Florida School Shooting

[Tassman]

just broke today it wasn't just the school officer that stood outside the building but 3 other deputy sheriffs that arrived in time. heads had better role and the conversation should be who failed why and how it did, not talking about taking guns away from law abiding citizens. We coudln't trust the sheriff department to do what they were trained for but you want them to bed allowed to take guns from law abiding citizens bull. it is NOT THE GUN. it is the human behind the gun and the HUMANS who dropped the ball.

If you can't rely on four armed sheriff's deputies at the school to do what they were trained for, what makes you think you could rely on an armed history teacher or a canteen staff member etc to do any better?

[Cow Poke]

If you can't rely on four armed sheriff's deputies at the school to do what they were trained for, what makes you think you could rely on an armed history teacher or a canteen staff member etc to do any better?

Because the teachers and staff actually love and care about the kids, and instinctively want to protect them as their own, as opposed to the "hired guns".

Parkland school shooting: Football coach Aaron Feis died shielding students

"It is with Great sadness that our Football Family has learned about the death of Aaron Feis. He was our Assistant Football Coach and security guard," Marjory Stoneman football said on Twitter. "He selflessly shielded students from the shooter when he was shot. He died a hero and he will forever be in our hearts and memories."

If he had had access to a firearm, who knows how this would have been different.

[Juvenal]

FBI call center: Where an ominous tip about a suspected school shooter went to die

“I know he is going to explode,” the unidentified woman said. “It’s alarming to see these pictures and to know what he’s capable of doing and what could happen.”

There's a lot to be said for getting angry if it leads to meaningful changes. I've been to the vigils, and the memorials, and I'm ready to move on to fixing things.

That call center needs fixing.

Meaningful changes won't be so easy. Says here none of the gun control legislation being considered will make a meaningful difference either. Well, except for older men at risk of suicide and younger women at risk of domestic violence.

I don't care much for arming up hoping to cut the casualties either. Before we even start talking about how awful an idea it would be to train teachers to act like SWAT officers while habituating kids to prison conditions, people attacking that school cop ought to be thinking about what froze him in place.

I'm in that school, and I'm exactly the guy you want to arm, a mature veteran with no fear or excitement about using a weapon if it needs to be done, and I'm saying don't even think it if you're not willing to put arms on me at least as powerful as the arms I'm likely to be defending against.

I can't think of anything more asinine than planning to go into a battle outgunned.

On the positive side, that long gun slanted in the corner would be a great way to redirect some math anxiety syndrome. But, after asking, it turns out none of my students would feel safer with me, or anyone else, armed and carrying in the room.

#armmewith the tools I need to help my students learn.

There's no particularly good reason to believe this is something we're going to fix. This time we got luckier, in some sick sense, because the survivors can speak, and speak well, too, a considerable advantage over the survivors of Sandy Hook. Not that being a victim magically changes students into experts on eliminating gun violence. It does make them powerful spokespeople for demanding fixes from those they turn to looking for that expertise.

Says here the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories are already reloaded, calling these kids out as crisis actors. Number one video on YouTube. The InfoWarriors would be a lot easier to ignore if the president's son hadn't found one, and the president wasn't retweeting them, too.

#neveragain

It's going to happen again because things happen for a reason. I can remember thinking that reason had something to do with good and evil and a divine actor directing the affairs of men for some noble purpose. It's a lot easier to fix things once you realize the real reason things happen is because they can. There are places where this doesn't happen. Fixing this can happen.

These kids don't understand how long it's going to take.

[Adrift]

It's going to happen again because things happen for a reason. I can remember thinking that reason had something to do with good and evil and a divine actor directing the affairs of men for some noble purpose. It's a lot easier to fix things once you realize the real reason things happen is because they can. There are places where this doesn't happen. Fixing this can happen.

I don't get this line. It sounds like you're saying that the mass shooting epidemic is hard to fix in America because of a deterministic belief by theists that everything is guided by the hand of God. That being an atheist allows you to fix things easier because nothing is left up to some idea about...fate...? Is that right?

[Jedidiah]

I don't get this line. It sounds like you're saying that the mass shooting epidemic is hard to fix in America because of a deterministic belief by theists that everything is guided by the hand of God. That being an atheist allows you to fix things easier because nothing is left up to some idea about...fate...? Is that right?

