Steve Israel, the Sheriff of Broward County, announced last night that the deputy assigned to Stoneman Douglas waited for four minutes outside the building where the shooting was happening and did not go in. That deputy took retirement yesterday. German Lopez at Vox drills in on whether good guys with guns can do anything at a mass shooting:
The fundamental problem is that mass shootings are traumatizing, terrifying events. Without potentially dozens or even hundreds of hours in training, most people are not going to be able to control their emotions and survey the scene in time to quickly and properly respond.
“There’s never enough training,” Coby Briehn, a senior instructor at Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, told Klepper. “You can never get enough.”
The FBI’s analysis of active shooters between 2000 and 2013 has another relevant data point: “Law enforcement suffered casualties in 21 (46.7%) of the 45 incidents where they engaged the shooter to end the threat.” These are people trained to do this kind of thing full time, and nearly half were wounded or killed.
Facts don’t matter, so I’m sure Trump and the NRA will keep fucking the chicken when it comes to arming teachers.
geg6
OT, but FTFNYT is reporting that Gates has decided to flip.
Things get interesting now.
Cermet
When people’s dick extensions get threatened, they always ignore facts. Like the 2nd amendment says a well regulated’ notice the founding ‘fathers’ added that extra modifier of well to regulated. They most certainly expected the government to control guns/types and all aspects related.
Gin & Tonic
@geg6: I don’t see how he had any choice, frankly.
Barbara
People prescribing more guns as a solution live in a fantasy world. Let’s stipulate that this deputy might have done something other than cower behind a concrete column. Whatever else he might have done would still mean that a lot of students and teachers would have died. Maybe it would have been seven instead of 17. That, apparently, is still okay with Donald Trump and the NRA. So long as the body count doesn’t get too high we can declare victory and celebrate.
RemindsMeOfThatMovie
I wish the left wasn’t so dog damned stupid.
A lot of you don’t even realize you are being manipulated half the time. Every minute you spend talking about this idiotic arm the teachers bullshit is a minute you are not talking about gun control. Get it???!!!
Some of you are easier to manipulate than the wingnuts.
Boatboy_srq
Getting guns for teachers simultaneously increases gun manufacturers’ bottom line and makes it more likely those unAhmurrrkkkan unGodly Leibrul Soshulist Indoctrinators® get taken out in the process of defending the kiddies. Ammosexuality crosses paths with hatred of learning.
schrodingers_cat
Old troll with a new nym has a point. We have to stop debating using RWNJ framework. Unfortunately when the RWNJ sits in the WH that becomes impossible to do.
Major Major Major Major
Yeah, this is just evidence that we need more and better guys with guns.
Barbara
@geg6: If he thought that he could survive fighting on one front, well, okay, how about fighting on two fronts? The one thing you learn quickly when you are undergoing investigation is the difference in the perspective of a plaintiff (the prosecutor) who isn’t paying lawyers by the hour. The United States is a formidable opponent.
geg6
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie:
So you live in a world where you don’t multitask at all, apparently.
We can do both. Even at the same time.
japa21
@geg6: And it isn’t about Manafort. Mueller has Manafort’s balls in a vise and doesn’t need Gate’s help. So who could it be that Mueller wants Gates to rat out on? Hmmmm…
Patricia Kayden
Hate to sound glib or evil but he’s still alive, right? An off duty police officer was killed near where I live (Southern Maryland) when he went to help a wife being assaulted by her estranged husband. I’m not seeing the logic of non-police officers putting their lives at risk during a mass shooting event. That deputy probably figured out that he was out-gunned and decided not to put his life at risk. Can’t say that I blame him.
japa21
@schrodingers_cat: Seems to me that not only can we do two things at a time, but we have been doing it this whole time. Old troll with new nym is a one trick pony.
foucault swing voter mistermix
@geg6: Thanks, I just posted it.
bemused
Is it still protocol for soldiers not allowed to carry weapons on base, only in combat zones?
Major Major Major Major
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: trump is not smart enough to come up with even so basic a plan.
Boussinesque
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: Speak for yourself, cupcake. Most of us are capable of walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time, so it’s not hard to mock the ridiculousness of the “solutions” being proposed while simultaneously calling/writing our congresscritters, attending meetings, or otherwise engaging in the pragmatic side of this issue.
You never seem to miss a chance to look down your nose and sneer at the rest of us, though, so maybe you should have some pie.
Jeffro
OT while waiting for the next OT: A De-Trumpification Agenda, by Michelle Goldberg.
Not a bad start to the sort of “truth and reconciliation commission”-type activities some of us have been talking about:
We have to be realistic, though:
That’s true. I’d also ask that the next president make a very public spectacle of having the White House fumigated on live TV prior to her inauguration and move-in. Trumpov won’t understand or care about being publicly humiliated (he’ll be too busy trying to complete a passable comb-over using standard prison toiletries) but it sends an important message to future office-seekers.
Leto
During the Columbine shooting, there was an officer on scene when shooting started at 11:19am (he exchanged fire with Harris), with two additional cops arriving within 10 mins. Police didn’t go in until 1;19pm. I’m going to patiently wait an explanation on why we didn’t burn at the stake the officers on the scene that didn’t immediately “rush in to protect the children”, and why this time it’s different.
Dave
@Barbara: Yes the point of violence is not the point of prevention just a final protective line to stop an event escalating from tragic to catastrophic. That’s all. It’s entirely the wrong focus and Trump of all people criticizing the deputy is laughable.
cthulhu
“The FBI’s analysis of active shooters between 2000 and 2013 has another relevant data point: “Law enforcement suffered casualties in 21 (46.7%) of the 45 incidents where they engaged the shooter to end the threat.” These are people trained to do this kind of thing full time, and nearly half were wounded or killed.”
