Posted on 04/20/2025 5:56:45 AM PDT by george76
Besides being an unspeakable crime, Thursday’s shootings at Florida State University in Tallahassee reinforced one invaluable lesson:
Supposedly well-meaning laws aimed at stopping what leftists prefer to call “gun violence” are about as useful against criminals as cloth masks are against an infinitesimally small and potentially deadly virus.
They don’t do the job, but they make ideologues feel good about themselves.
...
In the wake of the 2018 Parkland high school shooting that killed 17 (and gifted the nation the perpetually irritating David Hogg), Sunshine State lawmakers passed a measure limiting gun purchases to those 21 years of age or older.
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Florida outlaws gun possession on college campuses.
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He was armed on FSU’s campus because he wanted to be, and he clearly didn’t care what a law had to say about it, nor did he care about laws against murder, for that matter. He ignored them.
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Reality, of course, won’t change the ineluctable urge in leftists to violate constitutional rights to fit how they would prefer the world to look. (These are men and women, after all, who pretend that there’s no difference between men and women that a scalpel can’t fix.)
...
It’s the same end of the political spectrum that trampled American constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of worship during the lockdowns, while deliberately fostering the illusion that masks too big to stop a virus were crucial to stopping a virus.
They are the side that promulgated the “social distancing” standard of six feet for safety that Americans took seriously — without knowing that it had basically been a gut guess from somewhere — and not even Anthony Fauci could remember where.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournal.com ...
The leftist agenda is directly responsible for those deaths.
We don’t have a gun problem; we have a behavior problem.
How do you figure that?
Also, see my post #3.
I recall an incident up here in the Great White North in which a man had a restraining order put on him and his firearms confiscated by the police due to his abusive and violent behaviour towards his wife, who sought refuge at a local women’s shelter. The man secretly kept one of his firearms from the police and proceeded to the shelter where his spouse was and shot her to death right there (in front of a defenseless, horrified worker) before taking his own life. And I recall a columnist writing about the tragedy saying “this man did not give a damn about the law”.
The shooter apparently used his stepmother's service weapon.
"You don't need a gun. You have police with guns to protect you."
Watch this shooting disappear down the rabbit hole:
-The shooter was a leftist.
-The shooter used a cop's gun.
-The cop was female.
Few things..
I know the Shooter, his Step Mother and one of the two killed.
He was not a leftist, unfortunately.
It was not his Step Mother’s service weapon. It was her retired service weapon which she purchased after the SO switched to a different platform.
He had a difficult childhood but no one saw this coming.
We are always fed the leftist mantra:
“only law enforcement should have guns”
Well, here, the gun which has done the killing had been the law enforcement gun!
“We don’t have a gun problem”
I think we do, not enough citizens are armed in public.
Gun laws will NEVER stop crime OR the criminals from getting them.
Until the left can abolish the 2nd amendment, they can only pick away at the rest of the Constitution.
And yet, you're speaking about it.
The politicians seem to forget what we have known for thousands of years.
CRIMINALS DO NOT OBEY LAWS.
As some comments elaborate, this is NOT strong enough.
The responsibility for this tragedy lies squarely at the feet of those who promote the anti-gun agenda, including the media.
Who remembers Nick Meili? EVERYONE should: He stopped the shooter without firing a single shot. The suppressed revelations from the Clackamas Town Center shooting ought be the death knell for the anti-gun movement.
Pardon the formatting, but I’m posting my archive notes in full below with verified source links for the original reports.
Clackamas Town Center shooting: Story of armed shopper fuels national debate
Updated May 5, 2013; Posted May 2, 2013
By Rick Bella
As the gun debate flared after mass shootings at the Clackamas Town Center and Sandy Hook Elementary, so did the story of Nick Meli.
Meli, an off-duty security guard, was at the mall Dec. 11 when he heard several shots, then saw the shooter, Jacob Tyler Roberts, running toward him with a semiautomatic rifle. Meli, who holds a concealed handgun license and told police he “always carries,” drew his handgun, but didn’t fire.
The details and significance of Meli’s actions at that point become clouded, even with the release this week of a 926-page investigative report. Meli is mentioned in four police reports that span 19 pages.
By all accounts, Meli acted bravely and responsibly, protecting his family and other shoppers and providing helpful information to police in the heat of the chase. A local television station and The Oregonian retold his story, and soon it was swept into the national political swirl.
Police Reports - Clackamas Town Center Shooting
Below is the 926-page police report released by the Clackamas County Sherrif’s office.
1. Pages 1-100 (PDF - 30mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/1-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
2. Pages 101-210 (PDF - 13mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/2-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
3. Pages 211-300 (PDF - 5mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/3-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
4. Pages 301-405 (PDF - 6mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/4-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
5. Pages 406-526 (PDF - 6mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/5-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
6. Pages 527-601 (PDF - 4mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/6-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
7. Pages 602-807 (PDF - 11mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/7-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
8. Pages 808-926 (PDF - 7mb) http://oregonian.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/clackamas-shooting/8-clackamas-town-center-shooting-police-report.pdf
Conservative talk shows and gun-rights blogs praised Meli as a citizen-hero whose actions saved lives, an example of a good guy with a gun who stopped a bad guy with a gun. Some critics lambasted mainstream media for underplaying Meli’s story, exposing a bias against reporting on how guns can play a part in saving innocent lives.
