Chief Scott Anderson of the Troutdale Police Department just briefed the media on the investigation so far into yesterday’s school shooting:*
The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office completed the autopsy this morning on the shooter and has positively identified him as 15-year-old Jared Michael Padgett.
He was a freshman at Reynolds High School. He arrived at school yesterday morning on the school bus, carrying a guitar case and a duffel bag. He entered the boys’ locker room in the building that housed the gymnasium. He spent a period of time in the locker room, and during that time murdered a fellow student.
We have not established any link between the student and the shooter.
Teacher Todd Rispler encountered the shooter in the locker room. As he was fleeing, Mr. Rispler was shot once, suffering a grazing wound to his hip. Mr. Rispler made his way to the office, where he was able to notify the administration, which then immediately initiated the lockdown.
As the shooter was moving through the main hallway, he encountered officers who were starting to enter from two separate doorways. At that time, he moved into a small restroom. We know there was an exchange of gunfire between one of the first responding officers and the shooter. Based on the autopsy this morning, we do know that the shooter died of a self-inflected gunshot wound.
The shooter used an AR-15 type rifle in the attack and carried, but did not use, a semi-automatic handgun. Investigators also recovered nine loaded magazines with the capability of holding several hundred rounds.
The shooter also had a large knife. He was wearing a non-ballistic vest used for carrying ammunition and other items. He also was wearing a multi-sport helmet with a camouflage design.
The shooter obtained the weapons from his family home. The weapons had been secured, but he defeated the security measures.
It’ll be interesting to see what sort of security measures the parents used to keep their teenage son from weapons the parents would not be allowed to own in a sane country. Whatever it was, it was clearly inadequate, so now two 15-year-olds are dead.
Per valued commenter Skerry, the Multnomah County GOP has raffled off three AR-15s in less than a year, once in honor of Abraham Lincoln and MLK, two men who were shot to death. I don’t know whether or not one of the prize guns was the actual murder weapon, but it’s clear in any case that the Multnomah County GOP has bludgeoned irony to death.
Here’s what I think is a good working definition of reasonable gun control measures from valued commenter Omnes Omnibus in a previous thread:
Get rid of detachable magazines. Their only purpose at any size is to make reloading faster. Internal, five round maximum magazines for rifles and pump shotguns. Revolvers only for hand gun and set the bar high for concealed carry. Ban semi-auto weapons for civilian use. Ban open carry except at ranges and on hunting land. Mandate trigger locks and/or gun safes.
Do you object to any of that? Then you are part of the problem, and I’m really not interested in hearing anymore of your fucking excuses, though feel free to babble on about your Precious in comments.
H/T: Valued commenter Julie
WereBear
I’m good with it.
opiejeanne
Me too.
AnonPhenoma
*STOMP*
Arclite
It’s crazy to have so many mass shootings back to back like this. In order for any of the suggestions you mention above to be mandated however, we’d have to have several months of these daily.
At least these get put on the news, unlike garden-variety shootings. The more these are in the news, the more momentum can build to get laws passed.
raven
What’s the difference what we object or don’t object to?
Laertes
That works. A bolt-action rifle or a breech-loading shotgun is enough for any hunter.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You just got bigfooted hard by Cole, so this question will have to wait for another day,
Ash Can
I’ve said before that I prefer open carry to concealed carry because I want to know who and where to avoid. However, if other changes such as those suggested by Omnes are made — which would mitigate a great deal of the danger inherent in our currently gun-worshiping society — I’m more than happy to see open carry shitcanned.
Amir Khalid
Making gun owners responsible for secure storage of weapons and ammo — would that be a matter for federal or state legislators? The ammosexuals have political clout beyond their mere numbers and would surely fight any such laws to the bitter end. How big a fight would it be to make these laws happen?
SatanicPanic
A sensible proposal that has no chance of enactment
skerry
@Ash Can: The problem is you can’t avoid some of these weapons. They shoot further than you can see. You could be inside a building and get shot by someone you never saw carrying.
No one needs to walk around carrying a AR-15.
Aimai
@Ash Can: but the kinds of people sho want to open carry these days are pretty much ticking time bombs and negligent accudents waiting to happen. Meanwhile the push for open carry means the police can’t stop and detain these assholes because they are within their rights.
SatanicPanic
@Ash Can: I used to think this, but then considered that the act of pulling a gun out is a sign to people around- woah some shit’s going down.
