From IveGot AnIdea
What would have prevented the Newtown tragedy?
If Omar Thornton had received a security detail while still in the distribution complex, he would still have been able to fight his way back in and kill as many people that he considered “racists” as he did, most likely. If he had received a mental health assessment during his exit interview (his firing), it might have become apparent that he had some sort of plan on his mind and the police could have been called to analyze the situation before letting him go, possibly taking him into custody and eventually a program. He probably would have still felt the same anger and betrayal and he would have found a way to fight his way in to commit the mass murder that he did.
Almost every case of mass-murder that’s happened recently has been done with legal weapons, and the recent restrictions to something like a Bushmaster would only have forced the murderer to come prepared with more clips for a slightly different, legal semi-automatic rifle. Maybe that would have given him an intellectual advantage and more would have been killed. Even if he had been receiving mental health treatment (does anyone know if he was even being treated?), he might still have done what he did, or worse. He had been training alongside his mother, learning to shoot all the weapons she owned and he was given complete access to those legal weapons.
The only thing that could have prevented the Newtown tragedy would have been if the school had been locked down like a military fortress or a prison, minus the guard towers of course, since there’s no danger in allowing the children or teachers to escape.
I say why not? Just one life saved is worth the cost of making each and every school (and every other building that’s available for use by the general public) as safe as a prison: metal detectors, security cameras, bullet-proof glass, entry and exit guards and checkpoints, the works.
Limiting gun ownership and even the types of weapons won’t prevent anything (but we must still prevent the general public from owning weapons of war), but reinforcing security, forcing visitors, customers, and clients of schools, hospitals, stores, banks, malls, post offices, dental clinics, whatever, to go through metal detectors and state-of-mind assessments – those measures will prevent mass-killings from happening inside those buildings. We already do this for airlines, why not also do it for the buildings that everyone uses?
Do you need you and your children to have that “life is beautiful” feeling that comes from a relaxed, unsafe environment, or would you rather you all continued living? Living, that is, with an added feeling of safety.
You want a jobs program, something that will demand the required employment and resources at a level equal to the US military-corporation? Let’s try making people who go out in public places, including ourselves, our public employees, and our own children, safe, for once in all of our lives! We can still paint flowers on the walls, but they will be bullet-proof walls, very beautiful and safe bullet-proof walls.
God knows it’s money better-spent than hunting and killing “terrorists” on their own soil, thousands of miles away. God knows it would be one thousand times cheaper!
Didn’t local towns and sheriffs actually do this in the Old West when they were having too many gunfights in the streets and too many mass-killings in the saloons? No, that would have been seen as gun-restrictions. Geez, I guess you’d have to take a person’s firearm when they entered any public place. That would defeat the whole purpose of owning a firearm.
Nevermind.
Hey it’s pretty ironic though that the 2nd amendment was created in order to keep our fighting force prepared with what used to be their version of the modern weapon of war: the musket … and NOW we’d all have to own machine-guns, RPGs, tanks, fighter jets, flame-throwers, and a few nukes here and there! Guess the amenders didn’t see all that coming…or did they?
I think I could own and maintain a fighter jet pretty responsibly. It would have to be a Harrier though (no runway…YET!)
I thought I’d repost this since I posted it in another thread and they’re not really related, so if you feel like you’ve read it already, you have!
Not that I’m “opposed” to trying to prevent school shootings, but I really have a hard time envisioning WPS or WA as a “prison-school.” I appreciated the openness and freedom there.
Creating an environment with locks and cameras bars and guards and guns and metal detectors and all that crap would, for me, create a tense environment of mistrust and make things feel overly-complicated in general (there’s enough complication with, well, everything already). We’re already hypersensitive about airline/border control security to the point that, from what I hear, it’s a PITA to go anywhere, and God forbid you go through the special machine or get the special interrogation in the airport.
We are a fearful society. The more we try to prevent bad things, the more worried about them we’ll get, and the more new ways for a tragedy to occur will get figured out. If a murderer can’t get to people in a public place, it’ll be your home next, for example. And what if some of those security measures fail? For example, what if one of those security guards with a gun is having a bad day — isn’t the great person they seem to be after all? Then how anxious will you be about everything else failing?
Might as well just eliminate recess, school buses, and more, because they’re targets for tragedies.
In fact, you’re a target as you’re sitting here reading this. Somebody could be looking at you now waiting to shoot you and rob your house (or wherever you happen to be). There could be an atom bomb on its way down.
And what will all these wonderful security measures in schools due for parents who must get their children from school? If it’s an emergency? Think about delivery people, UPS, Fedex, food service, etc. and all the grief it would cause them.
