Texas: 18 children & one teacher killed in elementary school shooting


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11 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

:( 

Last I heard, 18 kids dead, 3 adults.  The killer is dead. 

I am forcing myself to not become numb at such news.  It's harder every time.

I have to find a balance that leans toward, if not numbness, distancing myself from the emotions of the situation. Otherwise I can't function.

I don't do well with child deaths. I'm sure few do. I don't know if I'm worse than others or not. I just know such news can wreck me if I can't keep it together.

I've taken down the usual social media for the next while until I'm better grounded about this. Planning on lots of yard work. 

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I heard Biden's speech last night.  It sounds like they may use this as a political springboard to try for a new assault weapons ban. 

19 children are dead now.

Shooter shot grandmother beforehand.

He bought two AR style rifles shortly before going on the shooting spree.

No idea what the motive was at this time.  The Governor of Texas along with Ted Cruz have reported to be having a press conference in around 3 hours (1:30 PM ET).

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56 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

I heard Biden's speech last night.  It sounds like they may use this as a political springboard to try for a new assault weapons ban. 

 

Of course he does.  Good heavens, let families grieve without the political posturing.

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16 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

 

Of course he does.  Good heavens, let families grieve without the political posturing.

They can’t afford any delay.

Give it a couple of days, and enough details are likely to leak out that it will become apparent that a) the specific security safeguards being discussed either already exist or else wouldn’t have prevented this particular tragedy; b) the shooter had a long-standing pattern of dangerous behavior but slipped through the system because progressive “juvenile justice reform” and progressive bureaucrats colluded to make sure that this troubled youth wouldn’t be punished in a way that would leave him with a criminal record; and/or c) the shooter’s personal dysfunction is a direct product of social trends that progressives have been blatantly cheering on for the last fifty years.

When you’re planning a social revolution, you gotta keep people hurting and angry.  Folks who are happy and grateful for the things they enjoy, or are even just quietly resigned to the things they think can’t be changed, tend to make for poor cannon fodder.

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4 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

When you’re planning a social revolution, you gotta keep people hurting and angry

Ironically, that’s sort of what Trump did. His supporters, especially the hardcore ones, were absolutely “angry”. I don’t know them well enough to say they were “hurting”. 

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10 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Ironically, that’s sort of what Trump did. His supporters, especially the hardcore ones, were absolutely “angry”. I don’t know them well enough to say they were “hurting”. 

I think most anger has some measure of pain underlying it.  Or fear, at least; and fear and pain are pretty closely tied together.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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18 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

I don’t fully understand the “arm teachers” movement. Apparently teachers aren’t trusted to teach children (we’ve had this discussion in society very recently), but are trusted to protect them with guns?

These seem like false equivalencies.  Teachers are trusted generally to teach children on topics about which teachers and parents agree.  It’s when they go beyond the scope of that trust and that agreement that parents get tetchy.  For all the other personal, political, and ideological disagreements that may exist, I think that parents and teachers can at least agree that they don’t want children to be gunned down in a school.

The question is whether a teacher can be competent to protect kids with guns (and, in the interim, to handle their own firearms in a safe and responsible way).  I don’t think teachers should be compelled to be armed.  But I think those who are willing and able to do so safely, should be permitted to.  That’s the way it is in Utah; there are several teachers at my kids’ elementary school who carry.  They have CCWs, and I’m fine with it.  Texas, too, apparently has a “school marshall” program under which teachers can get authorized to carry; it seems unclear at present whether this particular school availed itself of that program.  

 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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13 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

These seem like false equivalencies.  Teachers are trusted generally to teach children on topics about which teachers and parents agree.  It’s when they go beyond the scope of that trust and that agreement that parents get tetchy.  For all the other personal, political, and ideological disagreements that may exist, I think that parents and teachers can at least agree that they don’t want children to be gunned down in a school.

The question is whether a teacher can be competent to protect kids with guns (and, in the interim, to handle their own firearms in a safe and responsible way.  I don’t think teachers should be compelled to be armed.  But I think those who are willing and able to do so safely, should be permitted to.  That’s the way it is in Utah; there are several teachers at my kids’ elementary school who carry.  They have CCWs, and I’m fine with it.  Texas, too, apparently had a “school marshall” program under which teachers can get authorized to carry; it seems unclear at present whether this particular school availed itself of that program.  