Plus you can have people bullying the people around them and there’s nothing anyone can do.
greennotGreen
You know what’s precious to me? Six and seven year olds in school. Mixed-up teenagers who won’t have the chance to work through their problems. College students. People watching movies. People shopping, even if they’re shopping at Walmart.
Take every gun and melt the fuckers down.
UprightHydra
But, but, Wolverines…….
gvg
Well what exactly is open carry? Pretty much the only use I would have for a gun is shooting a poisonous snake on my own property and my dad had a small gun he shot rats raiding the bird feeder and getting into the vents with. Is walking around your own yard in the bushes with a small gun out “open carry”? Sorry but I’m not well educated on gun phrases.
Tired of Guns
WE had some yahoos walking around on our town square with open carry long rifles.
This generated 10 or more calls to 911 (town square has an elementary school and courthouse on it…).
Police handled it well, asked the yahoos for I.D. to prove they were old enough to own a gun in the first place, then sent them on their way. Police line: “If someone calls 911, we must investigate.”
So, whenever you see yahoos doing an open carry, call the cops. Call 911, report it. Have everyone around you do it. That should help make the situation a little safer for all the non-yahoos around.
? Martin
I’d like to see every gun owner whose kid was killed or whose kid took the gun and killed someone charged and convicted with 2nd degree murder. Just lost your kid? Sorry, not sympathetic, just as I wouldn’t be sympathetic if you were the one pulling the trigger. It’s all the same.
Accident, my ass.
skerry
@gvg: Check out the pics at Open Carry Texas.
“Open Carry” is when you are legally allowed to walk the streets, enter businesses, etc with a shotgun or a rifle.
Texas is not the only state that allows this. My home state of Indiana also allows it. My current state does not.
? Martin
@gvg: Open carry means you can walk around like a patrol police officer, with a gun in plain sight (mostly) anywhere in public. But the gun can’t be concealed. It must be visible. Concealed carry means you can additionally walk around mostly anywhere in public with your gun hidden on you, like an undercover police officer.
skerry
@? Martin: Agreed. There are no gun “accidents”. Only negligence or intent.
Ash Can
@skerry et al.: Good points all. The bottom line in my case is that I’m strongly against both open and concealed carry by civilians. If, as Omnes says, the bar for CCW is set very high, as well as confined to extreme circumstances, I’d at least be willing to listen to the arguments. As things stand now, though, both open and concealed carry are fatal fuck-ups waiting to happen.
cokane
school shootings and mass shooting get the headlines but … the real killers are handguns, mostly the non-semi-automatic variety. Not too get all liberaler-than-thou preachy, but it’s also often disproportionately minorities being killed by these weapons, whereas the headline grabbing shootings tend to include whites.
Frankly, banning handguns — not rifles — would go a lot further to lowering our homicide rate, which is about 4 times higher than similar developed countries. But no one is talking about this because, as I said, it affects the blahs.
Sherrell
Some positive things still happen at school
TooManyJens
@skerry:
Yeah, that is never going to fucking happen, Open Carry Texas. You gun fondlers are fucking scary and we shouldn’t feel safe around you.
I mean, the mere fact that someone believes it’s necessary or even a good idea to walk around carrying the kind of firepower that most people reserve for combat zones inherently means that there’s something off about them. Their judgment is obviously shit, so why should we trust them?
(And that word “condition,” like the rest of us are just here to be manipulated into accepting anything they want to do … but then again, that’s probably why they feel a need to openly carry a gun everywhere.)
SatanicPanic
@cokane: I disagree, I see gun owners bring up minorities shooting each other all the time
Liberty60
I’ll say it again- I don’t think the 2nd Amendment makes sense any more.
Everyone can grasp the natural right to free expression, freedom of religion, but a natural, self-evident right to a gun?
Why is a gun not like a car, or airplane, privileges that you need to show competency at before you are allowed to use one?
Of course the 2nd isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But we should start the conversation, now.
TooManyJens
LOOK AT THIS ASSHOLE. I bet he feels really tough, intimidating those parents of tiny children.
Lee
If you no longer have semiauto, then you would have bolt action. If you have bolt action there is very little need for no detachable magazines. I think the no detachable magazines is a better option.
As for revolvers only for handguns, meh. There is little to no reason to actually make that limitation. I would again go with the no detachable magazines only for handguns (which I’m not sure that even exists in a semiauto handgun).
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Lee:
If you ban detachable magazines for handguns, you effectively make semi-auto handguns illegal as well.
