Current Affairs The " another shooting in America " thread

[PhilM]

TBF it is far easier to write things like that in a policy than to actually do them and there are really, really fundamental and deep-seated psychological issues with the vast majority of people when you tell them to do things that they think will get them killed. Anyone can be a hero on paper, but when people are actually faced with incredibly complex, incredibly fast moving and incredibly nightmarish situations that they have to deal with it causes problems.

Not saying the cops were right to do what they did (they acknowledge they weren't) but given what happened in Buffalo - (ex)cop confronts perp, shoots him, gets killed because the perp was wearing body armour - shows the limit of that approach.

You're correct and it is very easy to say rather than do, but equally we both know that the responsibility lies with the cops to prevent the loss of life.*

It's what cops are trained to do, especially those with firearms training. If there were a few of them there, they should have attempted to contain and engage.

*At least it is here.

 

[JammyP]

You're correct and it is very easy to say rather than do, but equally we both know that the responsibility lies with the cops to prevent the loss of life.*

It's what cops are trained to do, especially those with firearms training. If there were a few of them there, they should have attempted to contain and engage.

*At least it is here.

You sort of hope that police who carry sidearms have firearms training. Or what is the point of them carrying weapons? It shows perhaps how futile it would be to arm teachers if the police are too cautious to go in. Yet the unarmed teachers die protecting the children in their care.

In any rational world, you penalise the possession of firearms, and enforce it, so very few are in circulation. You don't say so many are in circulation that the criminals are all so well armed everyone needs a gun. That is a counsel of despair.

US readers, bear in mind UK police carry a stick (side-handled baton has replaced the truncheon). If trained, they carry a taser and a gas spray. Only specialist police carry firearms. And any shooting by police is so rare it leads to a public enquiry.

 

[PhilM]

You sort of hope that police who carry sidearms have firearms training. Or what is the point of them carrying weapons? It shows perhaps how futile it would be to arm teachers if the police are too cautious to go in. Yet the unarmed teachers die protecting the children in their care.

In any rational world, you penalise the possession of firearms, and enforce it, so very few are in circulation. You don't say so many are in circulation that the criminals are all so well armed everyone needs a gun. That is a counsel of despair.

US readers, bear in mind UK police carry a stick (side-handled baton has replaced the truncheon). If trained, they carry a taser and a gas spray. Only specialist police carry firearms. And any shooting by police is so rare it leads to a public enquiry.

I'm making an assumption here based on limited evidence, but the requirement/threshold to carry a firearm in the UK is much higher than in the US.

With that, there is a much higher level of training involved. In terms of non-lethal equipment, there's sizeable training and all use must (should) be recorded.

In fact, PAVA canisters are occasionally weighed to ensure their level of use matches the instances recorded. The rank and file don't want firearms.

 

[JammyP]

There is a bit of a challenge in changing a mindset which thinks this is normal or desirable

 

[TimHowardsBeardJuice]

I posted this on the other board I frequent, a Red Sox board.

The comment I was responding to:

It appears the cops sacrificed a classroom of kids for their own well being.

My response:

If it were only that simple.

The cops occupy positions of outsized reverence - of fetish, if you want to be real about it. They command the resources of this little town (40% of the town budget went to the police). They are so beyond accountability in almost everything they do.

And their end of the bargain, the only check they have to cash for 20 years of swaggering around their little town in their Punisher-logo F-250s and SWAT team gear before retiring at 45, is that once in a while they have to be The Good Guy With A Gun, which is supposedly so easy peasy that little old lady schoolmarms are supposed to do it.

And they choked.

They choked and they showed the whole world how ludicrous, how shallow and cowardly, how incomprehensibly evil the culture they exemplify really is.

This one feels different because it’s GOOD OLE BOYS IN TEXAS that showed themselves to be limp dick cowards. I’m sure lots of folks said when this happened in fancy fancy Denver and Parkland and CONNNECTICUT for Christ sakes that if someone ever tried that around here he’d get a rude welcome. Welp, turns out that AR-15s are very effective at their design function of ripping apart the flesh of little kids in the hands of someone intent on doing that, and that all that school target-hardening and cosplaying and giving each other tactical PowerPoints was really just so much jerking off, and what these little kids died for wasn’t the well-being of these cops, it was for a fantasy. A fantasy not just of these cops but of an entire culture. And watching these fat [Poor language removed] stand around fecklessly, doing nothing to stop the shooter, while the parents line up to give DNA samples so that the vaporized shreds of their childrens flesh can be identified-

and in the meantime listening to the lies, the lies, the endless stream of lies where the cops tried to convince us all that they weren’t so craven - and the increasingly unhinged rants of the Ted Cruzes of the world, where this would have been alright if there was ONLY ONE DOOR - anything but admit that the gun is the [Poor language removed] problem. And all these mental gymnastics and moral bankruptcies are in service of the gun, and there are teachers who gave their lives when cops were too chickenshit, and there are most of all dozens of dead little kids, and we still care more about the [Poor language removed] guns.

