Posted on 06/13/2014 7:10:58 AM PDT by holymoly
On Tuesday morning a 15-year-old killer murdered fellow student Emilio Hoffman, age 14, and wounded a teacher at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon. The killer brought an AR-15 type rifle, a semi-automatic pistol and enough ammunition to do far more harm – but he was stopped before he could by police. The police were aided by a brave teacher and by a well-practiced school lockdown. After being confronted and exchanging gunfire with police, the killer committed suicide. Police also found the killer had brought a large knife.
Within hours, politicians were already attempting to exploit the tragedy – including Oregon’s U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who were calling for expanded background checks.
More laws are not the answer
Further expanding background checks in Oregon – already one of the most restrictive states for background checks – would not have stopped the 15-year-old killer. It’s already illegal for anyone under 18 to purchase a firearm in Oregon, and this killer didn’t buy the guns – he took them – by defeating his family’s security measures where the guns were secured.
Additionally, the 15-year-old killer at Reynolds brought firearms and a large knife into a high school despite school policies banning weapons, Oregon state law prohibiting bringing or having a weapon at school, and the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act.
The killer was also in violation of ORS 166.250 (unlawful possession of firearms) even before he got to the school because he was under 18, and he was in violation of the Multnomah County gun control ordinance passed last year.
The 15-year-old killer violated many, many existing weapons-related laws – and none of those laws stopped him.
What did work?
Reynolds High School has two full-time officers on campus every day – and they were on the scene in less than a minute – and they are being credited with stopping the killer before he could inflict more carnage.
After Sandy Hook, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre advocated for a police officer in every school. He said “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The media, who widely ridiculed and mocked him at the time, is largely ignoring this important part of the story. It’s important because it actually worked to save lives at Reynolds.
What also worked was the bravery of a Reynolds teacher, who sounded the alert that initiated the school lockdown even though he had been wounded. A lockdown that had recently been practiced. KOIN reported “Police said the response from school staff, police and students prevented ‘many, many’ deaths, given the amount of ammunition [the killer] carried. Troutdale Mayor Doug Daoust said Reynolds High had participated in an active shooter drill in the weeks leading up to June 10.”
What more can be done?
There needs to be a continued focus on mental health, including increasing funding where it’s needed. More schools should have armed law enforcement present. The media should stop giving publicity to the killers. There needs to be more funding for prosecutors, police and jails so that existing laws can be enforced.
Additionally, there needs to be public pressure on the media to stop perpetuating false and highly emotional data and perceptions. For example, all the irresponsible news agencies who reported there have been 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook in Newtown, CT. The 74 number came from Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety. CNN has since taken the time to investigate the number and found the actual number to be 15.
It is indicative of how gun control groups are willing to stretch the truth to achieve their agenda. When they do that, and when the media parrots it, it makes rational discussion much more difficult.
Please let’s move off of fixed political agendas and focus on what works to keep our children and everyone safer.
There can be no "discussion" with people who are, at best, completely ignorant about firearms and current firearms laws, or who, as the author politely puts it, "stretch the truth".
Nothing says “lambs to the slaughter” louder than a gun free zone.
If one peruses the archives of news and journals back to the year 1621 in America, one will find that almost everyday someone was killing someone else with
a gun,
a knife,
a sword,
a club,
a razor,
a rock,
an axe
poison,
a bomb,
it`ll never stop coz someone will always find a way to kill someone else for some reason ...
even before that Indians were killing each other off with clubs
arrows
spears
rocks
fire
all the time for thousands of years.
No unconstitutional gun law is ever gonna stop it.
The problem is that ALL THE KIDS are all in one building, unarmed, no way to get out..
REAL EASY TARGETS>
SOLUTION:
FORTIFY THE SCHOOLS
OR GET RID OF SCHOOLS AND JUST TEACH ‘EM AT HOME ONLINE.
Shocking incidents such as school shootings frighten and horrify everyone, but Leftists react by demanding more and more laws, whereas other people react by arming themselves and the custodians of their children, e.g. school officials.
Leftists think that passing more and more laws will solve problems. It won't.
Once a law is passed, they tend to forget about the problem, retreating into characteristic denial and delusion and assuming that the problem has been solved.
Also, overwhelming the legal system with innumerable laws, all of which cannot possibly be enforced, enables government agents to enforce them selectively, which, Leftists foolishly assume, can only be beneficial, blind as is their faith in government and its agents.
The more violent our world becomes, the more hysterical Leftists become and the more gun and ammunition sales escalate.
The violence is a direct result of the decadence of Western Civilization, a decadence that is a direct result of Leftist policies and assumptions (note tagline).
Millions of Americans are convinced that government and its agents can not and will not protect them and their families in this increasingly violent and decadent world and that they must rely on themselves to do so, and this is what fuels the opposition to gun control laws and the sales of guns and ammunition, it is what confounds gun control advocates, who simply cannot understand it.
We just had a school incident in a nearby town in Connecticut. An unstable young man killed a girl he had been friends with for years because she had recently started to date another young man. It was the day of the prom and the young lady turned down the disturbed boy’s invitation to go to the prom with him because she was going to the prom with her boyfriend.
So the disturbed young man killed his long time friend. Didn’t hear the story?
Not surprised, The killer used a knife, not a gun.
I’d be interested in knowing how the shooter’s family had the guns secured. Gun safe? Glass cabinet gun safe?
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