Our country stinks. We caused it.
9
I think your interpreting the words how you wish they were written. But if you do know how to read - google Federalist #46 to learn the right to bear arms extended beyond a militia into the very concept of protecting the states from the tyranny of a federal government and providing a right to all citizens - something no other Government has ever done.
The only way to eliminate guns, the actual motive of gun control lobbyists, is to repeal the 2nd amendment. Doesn’t seem likely as long as the Republic still stands.
@Chris: wrong on all counts, just saying. As a tidbit for your scholarship: The Federalist was what it was, but no more than what it was. People obsess over those letters, and yes, those were smart guys, but, seriously... you can't pore through them picking out phrases you like. Or rather, sure you can, that's what all you guys do.
1
No words. How many more of these horrifying events have to unfold and how many generations of schoolkids do we need to traumatize? The 2nd Amendment needs overhaul, or repeal.
3
Heartbreaking and maddening --- when you have students willing to take a bullet to save their classmates, and then you compare it to Wayne LaPierre and all the other NRA fat cats and to members of Congress and the Senate who have taken NRA money for years, and who have enriched themselves beyond belief, and wouldn't dare take a bullet for anyone.....
19
Wayne Lapierre and his NRA are responsible for all of these firearm murders. Mr. LaPierre and his henchman should be arrested and tried as the willing accomplices that they are, in all of these now monthly massacres in our schools, malls, theaters and churches.
14
That two young people are capable of such courage and sacrifice for others ... such a bitter contrast with the cowardice and political self-interest of our legislators.
13
So where did these kids get the guns?
It’s time to start holding the owners/sellers/manufacturers of these guns liable. People will actually start locking their guns away and acting responsibly if they can be held liable for manslaughter because of their negligent ownership practices or sales.
9
@Allison: Apparently they got them from one of the kids' parents: and yes, totally irresponsible on the part of the owners to leave them accessible, and should be punishable, if it isn't already in Colorado.
1
How about holding the owners of these weapons responsible for any harm that comes as a result? In other words, the parents or other people who made these guns available to these demented perpetrators should also go to jail and pay a civil penalty that is in the millions (no money can compensate for life, but maybe it will help people realize these weapons are not to be treated so lightly).
14
Getting the 2nd Amendment overturned would be extremely difficult. Can the federal govt. mandate, first, no gun purchases before age 21? I suggested, via email, to one of my senators that maybe along with legal gun purchases the owner be required to have a BLS card? If you own a weapon that can kill, how about some training in saving a life, too?
That might keep some creeps away from buying a gun, because they won't want to attend a class to learn life support.
Just a thought.
2
What the world needs now: more Kendrick Castillos, less guns.
11
@Tina
I take your point and agree, of course - yet, I also don't want kids to start thinking this is what's expected of them - to jump in front of a gun to save their friends, since no one else will. In that sense, I DON'T want more Kendrick Castillo's.
4
NO. This is another step down the ladder of toxicity and insanity this country is heading towards. No kid should ever be faced with a choice like this. Shame on all of us that a kid found himself in such a situation.Shame. Shame.Shame. We are a country incapable of protecting its children. We do not deserve to be called civilized.
1
@Rosie
Actually, we are not incapable of protecting our children.
We are UNWILLING to protect our children, because doing so might take money out of politicians' campaigns, and gun manufacturers' coffers.
1
I just find this so unbelievable. The news stories are also telegraphing this incredulity beyond outrage. My thought is that every place in public including especially iconic ones like schools Starbucks libraries museums sports arenas gyms pools and transit hubs need to be hardened and guarded. I just came thru NY Port Authority and security is a joke. In fact signs led to a closed exit. Blocked for renovation. Its like everyone is a sitting duck. Everyplace. So Americand cant address this or Global Warming. Maybe the Princess or RHONY gas an idea. Or that Jeopardy! guy. Cmon.
And now not only we have thoughts and prayers, now we are adding heroes ...
I think that something is really wrong here, I feel that we are accepting this horror as the norm, and we console ourselves thinking that at least there are still people that will give their life to save others. What it is this?a war?
If it is a war, we are losing it.
I am very upset
12
A healthy society puts it's children first. We are not a healthy society. That is what our children are telling us. Someone will pay and I fear it will be the United States of America.
11
Someone has already been paying for a long time: our kids. Ask any of them what they feel during a "shooter lockdown drill"
3
My heart is equally breaking and filled with awe for Kendrick Castlllo. If I were his mom, I would rather have my son next to me tonight than to know he was a selfless hero.
How can this country continue to allow the NRA to lobby for a false abstract principle while our children die in reality? Those who oppose gun law reform truly have blood on their hands.
21
How long must we endure these senseless and tragic acts of violence??? Once again....Thank you NRA!!!
Think what we as a society may be missing out on, by our collective loss of the smart and brave Kevin Castillo. so much of life ahead. His parents and extended family will perhaps never recover from this tragic loss. But we share this loss with them. I am just so darn sorry our country has depfined to the point this is sadly, not stunning at all.
2
Hero.
The gun owner must be held liable, charged, and prosecuted.
8
I’m an 8th grade math teacher. This year, my campus adopted the ALICE philosophy. I had to teach 12-13 year olds about countering someone pointing a gun at them or their friends. I had to teach them to attempt to thwart a shooters efforts by throwing whatever they can find. I had to teach them how to break out the classroom windows and where to run to. I had to teach them where my classroom tourniquet is and how to use it.
I’ve been through unannounced lockdown drills where administrators ran down the hallways screaming and attempting to break into classrooms. The children were inconsolable.
These should not be things I have to teach. These should not be skills that 13 year olds (and younger) need. These are not the experiences they need in their formative years.
Teaching it makes me sick. Thinking about it makes me sick. Writing this comment makes me sick.
86
@Texas Teacher
The administrators simulating terror need to have their heads examined. And their jobs ended.
11
@Texas Teacher
Unconscionable. The country has gone mad. Sick, sick people who think it's okay to do this to our kids.
I hope those kids grow up to sue the school district to the moon and back, for the traumas they've endured.
8
I hope that in any similar situation I would be as brave, and as fast, as Kendrick Castillo was. His action saved lives and it is tragic that he lost his life as a result.
Would that we, as a public, were as courageous. Australia did it; why can't we have reasonable gun controls?
13
RIP, hero.
6
If a bartender serves a drunk an extra drink and the drunk inadvertently kills someone, we allow civil and even criminal suits/trials against the bartender. Yet, gun dealers can sell guns to mentally unstable people weapons of semi-mass destruction, and they are immune.
We are a sick society.
35
to Mr. Crane with his 'alice' method: 'but if they don't do anything and they maintain a static, passive position, waiting for the police to get there - as in Columbine, as in Virginia Tech, as in Sandy Hook - I think you see the casualty statistics are much higher.'' Skirting the fact that it is ridiculous to expect anyone to react quickly and therefore change the outcome of such an attack (and the two brave young men who gave their lives to do just that), in reference to Sandy Hook - should there have been a 5 or 6 year old child that comprehended what was happening and been able to act to avert further casualties? Completely absurd and ignorant, and not to the point.
10
It is difficult not to juxtapose in one's mind the courage of Kendrick Castillo and the cowardice of state and federal Republican office holders who stonewall sensible gun control legislation so as not to offend the NRA.
30
Kendrick Castillo was a participant in the FIRST Robotics Competition, on Team 4418: Impulse. He was head of fabrication, and worked with his dad who is the team's lead mentor. As a community, FIRST Robotics mourns the loss of a friend, teammate, competitor, and friendly face.
I hate having to live at a time when this happens regularly.
36
Our country is definitely a worse off because of the loss of this remarkable kid while those Republican pieces of garbage in Congress continue to make our country worse and worse their every single waking hour.
3
I cannot be the only person, the only woman, the only Mother, who feels pangs of grief and guilt with each loss of an innocent life because of our violent culture.
I can empathize but not truly know the horror of these losses.
I wonder how many more young people will be sacrificed before we truly honor their memory and protect the lives of all children from this senseless scurge.
6
No, you are not. Not only parents but any decent, non-sociopathic citizen of this country does. That grief deep in our guts and that anger and hopelessness at what a sick society we have become is killing me.
1
I am a retired high school teacher. I loved my job...and my students. The nightmare scenario of putting teenagers on the front lines against gun violence in America sickens me. I have supported gun control for decades. I will never forget Columbine--- I was in my classroom alone, working, long after the students had left for the day--- put my little radio on and heard the news. My world shifted and collapsed. I put my head on my desk in my empty classroom and cried. How can adults, supposed to be responsible, put our children on the front line of this horrendous nonsense of the Second Amendment. Our Founding Fathers must be turning in their graves! They intended a militia in small towns for defense, hundreds of years ago---- not mass slaughter of our children and citizens daily. Every day I say and write "Cry, the Beloved Country."
23
Tragic. Heartbreaking. Senseless.
Kendrick Castillo's bravery should be memorialized - at the minimum on a US Forever postage stamp.
7
@Maizie Lucille James
Realizing your intent is not to trivialize, I have an alternate suggestion. Naming a building, issuing medals and so forth would not do as much to honor their sacrifices as would enacting strong legislation to eliminate all guns outside police holsters or in repositories of historical artifacts. Once that's done, in the National Gun Museum a wing would be dedicated to all such innocents murdered through use of these obsolete weapons and the heroes and victim's stories there portrayed for contemplation. Murderer's names and personal references to them would be restricted to materials in the research library. All gun owners can get a tax deduction and a year's free membership for donating their weapons. The ones we don't need for displays, we will melt down to make useful tools, park benches, art objects, frying pans, etc. 300,000 guns should provide a lot of raw material, and some interesting displays, plenty of room for the gun lovers to indulge their passions and for the rest of us to experience much as we do the various Holocaust Museums and sites of better-organized mass murders. Such memorials are necessary - lest we forget that unfathomable human evil walks among us - as do a few heroes.
4
For the second timtime in less than one week
a young man gave his life to stop a shooter in a school. Both of these young men were loved by their families and had their lives ahead of them. Dead because our political leaders value the financial support of an ethically bankrupt NRA more than they value the right of children to attend school wthout going through active shooter drills.
29
My wish that Kendrick's death will not have been in vain. Rest In Peace, dear young man.
10
This is horrible, the heroism of these kids is astonishing and a massive failure on the part of our society. In a somewhat perfect world, I'd like the NRA leaders to be the ones charging the shooters, or at least shot from a circus cannon towards the shooters.
9
Another selfless hero in an 18 year olds Smiling face. I wish our politicians had half as much fortitude and courage.
22
Republicans are afraid to stand up to the NRA, but students are brave enough to stand up to gunmen. What's wrong with this picture?
36
That our students are real and better men and women than those Republicans have ever or will ever be in their sorry life.
4
A true hero.
6
I am a white male.
What If I said that mass shootings are not a gun problem?
What if I said that mass shootings are a white male problem?
Would we still care about the problem?
7
@James Dean
I would remind you that many countries have plenty of white men, but strict gun laws. Those countries have few shootings.
