Within the past hour, I heard on “All Things Considered” that the father, who was in the parking lot (not sure why) saw the shooter wrestling with a teacher, and carefully aimed and took him down.
I just can’t imagine how traumatized everyone who witnessed this was as well, even though IMNSHO he did the right thing.
I’ve always heard that most police officers never draw, let alone use, their guns, and when they do, it’s usually to shoot an injured animal.
Or for that matter, Dane County, Wisconsin, or Johnson County, Iowa.
Agree with most of what has been said here. A better way to characterize what he did would be a “necessary evil”. To bear the burden of not being able to prevent any of the murders from happening (I’m sure the guy is agonizing over acting quicker) and then having to be put in the split second occurrence where there was no way to help a messed up teenager and he had to resort to “putting him down” for a lack of a better term, is a heavy mental load to bear. To have others then herald you as a “hero” just might not feel right.
I think you win the thread.
He did an inherently bad thing to prevent inherently worse things.
The hero worship sweeps all the bad away. His, and more importantly, the shooter’s.
And much more perniciously, it normalizes that 16yos shooting up schools is like the rain. Something normal that happens often that we must just accept since we cannot possibly influence it much less control it.
Which attitude is monstrously evil and carries the blood of every mass shooting victim of the past and future on its hands.
Again, thanks, particularly to Hampshire for the phrase “necessary evil.” I think I can calibrate my reactions much better now. I think what’s lacking in the press is a sort of solemnity in assessing what the father did to kill the shooter, and while I’m okay with gratitude and respect towards him, some of the laudatory comments don’t seem to get the balance right.
Hearing that a teacher was already wrestling with the teen shooter and that the good guy with the gun had time to carefully aim and shoot changes things up a bit for me.
Making the assumption that he was using a hand gun, I have to wonder how far away he was, and whether physical intervention might have been a realistic option - again lots of ifs and buts, however could he have helped the teacher to subdue the boy without shooting?
Maybe he could have helped the teacher subdue the boy but what difference does that make? That another avenue to end the conflict was theoretically possible doesn’t mean the level of force used was unwarranted.
Running after a crazed gunman and ending his rampage with a pistol is heroic - but charging at said gunman armed with only a cell phone is even braver.
My former employer had annual active shooter training and the catchphrase was Run, Hide, Fight. The lesson about fighting included throwing stuff at the shooter; whatever works to slow them down or, ideally, stop them. The teacher with the cell phone may have had similar training.
BTW, it saddens me that schools around the country have active shooter training, even for the youngest children.
Maybe - or maybe trying would have gotten the teacher and then the dad blown away in rapid succession as the gunman was able to train his shotgun on the teacher. There’s really no way to know, and if celebrating the dad’s actions is in poor taste, then Monday Morning Quarterbacking his actions is in even worse taste.
For me, it makes a world of difference - and I think is likely what has prompted the related thread.
Did the boy have to be shot? Was it really the only option?
While I’m sure there are strong arguments that can be made that he “deserved” it or that shooting was the appropriate response, shouldn’t the preservation of life (where possible and reasonable) always be the first goal?
So we’re not allowed to question? Not allowed to examine whether there might have been another way?
At the end of the day, the father did what was necessary, but in terms of the public discourse I think this is an important discussion that needs to be had.
Anyway - this is probably straying too close to making this a gun debate…
Thank you for being mindful @bengangmo.
Mine still does; you can get a passing grade despite giving a number of incorrect answers, and I invariably make a point of giving incorrect answers.
Children were already dead. This is no different than putting down a rabid animal.
It was a .40 cal handgun. The other guy was blasting away with a .12 ga. pump. It’s a miracle that only four were killed, considering how many rounds he had fired before being killed himself. He had another 40+ rounds with him, so this could have been so much worse.
Suppose the Dad had been a police officer. It would go through the protocol of an officer involved shooting. Maybe it will turn out that the early press reports were correct. If so, the shooting was justified.
Your judgment is probably correct. But I think there has been a rush to judgment here, although I am not sure. Was the father’s weapon taken for analysis?
By the way, if the shooter had killed what they though was a rabid animal, there might be even more reason to investigate before concluding that the shooting was justified, especially if the animal was a pet. At least in the U.S., rabid animals are rare.
What do you suggest? Do a football style tackle of him?
It is utterly different. Rabid animals are not human. Murderers still are, and they don’t forfeit their humanity because of their crimes. More to the point, we shouldn’t be so willing to forfeit ours. Further, describing him as a rabid animal seems to take any responsibility away from him, and I’m not willing to do that either. He was a minor, and that means a great deal to me in terms of whether he could have been rehabilitated, but he was also responsible for what he did.
I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it happen
IF as mentioned above, there was already someone grappling with him, that would be a maybe?
Is it something that the dad could have done? Is it something that would have worked?
This, where I am, would be the role of the coroner to look at -
NOT in the interests of seeing if the father needed to face any sort of charges (he shouldn’t) but instead in the interests of learning from what happened, and if this is something that comes up in the future then the outcome might be different? (better?)