 

Oh. Because for some of us, it seems at the very least-a little weird- that yesterday one side was screaming about teachers being incapable of choosing what to teach, but today that same side wants to give them AK-47’s. “False equivalences” or not, that line of thinking can confuse stupid people like me. After all, I wouldn’t want to arm people who I thought were “groomers” who target children. 
 

I’m as pro second amendment as they get, but I’m not naive or blind. Arming teachers will do nothing if we don’t address mental health. Especially because most teachers almost certainly lack the will and talent to become competent enough with a firearm to actually protect anyone. They are teachers, not Navy Seals. 

Edited by LDSGator
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4 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Oh. Because for some of us, it seems at the very least-a little weird- that yesterday one side was screaming about teachers being incapable of choosing what to teach, but today that same side wants to give them AK-47’s. “False equivalences” or not, that line of thinking can confuse stupid people like me. After all, I wouldn’t want to arm people who I thought were “groomers” who target children. 
 

I’m as pro second amendment as they get, but I’m not naive or blind. Arming teachers will do nothing if we don’t address mental health. 

No, no, you’ve got it all wrong.

If we fire the teacher-groomers first, then we don’t have to give them guns.  :P 

On a more serious note:  even if arming teachers “works”, you won’t really see the effect.  Because the effect isn’t that school shootings don’t happen; the effect is that shooting body counts stay in the single digits.  

The sticky point with gun control debates generally is that the problems with the status quo are self-evident, whereas the benefits of the status quo can be ascertained only through counterfactuals and hypotheticals.

I’d like to see earlier interventions with mental health care; but the mental health community has spilled too much ink over the last decade trying to pathologize conservatism.  And that’s not a local phenomenon.  As I understand it, the incarcerated Uighurs aren’t in prison; they are undergoing psychological treatment.  Ditto for many of Putin’s most vocal critics.

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Just now, Just_A_Guy said:

No, no, you’ve got it all wrong.

If we fire the teacher-groomers first, then we don’t have to give them guns.  :P 

On a more serious note:  even if arming teachers “works”, you won’t really see the effect.  Because the effect isn’t that school shootings don’t happen; the effect is that shooting body counts stay in the single digits.  

The sticky point with gun control debates generally is that the problems with the status quo are self-evident, whereas the benefits of the status quo can be ascertained only through counterfactuals and hypotheticals.

I’d like to see earlier interventions with mental health care; but the mental health community has spilled too much ink over the last decade trying to pathologize conservatism.  And that’s not a local phenomenon.  As I understand it, the incarcerated Uighurs aren’t in prison; they are undergoing psychological treatment.  Ditto for many of Putin’s most vocal critics.

I actually agree with you for the most part, I’m just not naive. Like I mentioned above (I edited it, sorry) your average teacher lacks the desire, time and talent to become Dirty Harry. We all know that you can’t become an expert marksman in two weeks of training. Arming teachers makes second amendment advocates (and again I’m one of them)  feel good, but it’ll do very little in the long run.
 

Not to mention that when teacher X becomes distracted or over powered little Johnny Psycopath can now have full access to a nice, shiny toy to go kill people with. 

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I always like to mention at this stage of 2nd Amendment discussions, that Utah has had a law on the books since the 90's allowing for permit-holding conceal carry in public schools.   Visitors, staff, teachers, legal to carry.  School policy covering employees might be another matter, but think about it - our schools have been armed for a quarter century.   Something many permit holders know, is legal + shutting up about it = armed good guys but nobody knows they're there, except bad guys who are freaky smart about preserving their own lives.  Even the mentally ill ones.

It looks like Utah has gone permit-less since I last checked, but the law is still clear: https://bci.utah.gov/concealed-firearm/

Quote

Q: Does the permit-less carry allow me to carry my firearm into a public school?

A: No. You still need to obtain a Utah concealed firearm permit to carry in a public school. Private schools can make their own determinations on allowing weapons on campus.