Sloegin
Semiauto long guns weren’t really a thing for civilians till what, the 60s – 70s? Seems like people could live with just bolt action, lever action, pump action.
Our parents and grandparents were fine with it.
SuperHrefna
This new Tom the Dancing a Bug – how to tell the difference between an open carry patriot and a deranged killer- seems very appropriate for this thread:
cleek
require gun owners to have injury/death insurance.
Roger Moore
I like the general outline of what you’re proposing, but I recognize the need and desire to have guns beyond the ones you’ve listed. I don’t think security guards, movie studios, specialty firing ranges, and plain old collectors should be left out completely. I’d let them buy guns with removable magazines, semi-auto fire, etc. but only at the cost of much more stringent licensing. I would want the police to be able to track individual guns that don’t meet the normal limits, knowing who owns them, where they’re normally stored, and even having ballistic fingerprints on file.
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: Yeah, the slogan “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” should probably be understood to mean “those people kill people”.
But the statistic I like to repeat is that the overall per-capita level of violent crime in the US is (by some measures, at least) actually about the same as in the UK, but our homicide rate is much higher. Violence in the UK happens about as often, but it is much less likely to end with someone dead. That’s probably the difference between guns and no guns.
SuperHrefna
@SuperHrefna: FYWP, not giving me permission to edit the extra a my fat ipadded fingers added in to that comment.
But it will let me edit this one? Where did the link go in that comment? Word Press is out to get me. http://boingboing.net/2014/06/11/tom-the-dancing-bug-how-to-te.html
catclub
@Sloegin:
Yeah, well, they were fine without iPhone5’s too. Do you want to go back to cellphone bricks?
Consarn it, crank, extra states, …
Sloegin
@catclub: Still a land-line using crankypants old fart myself (cellphones and my hearing aid don’t get along).
Smartphones are lovely, except for all the extra defensive driving I have to do now because of all the clowns using their phones while on the road.
Intended and unintended consequences, etc.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t know that I’d go that far. I think it’s more that they see themselves as responsible individuals who would never commit a crime with their guns, so they don’t see why they should be lumped in with the dangerous criminals using their guns for evil. It’s the same basic message as the talk about responsible gun owners and good guys with guns stopping bad guys with guns. They’re sure they’re good guys and everyone should be able to recognize that, so they don’t get it why all the finger pointing at them and their harmless hobby.
pseudonymous in nc
The AR-15 raffle-a-rifle is the teabagger GOP’s trolling weapon of choice.
Except that it’s a deadly trolling weapon.
Xboxershorts
I would also like to see mandatory professional training for each weapon purchased at the purchaser’s expense along with mandatory proof of insurance for every weapon owned.
LanceThruster
Curios and relics too?
Pogonip
I don’t understand the “revolvers only” part. How is that supposed to help?
gp
@? Martin:
I’m down with this, so down with this although I think you meant parents whose children use their guns to kill other kids? In any case, involuntary manslaughter @ least. Save the murder charges for those parents who don’t bother locking up the guns.
Are there gun insurance policies? Big premium insurance policies are a great idea too.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Pogonip: Semi-auto pistols have removable magazines.
Talentless Hack
Half-measures aren’t working. The Second Amendment must be repealed.
Steve from Antioch
Anyone know how many rounds the shooter actually fired at the school at Troutdale – or more importantly – what the average rounds fired is “mass shooter” situations.
For years I’ve heard that the average number of rounds shot in encounters with criminals was less than 4. (I’m old enough to remember when most departments switched from revolvers to semi-autos and this is one of the points debated at the time; i.e. why switch to semi-autos when revolver held more than enough rounds?)
The point being if there is some sort of relationship between “large capacity” magazine and lethality in illegal shootings, then magazine restrictions would have a rational basis.
Jebediah, RBG
@greennotGreen:
Way back in the eighties, XTC are agreeing with you.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Steve from Antioch: I don’t know the number from the most recent shooting, but Adam Lanza fired 154 rounds in less than five minutes. Semi-auto rifle with removable magazines. Give me a justification for needing a semi-auto or a large capacity magazine.
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I know. I have one. But I don’t see what difference substituting revolvers would make.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Pogonip: Speed of reloading.
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I know plenty of people who can reload a revolver quicker than I can change clips. Those little gadgets aren’t called speedloaders for nothing. So on that I really don’t see much difference. The other suggestions are okay although I can’t see any of them ever becoming law in most of the U.S., and if they did there would probably no money or will to enforce them, especially in red areas.