19
@Corbin
I agree.
I should have said "American white male problem".
1
@James Dean
Cut to the meat of it James. It is an American problem, all of ours. And yes, I care about it.
1
America has finally descended to the level where we have to rely on teenage students to keep us safe.
18
I thought Christian Conservatives believed in "signs"? How many signs that gun control is needed do they need to see???
9
They do see a sign. The sign is we need to make guns much more easily available. If all these kids had their own guns, they would have thwarted the attack. (They would say, not me)
2
Finally, an American hero.
10
Thank you for recognizing those who fight back and help save their friends and classmates while not giving prominence to the names of that attackers.
10
America's children live in fear everyday everywhere that gunfire will erupt in their schools. We owe it to every child to enact common sense gun safety measures.
America has an epidemic of gun violence, and we have met it so far with inaction.
Do we value our children more, or guns?
7
Conservative and Republican voters have already given us their answer: guns over kids. That is why they keep voting Republican.
2
The actions of Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell were instinctive and immediate as they confronted their shooters so others could be spared and saved.
I am at a complete loss as to how and why these two young men had more guts and courage to tackle a fellow student with a loaded gun knowing their own lives were at risk than any one lawmaker has to tackle gun legislation. Such cowards. Every last one of them.
47
@Marge Keller Thank you for a deeply moving response! Every school shooting death is a tragedy. When the deceased was killed in an effort to protect others, the loss is even greater. God bless Kendrick Castillo and the family who raised this remarkable young man.
3
Because they were real men and not pretend-to-be caricatures of men like those in Congress.
4
@NYTimes, why is this not the lead story for your paper? Why is the Trump Administration allowed top billing, with the dumpster fire that is politics these days, instead of a heroic child who died in a school shooting? A school shooting that that very political system, that gets higher priority on your paper, does nothing to stop? Answer me that and I'll consider keeping a subscription.
14
Another sad chapter in this country's history of gun violence. As an educator I see the effects on students each time one of these outrages occurs. It is a sickening indictment of both our culture and our political system that these events continue unabated and unaddressed by any realistic legislation on gun control. Politicians of every stripe who continue to neglect their duty to the commonweal should hang their heads in shame...but they don't.
1
So upset! I miss all that Kendrick could have been and what all those students had in their futures but have died because someone had a gun in their hand. Just think of those beautiful Newtown kids, Columbine teens, Stoneman Douglas High bright stars...churches, music venues, etc. America can't get this right. Won't get this right.
So upset!
5
Another score for the NRA.
3
The Black Panthers openly carrying in California led to no less than conservative hero Gov. Reagan signing bills banning open carry of fire arms.
I'm guessing if there was another coordinated effort of peace loving black males open carrying AR15s around the country the pro-2A people would turn tail and back sensible gun measures...
21
“‘But if they don’t do anything and they maintain a static, passive position, waiting for the police to get there — as in Columbine, as in Virginia Tech, as in Sandy Hook — I think you see the casualty statistics are much higher,’ Mr. Crane said.”
It’s absurd to suggest that the Sandy Hook shooting was as bad as it was because 1st graders and teachers didn’t charge the gunman. The conversation should not put the responsibility of ending these tragedies on the victims, children, or teachers. Rather the conversation should be shifted to represent what most citizens of this country feel — that our lawmakers have abdicated their responsibility to do all that they can to stop these incidents in favor of appeasing lobbying interests and a small but vocal minority.
15
@Theresa Hackett: Right. Mr. Crane's comments here are pretty disgusting, and seem to be thrown in for no special reason.
1
Kendrick Castillo is a blessing to humanity which every person should be proud of and admire.
6
@MDCooks8 Thanks to politicians in the pocket of the NRA and Americans who measure their self-worth by the firepower they're packing, Kendrick Castillo isn't a blessing to anybody. Kendric Castillo is DEAD.
8
The face of this sweet boy, with guts and courage beyond imagination, is utterly heartbreaking in the context of the instinctive heroism he exhibited that led to his death. To his murder by a young person lost in life, who was able to get a weapon and unleash his fantasies, whatever they were. And another boy did reacted exactly the same this week at another school. And on and on and on. We are in shock, and have no answers, but we need answers!
11
Neither shooter was old enough to legally acquire a hand gun. yet they had handguns and committed murder with them.
Let that sink in.. because it points directly the the issue of ownership and control of firearms.. and clearly in this case... gun laws were broken.. and yet the NRA will continue to insist that no tighter legislation, review, and oversight of who owns a handgun and how they obtained it is warranted in NRAs eyes.
How did these two shooters acquire the weapons they used?
12
@ Chuck
Someone bought them legally in the USA, that is what happened. Next, who knows?
2
My husband was a young counselor at a NC school in the mid 1980's when a student shot and killed another one in the school. At that time is was a shocking, one-off. Now this is a monthly occurrence. Republicans - this one is up to you - do something and save thousands.
10
Is there a particular reason that an 18yrs old Hispanic student who sacrificed his life to save fellow students is called a "man" and consistently throughout the article referred to as Mr. Castillo?
1
@Frances Frazier
The New York Times uses the honorific "Mr." and "Ms." as a matter of journalistic tradition in referring to everyone, unless they are a "Dr.". I'm not sure at what age that convention doesn't kick in with regard to children, but calling Mr. Castillo a "young man" at age 18 is not incorrect. And of what possible relevance is his alleged ethnicity?
5
Pundits on the MSM ponder all day long over why oh why can’t we get gun control laws passed.
Geez.
A chunk of Congress is bought off by the NRA. Unless or until money is extracted from politics not much can change.
9
I’m a gun owner. I believe we must have gun law reform. This is a public health crisis.
I sincerely hope we look at what Australia did to combat this horror. They’re a good model for how we need to change.
Having said that-even if it meant I’d never shoot sporting clays again-I’d give up my gun, if it meant teenagers didn’t have to charge gunmen in their schools to save the lives of their classmates. We are failing schoolchildren with our obstinance & they are paying with their lives.
It goes without saying this is more than unacceptable.
17
At least we don’t have yearly school shooting(or evenly decadent, century-lay) in China.
2
It is remarkable that the state of Colorado, after the Columbine and Aurora mass shootings, requires no license or permit or registration for firearm purchases. Permissive gun laws result in firearm injuries and deaths.
The voters of Colorado are entire responsible for the gun deaths in their state and while they feign sadness after kids are shot, they vote for measures that make access to firearms easy.
Only a month ago, an 18 year old from out of state was able to purchase a shotgun, leading to the closure of schools for 500,000 kids.
7
I am so humbled by the heroic actions of these young people. I wish the "adults" could find the courage to pass reasonable gun laws in this country.
12
Regarding "On Wednesday, parents and students across this stunned suburb south of Denver...."
That's the entire problem in a nutshell. We're not stunned. Not at all. This has become achingly familiar territory across the Denver Metro and beyond. We're not stunned; we're angry that this has happened yet again and tormented with the knowledge that we haven't yet figured out how to stop it from occurring.
1
I read the first ten responses on my feed and NOT ONE mentioned this young man or even his name. BTW, it is Kendrick Castillo. He was, in every sense of the word, a hero. For those who have turned this into a forum for gun control (hey guys, I agree with you), the very least you could do is acknowledge this man who, when he saw danger, ran towards it (literally). America needs more people like this young man.
7
The point is that no kid should ever be thrust into that situation. We are sick of it.
4
Let's find out please where these kids got the guns. Press the authorities to talk about it loud and clear. Somebody above the age of 21 allowed their gun into the hands of these children, and those individuals need to have consequences. Gun ownership is a fundamental right. However, the rest of us also have the right to live in a peaceful environment where we can be assured that those guns are locked securely by those owners for their own use only. If there is domestic violence, we should have the right for those guns to be taken since assault is a felony. If the kids are troubled, we should demand gun owners in their home prove to the police that their guns are locked. The schools, friends or others in the community members who are concerned should expect the police to be allowed lawfully to go to the homes and take appropriate action to prevent these tragedies.
3
@Jennifer Ward. Why the big question? I’m guessing there were guns in the home, probably legally acquired, and the shooters “borrowed” them for the day. This is why there needs to be strict gun control - if the guns aren’t there, nobody can use them. Period.
2
@eml16 Agreed-I sure wish there were no guns in this world too. But, since we must compromise with gun enthusiasts, we could pass laws in each state for mandatory locked gun storage if minors are in the house. If that gun was borrowed-the person who "lent it" should be prosecuted-even with adults.
Tiger Woods is a great golfer, but Kendrick Castillo and last week's student hero should be the ones receiving Medals of Freedom.
17
A friend, good father, good husband, HR manager for a large company, told a group of us after a school shooting about taking a hunting rifle to school to show other students the proper way to handle and clean a gun. He grew up in a hunting family, hunts and fishes to this day. They eat/freeze the meat. If his freezer capacity runs out, he gives the venison to others. Same with fish: eat or share with others.
His story is repeated all over the USA. None of the hunters or fishermen/women I've known ever shot a human. None has taken a gun to school to shoot students or teachers.
Guns have been around for the life of this country. Wikipedia shows a list of school shootings, beginning in 1840. In 1840 it's likely every household had a gun. But look at the increase in school shootings in the 1950's and the greatly increased rate of increase in 2000 and forward.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
We've always had guns.
We've always had schools.
We've always had students.
We've had school shootings since at least 1840.
What has caused the ever-increasing rate of increase in the number of school shootings?
Don't tell me it's guns; that hasn't changed in nearly 200 years.
There's an answer or answers. WHY? Drugs/alcohol - if so, when: as a fetus; as a teen? Resentment of others? Hate of self? Increasing feelings of victimhood? Movies/TV/games? Mental illnesses? Lack of community/of parenting? Internet?
4
@Azalea Lover
What's your point? Any one of those things, COMBINED WITH GUNS, is exponentially more lethal than without guns.
See where I'm going with this? Don't wrack your brain for complicated answers when the simple one is staring you in the face.
2
@Azalea Lover
Try this one: it's not 1840. Our society is far less stable than it was at that time.
I have hunters/outdoorsmen in my family also. Ducks, deer and pheasant hunters, mainly. None of these young killers were such. Perhaps if we instituted a hunting gun license/registration only for a limited specific type of rifle/shotgun and a competency/performance-validated test at least as stringent, expensive and periodically renewable as a driver's license, plus requiring insurance against injury or theft, and requiring purchase/use of locked storage units, and appropriate penalties for violations the hunters could keep their hobby going. If this hobby is truly so important, vigilance and controls seems a rather small price to pay for safeguarding our children and schools, etc. from murderers.
2
Oh well the stock market is up and unemployment is low.
4
If gun ownership makes us safer, how come all these kids keep dying?
13
@Mr. Adams
Because, according to Republican logic, there aren't ENOUGH guns. When every child is issued a gun at birth, then we'll finally be safe. You'll see.
1
When is enough is enough!!! Guns need to be banned! Period.
