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© 2019 AFPAmid plague of U.S. mass shootings, 'heroes' emerge
By Charlotte PLANTIVE WASHINGTON©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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© 2019 AFP
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NorwegianboyEE
I’m not going to sully the actions of these heroes, but isn’t it sad how people in the US can only look up to these few people rather than the lawmakers who have failed them? What’s better? To stop the problem at it’s roots to prevent it from ever happening, or needing to sacrifice yourself to save others from lunatics with easy access to dangerous tools.
stormcrow
Exactly, NowegianboyEE,
Shining heroes, psychotic shooters and the corrupt politicians who bury their heads in the sand and ignore the problem.
Thunderbird2
Americans know what to do, but they won't. The gun-owning public and the politicians won't allow it... and so you will have more schools coming under attack... more bars, offices, nigh clubs, cinemas... all because of a lump of metal that makes you feel good. Feel big and powerful.
Pathetic
wtfjapan
president said lives could have been saved if concert attendees at the Bataclan theater in Paris were armed during a 2015 jihadist attack that killed 90 people.
what about Las Vegas , where 50 plus people were killed by a fully automtic weapon. armed police couldnt even see where he was let alone shot back before he killed so many.
Thunderbird2
Yes, because you want to go out to a club armed like a SWAT member... if they'd worn body armour and helmets they'd have been protected because, you know, a terrorist could appear from anywhere. Be prepared, folks, carry your body armour and helmet at all times. Check your assault rifles and hand guns in at reception... whoops, sorry sonny, you can't take that bazooka in with you.
What a load of bollox. The answer is NOT to arm the general public - that only leads to armed insurgents packing more weapons to defend themselves against armed have-a-go heroes. You don't solve the problem by chucking more weapons into the mix.
Realization
Don't worry, USA trying to find another war soon, which will kill millions of civilians then you will forget this small issue.
Do the hustle
Since 1969 when records started to be kept there have been more people killed in the US through domestic gun violence than US servicemen killed in all the wars since and including WW1. Take a minute to let that sink in.
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
Enough is enough.
Take the guns first, due process second.
papigiulio
Hmm yes, risking their own lives for others. Heroes indeed. But we SHOULDN'T have to need heroes. We shouldn't have to have daily shootings in the first place.
Chip Star
Jimizo
Let’s see, a country with a significant number of religious nutters who think theocracy is a good idea with a track record of massacres, should allow guns to be easily available.
Anyone else see a problem with this thinking?
Peter14
Students and average citizens step up and become heroes. Some sacrifice their lives in the process of saving others. What America needs is for politicians to step up and become heroes by removing military style weapons from availability for civilian purchase in the US. No pistol of over 6 round capacity and .22 ammunition. No rifle over .22 with 5 round capacity with the exemption on rifles for hunters of large game. No semi auto shotguns.
All weapons stored in a locked weapon safe. Ammunition to be stored separately and securely.
The constitution allows the citizens to bear arms and they still could even with the restrictions on military weapons.
So far few US politicians have show a willingness to risk being voted out of office to save lives, let alone risk sacrificing their lives. It seems that risk is left to those on the spot when trouble happens. Shame on US politics.
CrazyJoe
Kendrick Castillo...thank you for your sacrifice and your bravery.
You gave your life so the others had a chance to escape. RIP, hero.
Chip Star
This is not accurate at all.
Patricia Yarrow
Why do not all the students in a classroom stand ready to throw all the chairs and desks at the shooter when he (always a "he") steps through the door? Has anyone thought of this obvious solution? Duck and cover is ludicrous and leads to people dead on the floor.
bass4funk
I agree. Allow the teachers to train and arm themselves if they so choose.
No, the guns are not the problem and neither is the 2nd amendment, but I do think we should build more mental facilities and NOT allow people that are more prone to have mental illnesses.
Joe Blow
Laws and law enforcement can only do so much. At the end of the day it's the character of the people themselves that needs to change.
Joe Blow
Depends on the state.
Goodlucktoyou
Legal shoot to kill.
Dawkins v. State (2011)
Kestrel
Its not the guns that are the problem, its the charracter of the shooters. In times past people abhorred cowardly behavior, killing defenseless people, killing women, childrem, unarmed men. This is what has changed.
Chip Star
Not for someone merely stepping in your lawn. Try again
Chip Star
Ridiculous. How many hours of firearms and active shooter training do police undertake? Yet they still make mistakes and kill innocent people.
1glenn
Meanwhile, the gun lobby keeps pushing the mantra that the best way to fight the flood of guns on our streets is to put more guns on the streets.