Maybe if the crazies weren’t as or better armed than the authorities, these stats wouldn’t be so bad. But freedom!!
Leto
@bemused: Correct. Security Forces/Law Enforcement are the only authorized weapon carriers on base. That includes OSI (Office of Special Investigations) for USAF. I know the Army/Maries are pretty much against having their people carry on base, and for pretty solid reasons.
The Ghost of John Cole
It’s pretty common in a crisis situation like this for the deputy to be concerned with helping and protecting survivors as they retreat. Especially if there are any wounded.
Suzanne
@Patricia Kayden:
This really bothers me. It’s apparently okay with the right for cops to shoot unarmed citizens because they were askeered, but teachers are now expected to sacrifice themselves for other people’s brats?
So: teachers—majority women, have more education than cops, get paid less, get shit on more—have to be self-sacrificing. But cops—majority dudes, get paid more despite less education, and who get tongue baths from the right—it’s okay for them to be afraid and not wanna die.
Yes, this is part of the right’s effort to keep people stupid so no one feels threatened.
Barbara
@Patricia Kayden: Yes, most likely he would have died without actually helping anyone else survive. Or different people would have died. There is no logic here, just ultra-magical thinking by people who have organized their own lives to ensure that no one with a gun ever gets in their midst.
Parfigliano
Nothing will be done and it will be “let’s look forward not backward…..mistakes were made” blah, blah, blah. Rinse. Repeat.
Elizabelle
@Parfigliano: Shut up. The learned helplessness is not appealing. Is that you, dougj?
Suzanne
@Jeffro: I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to shame the right. They are literally shameless. That seems the danger I see. We’ll be free of Trump one day, but I want everyone who voted for him to feel so fucking terrible about themselves and their choices that they swear a personal oath never to vote (or hell, leave the house) ever again.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Sock puppet of the old troll with the new nym. DougJ’s schtick is a both sidery but ultimately RW bot, a more ridiculous David Brooks or McCardle.
schrodingers_cat
@Suzanne: No we cannot shame them. If they had an iota of shame T wouldn’t be in the WH. We have to marginalize them electorally so that they crawl back under the rocks they have emerged from.
bemused
@Leto:
That’s what I understood.
What part of highly regulated militia do gun nuts refuse to understand.
Greg in PDX
There were several concealed carry students on campus during the mass shooting here in Oregon. Not one did a thing. One guy agreed to be interviewed and he said that he didn’t pull out his gun because he could hear the police sirens and realized that the SWAT team might think he was a second shooter.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne:
My daughter is an elementary school teacher and probably wishes this were just metaphor.
foucault swing voter mistermix
For those of you discussing whether the deputy should be blamed: At the press conference, Sheriff Israel clearly stated that the deputy was supposed to go in and engage the shooter. As far as I know – I’m not an expert on this stuff – that’s been standard doctrine for years. If you read the first article, Israel was clear that he felt that the deputy did not do his duty.
Leto
@Suzanne: They’re not going to feel terrible, they’re only going to feel that we “didn’t give him a chance” and are just going to double down on every horrid thing. We have to make sure to take back local/state/federal offices and pass meaningful legislation that will benefit everyone. Make sure that we ensure everyone can vote, and then get them to move their asses to the polls every time. Just a lot of work ahead of us. We can do it, it’s just going to take continued perseverance.
Leto
@foucault swing voter mistermix:
I stated this in the other thread but I’ll state it again here: what was the department’s policy for an Active Shooter situation? I want them to lay out their policy. I don’t want the fucking sheriff to get behind the mic and say this, I want them to release their policy on how this situation is handled. If they’re going to say the guy is at fault, provide the evidence.
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
I can’t prove it, but I’m about 98% sure this is the troll who posted here just a few days ago as “Kick Banana Box” or something. Same M.O. Same calling out “you people” for tackling one issue when he thinks we should be tackling his issue, never acknowledging that we can and do do both (or several).
ETA: I see I’m about the millionth commenter to recognize old troll with new nym.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Younger the kids harder the teacher’s job. Teaching college students is easier than teaching high school students, in my own experience.
Llelldorin
Frankly, having a single armed deputy near a school is a lot like the proposal to arm teachers: both are attempts to pretend that there’s a plausible solution once you get to the point of “someone is stalking around a school with an AR-15 shooting at everyone.” The problem is the scenario itself: once you get to that point, there aren’t any acceptable solutions.
My understanding (which may be mistaken) is that law enforcement officers fundamentally work by having a tactical advantage over the people they’re trying to arrest, not by insane heroism. Traditionally, they’re had three key advantages: They have guns where most people don’t, they work with a partner, and they can call for backup. A random officer at a school has none of those advantages: They’re specifically in place for situations where they’d be going after someone more heavily armed than themselves, they don’t work with a partner (because stationing two deputies at every school would be twice as insanely expensive), and they’re specifically _not_ supposed to wait for backup.
That’s insane. That’s security theater at its second worst. (Second worst only because in the “let’s arm teachers” proposal we’ve gone beyond the impossible into an even worse “solution”)
The problem is the situation occurring in the first place. The only possible solution is to make it less likely to occur, by regulating guns.
bemused
I was horrified to learn a couple of months ago that at a nearby small town bar, a local guy in his 40’s tossed his jacket on a chair and the gun in a pocket went off. Thankfully, no one was hurt but they didn’t find the bullet. No one called 911 and I have not heard if he is still carrying or if he had a come to jesus moment. Doubt it.