6
Thinking about the kind of people who "love guns", it occurs to me that between the military veterans I've known, (two of whom experienced armed action, two who didn't) and the two gun-owning, gun-toting, 2nd Amendment loving men I knew, 3/4 of the veterans never wanted to touch, much less own, a firearm again. The veterans had all seen, or could readily imagine, just what an idiot with a gun could do. The one veteran who carries a gun to this day is an individual still trying to overcome the failure of his Air Force piloting career. The other non-veteran is a Trump voter "tough guy" who sleeps and travels with a hatchet ever at the ready, his assault weapon reserved for his fantasy life and shooting raptors. We'd all be safer if neither one of them, or their ilk, were allowed to keep such dangerous toys.
7
Repeal the Second Amendment. My god. How many more people must die?
9
The Matthew Shepard case triggered the Federal Government to define and prosecute Hate Crimes. After so many school and church shootings, it is time for the Federal Government to now define and prosecute crimes that amount to Domestic Terrorism.
Moreover, based on its rhetoric and public statements, the NRA could then be prosecuted as a supporter of Domestic Terrorism.
9
So would every youth gang in the US that are populated by mostly minority teens can then be classified as Domestic Terrorist.
Or will they be protected (excluded) from such classification based on their minority status?
@MDCooks8 'Minority teens' aren't going into schools and shooting their classmates. Or going into places of worship and killing people at prayer. Put away the race card, it won't work here.
5
You’re missing my point because what would prevent some law enforcement officials and prosecutors from using the classification of “domestic terrorist group” to charge against youth gangs?
The real superheroes don’t wear ridiculous costumes and star in outlandish blockbuster Avenger movies. Thanks, Mr. Castillo, for showing us what they really look like. I’m sorry that we overlooked you before it was too late to tell you so.
7
I am not suggesting what this student did was wrong. It's very possible he felt there was no other possible way to survive, then to fight his way out. That said, I work in the Middle East as an aid worker, and in Safety and Security trainings we're told to focus on running away or hidding. Your last resort should be to fight. There are people better trained and equiped then you, how can nutrilize an active shooter. Chances are if you engage with him, you are going to become a casualy or a hostage. I think it sends a dangerouse message to the youth of America that its better to fight then flee when in a mass shooting.
4
@JZ
Let's assume that most students (and others) who are exposed to the news have thought to themselves - "what would I do?" if faced with a madman holding a gun in their school, church or movie theater. Maybe they've even been inspired by heroic acts and have pictured themselves as heroes. Maybe this mental rehearsal prepared them to become ones. Maybe even dying is better than living in fear.
You and I do not know, nor should we presume to know, how one feels and will react at a moment of an extreme direct threat, regardless of training. Ask any cop, nurse, soldier or fireman. A very few can rush in, the rest of us freeze or run and hide. We cannot and should not judge or know what is "best" - for anyone, because there is no "best" reaction - only adrenaline, fear and courage. The source of such courage defies our understanding, and deserves, at the very least, our deep respect and contemplation. That the worst in humans elicits such behavior in at least a few of us is something worth thinking about.
4
There is a parallel here with European society's response to the Black Plague.
Initially they were told by the powers that be, the church and state, that thoughts and prayers were the answer. Mainly prayers.
However, as even the most devout citizens perished, it became clear that people had to look beyond their faith, to science.
They recognized two things, and it was revolutionary and led at least in part to the enlightenment. One was that their paradigm was wrong. They needed to rethink things.
They also realized that religion, although it may be good for some things, was not the basis for a treatise on science or medicine.
Society now, at least in the US, must at some point recognize that their dominant premise is wrong, and they need to change their paradigm.
Like society in the medieval Europe, they need to start washing their hands of what is killing them. In Europe it was germs. In the US it is guns. Both are a scourge, and both thrive where powerful voices obscure reason.
8
The cost of losing precious lives, the unarmed, defenseless, innocent - is an unspeakable tragedy.
I would lik to make two proposals, which may not solve the problem entirely, but will likely help. I propose them because I do not want to take any guns away from anyone; or repeal the second amendment.
Solution 1: People under 26, who commit a crime using a firearm, will face consequences under current law. Why 26? Please see Obamacare.
Their legal guardians or parents will also face the same consequences under the law (regardless if the perpetrator lives or dies). All their assets will be confiscated to fund their imprisonment. Naming and shaming of siblings and close family members (at the discretion of the judge) will occur.
Wont solve the problem, but it will help.
Solution 2: If a firearm is used in committing a crime, the perpetrator - if found guilty - will serve a minimum life sentence, have assets confiscated if singularly or jointly owned with others.
Wont solve the problem, but it will help.
Thoughts and prayers mean nothing when there is no skin in the game. I think laws should create skin in the game. No it will not bring back the precious lives lost, but may have adults constantly supervising those around them to ensure they are not committing a crime with a firearm. The solutions do not interfere with anyone who wants to exercise their rights under the second amendment, and is a law abiding citizen.
Worth considering.
2
@Kalidan
No, it's ridiculous, in the extreme.
@Kalidan
Terrific ideas! I agree wholeheartedly.
The only thing I would add is an annual tax of, say, $5000.00 per gun. That tax would be used to offset the costs of the now-weekly shootings.
I am especially in favor of destroying the family of a shooter if they failed to report the mental state of the shooter to the police.
1
What a heroic young man. He made certain that his classmates could live.
I hope the school is renamed after him.
13
Every time there's a school shooting (and at regular intervals, even when there isn't one) major newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post should publish a list of the names of politicians who always vote against restricting access to assault rifles and who receive large contributions from the NRA. The public should be well informed on who's propping up the gun organization.
It is not only some mentally deranged young persons at fault here: it's those in our government that refuse to govern, preferring to go on pocketing their blood money. They should be confronted at town halls, asked to explain their irresponsible behavior, and, next year, voted out of office.
12
Tiger Woods may be a great golfer, but Kendrick Castillo is really the person that DESERVES the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Give it to Kendrick, Mr. President!
7
Would love to see Kendrick receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom the day after a REAL President is Inaugurated. I just hope and pray a new president is half as courageous as this young American hero was! And that she/he will have the guts to nullify our easy access to these horrific weapons!
5
Why do we Americans refuse to protect our children from being gunned down in their schools like fish in a barrel? Why? Why?! What's wrong with us as a society?
4
In the good old days we had nuclear war drills, and there were the zip guns and switch blades.
But it wasn’t senseless.
This is just wacko.
And there are 300 million guns running around America.
NOT smart.
2
I have been a school administrator and leader for many years. It is hard to exaggerate the persistent, ominous cloud hanging over school leaders (and teachers) these days: with the country awash in guns and politicians doing their best to keep it that way, any day, any moment in your school could be the one where a calamitous loss of life occurs, including possibly your own. That teachers, teenagers and college students are throwing themselves in harm's way to save their friends is perhaps the most sickening indictment of the state of our nation in my lifetime. Tinkering with background checks and gun registration is pointless now. Nothing less than repeal of the Second Amendment will satisfy me.
1244
@MSB I have to agree that the protections against armed federal tyranny that the founding fathers intended have not materialized. Repeal is probably the only real solution. In a world where alt-right christian extremists guns have conflated guns with jesus, it is impossible to make any headway against an industry that embodies the mythology of the evil corporation.
101
@MSB Implementation of gun safety laws, including background checks, should reduce these crimes to zero.
Thank the Republican party that this has not happened: GOP actively opposes even the simplest background checks.
50
@MSBEnforcement of the Second Amendment as originally intended would go a long way. A well-regulated militia is the only reason a private citizen should have a firearm. The current warped interpretation is, in Justice Warren Burger's words, a "fraud, . . . repeat, fraud" on the American public.
74
This boy truly made the ultimate sacrifice, but I wish we would stop calling such people heroes. It sends the message that if you're truly noble you should throw yourself on an active shooter and put yourself at risk. This is a terrible, irresponsible message to be sending. How many more children will try to single-handedly save the day and die for it? These people were not heroes, they were fools, who paid with their lives. We need to teach people to be safe, to hide, to stay calm, not to try to be heroes in these situations.
2
@Samuel Russell He was sitting in a classroom, the first one the demented gunman entered. He told them not to move. Clearly he had already seen them all so they could not hide. Nor would they have had a path to run.
Fighting may be the last option, but it was the only option he had. Unlike you, I suspect, he had the courage to do so. I only pray that I have such courage if the time should come.
Do not dare denigrate him from your comfortable keep. He is a hero.
And I'm happy that for once that the face of a hero is the one we will remember.
41
@Justin If his classmates had joined him and piled on the gunman they might have been able to disarm him. In any case it is good that the publicity of Castillo's heroism outshines the publicity of the shooters.
3
America, get your act together. What a public health epidemic!
13
The parents of any shooter living in their parent's homes must must be held accountable.
8
Agree. Parents who have alcohol in their homes are held responsible for deaths or injuries that occur due to alcohol from their home being the cause; no excuse applies. Guns should have that same stigma.
1
Will the NRA now recommend arming school kids, then none of this would have happened? Just following their logic.
7
oh, just you wait. And the nutcases that have drunk their koolaid will applaud the suggestion.
The conservatives in the majority of Scotus have given 1st amendment rights to fictional entities that are equal to or exceed the 1st amendment rights of living breathing citizens. They have also chose to ignore the part that the "well regulated militia (now the national guard) play in the 2nd amendment. The right to bear arms is constitutional only for those who are members of the "well regulated militia" i.e. the National Guard.
These "originalists" are not "originalists" at all but are simply tools of the rich and the NRA.
8
I don’t have kids but if I did the last place I would send them is to a school. Home school works just fine and wastes far less time and energy. Public schools are about institutionalization, not education. And this institutionalization has now made public high schools more dangerous than federal penitentiaries.
This is doubly true of high school, which was invented after WWI to keep low-wage teens from retaining the jobs they had stepped into when the doughboys sailed. It’s a pure waste of time, and a place where an insidious social hierarchy forms (no doubt amplified by social media). Better to put the 15-18 year-olds to work gaining job skills and a work ethic. Then, if they pass the entrance exams, they can go to college.
1
First and foremost, thank goodness for Mr. Kendrick Castillo who undoubtedly saved his classmates’ lives by sacrificing his in an act of bravery and selflessness. May he Rest In Peace.
These senseless acts of terror perpetrated by sick individuals who have access to firearms happen with such frequency that it is difficult to remember how many occur. But, one heinous act perpetrated against innocents at a soft target such as a school, movie theater, or place of worship is one too many. We need our leaders to take a more proactive role in preventing these violent acts (New Zealand seemed to act decisively and quickly). The lack of resolve by our leaders can be tolerated no longer.
9
Mr. Crane is apparently unaware that the Sheriff at the time of Columbine was a political chronie who was term-limited in his immediately prior political position and was nominated to run for Sheriff as a reward for his party loyalty despite having zero law enforcement experience and was then unable of lawfully carrying a handgun. At the time of that election, his party could have run a chicken for any office and get it elected, which is how the guy got elected. He didn't have the faintest idea of what to do when he took command at Columbine and is directly responsible at least for the death of teacher and coach David Sanders, who bled to death while the Sheriff stood around doing nothing to allow his Deputies to save Mr. Sanders.