I think he is just pointing out that it is a function now of a dysfunction of our society. Fixing it will not be easy and none of the solutions imagined will help significantly. I await lao's response.

[KingsGambit]

I don't get this line. It sounds like you're saying that the mass shooting epidemic is hard to fix in America because of a deterministic belief by theists that everything is guided by the hand of God. That being an atheist allows you to fix things easier because nothing is left up to some idea about...fate...? Is that right?

He's saying that he can remember once personally believing that himself, not that Christians in America widely think that.

[Darth Executor]

I'm in that school, and I'm exactly the guy you want to arm, a mature veteran with no fear or excitement about using a weapon if it needs to be done, and I'm saying don't even think it if you're not willing to put arms on me at least as powerful as the arms I'm likely to be defending against.

I'd have gone in without a second thought.

The advantages the cop had over the kid are enormous. The advantages the kid had over the cop are insignificant. Yes, he had a stronger weapon with a higher bullet count, neither of which mean anything. He can't take advantage of the rifle's longer range indoors. The first bullet is likely to be decisive either way, so the fact that he can kill you harder than you can kill him is comically meaningless. The cop likely had a bulletproof vest, reducing the rifle's advantage down to nothing.

Conversely, the kid has to keep shooting (or risk being tackled), constantly giving away his position to a cop he has no idea is there, and making it easy to get the drop on him. Because his rifle is longer he is more likely to give you advance warning when turning corners. It's easier to ambush someone when going through doors with a handgun and harder to defend with a rifle. Etc.

The cop was a coward. About the only real risk was getting hit by a stray bullet, something that can just as easily happen while you sit outside pretending to guard that really dangerous wall until some actual men show up.

This time we got luckier, in some sick sense, because the survivors can speak, and speak well, too, a considerable advantage over the survivors of Sandy Hook. Not that being a victim magically changes students into experts on eliminating gun violence. It does make them powerful spokespeople for demanding fixes from those they turn to looking for that expertise.

They can't speak well at all. They have successfully antagonized a previously cowed pro-gun population into fighting back, for which I am grateful. Turning Dana Loesch (who is almost universally loathed outside the neocon right) into a martyr was a particularly incredible own goal. These kinds do a fantastic job aping the insanity of adult progressives, but they are nothing special otherwise. Sociopathic strivers climbing over corpses for media attention are a dime a dozen these days.

[Littlejoe]

Care to elaborate on your second point?

Well, at least according to Wikipedia...(yeah I know) the US is 11th on the list of gun related deaths...yet every single country ahead of them has a drastically lower guns per capita. Jamaica has some of the strictest gun laws in the world and it's gun related death rate is 3 times that in the US.

(Click on the chart to make it big enough to actually read)

gun deaths.JPG

Meanwhile, gun deaths aren't even counted the same country to country. In this report to the U.K. Parliament, we find that since 1967, England and Wales do not count gun deaths which do not result in a conviction...that rules out all suicides, deaths by Police and all unsolved homicides in their homicide rates.

(Part II) 35. Homicide statistics too vary widely. In some developing countries, the statistics are known to be far from complete. Figures for crimes labelled as homicide in various countries are simply not comparable. Since 1967, homicide figures for England and Wales have been adjusted to exclude any cases which do not result in conviction, or where the person is not prosecuted on grounds of self defence or otherwise. This reduces the apparent number of homicides by between 13 per cent and 15 per cent. The adjustment is made only in respect of figures shown in one part of the Annual Criminal Statistics. In another part relating to the use of firearms, no adjustment is made. A table of the number of homicides in which firearms were used in England and Wales will therefore differ according to which section of the annual statistics was used as its base. Similarly in statistics relating to the use of firearms, a homicide will be recorded where the firearm was used as a blunt instrument, but in the specific homicide statistics, that case will be shown under "blunt instrument"

Finally, we can see from these chart that the ban on firearms did not reduce the homicide rate at all, it's just now stabilizing around it's the same number as the pre-ban rate:
UK homicides.JPG

And 12 years after the ban, they actually increased for 12 years. The gun death rates finally have fallen below the pre-ban numbers...that's a long time for correlation to explain...

UK gun deaths.JPG

[Mountain Man]

Broward County sheriff disavows all responsibility for his deputies failing to take appropriate action.