Dave
@foucault swing voter mistermix: He had responsibility and failed to meet that. His resignation is appropriate. I’m not inclined to further rake him over the coals and hope he and everyone else received the assistance they need to heal after this. It does fit a point I keep coming back to about authority and responsibility and that not enough people take that responsibility seriously or really engage with what it means. For Trump, the least responsible public figure I’m aware of, to criticize anyone as a coward that though that’s galling. He has no business doing so and yet entirely predicatably did.
Ben Cisco
@RemindsMeOfThatMovie: #SureSergei
jimmiraybob
Recall the shootout in North Hollywood that happened in 1996 (or so)? Two guys in body armor and semi auto rifles, including at least 1 AR-15, that were converted to full auto, stood off 200-400 police officers armed with inferior weaponry – mostly hand guns? it wasn’t a pretty sight and most of them cowered behind vehicles and trees and anything else until they could figure out what was happening and then get enough force to mount a counter offensive? It took almost an hour to subdue the two shooters (proto NRA freedom angles).
The deputy in FL, with over 30 years on the force and presumably trained and at least semi-proficient with his weaponry, may be branded a coward but what the hell. Nobody knows how they will react in what for all intents and purposes is a combat ambush situation – probably for the first and only time in their lives.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
I’ve been hoping for a standard prison buzz cut.
Cacti
The problem with the “good guy with a gun” hypothesis is that it relies on the “real world as John Wayne movie” setting.
The “good guy” is always a crack shot, with nerves of steel, who could take down 20 baddies all by his lonesome, and who would always be in the right place at the right time.
The “bad guy” of course would be a terrible shot who would flee in terror at first sight of the duke riding over the hilltop.
Mnemosyne
@Leto:
Because, in the years since Columbine, the gun cultists have developed a myth that a “good guy with a gun” can rush in and stop a mass shooting all by his lonesome, which is the rationale for making everyone carry a gun in public. So now this guy has to be punished for daring to show that the myth is not true.
Llelldorin
@Dave: I just don’t understand how imposing a duty of heroism on anyone is supposed to work. I mean, his assigned “duty” is the sort of thing that appears on (frequently posthumous) military decorations. (Alone and without backup he engaged a much more heavily armed opponent while…)
Yes, it’s wonderful when someone manages solo heroism, but it isn’t usually a job description!
Amir Khalid
@japa21:
Could be someone whose last name begins with T. If Mueller already has Manafort by the goolies, there’s not much higher left to go.
Miss Bianca
@Leto: Well, I for one am really glad that the one cop I knew who was a first responder at Columbine is still alive and kicking.
(Incidentally, after Columbine he resigned his position and became the first and only bike cop we ever had in tiny Paonia, CO. From there to mayor. He didn’t talk much about Columbine but I know it changed his life forever.)
Fair Economist
The deputy didn’t do his duty, but that’s part of the reality of armed guards. Even in wars, the vast majority of soldiers don’t shoot. Most people would get paralyzed with indecision or fear in this situation – outgunned, unsure what they are facing, and concerned about shooting the wrong person (which is very common). Plus, even had he charged in chances are he’d just have been mowed down too.
The reality is that armed guards in this situation just aren’t going to help most of the time.
schrodingers_cat
@Llelldorin: I took a self defense course taught by cops and this is what the instructor said, “the best fight is the one you don’t get into”.
schrodingers_cat
The armed guard/teacher “solution” by touted by the President (bought and paid for by the NRA), is a deflection from the dereliction of his duty.
edited for clarity
Fair Economist
@Amir Khalid:
Based on the indictments, there’s a lot higher to go. Manafort is tied into an international crime syndicate that is involved in dirty politics around the globe (not just the US). He’s just the front man for the real villains.
Leto
@foucault swing voter mistermix:
So in this guys situation, a cop with 30 years experience, you don’t know where the shot came from/you don’t hear screams; what do you do? You have a 2-3 story building with X number of classrooms, and X number of bathrooms/janitorial closets/stairwells that all need to be cleared, lest the shooter is hiding in there waiting for responding personnel. What do you do? What does your department policy on this dictate? If your department’s policy is, “In the event that you don’t know where shots came from/don’t know where victims are located, rush into nearest building and start clearing” then yeah the guy’s at fault. What is the department’s policy if you don’t know where the shooter is/where the victims are? What are they supposed to do then?
@Mnemosyne: Just me and Widowmaker are all this world needs to let everyone know… don’t mess with the best! /vomit
I tried looking for their policy. When you Google, “Broward Country Sheriff’s Dept”, it returns their home page as, “Title field value.” I mean… and I still can’t find their policy for Active Shooter situations.
It’s lunch time. I have to get up and out.
bemused
Oh crap, trump is talking about shootings at military bases.
zanamu
@foucault swing voter mistermix: Although no one has talked to this deputy yet, I hope he gets some help. I am sure he will carry his decision for the rest of his life. One of my students, a dispatcher, reminded me of this event last night after a bank robbery/homicide in Nebraska. http://www.foxnews.com/story/2002/09/29/nebraska-trooper-commits-suicide-in-connection-with-bank-heist.html
Leto
@Cacti: It would’ve been a really boring movie if the Stormtroopers could’ve actually hit things. Granted Obi-wan points out how they’re excellent marksman against Jawa’s, but for the rest of the series…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am curious what someone like a Navy SEAL would do in such a situation. My bet is they would have waited until the shooter was reloading and they had a better idea of what was going on before going in. The idea someone can just run into a corridor full of screaming panicked kids, quickly identify which of the kids is the shooter and shoot them before getting shot themselves is a little far fetched.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: I just want to scare off any of them BUT the shameless, the better to defeat them :)
John
My wife is a teacher. Even if she were willing to carry a gun, which she is not, there is no way she should be forced to put her own safety beneath that of her students or coworkers. Teachers don’t get paid what they are worth as it stands.