4
There should be a national teacher strike until our politicians start doing something about this ongoing carnage.
11
The conservatives in the majority of Scotus have given 1st amendment rights to fictional entities that are equal to or exceed the 1st amendment rights of living breathing citizens. They have also chose to ignore the part that the "well regulated militia (now the national guard) play in the 2nd amendment. The right to bear arms is constitutional only for those who are members of the "well regulated militia" i.e. the National Guard.
These "originalists" are not "originalists" at all but are simply tools of the rich and the NRA.
4
It is terribly sad that this courageous young man died because many our country's political leaders are so terrified by the NRA that they cannot enact gun control laws. The Republican leadership and the President toe the NRA's line. Does anyone believe for a minute that President BoneSpurs would have shown the same courage as Kendrick Castillo? It is time for political leaders with real courage, not the bone spurs variety.
3
I work in a school. I spent 10 minutes hiding under a desk and texting my husband that I loved him during a lockdown last year. Listening to locked doors being rattled closer and closer to my office. Thank God it was the police. The children were traumatized. Before and since therebhave been bullets and guns confiscated in my school. These second amendments proponents have no idea. I detest guns.
13
Look at what we lose! I’m in tears as I write this. This young man was the future of America. He’s gone. He was, by every account, what we should all aspire to be. And now we are all poorer for the loss.
For what? For the right to own a gun?? What do you need a gun for? When are we going to wake up? When will logic, reason, and - sanity - prevail?
Where are our leaders? We are an international embarrassment. If Mr Castillo had been afforded the opportunity, maybe he would have been able to bend our tragic path toward the light. Instead, he was relegated to battle on our behalf in the the waning days of a high school education that should have been his beginning. Bless him, his memory, and his family.
13
At the other end of the spectrum from heroes like Kendrick Castillo are the suspects. These appear to be all of precisely the same profile: Young, white, loners with a troubled past. While we can debate their choice of firearms ad infinitum, their mission is identical: use a mass murder to achieve the fame and notoriety they cant achieve otherwise.
Do you suppose it would make a difference if after capture or neutralization, use of their image, name and "Superhero" euphemisms like the "Colorado Killer" were forbidden?
5
The U.S. is the only country in the world where this is happening.
Kendrick Castillo did NOT need to die.
Start acting, and stop praying.
15
Sadly because of the Electoral College and a dirty Supreme Court we end up electing President the majority of the country doesn't one thanks to the same red state people who keep voting Republican for Congress. We need to abolish the Electoral College and have Senate representation based on population.So called " middle America" states have too much power they do not deserve as the state of the country today thanks to Trump clearly demonstrates.
We know our great republic is in a state of decay when children need to protect themselves because the adults - pusillanimous politicians - won't.
7
What is going on an 18 yr old just starting his life out loses his life saving others ,these are actions you can expect in a war zone,. Another 12 yr old hid in the closet clinging to a metal bat as he said he was not going down without a fight, why in the world would a 12 yr old student need to worry for his life from a gun toting 18 yr old , is this what is going on now schools are combat zones. Congress do something besides thoughts and prayers.
21
@REBCO
Sorry, there are profits to protect.
4
How sad that these young, courageous people have to sacrifice their lives because this country's leaders are too weak and scared to implement strict gun laws. Shame on them and groups like the NRA for promoting gun violence. The second amendment excuse is just that, an excuse, And helped by our "fearless" president who hides behind the security we provide as tax payers and his minority of supporters. These groups and the president should be held criminally accountable. On the other side are the ones that commit these heinous crimes for who knows why - sickness, derangement, out of control anger, bored with life, letting some racist/fascist blogger convince them that it's needed, etc. They are no different than all other terrorists. Where are the parents, the teachers, the government? They should work harder and do a better job of identifying these problem kids (and adults). These are sick, sick people.
10
I am so sorry.
7
What has happened to America?
14
Unrelentess Republican greed plus Adderson,Koch and all the other conservative and Republican sociopaths.
1
Please stop glamorizing these actions. He is a hero but his death was completely avoidable if the republicans in power acted with some common sense.
7
Do the countries of China, Russians or North Korea have students bringing guns to school to kill one another?
5
Naturally the NRA, once again, is hiding somewhere like a rat or too busy to influence politicians in order to sell even more guns.
7
Oh, if ONLY a teacher had agreed to go through training and practice with a sidearm and was present in that building.
This gunman could have shot dozens depending on what he arrived with. A teacher in that part of the building could have prevented multiple deaths.
When will administrators wake up and see how easily this danger could be dealt with?
Seriously, Romeo?
My daughter is a high school teacher. What about the scenario in which a student with a failing grade in calculus overpowers her, seizes her gun, turns around and wipes out the class?
You must be joking.
5
I teach at a preschool. I wear a key around my neck because the outside doors and all classroom doors are kept locked at all times. We have regular lock down drills. At a nursery school!
Give teachers gun?
Can you picture your 4th grade teacher pulling a gun on an intruder? Your freshman English teacher? Come on. Get real here. It’s insane that politicians are allowed to place their re-election prospects before the safety of our children!
7
I’m pretty sure if and when it’s known that some teachers are carrying guns the shooter will just be sure to shoot any teacher present first upon entering a classroom.
2
The Second Amendment was not meant to be a suicide pact. Let's well-regulate firearm ownership like the text of the Constitution says. Universal background checks; no automatic weapons or large-capacity magazines; licensure and safety training to own a weapon; mandatory insurance so that if your firearm injures someone YOU are responsible for their medical costs in perpetuity; mandatory biometric locks so stolen guns become useless and children can't accidentally discharge them. I am so sick of gun fetishists and the shills for gun manufacturers prating on and on about "FREEDOM." What about the freedom of the rest of us to go to school or the movies or a concert with out being shot? When one person's "freedom" infringes on the life or liberty of another, it ceases to be freedom and is tyranny. And it is killing us.
16
I can't imagine this generation of kids will want the "freedom" of guns once they make the laws. That's my only hope on this matter anymore, at least.
11
@Sarah
Exactly. They'll tell their own kids about the horrors of these days, the fear they lived in, the friends who died too young, the way earlier generations told their kids of horrors they couldn't imagine, like polio. Their kids will find it shocking, barbarous, and feel grateful they didn't live in such primitive times.
They will PROTECT their children.
Or at least I hope so. I too see no other hope on the horizon.
1
I did not know Kendrick Castillo, but, I am very proud of him and at the same time I am very sorry for him and his family.
11
I am a teacher and just completed active shooter training a few weeks back. The reason we are now seeing students attacking gunmen is likely due to new training protocols that offer alternatives to the traditional lockdown, where everyone sits in the dark and waits to be shot like fish in barrel. Now we are told, evacuate if possible, barricade doors, and as a last resort, if the gunman comes in, distract or attack the shooter. These tactics have been shown to reduce but not entirely eliminate total casualties.
As a teacher, am I glad that we have been trained in these options? I suppose. But the training was also traumatizing, and unbelievably bleak. There's nothing like getting shot in the face with foam bullets and being told in the debrief, "you're dead," to really make you consider all that this country has lost, and will continue to lose, senselessly, tragically, brutally.
21
In third grade we crouched in the school basement, our head to the wall, practicing for the atomic bombs that would fall. Should we build a shelter...would life be worth living when you emerged?
Fear is not a new thing imposed upon children by the older generation.
It is obvious that it is not the gun that causes the horrific massacres in our schools. It is the sick children.
We have given them such easy access to the the weapons to kill and none to any weapon to heal the craziness in their heads.
It is our own sickness as a society to put these guns in their hands.
4
My heart goes out to the Castillo family for their son Kendrick’s brave actions and courage... he is a more appropriate Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree than some so honored.
When is the Congress going to show even a piece of the backbone young Kendrick had?
6
We have failed our children. Completely, utterly failed them. Every single person who has opposed reasonable gun control has blood on his or her hands. That includes people from the President on down. The biggest stumbling block has always been the NRA and its rating system for people in Congress. An "A" rating from them apparently outweighs all the bloodshed this country has witnessed.
Today my heart broke when a picture of a sweet little boy (all the sweeter with two front teeth missing) from the STEM school where the shooting took place, crying and traumatized was circulated on social media. He will carry the memory of yesterday with him for the rest of his life.
With all due respect to Mr. Crane, little children like this sweet child, and the sweet little children who were at Sandy Hook that awful, awful day have absolutely no business confronting an attacker. They should not be having to even think about such things, but the NRA demands that our youth give their lives for the Second Amendment, while Wayne LaPierre being the coward he is, has body guards. Shame on him, shame on Congress, shame on the President, and shame on us for not demanding the carnage stop! What is wrong with us? I want to see reasonable gun control laws front and center in this next election. Please let's make our votes outweigh any rating from the NRA, then maybe Congress will act.
23
Cowardice and complicity with gunmakers along with a misrepresented belief and false use of constitutional law has led to murder and stoicism in the face of murder of children. Our children, no less. Nothing else speaks so completely about money, power, crime and subversion and the tricks these things play upon the human mind. We are in the era of deciept, hypocrisy and murder and we refuse to ban weapons of war which allows them to be on public streets and in public schools and churches. The numbers of guns in the US is so high that the rest of the world thinks we are crazy. And they are right. We have gone stark crazy insane to turn a blind eye to murder when we could control it. We are the crazy insane country that is like the crazy uncle turned serial murderer. Nuts. Bonkers. Off the deep end. Certifiable. That's us. The Gun Worshipers.
7
“But if they don’t do anything and they maintain a static, passive position, waiting for the police to get there — as in Columbine, as in Virginia Tech, as in Sandy Hook — I think you see the casualty statistics are much higher,” Mr. Crane said.
How high would the casualties be if it was much harder to acquire guns in the first place?
How about if owning a gun obliged the owner to spring for insurance to cover the cost of accidental harm, or deliberate harm other than self-defense, no matter who was toting the gun?
11
@Joe From Boston
You forgot as in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the cop stood outside as the gunman continued. . . . . .
2
It's terrible that this is even possible in our communities, but when it does happen, it shouldn't be controversial to fight back. Run first, hide if you can't run, fight if you can't hide. Neither the teacher nor the students signed up to protect and serve, but nonetheless, it is what they had to do in that instant.
2
As long as legislators and judges continue to support the current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, there should be no restrictions on firearms in legislative chambers or courtrooms. I would even suggest disbanding the Secret Service.
There is no reason for politicians to be afforded protections that my school-age grandchildren don't have.
When things get safer for my grandchildren (and everyone's), then we could go back to banning firearms around our politicians and elected and appointed officials.
10
I can't imagine this generation of kids will want the "freedom" of guns once they make the laws. That's my only hope on this matter anymore, at least.
4
How many more and how many times do we have to go through this? Rise up— decent Americans and let your representatives in Congress and Senate hear our voices. No one will save us except US. What are we all waiting for?