Steve from Antioch
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I don’t have a problem with restrictions on “high capacity” magazines, but my assumption is that is primarily a feel-good cosmetic gesture rather than a rationally-designed law.
And I guess I am having trouble understanding why anyone would want to draw a legal line in favor of “revolvers” and against “semi-autos”.
I would much rather have somebody shoot at me with this 6 round .380 semi-auto: http://www.waltherarms.com/products/handguns/ppk/#.U5jmIl68nZ5
instead of this 8 round .357 revolver:http://www.taurususa.com/product-details.cfm?id=250&category=Revolver
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Pogonip: I am not married to any of the suggestions and I am open to more. What Betty posted was an off-the-top-of-my-head list of what a sensible set of regulations might include.
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): From reading her post it looks like SHE’S married to your suggestions. Anyway, there are, if I remember correctly, somewhere between twenty and thirty THOUSAND local, State, and Federal gun laws on the books already. I would prefer to see those strictly enforced but in many areas that isn’t possible, unfortunately. I guess for people who are really worried about this, maybe the best solution is to move out of the U.S. I just don’t see the gun situation changing here any time soon.
moderateindy
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I am told that it often takes more than a dozen rounds to take down a large feral hog, so that would qualify as a justification would it not? Just playing devil’s advocate, and pointing out the limitations of working in the arena of absolutes.
Of course the obvious solution is to issue specialty permits to those that do such work for a living, but that’s neither here nor there.
I think the best example of how carrying a gun does not make you safer comes from the guy that pulled the gun on the Vegas shooter, then was shot by the shooter’s wife. Carrying a gun, even in the mass shooting scenario, makes you a target, and includes the pesky fact that you are as likely to kill innocent bystanders as you are to get the shooter. That doesn’t even include your risk of being shot by a cop arriving on the scene that has no idea that you are the “good guy with a gun”.
As far as the fantasy that having an arsenal will keep the feds in line should they ever actually turn into a tyrannical dictatorship……….good luck with that, I’m sure you will easily defeat a bunch of well trained soldiers in tanks, and MRAPs, not to mention drones. These people are fracking deluded
Stella B.
What ? Martin said. If a person is killed or injured by a gun, the gun owner should go to jail. If a gun is waived around in the commission of a crime, the owner is an accessory and should be charged appropriately. Your gun gets stolen? Too bad, you had better hope it never gets used.
Every single person who buys or receives a gun from any one, even grandpa, needs a background check and to have passed a safety course. Owning a gun should be no easier than driving a car and it certainly should be tougher than voting.
When my dad inherited some guns from his father, he put them in the trunk of his car and drove them to the nearest police station where he turned them in for destruction. Surprisingly, my father doesn’t need to worry that a visiting grandchild will get ahold of a gun and have an accident.
Stella B.
@moderateindy: Anybody who thinks they are going to stop an M1 Abrams tank with an AK-47, has never been near a tank.
Xboxershorts
@Pogonip:
This is a bullshit answer. Do you know why?
Because guns, especially handguns, are highly portable. No law at the state or local level that isn’t replicated in every single state or municipality will impact the distribution and ownership of firearms or their unmonitored transport from low regulation areas into high regulation areas.
Brian R.
@Pogonip:
Fuck that. Just because the psychos have hit the streets armed to the teeth, that doesn’t mean I’m going to pack up and move to another country. Are you fucking kidding me?
You can take my country from my cold, dead hands.
Pogonip
@Xboxershorts: Right. That’s the point. Let’s try enforcing the laws we have. Really enforcing them.
Although I would kind of like to see a law where you have to show cause, e.g. “I have a feral hog problem on my farm” to be allowed to buy a high-capacity weapon. “I want to impress conservatives and scare liberals” would not be a valid cause.
Xboxershorts
@Pogonip:
You still don’t get it……
VA has very loose gun distribution laws while all the neighboring states have fairly strict distribution laws.
Guns from VA consistently show up at crime scenes in NY, NJ, MD and PA…..
Their high portability makes it IMPOSSIBLE to enforce what currently exists. It’s impossible to stop someone from buying in VA and driving them north outside of a stroke of luck or carelessness on the drivers part.
Betty Cracker
@Brian R.:
Ha! Bravo.