The entire country sacrificed those kids for an idealized vision of those cops and the culture they supposedly represent. And it’s evil.

For what it's worth, I think this time might be different. There are discussions going on about meaningful reform that would have been unthinkable before this.
The families of the children met with President Biden yesterday, but refused meetings with Texas Gov. Abbott and with former President Trump.

I'll hold my breath because the resistance to change will be fierce, but it's just untenable for some of the pro-unlimited-gun-access crowd to maintain these stances. The idea that the remedy for these shootings is more good-guys-with guns, or that a highly militarized police force is the answer, or that the schools need to be "hardened targets," or that arming teachers is the answer (when two dozen cops were useless), that there should be only one heavily guarded door to a school (never mind what happens in a fire), etc. etc. etc. - it's all so completely outrageous and indefensible. Which it has been all along, but this time it's TEXAS, and this time it's the inaction of the police and the feeble defenses that show just what crap it all is.

I love my country. What's wrong with America can be, and over time is, made better with what's good about America. But do not ask me to defend this aspect of our culture. It's hateful. Hopefully there are enough of us this time who want to change it.

 

[tsubaki]

You're correct and it is very easy to say rather than do, but equally we both know that the responsibility lies with the cops to prevent the loss of life.*

It's what cops are trained to do, especially those with firearms training. If there were a few of them there, they should have attempted to contain and engage.

*At least it is here.

You sort of hope that police who carry sidearms have firearms training. Or what is the point of them carrying weapons? It shows perhaps how futile it would be to arm teachers if the police are too cautious to go in. Yet the unarmed teachers die protecting the children in their care.

In any rational world, you penalise the possession of firearms, and enforce it, so very few are in circulation. You don't say so many are in circulation that the criminals are all so well armed everyone needs a gun. That is a counsel of despair.

US readers, bear in mind UK police carry a stick (side-handled baton has replaced the truncheon). If trained, they carry a taser and a gas spray. Only specialist police carry firearms. And any shooting by police is so rare it leads to a public enquiry.

FWIW the training that has been referred to - which aims to deal with school shooters - is a minimum of eight hours long (with the implication that it is at most a day of training).

download link for the course content (warning: will download a .doc file to your device)

To me, it sounds absolutely deficient to meaningfully train someone to deal with a situation of this kind in that time (indeed a situation like this is not actually trained).

 

[PhilM]

FWIW the training that has been referred to - which aims to deal with school shooters - is a minimum of eight hours long (with the implication that it is at most a day of training).

download link for the course content (warning: will download a .doc file to your device)

To me, it sounds absolutely deficient to meaningfully train someone to deal with a situation of this kind in that time (indeed a situation like this is not actually trained).

This comes back to the training requirements that I posted above. In the UK, you're looking at a minimum of nine weeks mandatory training pre-carry.

You'll then look at around five to eight weeks of training per annum on top of that before even considering specialist roles; there's lighter-touch training too.

But we're talking about specialist firearms officers here who are tasked at containment, rapid entry and potential CT operations not dealt with by CTSFO.

The cops on the ground will likely not have had this level of training. Nevertheless, we're digressing from the point of them being there, armed with an active shooter.

Should they have engaged him if there were a few of them or even on their own? I think most would suggest it was their responsibility to do so, including morally.

Cops will in their career get put into many situations they may not have had the perfect training for, but they will act.

 

[tsubaki]

This comes back to the training requirements that I posted above. In the UK, you're looking at a minimum of nine weeks mandatory training pre-carry.

You'll then look at around five to eight weeks of training per annum on top of that before even considering specialist roles; there's lighter-touch training too.

But we're talking about specialist firearms officers here who are tasked at containment, rapid entry and potential CT operations not dealt with by CTSFO.

The cops on the ground will likely not have had this level of training. Nevertheless, we're digressing from the point of them being there, armed with an active shooter.

Should they have engaged him if there were a few of them or even on their own? I think most would suggest it was their responsibility to do so, including morally.

Cops will in their career get put into many situations they may not have had the perfect training for, but they will act.

Indeed, but I think the problem here is that they did act - they contained that kid in one room in the school (they were stacked up in the hallway by all accounts and exchanged fire with him from there).