7
The world lost a true hero and humanitarian who would have done great things for humankind.
RIP Kendrick Castillo.
4
It's a sad day when kids have to do the work of a cop or a soldier to stop a gunman from killing people. Is this where we are at now? Is this what our future generations has become? Soldiers to protect against gunmen? I don't think I would want my kids to do that
9
May Kendrick Castillo's name be invoked and not the killer's. May the poor dead boy be celebrated when this latest sorrow is in the news, and not the killer's. I don't believe in 'hopes and prayers' but I do hope for a moratorium on use of killer names. Spare us their biographies and the Why of their deeds. Though empathy is possible and appropriate for the worst sick sad individual, it simply inspires more wrecked personalities to spring from their corners and rush to the light of fame. Devastating.
2
Thank you for showing the hero's picture, rather than the villain's.
3
So, what do Oliver North and Wayne LaPierre have to say about this one? We don't know from this piece. However, I expect not much, because these nearly daily events - life shattering to so many - do not register on their radar. The NRA has become, quite simply, a pox on American society and needs to be reigned in or this is the future for us, our children, and our grandchildren. When I grew up in the 60's the NRA was about teaching safe and successful use of guns. I still have my NRA marksmanship medals from summer camp when I was 8 years old. I was the best shot then with a .22 caliber rifle and I am still a very good marksman now with various firearms. However, the NRA has transmogrified into a gun-makers' lobby on steroids with outsized power in congress relative to the number of its dues-paying members nationally by holding red- and purple-state (and even some blue state) politicians hostage to perceived 'threats' to the Second Amendment. What a load of sheissa! This is about money and power, pure and simple. It is time for people to take a stand against this hegemony which has become, quite literally, gun-boat diplomacy at its most fierce.
4
Imagine those young brave souls who gave up their lives to protect their fellow classmates in schools, and those same old political hacks in the Senate who shamelessly block facts and obstruct justices in defense of Trump’s schemes in the White House. America, wake up! Time-a-changing, we can be great only if we are just!
3
Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell paid for their courageous and selfless efforts to stop carnage with their young lives. Meanwhile, Trump and the overwhelming majority of Senators and Congresspeople live and breathe--leading empowered and privileged lives precisely because of their wholesale cowardice and failure to rid this country of guns.
The only thing that will stop this wanton bloodshed is to get rid of every single gun. The ONLY thing.
3
All of this is teen rage is social media driven. Back in the day, if something bad or embarrassing happened it was talked about one day then forgotten about a few days later. The internet burns and lays bare the angst of being a teenager in a perpetual loop of misery. Fragile kids with fragile egos and nobody to turn to when half the world saw you picking your nose or throwing up in class or losing a fight.
These are sad times we are in- and I blame Silicon Valley!
2
This is all so ridiculous! So, we have to follow Mr. Crane's "ALICE" method to minimize casualties, by sacrificing ours or our children's lives?
Congress and president, do your job and pass gun reform laws! When will we realize that the second amendment, as it is currently applied, is unconstitutional and certainly inhumane.
Learn from New Zealand!
2
We as a society must hold the NRA - and all its members - as accountable for these tragedies. The NRA is the nation's most effective and ruthless promoter of gun worship. Owning and carrying guns bends people towards violent thoughts and aggressive actions. Destroying the NRA is the one most practical and effective action we can take towards ending this irrational fetish with lethal arms.
3
Too many guns, and too much killing? While all other advanced countries have figured this out (reduce and tightly control gun access), in America, we just send thoughts/prayers and celebrate the occasional heroes to took the bullet to save others. Our solution, more guns, e.g., in the hands of teachers. A grotesque farce. These poor kids should never to face that kind of choice.
4
Why on earth do we have to have teens with promising futures sacrifice themselves because we adults can't protect them? Why are gun rights more important than the right to live? Shame on all of us who put this boy in the grave.
4
Rest in peace Kendrick Castillo. You are a brave man.
2
Can we flood everyone in Congress (Dems too) with millions of pictures of the victims of these mass shootings? Bury Congress in mountains of graphic pictures of dead kids, students, church goers, innocent citizens. It's only fair that Congress gets to live by the hand of its own doing - traumatized. Hopefully then we can flush that 2nd amendment down the toilet.
13
To all people who insist upon unfettered gun rights in this country, to all Republican state and United States legislators, to NRA leadership and members—take a high school year book. Yours or one of your children’s. From each class select one or two kids that you are willing to have killed in order to preserve your right to own guns. That’s what it has come to in this country.
15
@Peggy
Everyday people in Venezuela, China, and North Korea suffer under tyrants who refuse to let them have guns.
If that sort of situation is your preference, you might be living in the wrong country.
Three things would help this:
1. Psychology professionals can be directed to report kids like these to the law.
2. We can go back to high schools with no more than 500 students and secured doors.
3. Most shooters have had serious violations of the law and have been well-known to local police for a long time. Those ommitting felonies should be arrested and charged, thus limiting their access to guns.
These young men had the courage to do when our spineless legislators don't. Our "thoughts & prayers" Congress should be ashamed.
12
Repeal the 2nd amendment.
What else is there to say or do at this point?
11
You can just hear the NRA saying "The answer? Arm the students."
These people have just lost all perspective. Have they no sense of decency?
13
These insane murders will continue until you destroy your Televisions and stop going to movies. The gun violence portrayed there is all the present generation knows having breathed it in their formative years. All the hate and anger is traceable to one man.
1
I wonder which well-regulated militia the shooters belonged to.
15
This young man had more guts--and honor--than the nation's entire political class. Look at that smile. He should have had many happy years ahead of him. Instead, he is dead because our politicians don't have the guts to stand up to the NRA. (Let alone launch themselves at an active shooter in order to protect the people around them.)
Today, the NRA will have the gall to tell us "it's not the time to discuss this" latest tragedy.
Tomorrow, the NRA will have the gall to tell us we need "more good guys with guns." And, the buffoon in the White House will tell us we need to arm all teachers.
Today IS the time to discuss this tragedy. The answer is NOT "more guns." The answer is NEVER "more guns."
Millions of us are parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Are we REALLY willing to allow our precious children to die because our politicians don't have the guts to tell Wayne LaPierre, and the greedy gun industry, to take a long walk off a short pier?
27
Parent with 14 year old child in school responds by thinking:
“ Icould keep my son home. Home school him so he won’t get killed at school. Okay. But what about the mass shooting at a movie theater? Well, he won’t go to movies either. Okay. Oh, what about outdoor concerts like in Las Vegas. No concerts indoors or outdoors. Okay. Oh, what about when he goes to college...”
No one of any age is safe as long as weapons are easy for anyone to use to do mass shootings. This is not 1784. This is not colonial America. Wake up!!’
10
As long as mentally ill people have easy access to guns this will continue to happen.
2
The solution is simple. Ban all guns.
6
How difficult was it for these two demented young people to get a gun and ammunition? Probably as easy as getting a soda from the kitchen. Is this what our founding fathers had in mind when they passed the Second Amendment. The amendment addressed the need for colonists to have weapons to form a militia to protect against the English or French. NOT for Dave and Cindy to have a weapon to stop a burglary. So this heroic young man lost his life because adults had weapons in their home and 2 teenagers took the weapons and murdered other teenagers.
Hope you feel great, the family member who had these guns in their home!! Sleeping well tonight knowing your gun was used in a murder? Probably will sleep well. Unthinking people probably have no problem with this. However the survivors will have PTSD for life. There will be a funeral this week because of your gun. And the world has lost a courageous high school student because
you chose to own a weapon.
10
An angel among us, at a tender age - who should not have had to lose his life to be an angel among us.
HARD RESTRICTIONS. NOW.
Enough of this meaningless slaughter just to appease the crowd of misfits that stupidly misinterpret the Second.
13
This is such an outrage! Poor Kendrick. He died a hero, but he is dead none the less. Who knows what he could have accomplished with so much courage?
9
We are relying on good guys without guns. Also, they haven’t gotten out of school yet. What a country.
6
No teachers with guns save the day-nor the “good” guys with guns. It is children and very young adults who are handling this by sacrificing their lives. Shame on the rest of us.
9
Adults in this country have completely and totally failed the younger generations. Gun violence, climate...if I were them I would be absolutely outraged at the arrogance and inaction of our so called leaders.
7
It is not natural to kill members of the tribe.
So why are students killing other students?
Answer: The desperate self-view of their future.
That is the problem the leadership needs to correct. Not campaign funding or lack of armed staff to shoot back.
There are already many stored in gun vaults across the country.
The increasing desperation about the future is the root cause.
Politicians have thrown in the towel on saving the world are to blame, and people are infected with that desperate, cynical view of the future.
1
It has tragically fallen to courageous high school students to give their lives to do what our Republican congressmen, afraid of the NRA, wouldn’t do: stop the shooters.
5
18 years old, and already so much braver and nobler than the POTUS. RIP Mr. Castillo. You should still be alive today.
9
So much more of a real man than Trump will ever be.
All honor to the student, more shame on all of us
3
So “The good guy with a gun” has been replaced by “A young student with selfless bravery”.
These shootings are not tragedies, they are atrocities.
7
The gun culture is a mass fetish. Somehow, those who feel left out or left behind find that owning an instrument of mass murder compensates. And so, as is all too natural, every once in a while (once a week?) some loser's suppressed rage boils over and he uses that tool with the purpose for which it was intended: to kill as many people in the shortest time possible. What else could we expect?
5
How disgusting that we cannot pass sensible gun control legislation.
6
Every gun owner should be tested and licensed and should be required to have insurance. Every gun should be registered, and all sales documented. Similar to automobiles.
10
The dead young heroes in Colorado and North Carolina should be remembered by a suitable memorial. I suggest that not to encourage future heroism, as that is an awfully tall order to put on future students, but to confront future would-be mass shooters with the prospect that any fatalities - and lasting memories of their attempted violence - may be largely be focused on the courage of the unarmed person who stopped or hindered them.
2
It is wishful thinking that control of guns will prevent future mass shootings as there are so many guns in America, including military grade level, and access to them, regardless of screenings and waiting periods. One constructive solution, in this era of horror, is to buy time for victims to possibly survive hemorrhaging from shootings, bombings, and hit and run attacks. Public places in America are essentially now targets for deranged individuals. Training for bystanders to control hemorrhaging (after an attack has ended which is usually within minutes) until paramedics arrive should become as commonplace as learning CPR. Military level first aid kits with tourniquets and pressure dressings should be hung on walls, as automatic external defibrillators are. I am a nurse educator and I integrated hemorrhage control training into a skills lab. A second proactive intervention is to suggest primary care providers: (pediatricians, family practitioners, NPs) screen patients for mental health disorders, prescribe medication if deemed necessary, and then expedite a referral to a mental health specialist (or in-patient treatment if a threat to self or others), as physicians do with any other physiological disorder such as diabetes. The current medical system of segregating mental health from other body systems and lack of accessibility to mental health care promotes escalated behavior that may harm or kill, as is now proved too often.