TheLongTermer
at this point the only 2 solutions are to hire armed security guards who are trained and authorized to use deadly force for every school, or take your kids out of school and home school them. The 2nd option is probably the best one, as the public system has run amuck with confused teachers and kids. Once people start over at the community level and instill real values, things will change for the better
bass4funk
No, makes perfect sense. Teachers get enough off time, especially in the public schools, all the time that is needed to pass a firearms test.
You could say that about hospitals as well.
Blacklabel
Great story about the heroes. But They sure stopped talking about the shooters really fast after their backgrounds were known.
Not too much either about the kids staging a walkout once the gun control politicians showed up to politicize their loss.
TheLongTermer
The should bring back corporal punishment in the schools, and arm all staff and conduct morning contingency drills. Have firearms training done during school hours, so any would be confused shooter knows what will happen if he gets a "plan"
Anonymous
It’s strange that safe spaces are not mentioned - REAL safe spaces where staff and students might actually shelter in emergencies if there are no obviously safe exit routes.
presto345
The real plague is not the shootings themselves but the impotence of a nation to deal with the underlying causes.
Anonymous
@NorwegianboyEE
What are “its roots”? I hope you don’t mean guns. Guns are the “How”, not the “Why”.
Anonymous
@Thunderbird2
Oh? You know? If you were a politician, would you be willing to stand up, announce the solution, enact it then answer reporters’ questions after the incident which your solution was supposed to prevent happens again?
Anonymous
@Jimizo
Yes, I do. Thank you for asking. How many of the religious “nutters” you mention are shooters? I think religious people are more likely to be victims in their churches, synagogues and mosques.
wtfjapan
but I do think we should build more mental facilities and NOT allow people that are more prone to have mental illnesses.
many of the gunmen over the years had no record of menatl illness when the obtained their gun licences, then one day they cracked and did what they did. What are they going to do , do mental health checks on every gun owner monthly, every person has a tipping point it virtually impossible to predict who'll be next.
Anonymous
@Kestrel
Interesting. Ethos of the past I fear.
Not only was killing the defenseless considered cowardly, but even killing an enemy was felt, felt not thought, an abomination. Read Dave Grossman’s intriguing study of combat infantrymen in “On Killing”. In WW2 a very, very small percentage of frontline combat infantrymen in the USA, ETO actually fired their weapons at the enemy though the same men often took great risks aiding wounded comrades under fire. And the closer to the enemy they came, the less likely they were to kill.
The US Army used these studies to revise training. They successfully raised that percentage again and again through Korea and Vietnam. Hesitancy to fire was further reduced, more recently, with simulations such as those found in ... yes ... first person shooter computer games. But we all know that games are just games, and movies are just movies, songs are just songs and NEVER influence anyone.
So, the problem will be solved by taking guns away???
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
lolz I'm just quoting Donny. Are you saying he was wrong? https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second/2018/02/28/4f767df6-1cec-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_video.html?utm_term=.2a43a445840f
Jimizo
I was talking specifically about France and its problems with Jihadis. I regard Jihadis as religious nutters who must not have easy access to firearms. Religious nutters in France would be slobbering at the thought of France following the ideas of ignorant tits like Trump.
nishikat
There is some chatter of the NRA pushing to allow "responsible teens" with a clean record to pack with conceal carry (including in school). As long as a teenager is at least 16, maintains a "B" average at least and has no juvenile record, they can be allowed to carry. The NRA's logic is that teenagers during the American revolution helped fight and this is something the original framers want. Teens have rights too. It's says "...shall not be infringed..." and nothing about minimum age.
nishikat
Trump voters are for this and for Trump pardoning them as long as the migrants are murdered on federal land (so they can be pardoned)
socrateos
The US gun-culture is a cult phenomena, in which its believers are incapable of doubting their fundamentalist dogma.
nishikat
The NRA is a cult. Proof: They don't allow guns at their conventions. They are a bunch of sheep.
ClippetyClop
If it can't solved 100% by one single measure then I guess it isn't worth trying, right?
NCIS Reruns
Trying to put a positive spin on a senseless, unnecessary tragedy doesn't make it any less tragic.
Anonymous
@Jimizo
Understood.
While it’s tempting to consider them crazy, one must attempt to understand them and their motives through their eyes. They certainly do not consider themselves crazy, but acting quite logically. That a Frenchman might think they are crazy is not of interest to them except perhaps to heighten fear in France which is their objective.
Anonymous
@ClippetyClop
Beware the law of unintended consequences.
Haaa Nemui
Ah yes. The 2nd amendment.
nandakandamanda
Something wrong with this paragraph, but what?
Quote: “Shootings have remained commonplace in the U.S. According to the website Gun Violence Archives, 115 shootings have wounded more than four people in the country since the start of the year.”
nandakandamanda
Having looked at the site (‘Archive’, no ‘s’) I have just realized what the above means. Most shootings only wound one or two people, but in 115 shootings more than four people were wounded each time!
