That explains a lot!
It was years ago, and I can’t find it, but I was told by a gun advocate on these boards that if I were to see people walking into a school with guns slung on their back, I should mind my own business. Calling the police on them would be a form of harassment.
Jesus Christ, the big, tough, police officers couldn’t use the keys themselves? They had to get someone else to unlock the fucking door?
Thanks, that’s some impressive search-fu you got going on. I spent a bit of time at it and gave up.
It’s my one superpower, so I try to help out when somebody’s looking for a past thread.
The solution is to define the open display of a weapon as a provocation. Ramos should have been shot on sight because he presented a danger to the school. The persons you list would be perfectly safe if the weapons they carried were cased for transport.
I feel like I’ve woken up in “Onion World”.
What the fuck question is that? I’d be glad that the deranged principal who thought bringing his hunting rifle to school was a good idea is no longer a threat to the children, and before he killed anyone.
The solution to what? To principals coming to work after visiting the firing range in the morning? It’s not a solution to mass murder because murderers can easily conceal their weapons. Or just walk in firing. There’s never anyone to stop them until long after they start shooting.
Maybe I’m missing something, as I was called to the thread late and haven’t read it all.
I’d like to point out that this poster is not a part of this conversation, and that the posts that @Kimstu so kindly managed to dig up are about 6 years old.
While I still disagree with the sentiment, I don’t know that it makes too much sense to argue points from that long ago. I just remember it as it sticks in my head as being utterly ridiculous.
ETA: I see that he has joined us now, so he can make a case if he so wishes.
Open display of a weapon is a provocation. Ramos should have been shot on sight. That would have prevented the incident.
A principal approaching a school with a rifle should be shot. Best to get him in the foot or thigh. No need to kill him.
Please. These people can put up with the trivial inconvenience of casing the weapon and keeping it in the car, or of returning home and locking it up, or just don’t go hunting on a school morning.
OTOH at the same time…
…not f$&#%ng helping. I mean, that statement is so ridiculous it’s obviously sarcasm but really…,
Well, no.
The ridiculous thing is the failure to acknowledge that the open display of a weapon is a provocation. Anyone carrying a weapon, that is not intended for immediate use, has the option of carrying it properly cased. Any weapon not cased is a threat.
In todays environment, openly carrying a weapon into a school is beyond “ridiculous”. Anyone doing so should expect to get shot.
So, no, it was not sarcasm.
There’s no shoot to wound. That’s the ridiculous part. Shoot to kill, or leave your gun away. Basic rule of gun safety.
Don’t ever fire on someone you aren’t prepared to kill. If you don’t think theor death wpupd be fully justified, don’t fire.
Not arguing your bigger point about whether to engage someone openly carrying a weapon.
However, here, I think he had already fired his weapon at several people (ie, attempted murder) before entering the school. He could have been shot on site prior to entering the school. Per NPR/witness, “[shooter] crashed his truck into a ditch outside the school, grabbed his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and shot at two people outside a nearby funeral home who ran away uninjured.” (and had shot his grandmother - but it’s not clear if anyone would/could have known that).
After that is when shooter is engaged by law enforcement and exchanged gunfire outside the school. They could not stop him and he entered the school.
This may end up being not accurate or is certainly incomplete. However, it appears even police in some capacity (either responding or already onsite), prior to the shooter being inside the school, were not able to stop the shooter and prevent the massacre.
That’s the rules of engagement problem. If it’s only shoot to kill, the guard will hesitate, with disastrous results.
I hope we get the details of the encounter.
Shooting “to wound” is both more difficult and dangerous than it sounds.
“I missed the first three rounds, since I was shooting at his leg rather than center mass, but then he bled out due to his femoral artery being severed anyway.”
It would certainly prevent some mass murders. The instant you see a firearm in any gun-free zone, take out the carrier.
Whether such a policy would actually result in a net saving of lives overall is highly debatable, of course. But I don’t think it should be dismissed just on the flimsy grounds that it might inconvenience the occasional school principal who needs to bring her rifle to the office on a day when she’s taking an after-school hunting trip.
For one thing, it seems pretty obvious that the principal ought to be carrying her gun in a secured case if she’s bringing it onto school grounds, and also that she should notify the school security guards in advance that she’ll be doing so, so they won’t have to worry about any potential nefarious intentions.
But ISTM that the days of blithely taking for granted that someone bringing a gun onto school property should be assumed by default to have no nefarious intentions are long over. Law-abiding gun owners (the vast majority) need to recognize that the widespread proliferation and abuse of guns among the suddenly-no-longer-law-abiding has eroded public trust about firearms carrying, and adjust their behavior accordingly.