[farmlad]

Taking into account the inaction of the Broward County police, the lack of witness accounts coming out, and the bias of the media, it seems quite likely that there is far more to this story and a good chance that there were more shooters involved.

[AdamB]

Taking into account the inaction of the Broward County police, the lack of witness accounts coming out, and the bias of the media, it seems quite likely that there is far more to this story and a good chance that there were more shooters involved.

[AdamB]

I am challenging all of you not just Cog.

Is this site capable of intelligent well reasoned compromised dialogue considering the comoplexity of the issue.

It didn't used to be, as those who obviously didn't go with herd think seemed to pop up on the perma-ban list quite often. So can it be now? Sure...Cog seems to have his points pretty locked, and they are quite damning not on the topic of yet another ban guns scheme, but on stopping crazy people who want to do harm. Does it really matter if they do it with a gun rather than running a dump truck through the local Memorial day parade?

I have had dozens of guests this past week and have enjoyed the reasoned dialogue that sitting with folks face to face engenders.

Works online as well. Doesn't seem to happen as often though. Fracking is a good one. All the screaming and yelling online, and yet in person when I give talks to local groups, folks get it, and why it has been marketed as something bad, how that was done, and why it is generally a crock.

[Newfie]

It’s generally pretty hard to look someone in the eye and call him a son-of-bitch. Personal contact has a great moderating power.

Being semi-annonomoys, not having that one-on-one contact, changes how we address one another. It’s a well documented effect. I remember reading about it is Scientific American perhaps 15 years ago.

It also it has to do with the medium. We are trying to convey difficult and nuanced positions in short, written interchanges. Damn near impossible. We are fairly well practiced at communicating without sight, via telephone, it even there you retain a tremendous amount of affect through voice intonation and modulation. That is all missing here.

We are just a bunch of FOG’s (Fat Old Guys) trying to discuss complex and sometimes deeply emotional subjects through a sparse and unfamiliar medium. That’s why I say (again and again) we nead to read and WRITE these posts with COMPASSION understanding that there are often alternative understandings. It’s a difficult task.

[KaiserJeep]

I think part of the problem is the sheer difficulty involved in "solving the problem", or in "preventing mass shootings", or in "ending gun violence". These are emotionally charged words, and schools in particular are full of helpless victims.

When you look at school shootings, from Columbine to Florida, they are largely the result of mentally ill teens. They reflect a particularly local phenomenon where a kid who was ostracised from social contact within that very school got fed up and struck back at his tormenters.

I remember such an incident from my own childhood. We were all told to "play with George", because George was having a tough time. He was in fact a heavy stutterer, his father had died years ago, his working mother was overwhelmed, and George just was not getting through life at all well. He was also being "main streamed" out of "special education", because there simply was no diagnosable mental disease, he had problems with what we today call "socialization".

George didn't make it. One Summer he attacked fellow students at "Bible School", which was a euphemism for a kind of day care in the 1960s where your working parents dropped you off at your church and volunteer old ladies taught you religion. I had one Summer of such misery when my parents were both working while trying to afford building a new home. It was not the same year that George went, but was offset by one year.

George took hostages using a machete from the church's groundskeeping shed. I suppose that was the only reason he didn't kill anyone (he cut two people) and the only reason the police didn't shoot him. He subsequently hung himself less than a week after he came home from Juvie Hall.

In today's world, George might have become a shooter and mass murderer. He certainly had the rage and resentment motive. I'm ready to admit that if one can keep guns away from teens, the fatalities will decline. Even though Cruz was 19 years old and bought his gun legally.

About the Las Vegas shooter, I am equally certain that you could not do anything to restrict his access to guns. He was an adult, had been a gun fancier for years, and owned multiple AR-15's, some purchased new where he passed a background check, and some purchased through private sales with no background check. He could easily have had a criminal record, and the only inconvenience would be that if he wanted a shiny new gun, he'd have been forced to lay a couple of hundred extra dollars out for somebody else to purchase his weapon and then sell it to him. The reason that would be is because that is how a majority of Americans want things to be.

Either way, with 8 million AR-15s in civilian hands, anything you do now about new gun sales is useless, an obvious case of shutting the barn door after the horse ran off. So find a different solution, that one is simply no longer an available option.