Whether that was tactically the right decision is not an easy answer - yes, it condemned those kids not already killed in that room to the likelyhood of being killed, but it also saved the kids in the rest of the school who were able to get away because he was contained.

What annoys me though is that you have every [Poor language removed] politician, hack and commentator in the US saying "but they were trained!!!!!11one" when the training is manifestly (as you say its 8 hours vs many weeks) not enough to deal with that problem (breaching and clearing a room with a shooter and hostages in it). It seems to me to be pre-emptive box ticking - ie: we told them they had to do it, they ignored it.

 

[LinekersLegs]

RIP

 

[Spotty]

Whether or not there is an abundance of guns is NOT the significant factor. Loads of gun availability or limited gun availability, matters not regarding mass shootings. The one and only factor is whether or not someone is determined to gun down innocent people. He / she will do it regardless if there are millions of guns or minimal amounts.

To those proponents of gun control, please answer me this HONESTLY. If someone is 100% determined to gun down as many people as they can, do you think more stringent gun control measures will put him / her off ? It surely is a rhetorical question. Of course it won't stop them. Period. The stark harsh truth is we as a society is NEVER going to be able to stop a determined person. We just aren't. Make it harder for them, yes. But not stop.

I'm a billion percent believer in the " it's not guns, it's people who kill people. I just can't see the arguments for gun control.

 

[Glasshalffull]

Whether or not there is an abundance of guns is NOT the significant factor. Loads of gun availability or limited gun availability, matters not regarding mass shootings. The one and only factor is whether or not someone is determined to gun down innocent people. He / she will do it regardless if there are millions of guns or minimal amounts.

To those proponents of gun control, please answer me this HONESTLY. If someone is 100% determined to gun down as many people as they can, do you think more stringent gun control measures will put him / her off ? It surely is a rhetorical question. Of course it won't stop them. Period. The stark harsh truth is we as a society is NEVER going to be able to stop a determined person. We just aren't. Make it harder for them, yes. But not stop.

I'm a billion percent believer in the " it's not guns, it's people who kill people. I just can't see the arguments for gun control.

Deranged drivel. Utter, utter, dangerous tosh.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

Whether or not there is an abundance of guns is NOT the significant factor. Loads of gun availability or limited gun availability, matters not regarding mass shootings. The one and only factor is whether or not someone is determined to gun down innocent people. He / she will do it regardless if there are millions of guns or minimal amounts.

To those proponents of gun control, please answer me this HONESTLY. If someone is 100% determined to gun down as many people as they can, do you think more stringent gun control measures will put him / her off ? It surely is a rhetorical question. Of course it won't stop them. Period. The stark harsh truth is we as a society is NEVER going to be able to stop a determined person. We just aren't. Make it harder for them, yes. But not stop.

I'm a billion percent believer in the " it's not guns, it's people who kill people. I just can't see the arguments for gun control.

Dunno where to start with this ridiculous post but let’s say I had an extreme mental breakdown and in that moment didn’t care what happened so picked up a gun very easily and shot folk. If there was gun control then people or agencies would have a greater chance to intervene between me losing grip and picking up the gun. Indeed, the desire to pick up the gun could also pass.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

Deranged drivel. Utter, utter, dangerous tosh.

‘HONESTLY’ made me laugh though

 

[Chewbacca]

Whether or not there is an abundance of guns is NOT the significant factor. Loads of gun availability or limited gun availability, matters not regarding mass shootings. The one and only factor is whether or not someone is determined to gun down innocent people. He / she will do it regardless if there are millions of guns or minimal amounts.

To those proponents of gun control, please answer me this HONESTLY. If someone is 100% determined to gun down as many people as they can, do you think more stringent gun control measures will put him / her off ? It surely is a rhetorical question. Of course it won't stop them. Period. The stark harsh truth is we as a society is NEVER going to be able to stop a determined person. We just aren't. Make it harder for them, yes. But not stop.

I'm a billion percent believer in the " it's not guns, it's people who kill people. I just can't see the arguments for gun control.

So either people in civilised countries with gun control don’t want to commit mass murder on occasion or it IS related to the availability of guns and the lack of control laws.

I hope you are on a government watch list you absolute danger

 

[LinekersLegs]

Presumably just a weird coincidence

Higher rates of mass shootings in US states with more relaxed gun control laws - BMJ Group

www.bmj.com

US states with more relaxed gun control laws and higher rates of gun ownership have higher rates of mass shootings, reveals a time trends analysis, published today in The BMJ.