Therefore a murderer with a gun is much more concerning than a murderer with a less effective weapon.
So, what proportion of school massacres have not involved firearms?
As a point of information, the Columbine killers intended to use explosives to kill hundreds of their fellow students, but this proved much more difficult than they had anticipated (most of their bombs failed to explode and those that did explode were less effective than they hoped). Unfortunately for their fellow students, Harris and Klebold had access to more convenient and foolproof killing devices.
The only other mass school killing not involving firearms that I’m aware of took place about 95 years ago in Bath Michigan
You know, it’s entirely possible that if the school hadn’t called him in, if he hadn’t gone through an emotionally wrenching scene with his parents and school officials, if his parents hadn’t refused to acknowledge his problems, this wouldn’t have happened. I bet 100 kids bring a gun contemplating a school shooting for every one that does it. Hell, he could’ve had the gun in his bag for days.
I don’t know what the answer to that quandary is. But one of the reason school officials tread lightly is that sometimes pushing can also have consequences. Having a hurting, angry kid bring you their bag and searching it is a pretty awful thing to do. It’s humiliating, it shows how utterly they don’t trust you, it shows they think you are a monster, or could be. It pretty much closes the door on any positive path forward.
Now, obviously, in this case, a search would have saved 4 lives, and untold suffering. But knowing what they apparently knew, and no more, I think it would have seemed like an unwarranted escalation. I would have
Does this mean we can put you down for a there is no limit to the amount of blood to be spilled in service to gun ownership?
Since you ask, Congressman Thomas Massie, the sort of lawmaker who has the power to make the kinds of legislative changes needed, provides the answer to your question. Note that I am definitely not interested in started a futile gun debate digression, but this is just such a perfect answer to your question that I had to post it.
Just days after this shooting, the good Congressman tweeted Christmas greetings from the whole family, with the picture below, and the legend “Merry Christmas” and “PS- Santa, please bring ammo”:
CNN article at the link below. The article also includes a response to Rep. Massie from someone who lost a child in the Parkland school shooting. Massie has justifiably been getting a lot of flak for this gross stupidity, but this is the nature of the gun culture.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/05/us/thomas-massie-kentucky-representative-guns-family-photo/index.html
The 4th amendment applies in schools too (See New Jersey v. T.L.O.).
From that case:
The Court held that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not limited solely to the actions of law enforcement personnel. It also applies to the conduct of public school officials. Public school teachers act as agents of the state, and not merely agents of the students’ parents. Thus, the Fourth Amendment applies to their actions.
The Court also held that students have some legitimate expectation of privacy at school. However, the students’ expectation of privacy must be balanced against the needs of school authorities to maintain an educational environment. As such, school authorities do not need to obtain a warrant or have probable cause that a crime occurred before searching a student. Rather, the reasonableness of a search, under all circumstances, will determine its legality.
The Court established the following test to determine the reasonableness of a search: whether the search was 1) justified at its inception and 2) as the search was conducted, was it reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the interference in the first place.
So, was there enough justification in this case to search the student’s backpack? I do not know. It is clear searching the backpack is just not something they do on a whim. In the future, I expect searching backpacks and lockers will become more common. 4th amendment loses to 2nd amendment.
Who cares? THIS conversation is about a school shooting, not a school stabbing or school bombing, etc.
I can accept that many Americans hold the view that the right to use guns for the law-abiding purposes of hunting and self defense is sufficiently important that it outweighs the consequent risks in a society with minimal restrictions on gun ownership. Although I don’t agree with it, that’s a reasoned and coherent viewpoint. One of its premises is obviously that firearms are the tool specifically designed for the purpose of killing efficiently - if gun ownership is restricted, you can’t hunt elk or defend your home with a pair of scissors.
What makes no sense whatsoever is to simultaneously try to argue that there’s nothing special about firearms that deserves consideration, that special regulations for firearms have no merit because other everyday objects can be dangerous too, or because criminals or disturbed teenagers could use other means to kill.
If some kind of “common sense” qualification were required for safe gun ownership, the first people who would be prohibited from owning guns would surely be those who claim to see no conceptual difference between firearms that are specifically designed for efficient killing, and potential improvised weapons (or swimming pools).
Do we know that the gun was hidden in his backpack when he went to the bathroom to arm himself?
Where else would it have been? Do you think he stashed it in the bathroom beforehand?
Just to reiterate: re lockers. Very few schools have lockers anymore, except gym lockers. Those that do have them search them regularly, whether the students like it or not. Courts have held repeatedly that lockers are the property of the school and the students using them have “no reasonable expectation of privacy.”
I didn’t know that - thanks.
Duh. Duct-taped behind the toilet of course.
I’m sure they intersect somewhere near
is that your no 2 or are you ex sig sauer to see me.?
Right still no one got up in arms about taking the next step to check the potential for his weapon concealment. Because they thought he didn’t have one? Why’d they assume that? given the high casualty risk posed by firearms?
Check or separate, why push back on that simple procedure?
Did you miss that the student has 4th amendment rights and the teachers work for the government?
As mentioned in an earlier linked article the staff noted he had no prior problems (including violence) so let him go back to class.
Do you think he couldn’t have, especially if he had a little advance notice that his parents were coming in for a conference? Push one of the little ceiling squares aside, stash the gun, put the square back-that is just one easy way to hide it, and I’m sure there are a few others that would be obvious once the bathroom layout was known.
Did you miss that 4th Amendment rights don’t apply when school officials have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or might be committed?
That’s not completely accurate. The school very much wanted to send him home pending further assessment by a professional counselor. The parents flatly refused to take him. It also appears that they indicated (rightly or wrongly) that they were both working and so no one would be home. The school was caught in a tough bind, and made what ultimately turned out to be a fatal decision, which they’re now justifying in what appears to be a major attempt at ass-covering by the school superintendent. His letter, which I read in its entirely, is mainly focused on how incredibly appropriately everyone acted. He’s also promised an “independent” investigation into all the circumstances anyway. How independent and objective this will be remains to be seen.
School officials could have (arguably) searched his backback and his phone; they could have (indisputably) checked social media where both the kid and Mom had made many posts that were clear danger signs. They did none of those things. Dozens of schools are now closed in several different school districts in the area because of copycat threats. The threats are almost certainly not credible but entire schools are being closed due to “an abundance of caution”. What happened to “abundance of caution” being exercised in this situation, before it was too late?
Exactly. Schools are always dealing with the problem of doing too little or too much. Do too much and they face hordes of angry parents complaining about overly strict, extreme, bright-line, zero-tolerance rules. But then, if something does happen, someone out there will accuse them of having done too little.
School administrators and teachers are asked to do way too much already. Really, their job is education. We have piled on a bunch of other stuff too, like physical health, nutrition, mental health, etc., often without providing the expertise, and definitely not providing the resources. Now, people also ask them to be the front line in law enforcement.
And then, of course, when schools do implement zero-tolerance policies, very often they are inequitably applied, to affect black children, for example, in the most harsh manner.
School administrators and teachers can’t be held responsible for problems that are actually the responsibility of the entire society to address.