Any further discussion of gun control is useless. George never had a gun, and you certainly can't ban sharp things.

[dissident]

That is an interesting story. But really has nothing to offer as a solution. Nutjobs will always be around. The issue is why they can bring automatic and semi-automatic rifles onto school grounds. This is a gross failure of the system to impose minimum security standards. Instead of crying rivers of fake tears, the media and the rest of the "community" can make sure that schools have gun control checkpoints and that no student or random clown off the street can enter the building and school grounds fully loaded.

[onlooker]

That is an interesting story. But really has nothing to offer as a solution. Nutjobs will always be around. The issue is why they can bring automatic and semi-automatic rifles onto school grounds. This is a gross failure of the system to impose minimum security standards. Instead of crying rivers of fake tears, the media and the rest of the "community" can make sure that schools have gun control checkpoints and that no student or random clown off the street can enter the building and school grounds fully loaded.

But , now Dissident actually our President is proposing that teachers carry guns. I agree the cat is out of the bag, guns are pretty ubiquitous that is not going to change. But, we need to tone down the specter of violence and set examples of compromise and passivity. Because, we are not just talking about mad criminally insane people, but also people who for whatever reason lose their tempier and cannot control themselves from committing violence with a very accessible and very easy to use lethal instrument which is a gun or any other potential weapon available. Just step back and look, we are descending into the Wild West. And allowing the culture of violence and aggression to overcome our more civilized and passive postures. So, people will just attack people and even perhaps out of a feeling of vulnerability and excessive defensiveness. All product of a violence inducing culture.

[dissident]

https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/ ... 3441956864

The issue is the failure to control guns in the right instances and the dereliction of duty by the local authorities. The media hysteria over gun ownership is diversionary propaganda.

[dissident]

That is an interesting story. But really has nothing to offer as a solution. Nutjobs will always be around. The issue is why they can bring automatic and semi-automatic rifles onto school grounds. This is a gross failure of the system to impose minimum security standards. Instead of crying rivers of fake tears, the media and the rest of the "community" can make sure that schools have gun control checkpoints and that no student or random clown off the street can enter the building and school grounds fully loaded.

But , now Dissident actually our President is proposing that teachers carry guns.

Why is it always possible for nutjobs armed to the teeth to enter school grounds? We are not talking about handguns. We are talking about assault rifles. This all by itself is the failure point. The rest of the discussion is a sideshow.

I agree the cat is out of the bag, guns are pretty ubiquitous that is not going to change. But, we need to tone down the specter of violence and set examples of compromise and passivity. Because, we are not just talking about mad criminally insane people, but also people who for whatever reason lose their tempier and cannot control themselves from committing violence with a very accessible and very easy to use lethal instrument which is a gun or any other potential weapon available. Just step back and look, we are descending into the Wild West. And allowing the culture of violence and aggression to overcome our more civilized and passive postures. So, people will just attack people and even perhaps out of a feeling of vulnerability and excessive defensiveness. All product of a violence inducing culture.

As I said, nutjobs will always be around. Airport style security at schools is a small price to pay. They have it at court houses. Why not at schools? Schools already pay armed guards so why not assign these guards to man some scanner equipment at entrances? And make sure that all exists are controlled or sealed as necessary.

[Cog]

The left's question seems to be "Why do you need an Ar-15"? I've been asked that question before and my response is this. "Where did you derive the moral or legal authority to tell me I do not"? I follow it up with this question. "May I come to your house and poke around and take from you that which I do not feel you need"?

I never get adequate answers to those questions that do not involve emotion or the feelz.

The left says we do not need weapons of war on the streets because they are so lethal. But then follow that up with the proposition that your AR-15 is useless against a military armed with planes and tanks. You might want to direct that towards the Taliban who fought the Soviets for 11 years, fought each other for ten years, and now with the USA for 16 years. They still rule the countryside in Afghanistan and will until we leave that place.

The ability to confront and defeat a tyrannical government is codified in the Constitution and that is why it was written.

[Newfie]

Cog,
I didn’t hear anyone in the past few posts attack your right to own. Relax a wee bit.

Philadelphia high schools have had security checks/scanners for many years. I’m pretty sure that is “normal” in big city schools. It would be interesting to see how many districts already have this. These were instituted because of students carrying handguns but obviously work for assault weapons as well.