That's 25 years for at least one news story about little Johnny Psychopath, and that news story hasn't happened.  Folks are free to do some research:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

Out of 369 school shootings in the last 20 years, three have occured in Utah.  No deaths.
- An elementary school teacher with a concealed weapon permit had her gun fire accidentally in a faculty bathroom. The bullet shattered a toilet, and fragments of both the bullet and the porcelain injured her leg.
- Police say the two teens ages 14 and 16 were involved in a confrontation on the far north end of Union Middle School. The boys got into an argument. The argument lead to a shooting. The 14-year-old shot the 16-year-old twice. He was sent to the hospital in critical but stable condition.
- At Mueller Park Junior High School, a 15-year-old student fired one shot into the ceiling and then pointed the weapon at his own neck. The student was confronted verbally by a teacher and another student and later arrested in possession of a shotgun, a handgun, and ammunition for each and was sentenced to spend time in a Juvenile Justice Services facility.

Feel free to compare these stories to any state with more strict school gun bans.  I double-dog-dare ya.

 

The argument "we can't have armed citizens/teachers/regular folk, blood will run in the streets/bad guys will take the gun/accidents will soar!" was used in the '80's when conceal carry laws came back and swept the nation.  By the '90's, the notion had been basically studied out of existence.   Given any demographic, age, sex, income, profession - the permit holding subgroup in that demographic will have lower rates of violent criminal behavior than the rest in that group.  Jury has been out for 20 years at least on the subject.

 

Other story - there's a school in one of Colorado's sparsely-populated counties, where they send a group of teachers to Nevada every year for a 4 day defensive handgun course.  Someone did some math about police response times and remote distances, and everyone got on board.  They've apparently been doing it for years. 

 

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2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

a) the specific security safeguards being discussed either already exist or else wouldn’t have prevented this particular tragedy

I've held the position that if a new law is introduced on gun control, I'd be all for it if it passes three tests:

1) Isn't just a re-hash of laws already on the books and being enforced.
2) Is somehow proven to actually reduce gun crime.
3) Doesn't result in an outright gun ban.

So far I haven't seen any gun control bill that passes these very common sense conditions.

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4 hours ago, LDSGator said:

I actually agree with you for the most part, I’m just not naive. Like I mentioned above (I edited it, sorry) your average teacher lacks the desire, time and talent to become Dirty Harry. We all know that you can’t become an expert marksman in two weeks of training. Arming teachers makes second amendment advocates (and again I’m one of them)  feel good, but it’ll do very little in the long run.
 

Not to mention that when teacher X becomes distracted or over powered little Johnny Psycopath can now have full access to a nice, shiny toy to go kill people with. 

After Sandy Hook, Larry Correia (a fiction author who happens to be LDS, though in his writing he tends to swear like a sailor) wrote a detailed blog about school shootings.  Correia is himself a former federally-licensed firearm dealer and used to moonlight as a professional “bad guy” for cops doing active shooter drills; his bread and butter was the psychology of mass killers.  His post is probably too foul-mouthed for me to link to here, but I’d highly recommend it.

One of the points he makes (if memory serves) is that you don’t have to actually be that good of a marksman to stop a school shooter.  School shooters sort of go into a fantasy/dream world as they are acting out their crime, and just the sound of gunfire from someone else and the knowledge that bullets are now flying in their direction, tends to pull them out of their trance.  Correia points to shooting after shooting where, at the sound of hostile gunfire, the perpetrator immediately turned the gun on himself.  As an armed teacher, you don’t necessarily have to hit the school shooter—you just have to make him have a “oh, crap, I’m not in total control of the situation anymore” moment (oh—and not kill any innocent bystanders in the process, naturally).  That’s why law enforcement doctrine for dealing with active shooters has evolved over the last two decades from “wait until overwhelming force arrives, and then go in there together in a coordinated counteroffensive” to “as soon as you park your vehicle, get in there and shoot back—don’t wait for backup”. 

As for the fear of students wrestling guns away from teachers:  the student has to know the teacher is armed in the first place.  My understanding is that even just saying “I have a gun, so, nanny nanny boo boo” in a high-conflict situation can subject you to “brandishing” charges (unless there’s a legitimate need for self-defense).  So I doubt students are likely to even know their teachers are carrying.  My kids’ school told me that *some* teachers there carry (because I specifically asked), but they pointedly refused to tell me which teachers carry (I also asked that, because I’m nosy; but I think they were right not to tell me).