1
There is a reason why every sane and civilized sociery in the world has gun control: it works!!!! Key words: sane and civilized, none of we which describes this country anymore. We have become a band of greedy, emotionally disturbed something, not humans and not even animals as even animals protect their young and we don't
The accompanying photo shows the face of a hero. I am sorry for his family's and friend's tremendous loss and I'm so sad that it took a horrific act like this one to demonstrate the goodness and courage so many young people. Enough is enough.
2
Amazing that our children have more courage and integrity than our politicians.
4
I was with the NYPD during the 70's and 80. In those two decades New York City may have had upwards of 20,000 homicides. I never went to nor do I remember a school shooting during that period other than the occasional fight between two students. Besides our incredibly dismal record on sane gun legislation in this country there are some serious mental issues with a small number of male high school students. Weather they are "copy cat" crimes or random acts of kids who probably should be in institutions I see no end to this unless we deal simultaneously with both issues.
Please don't ignore or forget how both Australia and New Zealand have effectively addressed gun violence. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. These countries provide a solution, or at least a method, to initiate progress.
7
The Senate and the House have created their own renegade militia, which they allow to attack school children, who, since they are not these senators and representatives' own, are left to defend each other against the power granted by Congress. I remember when I used to respect our representatives, but that was a long, long time ago, in what must have been a different country, where government actually worked for, and cared for its citizens.
4
As usual, the shooters did not possess the guns legally - Colorado law prohibits people under 21 possessing or buying guns.
As usual, the problem is not legal gun ownership.
The problem is mental illness and societal breakdown.
Elites of all types (media, politicians, educators and other govt depts, large coporations) need to have a hard look at themselves and the strategies they use to foment unrest, anger, fear, and hopelessness.
And society as a whole needs to grow up and have a hard look at life meaning and ethics that make life worth living, and leads to better mental health.
1
@BruceG
I'm confused by your post—and probably with your logic. You are claiming that there is no problem with LEGAL gun ownership—that it is mental illness that is the problem. Has it occurred to you that a mentally ill person might be able to legally purchase an AR-15? THEN WHAT?
I'm a believer in, when there is a crisis, (if it wasn't your kid who was shot, c'et la vie—please pretend for just a second that this is someone you love) solving the most easily solved problems first--then tackle the hard stuff.
Easy stuff is to stop selling guns to the public that are made to slaughter our military enemies, and would, as some excuse it, render a deer-to-the-table as a smoldering smoothie.
Easy stuff is to wait, wait, wait. However many days it might take to find out if the buyer has any history that could make a gun sale a bad idea.
Easy stuff is to stop those looking to avoid regulations by selling weapons through private sales, flea markets, and auctions and making them equally accountable for the consequences of their irresponsibility.
Hard stuff is stopping mental illness, or identifying it, or keeping it from becoming the leader of your country. Best wishes in your campaign to eliminate it.
1
Literally breaks my heart to see a young man die for this tragedy. America has some serious issues and in all facets of our lives, and for all age brackets.
2
On the one hand, we have a self-sacrificing 18 year-old hero named Kendrick Castillo. One the other we have a cowardly gaggle of bloviating, self-serving, lethally cruel figures in Congress, the Executive Office, the NRA and other lobbying groups who solemnly blow thoughts and prayers out their facial loudspeakers, happy to squander the lives of adolescent heroes like Kendrick to serve whatever twisted interest they purport to possess.
It is one downward-spiraling country that votes into power such ciphers at the expense of its own seed corn of greatness.
4
Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell are the latest very young men, the "honored dead", "from [whom] we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The NRA's stranglehold on our craven politicians, who hide behind world class security while our schoolchildren die and die and die, must be broken. Americans deserve to live free of the threat of being summarily shot, and we deserve that our government respect the overwhelming support for gun control that 'the people' have espoused again and again and again.
If the NRA and the politicians feel that Riley, Kendrick and all the other victims - people that these sellouts are not fit to walk among - are expendable, they need to live without all the state security and return to the real world. None of them are fit to clean these kids' shoes.
1
Kendrick Castillo, in a split second, when faced with mortal danger, did more than all of the Republican politicians who have groveled to their great lord and master, the NRA, have done in the last 25 years.
They have taken the money in exchange for silence and inaction, mumbling their thoughts and prayers.
Kendrick sprang into action, making the ultimate sacrifice for his friends. That’s honor, that’s courage, that’s selflessness. But it should never be asked of schoolchildren or worshippers or ordinary people just living life, like grocery shopping or attending a concert. This type of shooting is for war, for the battlefield.
Kendrick is a hero.
2
Guns are held in the hands of children who need mental and emotional health support.
Anti-abortion laws are being passed across the country, meaning: unwanted children will be born into homes where they will struggle to live and fail to be supported and loved properly.
What happens when you have a child lacking the emotional capacity to deal with internal and external struggle? They act out. We know this. Guns are an issue, but we are ignoring the larger issue.
There is no support for children and families and women who are vulnerable.
1
Compare the courage of these children to the courage of those who cannot say "no" to the NRA.
For fear of what, exactly? Some votes from constituents who think this slaughter is ok? Alive or so sadly this week, dead, give me those who care about lives more than ambition, votes, the welfare of their party.
1
RIP Brian. You are a true hero and the world laments your passing.
And yet another heartbreaking, horrifying story.
1
Kendrick Castillo was a hero - a selfless person who made an incredible, unassailable decision when he had to.
The world needs good people right now.
Here is what America does to good people. Killed defending his neighbors from sick violents. In the balance, our fear-driven, pro-gun countrymen simply cast lots with the shooters, and not Kendrick Castillo.
The line is stark. To anyone who has any doubt or equivocation: Get on the right side of the line. Now.
2
Kendrick Castillo was much too young to die. An act of heroism in the face of mortal danger even our military considers extraordinary. Thank you Kendrick for your sacrifice. I hope your fellow students will remember you for the rest of their lives.
1
Kendrick Castillo is a real hero. He was a wonderful, brave young man to do what he did. May he rest in peace.
13
Until we get more courageous politicians who will pass meaningful gun control legislation, I agree with Mr Crane's method.
There is a saying that applies: "When every second counts, the Police are only minutes away."
I stand in awe of those young men, who are true Heroes.
5
Good that his face and story are the headline and not the perpetrators. We need to work to prevent copy cats who are after the notoriety.
12
This is what the gun nuts have given us. Students having to give up theirs lives to stop someone who had a gun because the NRA and Republicans habe stopped attempts to put in place reasonable gun restrictions. The gun lobby has to watch out that the current generation of kids may grow up sick and tired of the current situation and abolish the second amendment. This may sound ludicrous but I would have said the same 10 years ago about Trump becoming president.
25
Thoughts & prayers: I pray daily that the young people of this nation, & their parents & grandparents, rise up & vote any gun-worshippers out of public office, for every election cycle going forward. And only Elect public servants who will regulate guns.
24
The Second Amendment should be repealed. We have seen a continual increase in the number of gun deaths in America and they are coming from plain old Americans, not terrorists or crazies. "Only a man that carries a gun ever needs one."
If your not hunting for food you don't need a gun. Anyone who says that killing is part of their culture doesn't belong in America. Let them take their barbaric state and secede.
28
How can you reason with people who have fetishized and sexualized guns to the point of insanity? They love guns. Literally, they love guns.
22
Two thoughts.
1. May Kendrick Castillo's memory be a blessing.
2. We need to stop selling guns to mentally unstable teenagers.
6
This poor child gave his life to save others. I am so sorry for him and his family. Guns kill. Period. Shame on guns rights activists that refuse any gun laws. Children are dying because of you.
20
Any word on which 'well regulated militia' the newest shooters belonged to?
33
The politicians, US government and NRA hide behind 2nd Amendment for proliferation of firearms to kill/slaughter their own citizens, the insensible loss of human life is the ultimate form of Human Right Violation.
8
It’s probably too late already.
There are 300 million guns roaming our country
No country in it’s right mind would consider this a safe or acceptable situation, except for the U$A.
Don’t worry folks, only a very small percentage of us or our children will be gunned down in the streets like dogs.
8
So far no words from the president.
Children risking their lives to save other children.
Kendrick Castillo gave his life for other students
Executive privilege enacted to protect president taxes
National Teachers Appreciation Week
So far no words from the president
Except for his taxes
22
Lead us with your poetic words, great Chief!
1
Some people say this is all Trump's fault.
But it's more fair to thank the Republican Party, which refuses even minimal gun safety laws.
10
I guess violence begets violence because much as I think of myself as opposed to the death penalty, I do wish the death penalty for the murders here, no matter what age, background of circumstance. Now society needs to spend millions of dollars rehabilitating killers for the rest of their miserable lives. Who cares about the rest of their lives? I care about the victims and the dead boy.
1
"“He cared about his faith and his family and friends more than himself or anything,” said Sara Stacks, 17, who said Mr. Castillo had been her childhood best friend. “He was always the first to help when anyone needed it; if it was a friend to talk to, someone to hold the door, or carry something, he would always help no matter what.”"
This kind, courageous young man had more courage and generosity of spirit than any Republican office holder: Republicans either value NRA/Russian money more than the lives of children (e.g. McConnell) or they are too afraid of losing a primary election to do their job to stop blocking common sense gun laws desired by the majority of Americans.
Yet another heroic young man and his dreams (of contributing to society as an engineer) have been taken from us by people who vote to protect those who profit from the sale of murder weapons.
6
How convenient. Students have become the last line of defense, taking the responsibility (and making all the sacrifices) in protecting fellow students....since we won’t do anything. This is disgusting, the worst indictment possible of our unwillingness to confront the gun lobby, and those who are happily sacrificing our children to the god of their interpretation of The Second. To bad they also aren’t interested in doing anything about the Liar-in-Chief.
10
" . . .parents and students across this stunned suburb . . . "
WHY is anyone STUNNED?
6
@Dave Ron Blane
Good question. I am so thankful my grandparents chose Canada because if I had to live in America today I wouldn't leave the house and I don't know how parents get the nerve to allow their children to leave for school.
1
Let us honor the deaths of our brave schoolchildren, who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our right to bear arms.
5
A society that believes the right to own and use guns is more sacred that the safety of its own children, is a society that does not deserve to have any children.
12
Doesn't deserve to be "civilized" anymore. Other animals protect their young, but not the human American animal.
Children’s lives are being sacrificed so that adults can maintain their gun toting lifestyle. It is incredibly tragic.
Those poor kids.
12
How shocked we are when violence hits us.
How blasé we are about the deaths we visit on people like us who happen to live outside our borders. And outside Europe.
America generates horrendous violence. Born in genocide and slavery, the United States has never come to terms with its contradictions.
3
My school is requiring tourniquet training at our next in-service day.