Am I correct is assuming all these school mass shootings occur in suburban schools only?

Would it be fair to say this is an issue the cities have dealt with already?

I detest the idea that our kids need metal detectors to enter school, but it seems the case.

[dissident]

Cog,
I didn’t hear anyone in the past few posts attack your right to own. Relax a wee bit.

Philadelphia high schools have had security checks/scanners for many years. I’m pretty sure that is “normal” in big city schools. It would be interesting to see how many districts already have this. These were instituted because of students carrying handguns but obviously work for assault weapons as well.

Am I correct is assuming all these school mass shootings occur in suburban schools only?

Would it be fair to say this is an issue the cities have dealt with already?

I detest the idea that our kids need metal detectors to enter school, but it seems the case.

Perhaps these "nice community" schools could join human reality instead of living in a bubble of delusion. You may detest the idea, but you can't wish away the nutjobs living in your community. Everyone has this not in my back yard mentality. Problems are for others, never for ourselves. Then reality bites and bites hard.

[onlooker]

Again how many nuts jobs are there really ? This is coming from the vantage point of fear and anger. People want to strike out at those who would dare to assault them. But are we really making it safer for EVERYBODY. I don't think so. We are more and more creating a culture of violence. I personally am not afraid about the very small possibility that I will be the victime of one of these crazed indviduals. I am more uncomfortable or afraid of my next door neighbor or just about anyone as we continue to descend into less a civilized world and more into a barbaric one. We wish to be safe, machines and monitoring equipment will not make us safe but perhaps if we can adopt a less fearful angry attitude we can deconstruct this culture of violence into one a bit less violent then maybe at lease we can feel safer.

[KaiserJeep]

Well, perhaps it will be instructive to talk about my kid's former high school. It was not a secure campus when she went there in the late 1990's. After some later violence that did not involve guns (Latino gang related) they built a secure perimeter, a seven foot tall iron fence with vertical bars about 3" apart, topped with sharp points. Metal detectors at every entrance, monitored by armed security guards, who were furnished by a private firm with a contract with the school district.

The violence was relatively minor, but drugs were a problem. After random busts by the SJ Police using drug sniffer dogs, there came a time when NOBODY was carrying through the gates, but drugs were still present on the campus. Packages were being left at the fence and picked up by kids who had passed the security check. So they added a morning perimeter check with sniffer dogs, and stopped that. Today the problem they have is drug deliveries via drones "bombing" the grassy areas of school grounds inside the perimeter. Not sure what the answer to that one was, as I quit caring enough to follow a few years ago.

There is nothing to prevent guns including AR-15's from being passed through the fence, at a pre-arranged time with 2200 students on the grounds between classes. The entire perimeter fence is monitored by camera, and you can see each fence section in a bank of monitors in the Admin building. But there is nobody whose job it is to watch the monitors continuously. The lone guard has rounds to make every hour. Even so, drones now exist (10 pound cargo, $800) which could deliver an AR-15 (six pounds) and multiple magazines (up to another 4 pounds). I know some of the kids have such, there are drone videos all over the neighborhood web page.

I don't know how you could prevent drone delivery of a weapon to the school campus. Whoever arranged such would have at least 15-20 minutes before the SJ Police arrived from the closest substation, and maybe 30 minutes for SWAT to arrive from downtown. An active shooter with an AR-15 could kill a lot of people in 15 minutes, and still escape campus. Cruz did all his mayhem in 6 minutes.

I find myself uncomfortable in even discussing such details. But like I said before, I know two teachers who are both ex-military, and both ex-cops, and currently have second jobs as parole officers for juvenile offenders. They each park 1000 feet from the HS and walk the remainder, and their time at the HS is the only time they are not armed.

Heck, although intended as a camera drone, you can also mount an AR-15 with a 30-round clip on a heavy lift drone:


I don't know how to make 2200 kids and another approximately 100 faculty and staff safe at that HS. Do you?

[Newfie]

320,000,000 million people

If 1 in a million went nuts once a year that would be 320 incidents.

Only amazing it’s not worse.

Think about this, the single largest reason for commercial airline related death is pilot suicide where they take the passengers with them.

How indeed do we guard against such tragedies.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Think about this, the single largest reason for commercial airline related death is pilot suicide where they take the passengers with them.