ClippetyClop
If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
SuperLib
Just ban white males from possessing guns for a brief period, just until "we get this thing figured out" I believe is the terminology.
bass4funk
You take everything way too seriously. Remember when Johnny Depp said, what it would be like to kill a President or when was the last time an actor did that? Not a single outrage tweet by the haters. Come on now, leave the hypocrisy at the door.
I learned the old school way, my father took us hunting, target practice, showed us how it was done, so it’s possible.
extanker
@takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
Whatever your stance on gun control, the second part of your statement is terrifying. I don't want to live in a country where that is acceptable.
@goodlucktoyou
Your complete lack of understanding of 'stand your ground' laws isn't helping you any.
SuperLib
I don't see many blacks from Chicago doing a lot of mass shootings. Seems be be almost exclusively white males.
Its just a temporary ban, until we get this thing figured out.
bass4funk
I don’t see it either, but I do watch their local WGN and I read the paper every morning, it’s off the charts.
Not nearly as much as the Black on Black gang shootings
I don’t think in Chicago the gangs will wait.
bass4funk
When you add up the numbers of these so called individual shootings it amounts to a very massive amount monthly.
David Varnes
It was a quote that came right from the mouth of Donnie Billions Lost himself.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/376097-trump-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second
extanker
Wow, I had not heard that one. Thanks for pointing it out.
It's still scary, and out of context it's even worse. He really needs to stick to the teleprompter...
SuperLib
Great. But I don't have any plans to walk around bad neighborhoods in Chicago. I do have plans to go to Vegas, shopping malls, work, and I have family in schools.
Banning white male gun owners, just temporarily until we figure this thing out, makes the most sense to me personally.
Chip Star
You've missed the point again. You've also demonstrated your lack of understanding of firearms use. It's a degradable skills, which means if you don't use it, you lose it. One session of training is not enough.
False equivalency because not just any idiot off the street can play doctor in a hospital, but any idiot off the street can obtain a firearm in the US.
extanker
@superlib
You know, I gotta say that's actually a pretty insensitive statement. We should ignore bad neighborhoods and worry about places like shopping malls because that's where you plan to go.
Chip Star
That's not what Super was saying. He was saying that we need to target the perpetrators of mass shootings: white guys. Bass then provided an irrelevant reply in an attempt to obfuscate. Then Super pointed out Bass' irrelevance. You then decided to virtue signal by misrepresenting what Super was communicating.
extanker
Sorry, no virtue signaling here. Gun violence is gun violence.
You can't misrepresent that statement. As worded, it is a completely insensitive statement regarding inner city neighborhoods being less important than places like shopping malls and Las Vegas. If it is not what superlib intended to mean, it should have been phrased better and it still deserves to be called out as such.
Personally, I believe there are more issues to address than just gun ownership, but I thought the point was to end gun violence, not just mass shooting perpetrated by white males.
Kestrel
@Superlib,
Why the racism? Dont you care that the majority of shooting deaths of black people in the US are perpetrated by black males? Yet you dont advocate banning black male gun owners. Explain yourself please.
Kestrel
@Jimizo, so why not straight out call them jihadis instead of pussyfooting around the reality by using the term " religeous nutters"?
bass4funk
No, as a gun owner, I have a better understanding on the pros and cons of firearms and I’m not buying that argument, some people can learn to use them faster than others, so they should have a program, voluntary to allow teachers to become proficient in the usage of firearms. Some people may need a lot time and some people don’t and as long as they’re satisfied the requirements then they should be allowed to become certified if they so choose.
Exactly and you make my point for me, the more reason why you want to train someone if you change them they can handle it better and the best way to combat this problem is to give teachers the option to arm themselves. Is it optional beach install metal detectors in the school or to add more security in schools.
Kestrel
@Anonymous,
Excellent point - that the US army (and all armys learned this lesson) had to systematically condition its soldiers to take lives without too much compunction.
This us what has been happening in the general society over the last 3 -4 decades with video games, inceasing levels of gratuitous and realistic violence in movies/tv etc.
Very disturbing but overwhelmingly ignored.
Kestrel
@Blacklabel,
Indeed, surprisingly little discussion about the shooters in the MSM now that its known they are LGBTQAI+.
And the kids mass walkout on the politicians looking to further their anti-gun agenda is also absent from the news. If it was the opposite situation we'd be inundated with coverage.
Britlover
Heroes who gave the ultimate sacrifice when they needn’t have if the society in whim they lived protected them as it should. Rest in peace? No, rest in anger, I hope their deaths haunt the NRA, the free reign gun tooting NRA. Shame on them.
michaelqtodd
There is a lot of money in guns the economy will always come first.