Incidentally, this whole “arm the teachers” bullshit movement is reflective of the general lack of empathy on the part of gun owners and Republicans. They would rather force someone to carry a gun than have any restrictions on their desire to fondle a firearm.
Jeffro
@foucault swing voter mistermix:
This is correct – the current doctrine is to get there and get in there as quickly as possible, even if you are alone, even if you don’t know how many shooters there are, and make every effort to take out the shooter(s). And by current, I mean at least since 2012.
Ohio Mom
My kid’s high school has a city police officer there everyday as far as I can tell. There’s always a cop car in the parking lot at any rate.
They built him a glass office in the front lobby (never mind that the building has many other entrances) covered in two-way mirrors.
All the better for him to surf the internet or play solitaire in peace. Do we really think he has his eyes constantly glued on the security camera feeds?
If I was a police chief, school safety officer is the spot I’d put my least competent underling. Keep him out of the way of the guys who are actually doing some work.
gratuitous
I hope I’m never in the position that the deputy found himself in. I have no frame of reference at all for judging his action or inaction. Was he cowardly? Was he smart? Was he somewhere in between? Was he paralyzed by fear? Was he evaluating the situation, trying to gather as much information as he could before drawing down on another person and squeezing the trigger, wanting desperately to get it “right”? I don’t know about any of this.
Cowardly, hesitant, or whatever other pejorative someone else wants to hang on him, the alternative is to hire, train, and arm people who won’t hesitate to shoot, who will be on high alert mode at all times, like a soldier in a war zone. Is that really the person (or band of persons) we the people want prowling the halls and campuses of our public schools?
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: @Mnemosyne: @Miss Bianca: They changed the protocols post Columbine for attacks against schools. The first officer on the scene, which if they school has one is the School Resource Officer (SRO), is to go in. Immediately. If backup arrives as he or she is moving to entry, they are all to enter. If backup is not yet on the scene, the first/only officer on scene is to make the entry. That’s the difference. And this is the protocol that is supposed to be trained to.
In the case of the SRO in Parkland, for whatever reason, he froze. The simple reality is that even those highly trained for this type of thing do not really know how they’ll respond until they actually have to.
Doug R
@bemused:
I have worked in a prison. NO ONE carries a gun inside. All guns are locked up in behind bullet resistant glass in the guard blockhouses or in the towers or locked up police style in the perimeter vehicles.
Guards inside get pepper spray, employees get panic pagers.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Good point about this distracts from gun control; It was this very same situation in the 1920s and 30s with machine-gun armed bank robbers being able to dominate the police that put these laws into place to begin with. These weapons were specificity designed for fighting in confined spaces and so effective that many armies thought the use of them was some kind war crime.
The only reason to have a weapon that is only good for spraying led widely around a room is you want to kill everyone in that room because they are armed and trying to kill you. There is no “sporting” use for these things.
Yarrow
Broward County Sheriff Steve Israel has close ties to Roger Stone. Blaming the shooting on the deputy is no surprise. It may turn out that the deputy did the wrong thing but right now he’s being made a scapegoat and being used as a tool so they can shill for the NRA and more guns in schools. Don’t fall for the typical Roger Stone ratfucking technique.
Link to 2014 article.
The whole article is worth a read.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, is it just me with my gun-phobia informing my response, or does “just rush in with no back-up and no clear idea of what you’re facing, just rush in there ANYWAY” seem like a really, really stupid and suicidal idea?
If my friend Neil had had to deal with that, he’d be dead. Because he was the first police officer on the scene. Just happened to be in the neighborhood.
cokane
Sort of sucks for that deputy, I can’t say I’d have the courage to face a rifle-armed dude by myself with just a pistol. That being said, alot of these mass shooters pretty much execute themselves as soon as LE confronts them, so, ya, shitty outcome all around. The ripple of lives ruined by having guns anywhere and everywhere just keeps growing
raven
@jimmiraybob: They were AK’s and a Bushmaster XM-15 (AR variation)
Adam L Silverman
@Fair Economist: Exactly. And this is what people are missing. The indictments regarding Manafort, as well as the lawyer earlier in the week, should make people very, very, very nervous. I’ve mentioned before here that a dirty secret in political campaigning is that a significant number of the professionals in the US often work for candidates and on campaigns in other countries when they’re not working on American campaigns. Moreover, when they need something done in DC on behalf of their foreign clients they engage the white shoe law firms and high end lobbying shops. Part of what Mueller is doing in a very systematic and methodic way is to follow the money and where and who it flows to. By the time he is done he will be able to dismantle the corruption that exists around politics in DC.
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: Here’s the DHS standards for law enforcement:
https://www.dhs.gov/first-responder
And here’s what Florida International University (in Miami) PD’s protocols are:
https://police.fiu.edu/information/active-shooter-awareness/
Adam L Silverman
@bemused: And that didn’t make sense. I have no idea who the five uniformed personnel he was talking about or even how anyone would know what their marksmanship ratings were unless someone had pulled their service jackets.
schrodingers_cat
The killer had an AR-15, what gun did the guard in the school have?