And you have proof of this?

Per Wiki, it's hard to prove. They list 19 suspected such crashes in 40 years (1976 - 2016).

The number of fatalities per year of airliner crashes over that period is in the ballpark of 1000, which looks huge compared to an average from half a crash per year of SUSPECTED commercial pilot suicide.

...

Now, pilot error / pilot fault (or copilot) certainly seems to be a huge proportion of the problem. and Wiki says it's the most common (but lacks a citation). Clearly, a pilot screwing up, disregarding rules, etc. doesn't mean any indication of suicide. (What I find frightening is how many lethal crashes follow pilots or copilots simply skipping key mandatory safety checks.)

[Newfie]

Hard to PROVE, it none the less a highly likely or probable cause. How does one Prove the difference between intentional and unintentional mistakes?

The point remains, despite our best efforts in a highly controlled situation highly trained and skilled professionals are the single largest source of fatality, which usually includes their own death.

The larger point is to ask “If we can not stop these airlines fatalities, where we have such supreme control, how do we expect to eliminate irresponsible gun use or vehicular suicide or whatever?”

In a society as complex as ours these things will happen. To stop them would require draconian measures at least.

This is not to say we should not be looking at ways to mitigate the risk. We should also learn from each tragic event. Clearly the FBI, and others have not taken hold of this message as fully as they should have. Many folks need to internalize the message “What could I have done better?”

IMHO running around telling other people what to do seldom works, except to create animosity.

[KaiserJeep]

Look, let us put this one myth to bed: An AR-15 is an ideal arm for target shooting. It is an "inline" design, the stock is directly behind the barrel, and contains a shock buffer. You can fire several magazines in a short period of time, and the .223/5.56mm round is excellant at medium ranges.

No, I don't own one. I don't care to spend $1000 on something I rarely would use. But I have shot about 6 AR-15's that belong to other people, in addition to the M-16A1 that belonged to the US Government.

I never shot anything but paper targets. Great gun for that purpose. The larger capacity magazines help improve your score.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Instead of crying rivers of fake tears, the media and the rest of the "community" can make sure that schools have gun control checkpoints and that no student or random clown off the street can enter the building and school grounds fully loaded.

I think it's expensive enough to effectively do that, that you won't see communities universally jumping to make it so.

I attended high school with busing to deal with segregation. So a large (nearly 2000 students) high school with about 400 minority (and mostly hostile, given that they were being bused away from their homes/friends due to politics) -- so there was a lot of racial posturing, some gangs, lots of fights, weapons (not guns, but knives and clubs), etc. This was in the mid 70's.

So they hired security guards and set up checkpoints. So theoretically you couldn't get in the building with weapons. But they rarely frisked the "good" kids, so they could have carried stuff in for their buddies. They couldn't lock the fire doors (fire marshall orders), so unless teachers watched them ALL the time, they'd be open to pass in weapons, drugs, truants, and of course, bold drug dealers. And the check points weren't even always manned (costs, I presume).

Now you have kids organized with smart phones, technology aware, etc.

So unless you build fences all around campuses and man them sufficiently at EVERY gate and frisk everybody, good luck keeping trouble out of the campuses. It's a worthy goal -- I just don't see society spending all that money on every school unless they perceive it as "worth it". Thus far, it mostly hasn't been "worth it" to have most school systems that provide good K-12 educations, so color me skeptical.

[Cog]

Been watching the Florida State Senate debate various legislation all day on bump stocks, mental health checks, arming teachers, and finally banning "assault weapons"

What I am taking from the testimony from the Democrat senators and also citizens at large, is they want to ban all semi-automatic rifles and pistols without exception. Without compensation either. That is the amendment that the Florida Democrats have put forward. Making millions of Floridians instant felons. It will not pass a Republican controlled Senate and House but its reflective of where the national debate is going.

Apparently everyone has forgot about the shooter himself since no one mentions him. Only the gun is important.

I think people forget the Columbine shooters used a Tec9 pistol, a 10 round magazine Hi point carbine and a shotgun. This was during the 1994-2004 Assualt Weapons ban. The Virginia Tech shooter, years later, used pistols.

A new assault weapons ban will not solve anything except to create more felons of law abiding citizens.

** Senate committee vote to ban assault weapons fails to pass.