Only for extremely poor definitions of “more effective”.
We can state definitively that arming teachers would cause more deaths and gunshot wounds in classrooms overall.
So, whatever your definition of “more effective” is, it clearly is not that less kids get shot in school.
The SRO failed to stop him at the door. Two different cops failed to stop while he was still outside of the classroom. I’m not going to pore over everything I’ve read about this to find the quote, but the officers in charge clearly stated that they directed him down a hallway (with gunfire? Wasn’t clear) that led to two adjoining rooms. The shooter then entered one room and locked himself in. At least three different local and Federal agencies then apparently hunkered down and came up with a “plan” while gunshots were heard from outside the school (as evidenced by the videos).
I’m not sure what your point is, but there were at least three points of failure before he even came into contact with a child or teacher. Hell, he attempted to murder two people before he even entered school property, so it’s not like it was unclear that the guy holding a rifle was a threat. This catastrophe was an utter failure of all LEOs involved. I’m not feeling too goddamn generous with my language today. Their tactics failed. They pushed him further into the school either by inaction or direct action or both. Kettling.
Correct, “more effective at stopping shooters” not “more effective at preventing shooting deaths”.
You completely misunderstand (or deliberately misinterpret) the good guy with a gun argument. That was never meant to mean police. How would it even make sense for people to argue more citizens should be allowed to carry in more public places to help prevent this type scenario if all the while they were talking about police? It doesn’t. Good guy with a gun means regular citizens, who are already right there at the scene being able to take immediate action to contain or reduce the threat from a shooter. You are correct in that many police agencies have way too much military equipment. But wrong about having one job. The courts have ruled more than once that police are under no obligation to protect you from harm. So they felt no urgency going in because they’re not paid to do so.
We’re on the same page here. My point is that, at least to my understanding of events, they didn’t contain him in a classroom. He went to a classroom, which is where a shooter wants to be, and they stayed outside. It’s not containment if he’s in a room with victims. Containment would be getting him isolated somewhere that he couldn’t kill anyone else. I fully agree that this is a complete failure on the part of LEO.
Which is a bullshit scenario that almost NEVER happens.
Right wingers need to stop living in a dream world and join us in reality so we can FIX our collective problems which are threatening ALL LIFE ON EARTH.
Because they are cowards who would see nearly 20 kids dead than actually protect the public.
At the risk of putting words into @gracchus’s mouth, I think what they were trying to get at is: if the professional good guys with guns that we already have are incapable of stopping a shooter, it seems highly unlikely that amateur good guys with guns (even in larger numbers) would do a better job.
At least, that was my reading of the comment.
I note that we require soldiers to go into combat in the face of artillery, tanks, aircraft, and anything else the enemy wants to throw at them, while armed with not much more than an AR-15 and paid less than the average cop. They face severe discipline if they refuse.
That’s exactly what it means. It should be their job. It should be their responsibility. They say it’s their job when they want to shield themselves from criticism. But we’ve established a legal and training framework that emphasizes that it’s not their job, and that’s part of the fucking problem.
Where was the excessive and extreme force we see in traffic stops and minor crimes? Cops shoot and kill people, mostly non-white, all the fucking time for petty crimes or not following orders or being brown or Black. Here we are with a situation that actually requires deadly force and instead we have murdered children and teachers. Why? Because those cops are cowards and they stopped the parents trying to help.
They need their licenses revoked, permanently. They should be charged with negligent manslaughter. I hope every single one never sleeps a peaceful night for the rest of their lives.
I disagree that a weapon that can easily penetrate walls is a “really great weapon” in the context of a school building. Los Angeles cops just killed a girl in a store dressing room when a bullet penetrated the wall. And schools tend to have more kids behind wall than a clothing store does.
Also, what do you even mean by “from a safe range” when the shooter was armed with the same type of weapon??
LEOs, especially those of a more ammosexual bent, also portray themselves as “good guys with guns”. As with random yahoos who call themselves that, it’s a bogus construction in the face of firearms violence in the U.S.
Correct-amundo.
It’s horrible and stupid but in the US the cops really don’t have a legal duty to protect. (In some other countries they do.)
They should have a moral duty. They should want to save children. But they are not required to. And that is the biggest piece of BS.
So here we are in a world with Health care workers required to expose themselves to more risks than police…
Yet republicans claim more police will somehow stop mass shootings.
They are older articles, but this is what I know. I would be overjoyed to hear I am wrong.
Yikes. Well then, that certainly doesn’t sound like a situation that would be made worse by a more direct and immediate intervention. So I take it back. (Mostly, anyway; I still think allowing parents into the fray would likely have resulted in more dead bodies, not fewer).
Yes. We have well established that. I don’t need to be told that again in these threads on this topic.
The argument we’re making isn’t about what’s legal, it’s about WHAT IS RIGHT. I’m sick of people hiding behind the law to justify their lack of action or their violent reactions. Sick of it.
This. Fucking THIS. They had guns. They were trained to shoot them. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t have a constitutional duty. They took the job, they took the oath, they cosplay heros. those cops had a duty to get their bodies and lives between the shooter and that school
To be a fucking pedant, that’s not how many kids they traded to keep themselves safe - that’s how many actually died.
They risked an entire fucking elementary school to protect their own asses.
I’m listening to a Texas Ranger give a cursory timeline. He is saying that here was 14 minutes of gunfire before the shooter went into a classroom that had an open door. Let me add that there is NO WAY that a teacher would leave their door open if they heard gunfire. Something is completely off with their timeline, and it appears that they know this.
[I was a teacher who was involved in a lock down situation. My teenagers heard what they thought was gunfire from about 1/4 mile away. A cop who was nearby and heard the noise called the school and requested a lock down within 60 secs. Every door on our campus was immediately CLOSED and LOCKED, and I heard later from teachers whose rooms were located closer to the noise that they locked up before the announcement went out.]
Me too.
It’s disgusting that legally obligated minimum is the standard of service.
Are those officers among the dead?
Because to me, if they’re not dead they didn’t “fail” to stop him, they gave up.
I cannot imagine how those parents are dealing with their loss. Even reading the news stories makes me want to keep my kids close and never out of sight. The despair and rage I would feel towards an officer that “failed” to stop when given the chance would be more than I could handle.