Adam L Silverman
@zanamu: He needs to be under suicide watch. I expect, at least, and attempt. Especially as the media coverage continues and grows.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the email. Also, blaming the deputy and shifting focus to him is a Roger Stone ratfucking technique. See my comment at 67.
Adam L Silverman
@bemused: @Doug R: The only military personnel on base in garrison (home station whether in the US or overseas) NOT IN AN ACTIVE COMBAT ZONE that carry weapons are the MPs/SPs, Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID) or Air Force Office of Special Investigation (AFOSI), and civilian DOD/Service police officers. If you live on post and have a personal weapon or weapons for hunting or sport shooting or even self defense, then you have to register them with the garrison Provost Marshal’s Office and comply with the garrison regulations for storage.
Annie
I work in a government office so we have been given several sessions of training on how to deal with an active shooter. Know what the police told us? We should run if we can, hide if we can’t run, and call 911 as soon as we can. They admitted that they don’t know what they can tell us because workplace shooters are not all the same, because the situations change rapidly, and because we have no idea what the shooter’s plan is (or if he even has one). The idea of a civilian taking on the shooter was treated with great skepticism by these police officers, who were all SWAT trained.
bemused
@Adam L Silverman:
He never makes any sense, just makes everything up.
Another Scott
@Leto: Apparently some formal policy does exist, but I haven’t found it online.
Miami Herald:
It seems to me that the officer has demonstrated good judgement and a good work ethic for years. It seems to me he’s being thrown under the bus because he wasn’t Rambo or Superman.
And the bolded end says to me that if you know what’s going on, then you do what you can without waiting for further instructions. Not that you rush in and get yourself shot trying to be a hero.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@Another Scott:
He’s being thrown under the bus because it’s a Roger Stone ratfucking operation. See my link at 67. They want to sell more guns for the NRA, they want to arm teachers, they want military style officers in each classroom, they want to undercut the kids who are speaking about gun control. It’s a tactic. They don’t care if they destroy this deputy’s life.
Kay
I would just like it noted that Donald Trump isn’t asking teachers if they want to engage in shoot-outs with people armed with assault weapons.
Their opinions don’t matter. What matters are the opinions of the morons on Fox and Friends, all of whom are paid millions of dollars to spout absolute inane bullshit.
Sloegin
Unless the security guard got the drop on the shooter from close range, or snuck up behind him, rifle v pistol fights at any kind of range always end up with the pistol holder being a statistic. This is one of the many problems with notions of arming teachers if you never address the issue of semi-automatic rifles being sold in this country at game-console quantities.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Leto: From what I understand, the Columbine shooting changed the way law enforcement responded to “active shooter” situations, for the reason you mention.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I don’t think it is quite that simple. It isn’t simply entry. It is assess quickly and enter. But the determination for a school/campus shooter is to get the officer/officers on target as quickly as possible.
Radiumgirl
Meanwhile nearly half the country thinks that arming teachers is just fine.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/02/23/a-frighteningly-large-number-of-americans-support-giving-more-teachers-guns/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.3254fd516ae4
Ruckus
@Barbara:
Body count doesn’t get too high.
I understand what you mean but do you think conservatives/gun humpers do? I don’t think they care about the numbers, as long as it isn’t them personally, they don’t care. It’s the cost of business, it’s built into the equation. Everything is a cost or a profit. A life lost? That’s the price they didn’t have to pay to have their way, their guns or even consider just their freedom to do whatever they want. It’s a cost but one they didn’t have to pay. So they got the profit but at no cost. And it’s a profit they are very willing to take, because it cost them nothing.
Doug R
@Adam L Silverman: Exactly my point. PRISONS and ARMY bases don’t have loose weapons. Yet these gun-humpers want to wave guns around our kids like a NAZI death camp.
Another Scott
@Annie: Relatedly, Washington Navy Yard Shooting:
Etc., etc.
That was on a restricted-access Navy facility. In an office building. It took over an hour to stop him even with lots of armed security in the building. Even with video of where he was in the building. Even without thousands of children present.
Expecting the deputy in Broward case to instantly rush in and stop the shooter is nonsensical. If that’s the policy (and I’m not sure that it is based on a level-headed reading of what I’ve found rather than the Sheriff’s spin on it), then the policy needs to change.
IMHO.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
@Llelldorin: well said
dlw32
When the military solves the problem of occasional friendly fire, then we can talk about how to train teachers to carry firearms in schools. Until then why don’t we table that suggestion?
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
And he’s most likely to be wearing body armor. So armed and protected and trained and he’s not going in. I was once burgled at my shop, when I arrived the front door was broken. I called the sheriff and they got there right away. They asked me if I’d gone in. I said of course not, I’m not armed and I don’t know if anyone is in there. Probably not but not taking the chance. They acted as if they weren’t going in. I offered to do a felony search if they’d loan me one of their guns. They declined and finally went in with guns drawn. Of course there wasn’t any one inside, they were long gone. But the trained, armed, armored cops didn’t want to take the risk. This isn’t what they live for, that’s for sure. And they really don’t seem to be ready to die for it.
What they want is overwhelming force, not an equality situation.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I can’t say for sure, because I can’t find their armorer’s protocol online, but most of the departments in Florida I know of either issue GLOCKs or Smith & Wesson M&Ps. These are striker fired, polymer framed pistols. Some of the departments may have begun to shift over to the newer SIG P320s.
