ANOTHER American College Shooting...

for next time some scummer mouths off on the luis.

I'll bet you a lot fewer people will mouth off at you, though!

I imagine purchasing a gun is similarly easy.

I've been asked for ID any time I've purchased a firearm. Maybe I just don't look honest, though.

I’m sorry but its just incredibly pathetic that in 2008 in a supposedly modern society people feel the need walk around with guns on them.

Thank you for the moral pontification. Now, would you care to address the matter rationally with the aid of facts or statistics? Again, I refer you to the plethora of information available in the briefs by the pro-DC parties linked to above to allow you to support your statements. The US has a problem with violence and a lack of general respect for the laws of society. Firearms aren't it.

If I was in a University in the US and found out half the students were packing I'd be outa there in a flash.

What if you didn't know? Are you suddenly in greater danger because you now know the horrid truth?

NTM

When I saw 'unauthorised', I read that as to mean without a permit from the State. USC, after all, is subject to State law.

However, you will note I pointed out in the earlier post the distinction between State law and local policy. The Trolley Square Mall shooter was stopped by an individual who carried his sidearm onto the property in violation of the mall policy, but in accordance with State law. Doubtless TSM will prohibit him from ever shopping there again. How will he possibly live with himself?

Pay close attention to what the lads you spoke to said and didn't say. Call DPS again and ask them as to what section of the student policy code or the California Penal Code would be violated if a non-student with a carry permit brought a sidearm onto campus. Let's say Joe Smith, a 21-year-old from San Diego, decides to visit his sister. Would he be breaking any law or policy? The list of prohibitions on posession in the CPC includes government buildings, courthouses, and public schools. It says nothing about universities. Heck, it's an open campus. What if someone just wanted to check out the university? With or without a permit. Does USC have barbed wire perimeters and metal detectors at every entrance? Their flippant comment about students drinking too much is equally unwarranted: How many drunken shooting rampages have you heard about by CCW holders? The average 21-year-old nationwide probably doesn't drink much more or less than a USC student. (I focus on 21-year-olds because one may not apply for a CCW below that age)

they have 125 unarmed Trojan Student Officers (nicknamed "yellow jackets" because of the yellow jacket they wear), that patrol campus 24/7

Sounds like high-visibilty targets to me. If you can care to explain to me how a bright yellow jacket would have overcome Cho's Glock, I'll be curious to hear it. They would have dazzled him into dropping his pistol, perhaps? NIU claim to have gotten officers on the scene within 30 seconds. That's a pretty damned fast response time, and I tip my hat to them in acknowledging it. Still, it doesn't seem to have done a lot of good, does it?

As an MA/self-defense instructor with a decade of training, I find myself very concerned about people carrying deadly weapons without "a hell of a lot of training" on my campus

As a rifle instructor and military officer with no small amount of experience in the world of firearms including a decade in uniform, I submit your concerns are misplaced and better yet, are not supported by the statistics. This is a nation of 300 million people in 48 states where CCWs are legal. By your parade of horribles, it souldn't be too hard to find a whole bunch of cases where a person lawfully carrying a concealed weapon has acted irresponsibly. When you do find a few, start crunching the ratios. You've probably got more chance of getting run over by a car.

Perhaps you should spend more time in Los Angeles, dear.

And how many of those individuals were permit-holders? The figures show that CCW holders are incredibly law abiding people. You've got more chance of finding a police officer convicted of wrongdoing than a CCW holder. (I believe the ratio is 5:1 but I need to check). Between 1987 when Florida started issueing CCW permits to 1994, over a quarter million permits were issued. Total crimes conducted by CCW holders? 18. And only one was violent.

Manic -- do you think that there would be any need for passers-by to save the day with their concealed guns, if the guns weren't so freely available at the time? I'm just guessing, but I suspect that most of the university shootings were done with guns that were either legally owed by the assailant, or else legally owned by someone else (and taken/stolen by the assailant).

This is, indeed, often the case. But just like every other tool ever invented, they can be mis-used.

NTM

I read the packet I received from the Santa Clara Sheriff's Office with my CCW application form. It's on my desk within arm's reach, was easier than going online. If there were a prohibition on universities not mentioned in the packet, it would be a pretty blatant omission. Given the response as stated by DPS, if it were flat illegal, why would they have differentiated between 'with permit' and 'without permit' in the handling of a student?

Perhaps the answer lies in the same legislation you quote, did you check out CPC 626.9. (l)? Compare your

(only campus and other law enforcement officers are exempt).

with the text of the legislation.

This section does not apply to <snip police, military, security guards...>

a person holding a valid license to carry the firearm pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 12050) of Chapter 1 of Title 2 of Part 4

12050 is the issuance of CCW permits to Joe Public.