“I gave him a gun. I gave him a badge. I gave him the training. If he didn’t have the heart to go in, that’s not my responsibility.”
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/...ounty-sheriff/

[Cow Poke]

Broward County sheriff disavows all responsibility for his deputies failing to take appropriate action.

“I gave him a gun. I gave him a badge. I gave him the training. If he didn’t have the heart to go in, that’s not my responsibility.”
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/...ounty-sheriff/

The guy appears to be melting down - he obviously needs to resign. He's insisting he has given excellent leadership.

[Sparko]

The guy appears to be melting down - he obviously needs to resign. He's insisting he has given excellent leadership.

Yeah it is more than just his deputy(ies) not going in. According to what I read, the Sheriff's dept has been dealing with reports on Cruz for at least 2 years. At one point his adoptive parents (or the people he was staying with after they died, it is not clear) had reported him to the Sheriff asking that his guns be taken away. I know cops' hands are tied sometimes as far as what they can do, but from what I read, this kid was a known problem for years and even had mental health treatment, so they could have found a way to disarm him.

The Sheriff needs to take responsibility for his department and the officers under him. It is the honorable thing to do.

[rogue06]

He was extremely popular sheriff winning re-election in 2016 by the largest margin in over 30 years but I doubt he would win right now.

[Cow Poke]

He was extremely popular sheriff winning re-election in 2016 by the largest margin in over 30 years but I doubt he would win right now.

Yeah, Sheriffs run a political campaign, and win by popularity or expenditure of money, not because they're particularly good administrators or lawmen.

[Psychic Missile]

Well, at least according to Wikipedia...(yeah I know) the US is 11th on the list of gun related deaths...yet every single country ahead of them has a drastically lower guns per capita. Jamaica has some of the strictest gun laws in the world and it's gun related death rate is 3 times that in the US.

(Click on the chart to make it big enough to actually read)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26633[/ATTACH]

Meanwhile, gun deaths aren't even counted the same country to country. In this report to the U.K. Parliament, we find that since 1967, England and Wales do not count gun deaths which do not result in a conviction...that rules out all suicides, deaths by Police and all unsolved homicides in their homicide rates.

(Part II) 35. Homicide statistics too vary widely. In some developing countries, the statistics are known to be far from complete. Figures for crimes labelled as homicide in various countries are simply not comparable. Since 1967, homicide figures for England and Wales have been adjusted to exclude any cases which do not result in conviction, or where the person is not prosecuted on grounds of self defence or otherwise. This reduces the apparent number of homicides by between 13 per cent and 15 per cent. The adjustment is made only in respect of figures shown in one part of the Annual Criminal Statistics. In another part relating to the use of firearms, no adjustment is made. A table of the number of homicides in which firearms were used in England and Wales will therefore differ according to which section of the annual statistics was used as its base. Similarly in statistics relating to the use of firearms, a homicide will be recorded where the firearm was used as a blunt instrument, but in the specific homicide statistics, that case will be shown under "blunt instrument"

Finally, we can see from these chart that the ban on firearms did not reduce the homicide rate at all, it's just now stabilizing around it's the same number as the pre-ban rate:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]26634[/ATTACH]

And 12 years after the ban, they actually increased for 12 years. The gun death rates finally have fallen below the pre-ban numbers...that's a long time for correlation to explain...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26635[/ATTACH]

What would you say the difference is between countries with higher homicide rates than the US with stricter gun laws and countries with lower homicide rates than the US with stricter gun laws?

The UK has both tight firearms restrictions and a very low rate of firearms-related homicides, so they are a good example of what happens when there are fewer guns to go around. That handgun ban was very limited in scope. Very few people in the UK had handguns prior to the ban, so of course there shouldn't be a significant reduction in firearms-related deaths, let alone homicides period.

[Adrift]

Well, at least according to Wikipedia...(yeah I know) the US is 11th on the list of gun related deaths...yet every single country ahead of them has a drastically lower guns per capita. Jamaica has some of the strictest gun laws in the world and it's gun related death rate is 3 times that in the US.

Jamaica is also an incredibly poor and corrupt developing nation. It doesn't seem fair to compare a 1st world power, and the wealthiest nation on earth to Jamaica, and having to do so seems to say something about the gun issue in general. The other statistics are interesting though.