Radiumgirl
@Radiumgirl: Something weird happened in my other comment. I tried to insert a link to the WaPo story and instead the ‘reply’ button takes you to the story.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/02/23/a-frighteningly-large-number-of-americans-support-giving-more-teachers-guns/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.3254fd516ae4
Aleta
I hate that they NRA etc are using comments calling him a coward and the hundred headlines of “he didn’t go in” to pretend he’s an exception to their guy with a gun theory.
Another Scott
@Radiumgirl: If you use the “link” button above the “Leave a Comment” text entry box, you have to be sure to click it again (it will indicate “/link’) at the end of the URL. Otherwise, FYWP captures the Reply button too.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Except none of those are Sheriff Israel’s positions regardless of the connection with Stone. Stone has tried to position himself as a local kingmaker in Broward and Palm Beach Counties for decades. Because he has no compunction to shiv anybody and everybody if he feels like it, every local politician, and sheriff’s are politicians, in the area tip toes around him and sucks up to him.
Ruckus
@Llelldorin:
With a logical, coherent argument like that you are going to be dismissed by the right as a leftwing nut job.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: I’m pretty sure it had something to do with torque.//
I did respond to your physics comment when I got back late last night. Let me know if you saw it.
Ruckus
@Cacti:
who could take down 20 baddies all by his lonesome, with one six gun,
FIXIT for you.
Ruckus
@Llelldorin:
As you noticed of course, in the military this is called a Medal of Honor moment, almost always awarded posthumously.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: There are at least 3 Supreme Court rulings I know of that clearly state that law enforcement officers are not required to actually protect people as part of the regular conduct of their duties.
Mnemosyne
@Leto:
Come on, obviously the Force was protecting our heroes from injury. Duh! ?
terraformer
Seems like we have a pretty solid list of topics to differentiate ourselves from Rs in the coming election.
Question is, can Dems come down hard on one side of this particular issue, or will they centrist themselves to death? There are only so many opportunities like this, along w/all the other issues. Assault weapons ban. Equality in the tax code – soak the rich and corporations. Equal pay for women. Access to abortion and family planning. The list goes on. Take a fucking stand on these issues!
Aleta
@Ruckus:
Collateral damage changed to being regrettable but acceptable in war. Now it’s the same in the minds of the people who play military. That includes the Congress people who played military to get elected.
I honestly believe the nra etc see these deaths as collateral damage in their war for ‘our rights’ ‘our freedom.’
Aleta
@Fair Economist:
Yet when the bots and President Bot call the officer a coward, they are trying to preempt that conclusion. Because the people on their side believe they are all heroes in waiting.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Would it actually matter what was in their service records?
The narrative needs to be fed, the right never, ever lets facts get in the way. If they don’t have facts, they make them up. If they don’t like them, they make them up. Facts are like everything else to the right, something to buy to support their making a profit. Doesn’t have to be honest or real or even exist, as long as they win.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: I just went back. Thanks for the pointer.
As I said there, that’s weird. Muzzle Energy at Wikipedia has more, but it’s just really, really weird to express things that way.
But lots of technical fields have shorthand and do lots of weird things for convenience. Let’s make the infinities go away through Renormalization!!. Or setting the speed of light to 1.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Radiumgirl: I fixed it. I’ll let Alain know the tool for links needs to be tweaked again.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: Most likely not. I honestly am not even sure what event he’s referring to and I’m the guy that wrote the US Army’s report on Soldiers who commit mass shootings.
NorthLeft12
I would hate to see, probably already too late, people focusing on this deputy and his actions as a reason to not do anything about gun control.
It is nice to live in a fantasy land where the deputy rushed right in and put the shooter down in a couple of minutes maybe saving five or six or ten lives. An equally likely outcome would have been the deputy being shot and killed, and possibly wounding or killing a few students himself in the process.
I read some of the posts above about the expectations of the officers in these situations. So are they clearly told that when they are on this specific duty that basically their life is meaningless and they are to engage the shooter(s) regardless of their own personal safety? That does not seem to be how they respond to other situations.
As someone else mentioned, it sounds like they should be assigning their most aggressive and highly trained combat officers to this duty in the future.
I would like to know if they are [or should be] trained differently regarding firing their weapons at shooters within the school with students and teachers in the area and ricochet potential.
But really, the above is all bullshit as it deflects from the real issue regarding the availability of weapons whose only purpose is to kill large numbers of people in a very short period of time.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: It is what it is.
I would have gone into greater detail about how they’ve adapted the terms, but the ice cream I’d dished up for myself before sitting down to check the comments was melting. At that point I decided the ice cream took precedence.
Ruckus
@Aleta:
Well almost.
I don’t think they care at all, as long as they aren’t being shot at. Notice that the NRA, at their annual convention, does not allow guns. That’s how callous and shallow they are. OK for them but not for us, it cuts down the profit. Their entire line of bullshit is that one must have more guns to fight the more guns. They don’t want to end the school or workplace shootings, they just don’t want them at their office/events. If there are more shootings, that’s the chance to sell more guns – profits.
Profits = winning. Costs are what it takes to get profits. If one can profit without paying any personal costs, that’s a better win.
Guns are just the product. Life and death never enter into the spreadsheet. There isn’t even a place to put a sum for life and death in their spreadsheet.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks but what does that mean in terms of fire power. Would anyone have been able to taken on a deranged person with AR-15 who was determined to kill, with that kind of gun.
ETA: What ice-cream are you eating? Have you ever had a beer float? Beer + ice-cream is awesome!
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I’d bet real money that he doesn’t have a fucking clue. He’s too cheap to buy a clue, even if he knew where to do that, he’s too stupid to understand a clue, so I’m going with he doesn’t have one. That won’t stop him from thinking he knows all the clues, because that’s who he is, but actually having one? Naw.