Not to mention issues with alumni visiting the school. Even before Newtown, Woodstock Academy had strengthened its security on visiting alumni, and the alumni that I’ve heard about visiting feel the process of visiting is overcomplicated and they just don’t feel welcome.
Here’s a question for some food for thought: Can you have security and friendliness/a feeling of welcome simultaneously? Prisons — no. Government buildings — no. Airports — no. Banks — no. Corporations — no. I doubt you want to be in any of these places, and making a school, for crying out loud, like that just wouldn’t be psychologically healthy from my perspective.
I think some worthy security measures to take are:
- Security cameras everywhere
- Staff personnel near each entrance of the building (but keep the freaking doors unlocked… I couldn’t stand locked doors at WA, and if someone REALLY wanted to get in the building, they could join the crowd during the between-blocks rush or get buzzed in pretending to be doing something legitimate, so why bother)
- Some sort of metal barrier that would be lowered in the hallways to contain a perpetrator in a time of crisis. This barrier could also be used to prevent fires/smoke from spreading. I think WMS already has something like this — those metal frames in the halls with indentations in the floors.
- An increased amount of lockdown drills and other training of students as to how to respond during a crisis and how to identify something out of place and what to do about it
As an aside, I really think there should be fire drills during unusual times. For example, if the alarm were to sound in the 6 minutes there are between classes, what would happen? Or immediately before or after school hours? Or during a lunch block? Or during an assembly? I’d love to sound the alarm and watch the chaos ensue on the common at WA — it would be quite a source of entertainment, I’m sure. The problem with current fire drills is that they occur during ideal times — non-lunch, non-assembly, they’re always planned, the class and teacher are together, etc. A problem I have with WA specifically is that it has no obvious codename for a lockdown. For example, I remember Mr. Gamache coming on the intercom at WMS and informing us that if we heard “Mr. Strong, please report the office,” the school was to go into lockdown. There’s nothing like that at WA. Are they supposed to get on the intercom while someone’s running around getting ready to shoot people and say “There’s an intruder in the school and we’re going into lockdown”?
WA does have a code or atleast they did. They didnt tell everyone what it was as to not set people in a panic but all the teachers and staff would know that someone unwanted was in one of the buildings.
Funny how they trust middle schoolers to not panic but not high schoolers.
Mental Health Issues: Kind of obliquely related to the mental health issues and constitutional restraints, in no particular order:
‘Prior Restraint’ has always been strictly prohibited by Constitutional jurisprudence – like that silly movie with Tom Cruise (forgot the name) where real mind readers tell the future with certainty and cops arrest the perps for crimes they WILL commit. In reality, however, how can anyone be so absolutely sure a crime will be committed that arrest and detainment satisfies Due Process, one of the most important aspects of Constitutional protection of American Citizens from the Government taking their very lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
In addition, were it widely known that any disclosure to mental health professionals would most likely be disclosed and a) at the least used in ways they would otherwise never consent to and b) more importantly, that they knew that such information would be definitely used against them to thwart their sick, psychotic plans of murder.
In any event, patients with serious mental health problems, it seems to me, would undergo a ‘chilling effect’ on what they disclose, in what manner and ultimately fail to truly speak freely – a true necessity in these sessions. The very purpose is for them to open up with full candor, honesty and openness. What effect if they, in the back of their mind, feel as though ‘what they say may be used against them’ or at least arise suspicion and put them on some ‘list’ or database.
Why are strict standards of true journalism not fully applied to the Gun Debate?
It is quite important, as with any debate, that we all understand as much as possible not only what and how they are thinking, processing information; how they view those who disagree with them AND knowing and learning about Guns, Ballistics, etc. themselves so they can discuss intelligently all aspects of Gun Culture and the wide diversity found within it – they are absolutely not the same; they are not monochromatic by any means and they are as different and varied in their thinking and beliefs as any group of Americans.
One example: unrelated and a little known fact in CT – as part of the qualifying questionnaire for obtaining a Concealed Carry Permit is whether you are subject to a restraining order or the like. This is obviously proper, as restraining orders are used as protection against Stalkers and the like, but when you hang around Gun Stores (which, BTW, is a terrific way of listening in on the kind of conversations and mindsets of some truly extremist ‘Wayne LaPierre’ types – offering some interesting insights, often in the form of sharp sarcasm and anti-Government and especially anti-tax sentiment.