Did you see the house in LA with over 1000 guns in it on the news today? Estimate the number of guns in America then triple the number you guess.
The Wild West era never really ended. The constitution wanted to offer some protection from looters and robbers to those who did not have a sheriff in their town. Now it is still used to justify drive by killings and housewives carrying a piece in their handbag or their glove box when they head to the all.
Madness all of it.
Trump just fuels it by laughing and cracking a joke when somebody at his rally recommends shooting immigrants. The crowd all cheered.
rainyday
So glad to live in a country where I don't feel obliged to teach my 4 year basic urban warfare tactics before sending him off to kindergarten.
Its absolute madness in America.
Speed
All these "heroes" were shot dead. I think they'd rather be alive than some corpse labeled as a hero.
TheLongTermer
allot of posters here are blaming the low hanging fruit- the church goers and gun loving people. What they failed to mentioned is that the progressive libs have been hell bent on changing a country whos foundations are rooted in churches and guns for the last 30 years. You cant change the past; it is what it is, and a country is today what it was yesterday. So IMO, its the libs who are most responsible for all this mess. Should of left it all alone to begin with, wasnt all that bad in the 70s and 80s.
Jimizo
Read what I posted. I used the terms ‘jihadis’ and ‘religious nutters’.
I’m not pussyfooting around.
Your post makes no sense.
Chip Star
Try reading it in context instead of virtue signaling. I left a very explicit roadmap.
So you want a different starting point than mass shooters? Seems schools shootings are as good a place to start as anywhere.
This one, really long sentence negates itself. Any real, educated, and intelligent firearms owner knows that proper handling in a high-adrenaline situation takes a lot of training and maintenance. Teachers don't have this amount of time.
Anyome who has been hunting and actually harvested animals knows the excitement and difficulty of drawing a proper bead to put the animal down. Magnify that infinitely for an active shooter situation.
Let's keep things in the realm of reality.
Chip Star
That you limited it to 30 years demonstrates that you are misinformed.
Anonymous
@anonymous
@Haa Nemui
(sound of gong) No. Try again.
TheLongTermer
Not really. Depends on the training.
Andrew Topolski
Just an FYI to people who don't live here in America, there is no plague of mass shootings in America and the article claiming there is no end in sight is simply a lie. These horrors are tragic but this asinine narrative that it only happens here and happens every day is simply false. As is the implied message that somehow a couple shootings and a few deaths is worse than numerous countries in Africa and asia where thousands are killed by psychotics with guns every day. Worse still are the comments blaming guns as opposed to blaming the humans, the completely insane belief these psycho murderers became that way because of a gun and otherwise would be nice people. What the problem is, would be liberal ideology and certain religions but mainly a liberal belief that society owes and any means is justify to satisfy whatever grievance the osycho thinks he has. Liberals train children until adults to believe they are victims of society and government will take from others on your behalf and then teach if government doesn't do it, then you can be violent to get what you desire. Some of those kids will take it that far and we end up with a mass murderer
Strangerland
America: at least it's not a war zone!
Setting the bar high there mate.
Haaa Nemui
(sound of gong) No. Try again.
Well it certainly doesn't achieve it's desired objective... unless the desired objective is an increasing body count.
TheLongTermer
@Andrew Topolski,
Your spot on about the libs and their damages done. When I visit home, I expect to see shooters everywhere but I never see it, so it is over amped in the media I think. We had it much tougher when it came to bullying in my day but nobody ever shot anyone.
Anonymous
This is the introductory paragraph. It seems like most readers bought into it.
It has all the components of drama. It might even be used to introduce a sequel to Star Wars.
”No end in sight”? Of course not, no one is a seer - except in drama.
”Traumatized”? When do dramas not have victims?
”Hope”? A culture hero arises - we’ve had these since time out of mind.
”Sacrifice”? Aside from sounding pagan - not to slight country folk - is this the type of hero we are to conjure? One who must die?
How about people who can sit down without prejudice and preconceptions to work out a program to at least reduce the violence and then monitor that program for its actual performance with an eye to revision. I’d prefer that politicians not be included as their presence means discord almost by definition. Maybe the total community of every school should take charge. I suspect that many will jump at the chance.
Kestrel
Longtermer, AndrewT, Anonymous,
Well said.
Toasted Heretic
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Religion and guns - the US is happy to crack down on countries where religion and guns proliferate but won't do a damn thing when it's happening on their own doorstep.
Deadforgood
How do you define mass shooting?
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
Raw Beer
Because US servicemen are well armed?
Hmmm, so having more people armed would decrease the number of deaths.
Toasted Heretic
Great idea. And then when an unruly pupil grabs the gun off teach, everything will be just hunky dory.
Not sure what beaches have to do with it, but instead of all this turning places of learning into warzones, why not rid the US of the gun culture it worships?