NorthLeft12
And some friends and family I know, who don’t live near the US border, wonder why I don’t go into Michigan at all. I see stuff like this, and even more mundane, day to day gun discharges in public places [accidental or intentional] and I will choose to stay on my side. Yeah, I pay more for gas, beer, etc. but I will pay that price gladly.
Chip Daniels
I reject the premise of the “good guy with a gun”.
Why should we accept the premise that we live in a war zone, where our only alternative is to be constantly armed, constantly afraid, constantly on edge?
Why should I accept the premise that there even exists a so-called “right” to own a weapon of war?
ETA: Wasn’t it Adam Silverman here who eloquently described how the goal of terrorists is to destroy the “gray zone”, that public space where we all feel safe, and how that destroys a free society?
Leto
@Adam L Silverman: @Adam L Silverman: So now that we have a standard, back to the what actually happened:
My comment at 54 led to the NYT article I got it from. Back to my original question, which nobody is answering: “you don’t know where the shot came from/you don’t hear screams; what do you do?”
There’s a reason I keep asking the, “HE SHOULD’VE DONE SOMETHING” crowd this: should the officer have waited to positively identify where shots were fired/where the victims were? If not, what should he have done in that situation? Once he was in, how methodical should he be in clearing the area? Proper clearing procedures means potentially more dead kids/teachers, as it actually takes time to clear. Less proper means he might die, along with more kids/teachers, because obvious reasons. And again, he’s a single individual going through a 2-3 story building.
@Mnemosyne:
Master Yoda
TriassicSands
We can always count on Trump to go for solutions that are simple, stupid, and wrong. His lack of usable intelligence and common sense are truly epic in scale.
Fair Economist
@Another Scott:
The claim that he was *expected* to take action is a lie. The policy says he *may* enter the area.
Chip Daniels
@Fair Economist:
He was supposed to fly through the air sideways whilst shooting two guns simultaneously, like in Bad Boys.
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s the “shomi” person who keeps banging on about “wrong way Cole”, isn’t it?
Leto
@NorthLeft12:
From the reading of the guidance that Adam laid out in post 72, schools essentially need to have SWAT on campus, all the time. You need people trained to respond to any situation, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Of course that’s potentially turning our schools into an even bigger war/militarized zones, but at least they won’t wait to ascertain where the shooter is before they just start charging. They’ll be “doing something”.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I have had beer flavored ice cream. I’ve also had whiskey flavored ice cream.
Depends on the department. Most departments are now shifting to 9mm (9X19/9mm Parabellum) because the FBI and, as a result, Federal law enforcement, are moving to 9mm from .40 Smith & Wesson. Some departments allow a choice of 9mm or .45 ACP or .40 S&W. A small number allow .357 SIG (which is intended to mimic the .357 magnum, which is essentially a revolver round). These are all rounds designed for handguns and fired from handguns. Most duty sidearms have 4 to 5 inch barrels. Here’s the ballistic table for Speer Gold Dot hollow point 9mm standard pressure 124 grain weight ammunition, which is a load carried by law enforcement:
Velocity Muzzle 50 Y 100 Y
(in feet per second) 1150 1044 969
Energy
(in foot pounds) 364 300 259
This will kill you. Quickly if your shot placement is good, slower if it isn’t.
Here’s the ballistic information for Barnes VOR-TX .223 Remington/5.56 NATO Ammunition. This is designed to quickly kill with one shot (provided placement is accurate). Animals. Humans.
Caliber: .223 Rem.
Bullet Weight: 55 grain
Bullet Style: TSX
Muzzle Velocity: 3,240 FPS
Muzzle Energy: 1,282 ft.-lbs.
Over 2,000 feet per second faster and almost 4 times the amount of energy, which for ballistic purposes translates to the amount of force, for lack of a better term, that the bullet delivers when it hits the target. This will be referred to as energy transference.
This is the manufacturers description for the Barnes rifle ammunition:
This is the manufacturers description for the Speer Gold Dot handgun ammunition:
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Last night I had Hazelnut Amaretto Crunch. It sounded better than it tasted. I wanted a bit of a dietary cheat last night, so that’s what I had.
Adam L Silverman
@Chip Daniels: Yep.
NorthLeft12
They are also perfectly okay with training children to be distractions and to delay active shooters until the police arrive. They delay them by sacrificing their bodies and lives.
This whole situation is beyond horrible. It seems to me to be immoral to even be discussing this.
Leto
@Adam L Silverman:
We finally found a gelato place near us last weekend. This is what I had (whiskey and cream) and man… heaven!
jc
It’s incredibly unhealthy and unhelpful to focus so intensely on guns in schools — forcing every teacher and every student to think about the unthinkable, when the whole point of schools is to learn and grow.
“Mass shootings are traumatizing, terrifying events.” Packing heat isn’t what teachers sign up for. They have one job to do, and lawmakers have to do their job. Trump is a master of selectively taking credit and passing the buck.
sherparick1
@Suzanne: I expect I wonder what the procedure is from the Sherrif office. The SOP may be is that he was suppose to wait for back-up or the arrival of the SWAT team. He also would have been considerably out gun by the kid with the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and he carrying only a shotgun.
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: You are not wrong in asking this. If you don’t know where the shooter is or shooters are, and you have no one to guide you in, you make the best decisions you can with the situational awareness you have. What we’re likely to see over the next several days to weeks as the details are fleshed out – from timelines to shooters movements, etc – we’ll have a better idea if Officer Peterson could have done any better than he could.