Newsbusters.org, dedicated to “exposing and combating liberal media bias,” posted a story proclaiming, “Virtually Unreported: CCW Holder Likely Prevented Larger Clackamas Mall Death Toll.” And it’s true that Meli’s story was absent from liberal discussions on MSNBC.
Lt. James Rhodes, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said investigators studied Meli’s actions on Dec. 11, but drew no conclusions about how they affected the outome. He said mall surveillance videos showed Meli for only a few seconds and did document when Meli drew his gun.
“Out of all the interviews we conducted, there is nothing that would make me corroborate or deny that he did anything,” Rhodes said. “We have no information that the suspect’s — Roberts’ — actions were ever influenced by anything Mr. Meli did. But I also can’t deny it.”
Clackamas Town Center shooting
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s office provided this timeline of events.
Continuing coverage of the Dec. 11, 2012 shooting at Clackamas Town Center that left three people dead.
Although Clackamas Town Center rules forbid firearms, carrying a weapon into the mall is not illegal, as long as the handgun owner has a concealed weapons permit. Given that an estimated 7,000 shoppers packed the mall that day, odds say about 280 of them – 4 percent – had concealed handgun licenses.
Meli did not respond Thursday to a request for an interview.
Meanwhile, Meli’s story appears to have slightly changed over time, a process that psychologists say may be unintentional.
According to police reports, Meli’s first contact with deputies took place as the search for Roberts was still unfolding inside Town Center. Responding sheriff’s deputies saw he had pulled out his Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and was taking cover in Morgan Jewelers. After identifying himself as a security guard, he gave police information about the shooter. At that time, police reports indicate, he mentioned no confrontation with Roberts — armed or otherwise.
On Dec. 12, Meli told police he had taken a position behind a pillar near Morgan Jewelers and saw Roberts running past the Charlotte Russe clothing store. He said he then drew his gun, aimed at Roberts, but didn’t fire because, “I did not want to miss and then him start shooting again.” He also said he was afraid of hitting bystanders in Charlotte Russe. Roberts rifle jammed at about the same time.
The following day, Meli twice gave police the same account, but added that Roberts looked at him and saw that he was in Meli’s sights before running off — a new twist on earlier versions.
On Dec. 17, Meli was interviewed by a KGW-Channel 8 television reporter, providing a richer account. “I’m not beating myself up for not shooting him. But I know that after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself.” He described himself as a former Town Center security guard who hoped to become a police officer.
Meli did not explicitly take credit for stopping Roberts, but as the story was repeated, others did.
Meli repeated a truncated version of the story later that same day to The Oregonian, which posted two articles on the OregonLive website. In both, it was noted that Meli cut the interview short.
From all of the interviews, a thin composite of Meli emerges.
He is a security guard, licensed by the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training since 2010. In June 2012, he completed the additional 24 hours of training needed to be certified as an armed professional, including passing tests on shooting, safe gun handling, criminal law and laws applying to use of force.
Since 2010, Meli has worked for four security companies: Securitas USA/Eugene, Global Security Concepts, Valor Security Service and Oregon Patrol Service. Oregon DPSST officials said Thursday that records indicate he no longer is employed as a security guard.
Matt Lattal, associate professor in the Oregon Health & Sciences University’s Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, declined to comment specifically on Meli’s story. However, he said memory of events can become a moving target when people recall the same memories again and again.
“The most accurate recollection of an event is right after it occurs,” Lattal said. “Any time you reactivate a memory, that makes it vulnerable to change. You can add things to it or take things from it.”
Lattal said the editing process takes place more often when people recall emotionally charge events.
“It’s not the fault of the person,” Lattal said. “They’re totally confident that their memory is what happened. From their perspective, it’s right, though other witnesses may disagree.”
> Gun laws will NEVER stop crime OR the criminals from getting them. <
Correct. Just as Prohibition in the 1920s did not stop anyone who wanted alcohol from getting it. The law-abiding had no whiskey The lawbreakers had plenty of whiskey.
So there is a lesson of history to guide us. That lesson is completely ignored by the left.
Post of the day ;-)
Criminals and others like Democrats don’t care about laws made by the “little people” — and, I am not talking about dwarves.
We don’t have a gun problem; we have a behavior problem.
Exactly! Failure to safe guard your gun, failure to be involved in what your children are doing. I know you can only do so much with the children but many parents cant face their children’s issues and avoid it. Intuition tells you what you need to do to safeguard them you and everyone else
Do tell....
Muh …..ADHD
Well, yeah, but I meant the behavior problem of wanting to shoot and kill innocent people for no good reason.
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