What we've learned from Sandy Hook

The Hill ^ | December 23, 2013 | Robert Bernat, M.D.

[re_tail20]

On Friday afternoon as news outlets were reporting on the next day’s one-year anniversary of the horror that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the latest chapter in school violence was unfolding at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. There Karl Pierson had entered his high school looking for a particular teacher and willing to shoot anyone in his way. Eighty seconds after he entered the building, two students were injured, one fatally, and the gunmen dead by a self-inflicted gunshot. While this incident fails to compare to the carnage that took place in Newtown, Connecticut one year earlier, both events offer lessons that we must learn from to prevent similar tragedies from happening again.

Three reports are essential in understanding the lessons of Sandy Hook. According to the June 2013 federal report entitled Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans and a 2013 Texas State University study there have occurred 84 active shooter events between 2000 and 2010. Of these 34 percent involved schools, averaging nearly three school shootings per year. The federal report acknowledges, among other things, that there exists no accurate or useful profiling which will reveal potential attackers, that attacks are rarely impulsive but rather well planned and that most shooting incidents were stopped by other than law enforcement intervention. Across all 84 events said the Texas study, pistols were used 60 percent of time, whereas rifles and shotguns were used 27 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

The CT Division of Criminal Justice investigative report issued two weeks ago painfully dissects the killings within Sandy Hook on minute by minute basis and offers a glimpse into the mind of the killer. From that report we learned that Adam Lanza shot out a floor to ceiling window next to the locked entrance doors...

[Venturer]

The plan here may not be perfect, but it took the evidence and became a plan.

The screams for gun legislation did not look at evidence and offered nothing.

[Standing Wolf]

...Sandy Hook demonstrates that to save lives there truly are only two simple principles – slow down an intruder bent on doing harm and speed up the response time of first responders.

Oh. You mean disarming the commoners won't save lives?

[delchiante]

Somebody learned that something happens ever 6 weeks..... 6weekcycle.com

[Uncle Chip]

if Sandy Hook had in place 3M window glass security film on the window shot out by Lanza, the glass would have shattered but remained in place held by the film.

That would have helped if that's the way it worked.

[Gay State Conservative]

First of all,Dr Bernat is an ophthalmologist.While it could be true that a psychiatrist’s input,a neurologist’s input or a medical geneticist’s input might be worth considering (the shooter was autistic,a genetic disorder),I’m not at all convinced that the input of even a *highly skilled* ophthalmologist is of any more value than mine would be.

[3Fingas]

Fact: None of the onerous and unconstitutional laws proposed since then would have prevented Newtown.

Fact: The entire anti-gun reaction to the Newtown massacre was pre-planned. These anti-gun groups wait for such an incident to occur, then they push their pre-planned agenda on a grieving community.

Thankfully, most Americans eventually saw through this attempt to restrict our constitutional rights.

[ThunderSleeps]

Yeah, pelosi actually slipped and said something to the effect she had gun control legislation “in her desk drawer” for over a year. Gee nancy, if gun control is such a great idea why were you sitting on it? Or maybe it is so bad and onerous you could only hope to get it through in an emotional reaction... These people aren’t about good laws, there are about evil control.

[struggle]

What I learned.

The cops sat outside for 4 minutes while Lanza executed children with a pistol.

[Sherman Logan]

Twenty dead children and six murdered innocent adults doesn’t constitute a horror in your book?

[Sherman Logan]

The theory is that if there were no guns in America, there would be no mass shootings. Which is of course true.

What they ignore is that there is no even vaguely politically acceptable plan to eliminate or significantly reduce access to guns in America.

So apparently their only response plan is one that they will admit in honest moments has no chance of success.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

It's amazing how similar the insane look in the eyes:

Adam Lanza- Sandy hook shooter

James Holmes -Aurora Col. shooter

Marshall Applewhite - Heavens gate suicide cult leader

Charles Manson - Killer cult leader

Nancy Pelosi - Hero of the left

[maine yankee]

What we’ve learned;

You can fool some of the people all the time.

[TurboZamboni]

...most shooting incidents were stopped by other than law enforcement intervention

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

[TurboZamboni]

Multiple Victim Public Shootings
June 10, 2001

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=272929

[Partisan Gunslinger]

the horror that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School, What horror? The only horror there is the bad acting, bold lies, distortions, obfuscations, Cheshire cat grins, cover-ups, gag orders, prosecution threats, sloppy chicanery and general madness coming out of that sordid scandal.

Exactly!

[Partisan Gunslinger]

Good one. lol