Right now people are looking to fix blame. Which is a natural reaction. But it often takes a while to get a full picture of what was going on, what went wrong, what went right, etc.
I’m not blaming the guy. Even if he froze I wouldn’t blame him. I know what I’m trained to do. I know what I think I’d do. I have no idea if that thought, based on the training and having to think about potential applications of the training, will result in actually doing what I think I’d do. And if I’m very, very lucky I will never have to find out.
sherparick1
@Adam L Silverman: Because of the tumbling action of the 5.56 mm bullet and its velocity, one does not have to be that accurate in placement to deliver a kill shot.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/las-vegas-autopsy-documents_us_5a8234efe4b01467fcf08b97
Adam L Silverman
@sherparick1: I’m aware.
sherparick1
@Doug R: You have to think of it from the NRA’s point of view. This will mean more gun sales! More gun sales means “profit.” And Gun addicts will buy more guns and name them after Dana Loesch because we liberals are coming for their guns. (Damn right we are! And I won’t mind pulling it from your dead cold hands.)
Leto
@Adam L Silverman:
This is what I’m waiting for too: a timeline of events and what happened. It’s always chaotic, but we need to learn and improve the process. I hope that we do.
I know, and I recognize that. I’m also trying to get people here to slow down and try to think it through from a different view point. People keep saying he should’ve done something, and it’s just infinitely more difficult than that. Regardless, he’s going to carry this with him forever and I hope, hope, hope that he gets the proper help for what’s to come.
Everything here. I trained on this for a few years, but never had to put it in practice. I’d like to think if the situation arose, that the training would take over. At the same time I’m eternally grateful that I never had to find out.
Chip Daniels
Yeah, I’m not ready to stand in judgement of this guy.
He was expected to handle unruly students, confront maybe a hostile and belligerent adolescent armed with fists.
The job description and his expectations were NOT to be a one man SWAT/ SEAL team, prepared for combat.
And the idea that this should have been the case is insane.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: What’s weird about it, aside from the use of archaic US units?
Muzzle energy seems like a pretty good rough measure of destructive potential to me–among other things, the kinetic energy of the bullet is going to have a rough relation to how deeply it can penetrate a material.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: Apparently the way foot lbs is used in ballistics is different than how it is generally used in physics.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: I certainly first encountered foot-pounds as a torque unit (on my dad’s torque wrench).
But it is also an energy unit. Even in SI, this relation is true. A joule is a newton-meter, and the unit of torque is also a newton-meter.
The difference is that energy is a scalar (just a number) and torque is a vector. Energy comes from work, which is force applied in the direction of motion (a vector dot product, which makes a scalar), whereas torque comes from force applied perpendicular to some moment arm (a vector cross product, which makes a vector).
catclub
@bemused:
All of it, Katie.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m sorry energy comes from the socket in the wall. FAKE News! Sad!//
More seriously, I’m just responding to how AnotherScott seems to understand the terms in his response to my use of them in explaining ballistics to someone in a comment yesterday.
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: They tend to focus on “shall not be infringed”.
Kay
We had the high school band concert at my son’s school last night. Now, many people here are horrible but one way they are not horrible is they attend BOTH high school sports AND music events. It’s always a full house.
It was half empty last night. So much so that one of the parents asked me what was “going on”- she thought there was some regional sports event or something that people were attending. There wasn’t though. They just didn’t come.
So I’m sitting there and thinking about all these empty chairs in the audience and looking at the kids who are on a stage and they looked so vulnerable up there- I was really aware of the door to the space on my right. So schools are MOSTLY safe places in the scheme of things, but still. It occurs to you. If you’re a modern high school student you might think about the shooter coming thru the door and you’re on stage, like sitting ducks. It’s awful that they;ve done this to us.
Kay
When Gabby Gifford’s was shot I listened to her husband’s testimony. He was presented as someone who is trained to react because he’s an astronuat and former military, etc. But that wasn’t what stuck with me. What stuck with me was he said it’s so fast there’s no TIME to do anything. The time that elapses is what gets me- it’s seconds and a lot of people are shot. That’s true. What he said is true. FAST.
I don’t know what I would do in a bad situation but if he didn’t have time to react what possible chance do I have? None. I have no chance.
StringOnAStick
This whole topic has made me so angry that I’ve been writing postcards to my crappy R senator every time I get so angry I can feel my teeth clenching. This thread has me up to 14 postcards.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Wow, I wonder if it was fear or anxiety that kept concertgoers home.
Anyway, we are not safe anywhere with AR15s available to anyone who can buy them. Anyone. And this has to stop.
Agreed also re the reaction time. NRA people live in a fantasy world.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I’m probably not expressing myself very well about the issue. I see it as both/and. Sheriff Israel finds Roger Stone useful to him. From the article:
Their goals don’t have to align perfectly for them to find each other useful. Stone may want to push the NRA line, cause chaos, etc. Sheriff Israel may glad to find someone to blame so all the anger can be pointed at that person.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Aside from the units? Well, nothing. But the units are much more commonly used for torque.
Wikipedia:
It invites confusion.
But people in the field are no doubt used to it.
Similarly, but not really, the first time one comes across Specific Impulse (units = seconds) one might have a bit of trouble getting one’s head around it. “Yeah, the Saturn V F1 rocket engine was a monstrous beast. 263 seconds Specific Impulse!!!1”
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: They are terrorists, they want us to be afraid of venturing out and going about our daily lives.
m.j.
This is from Mary Roach’s book Grunt.