Anyway, overhearing such conversations I have heard several times how one customer or another complaining that their ex-wife ‘on advice of their lawyer’ will 1st freeze assets, stay in their house and obtain a restraining order, thus giving them a huge advantage of having all the money, the house AND (for some reason this is what these macho guys tend to focus on equally) by obtaining that restraining order, they prevent these guys from having any legal access to their own guns.
I mention it because I think it’s important to understand as much as possible about possible about the groups and individuals who are so often misunderstood, simplified as ‘gun nuts’ and extremist, when most often they are regular citizens who have this ‘First Order Belief’ about guns and the 2nd Amendment (which they so often learn about from the most biased and self-derving sources who fail purposely to discuss all of the Case Law not in their favor or which challenges their previous learnings and beliefs.
One simple example: A ‘Magazine’ is that which holds the rounds prior to them entering the chamber to be fired – they are NOT ‘clips’ and the kind of mistaken nomenclature that occurs over and over by otherwise good journalists who fail to properly research the subject, the terminology and all aspects they would normally both research extensively.
Right, Con! Adam Lanza would have come prepared with more MAGAZINES, even if they were of limited capacity, under new gun legislation … he could still have murdered as many or more. Don’t fix the wrong problem. Don’t horse around with gun laws when the real problem is security. EVEN WITH NEW LAWS THAT PROHIBIT “ASSAULT WEAPONS”, LANZA’S ACTIONS WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALTERED – the weapon might have been slightly different, but just as deadly, just as available to him, and just as legal. IT WAS COMPLETELY LEGAL FOR HIM TO HAVE ACCESS TO THOSE LEGALLY-REGISTERED WEAPONS AND IT STILL WILL BE EVEN AFTER ANY WEAPONS BAN OR MENTAL HEALTH-CHECK LEGISLATION IN THE WORKS!
Where are Lanza’s mental health records? MAYBE he would be restricted under new or existing legislation that prohibits gun-ownership by those with mental health issues, but MAYBE he would not have been seen as someone who needed to be restricted from gun use due to whatever mental health issues he may or may not have had. He was apparently a pretty good student in high school, not as social as some, but not obviously mentally ill in any way.
It’s time to cough up the dough or stay home. There must be a federally-funded program to standardize the safety in all of our public buildings and spaces that are open to the public in order to make everyone safe from violence, especially gun violence carried out by those with legally-owned weapons or illegally-owned weapons. Whatever it takes: should we be more concerned with spending TRILLIONS killing POTENTIAL terrorists thousands of miles away or with spending BILLIONS protecting ourselves, our friends and our family members, RIGHT HERE IN THE USA? It’s a no-brainer.
The key to the gun measure debate is recognizing that, at best, they are each meant to have a small effect making it harder for the shooter. … (see Con’s new article. Admin).
Re: #6
“Adam Lanza would have come prepared with more MAGAZINES, even if they were of limited capacity, under new gun legislation … he could still have murdered as many or more.” Hyperbole. Murdered MORE? Not likely
Magazines have weight. One 100 round mag weighs less than five 20 round mags so pound for pound, a soldier can carry more ammo with a bigger mag. Also, every time you run out of bullets, you have to change mags. An expert, used to reloading under pressure, can do that in about 3 seconds. Even so, that cuts down on the number of rounds he can fire per minute. It would take you and me more like 10 seconds to swap mags. With five 20 round mags, we would spend almost a full minute reloading, time we could have better spent firing bullets into people if we had a 100 round mag.
Your armed guard solution is called “whack-a-mole.” Whack down one security problem (airports) and up pops another (schools). Spend billions (or trillions) on guards for schools and government buildings and up pops a grocery store slaughter. Armed guards in every store and up pops a semi-automatic at a high school football game, then a Saturday Little League game, then on a public beach. There is no end to the places “open to the public” where we will need armed guards “in order to make everyone safe from violence.”
And when we FINALLY have every public venue guarded with armed guards, where will our freedom have gone? I’ve seen pictures of cities in Middle-Eastern countries, armed “soldiers” everywhere. THAT is part of the vision of Al-Qaeda, et al, that we arrogant Americans will no longer be the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” We will be prisoners of our own making.
What’s so bad about having every public-access building just as protected from gun violence as every federal building? It might LOOK militaristic, but at least our children would know we care more about them than about how much it costs or how harsh it looks to protect them (damn you, ancestors, you didn’t even TRY to protect us).
If our society maintains the right to keep and bare arms, then our society must do everything it can to maintain public safety, at least to the same degree that federal employees are protected.
YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS, STINGY PATRIOT. EITHER COUGH UP THE GUNS, OR COUGH UP THE MONEY TO PROTECT EVERYONE AGAINST THE GUNS.