Pogonip
@Brian R.: Calm down. I’m on your side. The best solution for people who are really scared may indeed be to leave the U. S. I’m not that scared of ammosexuals, but some people are. At the moment I’m more scared of idiot drivers. I firmly believe my state needs a law prohibiting driving without your seeing-eye dog. I used to have a long commute. You wouldn’t believe the things we saw idiots doing while driving. Makeup application (“Hey, I’ve got a great idea! I’ll hold this mascara wand right next to my eye while doing 85! Not like I’d ever hit a bump or anything.”). F e l l a t i o, card playing, salad making, baby diapering. One woman had a paperback book propped on her steering wheel as she blew by us at 90 miles an hour, if not faster. And this was before cell phones were ubiquitous. The night is dark and full of terrors; the freeway is well-lit and full of idiots.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Steve from Antioch: Yah, LOL When we carried the ol’ .38 revolvers, the range officers usta say if ya gotta reload, you shouldn’t be there.
Pogonip
@Xboxershorts: I believe you think I think uniform gun laws are a bad idea. I don’t. I’d like uniform laws on lots of things, but in the U. s. they are largely a pipe dream, states rights blah blah blah. Therefore I think you’ll do better to enforce the laws that exist, patchwork as they are.
Xboxershorts
@Pogonip:
Which does absolutely nothing to restrict the illegal distribution of guns.
Pogonip
@Ronzoni Rigatoni: Hear, hear! People who have ten times the amount of ammo they need make me nervous even when they’re not crazy. You can be a nice guy and still be such a lousy shot that you endanger your fellow citizens.
RaflW
No objections. Not much hope for these, but no objections.
billB
I grew up the next hi-school over from Reynolds. These are poor white trash folks who have had the poorer people of color forced into their suburb in the sticks. This is a social tinder-keg in the making for 20 years.
These issues are not guns but the lack of social support, as the rich fckin bastards of wall street and wally-mart strip our country of the middle class quality and caring we once had [when I was in hi-school].
I can tell you how to fix it, and this is the only way, send federal agents door-to-door and take every gun on the property, and give every home food, daycare and college vouchers. These ‘people’ are you and me, they need a fcking dream, and wall street and wally-mart have ripped them [and us] off. Otherwise this will happen in my ‘hood’ and in yours and every damm week til the end of ammo.
GET USED TO IT.
Bob
Since we’re all getting ponies, here’s what I’d want.
Basically treat them like the other dangerous, easily abused but ubiquitous tool we americans are know for being in love with: automobiles.
License them.
Register them.
Require a proficiency test every few years.
You eff up using one of them, you lose the privilege of operating one in public for increasing periods of time for each subsequent fudge up.
I’d really like a state run (as in not federal, not “THE State”) database of ballistic information (sort of analogous to license plates) tied to each gun (or barrel if the barrels are interchangeable) which – through registration – is tied to each individual.
What this does is make it really easy to track straw dealers which are profit centers for gun manufacturers and the real reason registration is so vehemently fought against. There’s never going to be a “smoking causes cancer, shhh!” memo because it is so blatantly obvious if you spend more than five minutes thinking about it. It also doesn’t help that most of these guns wind up killing the poors and minorities who don’t even have the ante, much less the means to stay in a round of congressional poker.
To sum it up even shorter: I want you to be responsible for every bullet that comes out of the business end of your gun. Period.
Can I haz my pony now?
Anna in PDX
@LanceThruster: If you are collecting curios and relics, why should they be working guns? I don’t see why you need to have ammo at all.
Anna in PDX
@billB: So sorry this is sort of your ‘hood. I am heartbroken about it, have relatives who live in Gresham and farther out in East County, one of whom attended Reynolds for a while, it is just so awful. Yes, it is a poor neighborhood and guns just make all the normal problems of poverty worse. I live not far from New Columbia in North Portland and I think it has really improved since I was a kid in the 80s, but there are still problems with crime/drugs/gangs/etc and a lot of them stem from weaponry being available to folks.
Mojonz
and anyone who owns ANY SORT of gun should be required to carry liability insurance. Period. It would be dandy to get insurance companies OUT of the health care business…let them insure everything else, including guns.
Fred
The headline, “Details on yesterdays shooting” says it for me. I can’t keep track of all the mass shootings. Can’t tell the players without a scorecard.
It all seems so unreal but not to the people it happens to. There is a movie about a couple whose son does one of these mass shootings. It is so realistic and sad I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I’ve watched bits of it as it has been playing on one or anther movie channel. A husband and wife hiding out from the press in a motel room going mad.
God help us all.