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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5 hours ago, LDSGator said:

I don’t fully understand the “arm teachers” movement. Apparently teachers aren’t trusted to teach children (we’ve had this discussion in society very recently), but are trusted to protect them with guns?

In my state (Utah) it's perfectly legal for teachers to conceal carry at school. 

My husband teaches firearm stuff, so I could easily attempt to become proficient.

But, to be whiney, would the general populace be willing to pay to require teachers to be trained in weapons and take on that responsibility in addition to their duties? There's a difference between the right to carry and the job description.

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4 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

there are several teachers at my kids’ elementary school who carry.  They have CCWs, and I’m fine with it.  

When I was teaching in a building, there was a conversation that led me to believe I was the only staff member not carrying...

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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

His post is probably too foul-mouthed for me to

I like him already. Send me the link in private via Facebook. 

 

1 hour ago, Backroads said:

In my state (Utah) it's perfectly legal for teachers to conceal carry at school. 

My husband teaches firearm stuff, so I could easily attempt to become proficient.

But, to be whiney, would the general populace be willing to pay to require teachers to be trained in weapons and take on that responsibility in addition to their duties? There's a difference between the right to carry and the job description.

That’s great, and I’m super happy that works for you-not kidding, it is my prayer that all of us here stay safe. 
 

Now, let’s convince those who have never ever seen a gun in real life, have no experience with them, and don’t like them to do the same. I’m not being  mean, just asking a practical, real life question. Muffy from exclusive suburban Boston will not be convinced to carry a .45 while she teaches ethnic studies. When her school gets shot up, do you think the anti gunners are going to just give up? No, they are going to do the same things, and the cycle will repeat itself. 
 

I’m glad that you are who you are @Backroads. You know I have nothing but love for you. I also own two handguns and several long guns. I’m no expert though. All self taught, and yes, everyone here knows way more about guns than I ever will know, or in all honesty care to know. But I still am highly skeptical that arming teachers will help. 

Edited by LDSGator
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2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

After Sandy Hook, Larry Correia (a fiction author who happens to be LDS, though in his writing he tends to swear like a sailor) wrote a detailed blog about school shootings.  Correia is himself a former federally-licensed firearm dealer and used to moonlight as a professional “bad guy” for cops doing active shooter drills; his bread and butter was the psychology of mass killers.  His post is probably too foul-mouthed for me to link to here, but I’d highly recommend it.

One of the points he makes (if memory serves) is that you don’t have to actually be that good of a marksman to stop a school shooter.  School shooters sort of go into a fantasy/dream world as they are acting out their crime, and just the sound of gunfire from someone else and the knowledge that bullets are now flying in their direction, tends to pull them out of their trance.  Correia points to shooting after shooting where, at the sound of hostile gunfire, the perpetrator immediately turned the gun on himself.  As an armed teacher, you don’t necessarily have to hit the school shooter—you just have to make him have a “oh, crap, I’m not in total control of the situation anymore” moment (oh—and not kill any innocent bystanders in the process, naturally).  That’s why law enforcement doctrine for dealing with active shooters has evolved over the last two decades from “wait until overwhelming force arrives, and then go in there together in a coordinated counteroffensive” to “as soon as you park your vehicle, get in there and shoot back—don’t wait for backup”. 

As for the fear of students wrestling guns away from teachers:  the student has to know the teacher is armed in the first place.  My understanding is that even just saying “I have a gun, so, nanny nanny boo boo” in a high-conflict situation can subject you to “brandishing” charges (unless there’s a legitimate need for self-defense).  So I doubt students are likely to even know their teachers are carrying.  My kids’ school told me that *some* teachers there carry (because I specifically asked), but they pointedly refused to tell me which teachers carry (I also asked that, because I’m nosy; but I think they were right not to tell me).

Larry is a fantastic author.  He's a pretty nice guy too.  I met him a couple of times during his gun shop owner days.

 

Here is the referenced article:

An Opinion on Gun Control, repost | Monster Hunter Nation

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