3
I grew up in a family with hunting rifles and shotguns. My father, my mother’s brother, and I often went hunting and target shooting. Never did the thought arise that we could consider using these weapons on a fellow human, except perhaps in war. I once asked my father if I could get a pistol; he asked if I wanted to kill someone, because that’s what pistols were for. Pistols were forbidden. This was the 1950s and ‘60s. The NRA was a “shooting sports” organization. Not a word about “the government is gonna take away your guns.” So much has changed: the NRA has become a major lobbyist for the weapons industry, the popularity of military-type weapons, and rising paranoia among gun owners, thanks in large part to the NRA, doing all they can to increase arms sales. Throw in many in Congress and the Senate who are quite literally in the pockets of the NRA, refusing to do anything......and we have our current situation. I cry for my country...
12
@Paul Ahart
Killing defenseless animals is part of what numbs the mind and benumbs one to doing violence to human animals. It is a sugn of psychopathy and empathy deficit disorder to harm animals.
Don't be patting yourself on the back because you only killed defenseless animals. Most of these mass shooters were taught to hunt by daddy and learned to lover guns and too many graduate from murdering animals to murdering people.
"Hunting" is just as sick. It is not a sport. It is the outward expression of something really wronf and dark deep inside the "hunter". Guns are made to hurt and kill. Period.
My nephew and nieces live near this school and my brother had to pick them up early bc of the lockdown. My nephew was waiting last night to see if one of his friends was ok bc he went to the school where this happened he's 14! This is homeland terrorism plain and simple. I'm so angry. When will we come together as a country and stop the evil NRA, GOP, trump agenda? As a parent, I feel powerless. Next week in the media Colorado will be forgotten and there will probably be another another tragedy bc it's the new sick normal.
7
Is this supposed to be some kind of consolation--that these beautiful young people lost their lives in heroic self sacrifice, all because nobody dares to challenge gun culture? It is no consolation for them, their families, or for us.
6
Who could have ever imagined a day when warped ideology and allegiance to guns would trump concern for our very own children?
14
It seems the government is no longer concerned by these repetitive school shootings.
They fail to acknowledge the problem, or worse, simply choose to ignore it, maybe betting on the people to grow accustomed to it, and possibly accepting it is ineluctable.
The last proposal was to provide teachers with weapons of their own.
Will there be a time when part of the school supplies, we will need to provide bullet proof vests too?
2
Do not say "government". Say conservative and Republican voters and the people who they keep sending to Congress to represent them. They are the ones with their useless "thoughts and prayers" who do not care about children anymore. One of Colorado's representatives is one of the most NRA-favorite sons yet people in that state keep voting for him as their children are slaughtered.
Let us save taxpayer money by shutting down our counter-intelligence operations to identify, thwart, capture, or minimize terrorist operations against us and instead employ the most effective weapons we readily have at our disposal at all times - our "thoughts and prayers" that we will all be safe in future against any and all terrorist actions by any any and all evil people.
We can then give more tax breaks to the rich and wealthy individuals and corporations. After all they are the makers and the rest of us are all takers.
1
This nation lost its collective heart and soul years ago at Sandy Hook School when an entire classroom of FIRST GRADERS, plus several heroic teachers and administrators were gunned down, some literally blown to pieces, and the response of the American public was a great big yawn.
A Sandy Hook parent recently committed suicide because he has not been able to resolve his grief over the loss of his beloved 5=year old year daughter at Sandy Hook. So take a bow folks; we have clearly demonstrated that we love our guns. and gun violence, much more than we love or care about our children. Actions, and non actions, really do speak louder than words.
11
America's children are left to defend themselves against people with guns because the government is not willing to have even reasonable and minimal limits on guns.
5
We are now going to have a generation of kids whose parents will be telling them "Don't be a hero. Run."
1
I am saddened beyond words when those who support gun control are victims of gun violence forced upon them.
1
The problem with gun control in America is that not enough schoolkids are being shot dead. That is why the US has so far failed to muster the political will to take action. We can only wait for the day when a few thousand schoolkids are being shot dead every day in schools across the nation. Maybe then Republicans might think something needs to be done.
A mass shooter is the most effective and convincing gun control activist. All it takes to convert a gun lover to a firm believer in gun control is a good old mass shooting with multiple casualties in the gun lover's near family. We just need more mass shootings.
1
How supremely sad this is that now students and teachers must fling themselves in front of gunmen in an attempt to save themselves and their classmates and all because our lawmakers can't bring themselves to issue commonsense gun control laws.
It's just another symptom of how far our country has fallen. The fall of the Roman Empire, anyone?
3
@Preserving America
But they didn't have guns. Can you imagine if they had?
Individual students risk their lives to stop gunmen, but politicians won't risk their careers to stop the guns.
10
All I can say to young people is this. The minute you turn 18, make sure you have a valid ID and get yourself registered to vote. And then vote the NRA backed candidates out of power. (Mostly Republicans at this point). In 2014, my son who was a senior in high school cast his first vote in a very tight congressional campaign and, unfortunately, pro-gun Republican Martha McSally won by only 150 votes. He said that if only all of the 18-year Democrats in his senior class had voted, Gabriel Gifford’s pro-gun control successor with have won. Now, this NRA-boosted right-winger is a Senator! If you want this to stop, you have got to vote and actively participate as fully empowered citizens. There are more of us than them. You simply cannot afford to sit any elections anymore.
19
The people are not protected because the people have no power. The people need to organize and take their demands to the street. Their bought off congressmen are paid not to listen and they never will. The people have to start breaking things. They have to accept the sacrifice and throw their bodies on the gears of the machine. They have to be arrested for civil disobedience and take over their local governments. They have to shut down the gun shops that sell to children and they have to shut down the gun manufacturers that don't care. They will be breaking the lobbyists laws when they do this and they will receive no support from law enforcement, or the media, or the churches, or the courts, but they have to do it anyway. They have to start a movement that cannot be intimidated or bargained with. They have to stand as a group and say we are the people and we demand change right now. And if enough people stand together and are brave the change will happen because this is America.
@Bobotheclown
I agree. Start behaving like the French or your country is finished.
This will not change until we have a women majority of lawmakers in this country.
1
I hope to hear even more stories that celebrate and remember Kendrick Castillo's all-too-short life. He and other brave students deserve all of the press that comes from these tragedies, these shooters are nobodies. The rest of the time, the press should shine a spotlight on legislators beholden to the NRA, who offer our children nothing more than "thoughts and prayers" in the face of a deadly epidemic.
So sad. My heart hurts for this young man's family and friends. a true hero.
We have Heroes in Canada, but rarely are they put in that type of situation. And this young man didn't deserve to be either.
The next time I hear some conservative say millennials are 'snowflakes' 'entitlement' I am going to note the name of Riley Howell from North Carolina who died last week when he tried to stop the gunman at his college. And now Kendrick Castillo, from Colorado who did the same at his high school on Tuesday!
52
Meanwhile, in New Zealand...
31
If it had been a bed, or a soft drink, or some lunch meat that killed these kids we would already be moving heaven and earth to make sure it never happened again. But with a gun, the only of these items actually designed to kill children, we do nothing. Even worse, we have an entire political party ready to battle to ensure nothing is done. Kendrick Castillo, a saint who walked among us, died because of this stupid and sick situation. Ask Kendrick if he is enjoying his "freedom" right now.
39
@Baldwin
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that from 2001 to 2013 406,496* people died by firearms on U.S. soil. (2013 is the most recent year CDC data for deaths by firearms is available.) These data covered all manners of death, including homicide, accident and suicide.
*31,268.23 deaths/year
There is a difference, I suppose, between constitutionally protected deaths and other kinds...
7
Well, I guess every school in America needs to set up a security perimeter to stop people with guns from getting in. Next, the churches, synagogues and mosques must do this. Then when this is all done, in some far off year, perhaps they will be safe, but then the crazies will go for the shopping malls, and grocery stores, etc. -- any place people congregate. No amount of prayers, or therapy will stop this insanity our country is in the grip of. We have to get rid of the guns.
20
“Hylands Ranch Hero Kendrick Castillo Sacrifices Life, Potentially Saving Scores of Students ” there, I fixed your headline
10
Thanks, Bradley
Great. Congress doesn't have the guts to stand up to the NRA, so kids have to stand up to shooters. Perfect.
77
Cory Gardner, Republican Senator from Colorado, one of the most enriched recipients of NRA money, offered his thought and prayers for the victims.
4
@Joe Simmons
Has this guy been living under a rock? We need sustained mass civil disobedience in the face of this immoral "governance."
I'm sick to death of the people who have such contempt for humanity that they deem it their right to murder others in spaces their victims have the right to be and feel safe.
Most kids who are bullied cut themselves, try drugs, or attempt/complete suicide. They don't shoot up a school.
I have lost all sympathy with people who attempt or complete mass murder.
I'm done.
3
@Lmca
Are you saying you once had sympathy with people who attempted or completed mass murder?
Beyond tragedy.
1
Clearly not Republican elected officials. Just saying....
2
NRA, Trump and GOP are all the same, the enablers of killings and more killings and more killings. It's not so ironical that they happen at schools, which teach not to be ignorant as the adult in power in this moment are (I also include the sister of Black Water).
4
"Any society which does not care for its children is no nation at all". Nelson Mandela
Fat, old, self righteous, men that can't and don't want to envision a future without themselves in it have ruined what used to be home.
9
Thank you Kendrick Castillo , what you did was God action.
Usually such actions happens in war.. and it does look like a war by Gun totting GOP and NRA; over all of Americans who likes to live in peace and study w/o fear.
You have come too far and it's an epidemic when you need to have a active shooter lock down drill..
I worry for my kids every day for them to return safely from school just like the parents of a soldier or a cop.
2
Rightwing politicians and NRA leaders never need to 'run, fight, or hide' ... they leave that stuff to school kids and teachers. Real tough guys, those conservatives.
11
In combat Kendrick Castillo's behavior would earn him at minimum a Bronze Star with Valor. Is this the type of heroism that we now must expect from school children
11
Another spark of humble humane empathetic life. A light for others in the Trumpian era of Supemassive Dark Black Hole.
5
I do not cry easily...
But to see Kendrick’s smiling face and what he did— that’s the definition of courage in face of imminent death.
The grief his parents must be suffering... oh, the grief. But he proved he was a bearer of the values they taught him.
America— your young are throwing away their lives at guns to save their friends— and your silence is deafening.
12
At least our politicians are doing everything legally possible to protect the unborn.
10
I think this country should go on strike, collectively. I seriously think we should all come together and vow not go to work, or school--and just simply shut this country down for business until the government listens and we define gun control for ourselves. Our children are being killed every day, and no one is listening. It is time for a revolution by the people for the people.
29
@Claudia
I heartily agree (and I have been saying the same thing for years). Shut it down. Shut down this sorry excuse for a country—until such time as the people who "lead" it find themselves having to do their jobs.
4
There is only one response to this tragedy that the victims want to see:
Write to your members of Congress and demand that he or she support the latest piece of comprehensive gun control legislation.
And vote like you mean it.
5
"On Wednesday, parents and students across this stunned suburb south of Denver described Mr. Castillo’s actions as the latest act of self-sacrifice by students who now find themselves on the front lines of fighting off gunmen in America’s schools. "
In other words, adults are not helping, and are part of the problem.
"Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"
1
A real hero in our time. But please stop this senseless madness.
3
Are we now going to glorify kids charging the gunman as heroes? Kids need to be kids and be safe and learn and grow, not be heroes sacrificing themselves to save others. Gun control now.
5
I have no doubt that Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell are together, weeping.
6
Don’t let the boy’s heroism hide the fact that the last thing he should have to do in a high school English class is die. Can’t we do better? Can’t we delve deeply as one people?
7
This society forces its children to lunge at gunmen for the live of their friends and act in a selfless, brave way. In the process, we lost these special individuals who represent the best of our society.
So crazy that grownups can't protect its own young. Shame shame shame. #issuenumber1 at 2020 election. Dont wait till your children or lived ones are next.
3
Heroes used to be soldiers, policemen and firemen. Now it's teenage students lunging at shooters. Horrible.
10
So, we don't need teachers with weapons, we just need people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for others. Perhaps every classroom should have a designated "hero." It's a very sick society that subjects its children to this.
10
Articles celebrating the heroic actions of children being slaughtered in their classrooms distract from the horrifying reality that our children are being slaughtered in their classrooms.
White I understand the decision to change the coverage from focusing on the murderers to the victims, but why not focus instead on the cowardly actions of the gun lobby and our government? How about this headline: US Government Responsible for Another Murder of School Children, With No End in Sight.
6
So, we, as a country, have decided to put the responsibility for school safety from shootings onto the backs of it's potential teenage victims instead of the NRA. What a country!! Anything for money!!
Come on citizens, it's time to take up (our) arms and hands and vote these horrible "2nd amendment rights" supporting politicians out! Don't wait for them to change their minds because they won't.
6
The next time I hear some conservative say millennials are 'snowflakes' 'entitlement' I am going to note the name of Riley Howell from North Carolina who died last week when he tried to stop the gunman at his college. And now Kendrick Castillo, who did the same at his high school.
These two young men are much more the norm amongst our awesome millennials than we are led to believe by conservatives in the media etc.
7
If you can live in other countries for some time you learn how deep deep in trouble we really are as a nation.
6
The current state of the nation: when our children have to sacrifice their own lives to stop school shootings. I hope all the gun lobbyists, Republicans, and NRA are paying attention to this.
4
These kids who sacrifice themselves to stop the gunmen have more guts, courage, and heart than all the Republicans too afraid to stand up to the NRA combined.
7
I doubt there are any Republicans in Congress who would show a similar act of courage and self-sacrifice if a gunman were to step into the Congressional chambers and start slaughtering his or her peers.
Whereas the two students sacrificed themselves to end bloodshed, we've got elected officials who are too scared and cowardly to address the issue. The only thing Mitch McConnell has ever scarified was his honesty and integrity.
VOTE THEM OUT.
6
‘“I heard a gunshot,” said Makai Dixon, 8, a second grader who had been training for this moment, with active shooter drills and lockdowns, since he was in kindergarten. “I’d never heard it before.” Makai’s parents said they joined thousands of others in rushing to the school as news blazed through the suburban community.’
This is dreadfully sad – I thought the child’s age must be a misprint at first then I realise he would have been at kindergarten training for a shooting incident in the last few years. Then I saw the description of his parents joining ‘thousands of others in rushing to the school as news blazed through the suburban community.’
The thought of thousands rushing to a school in dread for their children brought tears to my eyes.
This cannot be right.
6
The comments here dictate pretty well why "nothing gets done." Half of us cherish the right to keep and bear arms, and want to keep gun ownership legal, while most of you want a complete ban. What is there to "compromise" on?
It's an outrage and a disgrace to the entire nation that students, who should have their whole lives before them, have to sacrifice themselves to save others. If we can't eliminate this threat to our young then we're truly lost.
3
Silence from the NRA as these types of shooting occur. When those at the top of the NRA are long gone, their legacy will not be kind. They along with legislatures had a chance to regulate and do good things, instead they chose power and selling more weapons. The day will come when these younger children who are scarred for life will agree to end gun violence. This next generation may show the world what true honor is among protecting society from those who should not be allowed weapons. Ban them all!
3
More guns out there then people in this country. Most don't keep them locked up and away from their children. My son is a high school teacher here in New Jersey, every 6 to 8 weeks his school does an active shooter drill. This is not the country I grew up in. McConnell will not post any bills for debate in the Senate. He is a disgrace. He will not even debate gun control issues much less allow a vote on them.
5
I'm writing this comment through tears right now. Our society is deeply ill.
2
Our children are dying in their classrooms and sacrificing their lives for each other.
What have we come to?
6
We are a nation that has lost its soul.
3
I am not convinced that "death by lethal injection" is any real detergent to capital murder. On the contrary, the gallows, gas chamber and electric chair presented a much starker picture of the ultimate price one would pay for taking a life in cold blood. Gun rights aside, this country is too soft on crime.
1
@John S.
Really John? Most of these shooters either commit suicide just before they are caught or get killed when the police show up - after, of course, they have murdered as many people as they can. You really think the thought of capital punishment has any effect on such individuals? Your comment is rather counterintuitive at best...
3
Well, consider this. Mass murder as we know it today did not exist in this country before states started to widely abolish it in the 1960s.
@John S.
Correlation does not equal causation.
College and high school students sacrificing their lives, because we have a culture and society which has utterly distorted a 225 year old concept in our Bill of Rghts.
Congress should be ashamed. The NRA should be ashamed. Our leaders should be ashamed.
Deepest condolences to Kendrick's family and all the families who have endured this madness.
What have we become?
8
Any news story about gun violence should always include the exact makes and models of guns used, and details on how the weapons were obtained. Even if you don't know this info up front, the story should be updated later. Until you include this info, the story is not complete.
1
Our children are getting murdered because some people like to use guns for recreation. Just think about that. Try another hobby people, maybe archery or video games instead of guns? It's not an appropriate trade-off. This is obvious to the children being murdered, so hopefully those that survive this madness until adulthood will eventually vote to ban guns outright. Unfortunately, thousands of children will die in the next few decades, before the old guard dies off and the new generation takes over.
3
I don't own a gun. I've never even held one. I do think gun laws should be much more restrictive. But I don't think the problem is just guns. This country has always had access to unfettered firepower. It's not just Donald Trump. Sandy Hook happened when Obama was president. Getting rid of the guns will help in the short term, but the problem--mental illness? alienation? bullying? disenfranchisement? social media? distortion of reality? lack of spirituality?--is systemic and is ultimately poisoning our society.
@Anonymous
But there is ample evidence from other countries that have much more restrictive gun laws that many fewer murders and suicides take place. I doubt that they have any less "mental illness, alienation, bulling, disenfranchisement, social media, distortion of reality, lack of spirituality" as you say, than the US has...
2
@Anonymous
Yes. But a mentally ill person with a knife or a baseball bat can kill a lot less people than one with a gun.
3
This is so heartbreaking. Has it come to us expecting our children to be "heroes" and our teachers the same-- all so that we can avoid the hard truth that the Second Amendment as currently interpreted by the NRA and its supporters literally is killing a generation of children, and when not actually depriving them of their life, then robbing them of their sense of security? How can we raise our boys and girls, kiss them good night, and then send them off to school knowing that it might be today? or tomorrow? Run, hide, fight. Even to their deaths.
5
The students who sacrificed their lives in North Carolina and Colorado should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I also realize it would be a farce to have DJT present the awards. But they should not be forgotten by the next news cycle.
2
What good is that, they are dead.
He gave his life to protect the Second Amendment rights of gun-owners everywhere.
So glad I live in a nation where school children sacrifice their lives so that lobbyists for the NRA can continue controlling our government.
5
@Chester200; unfortunately true. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Will the madness ever stop?
Somewhere between the Molon Labe response and Eric Swalwell threatening to jail gun owners if we don't turn in (presently) legally owned guns, there is the possibility of middle ground if enough of us are willing to struggle with this issue. Clearly, this was another case where (according to the article) teens who were not legally authorized to obtain handguns got them anyway. From whom? We need to find out. Perhaps if we had stricter but fair control over who could own what, especially handguns, and how weapons are stored, we could cut down on these events. Of course this will have to pass legislative and judicial muster but more importantly, will have to be predicated on both gun owners and gun opponents alike that we will quit moving the goalposts. Normally, the slippery slope is a fallacy. In gun control law, as we see in places like New Jersey and California, it is fact.
Meanwhile, we continue to grow children who are the functional equivalent of sociopaths in their ability to gun down their own classmates and friends without batting an eye or seeing that it is wrong. This started long after I was a teen in a house with plenty of firearms. No one has quite figured out how we have grown such a batch of cold blooded killers. That is an important part of the solution as well. Stop blaming gun owners as a population when clearly, this is a sociopathic subset of people we don't understand and cannot often predict.
6
@Khal Spencer, start with violent video games.
I'm not interested in "studies", so I'll use my common sense and say that the more you kill the more points you obtain.
Easier to buy a gun than buy a car; much less paperwork.
1
Colorado wants its guns. It has to live with the consequences. Trump hasn't issued a word or Tweet on this which, as we all know, he doesn't really care about anything other than his base.
So, let Colorado deal with it. The Feds wont. My condolences to the families of those lost. They should call their Congressmen and Senators.
3
I taught at STEM for four years. I now teach at my alma mater that also underwent a shooting six years ago. Think about that. BOTH schools that I've worked at have been shot up.
I'm aghast and disheartened at how quite literally NOTHING has been done legislatively to even attempt to prevent another situation like this from happening. I now meet "thoughts and prayers" with disgust and fury.
I hope as a public we can see our way out of this mess, but when people value their right to own a firearm more than the lives of innocent children, I fear we've already lost.
Yours in apathy,
8
Yup, this is what we've come to. The students have to save themselves - or decide among themselves who to sacrifice - cus adults have shown they aren't going to help.
If this doesn't radicalize this generation, I don't know what will. They have to jump in front of EACH OTHER so some will live while others die.
4
It's a small price to pay for the soothing illusion that a world awash in guns has given us. Happiness truly is a warm gun.
3
I know that much better regulations on gun ownership could reduce the risk of murder by guns, not all but a lot. But every time someone murders others with guns, the focus is not upon the murderer but upon all people who own such weapons. It is they who are the threat to be addressed, not the people who commit the crimes.
Most murders are committed with hands or the most handy blunt instrument or sharp instrument. Fortunately, the response is not removing those from all people to prevent murders but the reasoning would be the same if is were proposed as the solution.
The vast majority of firearms in this country are not used to harm others and it is because gun owners are no more likely to become murderers than anyone else.
1
My son is a white, privileged 24 year old with special needs. It has been a life of bullying, frustration and anger. He has a community that loves him.
I believe in all my heart he would never harm another person.
BUT he has absolutely no access to a gun.
I am protecting him as much as others.
2
These shootings display the two extremes of responses: young heroes and Republican Senators and Congressmen.
2