You may ask yourself then, 'Why would they bother with such legislation, if carrying a firearm without a permit is unlawful anyway?" The difference lies with sentencing: Carrying a firearm without a permit is a public nuisance with a (typically) $200 fine and loss of the weapon in California for a first offense (12028(a)) as long as it's your pistol, you're not a gang member, and a few other criteria. (I think nunchuku and throwing stars are felonies. Don't ask me, I didn't write the law). Doing so in contravention of CPC 629 is a prison sentence.

The act referring to school zones refers to.. oddly enough, schools, not third-level education. The Gun Free Schools Act gives "School" the same definition as found in 18 USC 921 (a), namely.

The term “school” means a school which provides elementary or secondary education, as determined under State law.

I may be guilty of adding to the confusion as earlier in this thread I was using 'school' in the vernacular, not the legal definition.

NTM

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

As wyk has pointed out above, America's college shooting problem is complex, not simple. Are American gun advocates offering a simple solution to to complex problem?

We do not submit that it is a solution to society's problems. We do submit that it is a remedy for whoever the poor unfortunates are who happen to be in the classroom at the time, in much the same manner as it is a remedy for anyone caught in an unfortunate situation outside of the classroom, whilst the sociologists and politicians actually figure out what the proper solution is and carry it out. Currently nine State legislatures are looking at removing the prohibition on carrying firearms in universities. Or, you could take the policy announced by the Governor of Washington two months ago.

"One thing parents shouldn’t have to worry about is the safety of their children while they attend college,” said Gregoire. “But in the past year, we have been reminded that our campuses are not immune from violence.”

The governor’s supplemental budget proposal includes:

- $8 million for instant warning systems.

- $2.85 million for community notification. For improvements in systems at the UW, The Evergreen State College, Western Washington University, and the community and technical colleges so students and staff can get warnings via e-mail, text messaging and web alerts.

- $2.2 million for facility mapping and security cameras for first responders. Community and technical colleges, and The Evergreen State College, will complete full facilities mapping, giving responders detailed maps of each floor in each building on campus. In addition, Eastern Washington University will purchase security cameras that transmit pictures wireless to monitors in campus police vehicles.

- $395,000 for redundant communications. The UW and WSU will be able to install outdoor alarms and speakers to direct students to safety and allow for the orderly movement of people off campus or back to the classroom.

- $829,000 for access control and shutdown. The Evergreen State College will upgrade its network to allow for the centralized, classroom-by-classroom lockdown on campus. WSU will install key-card access control at each door in selected buildings. The UW will enable emergency ventilation shut-off for each building.

That's over $14 million dollars, which, unless I'm missing something, does absolutely nothing to stop a shooting from happening, and does no good at all to anyone who happens to be in the unfortunate situation of being in proximity to the shooting. This is typical of some of the solutions being proposed. Forgive me for not being overwhelmed by the feeling of security this would impart.

Easy access to guns in America, be it legal or illegal, certainly contributes to the problem of college and school shootings, no matter how gun advocates use circular arguments to often state it's not the gun, but the person using it?

I will accept that. But you must also accept that firearms have a use for purposes other than unlawful slaughter. Further, you must also note that easy access to firearms for children is not a new concept in the US. Mass shootings like this are: The issue is with society, not the weapon.

What American gun advocates (and the gun lobby) don't want brought to the public attention are the number of gun-related deaths reported. The American Center for Disease Control (CDC) compiles and issues reports on the leading causes of death in the United States. In year 2000, the 8th leading cause of death was gun-related. Specifically, "Of 28,663 firearms-related deaths in 2000 -- average of 79 per day -- 16,586 (57.9%) were suicides, 10,801 (37.7%) were homicides..."

What anti-gun advocates don't want brought to public attention are the number of times firearms are put to good use. From the brief of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons:

But the benefits of guns are undeniable:
one physician surveyed published studies
and estimated that the defensive use of guns saves 25
to 75 lives for every one lost to a gun. Miguel Faria,
M.D., “Public Health and Gun Control – A Review
(Part I: The Benefits of Firearms),” 6 Medical Sentinel
11 (2001).

Fourteen studies have been conducted to try to figure out how many times a firearm is lawfully used against crime. Figures vary from 700,000 at the low end, to 2.5million at the high end. Per year. The figure estimated by the DOJ in 1994 is 1.5million.

Suicide rates are not linked to firearms in themselves. From the same brief.

Japan, Hungary, and Scandinavia all have far more
restrictive gun control than the United States, and
yet they have suicide rates 2 to 3 times higher than
the U.S. For example, the suicide rate in Hungary is
35.38 per 100,000, compared to only 12.06 per
100,000 in the United States. See “International Violent
Death Rates” (May 17, 2003).9

Would you have guessed that there were anyplace near that many American firearms-related deaths in one year? 28,663! Yikes! American deaths per year in the Iraq War are considerably less? But of course, American gun advocates proclaim that guns are not a problem in America, only gun users who pull a trigger on themselves or another human being?

Is this an incorrect assessment? As you point out yourself, the underlying causes are extremely complex. Yet you wish to focus on an inanimate tool as the root of all evil. And further, the solution of simply getting rid of them isn't feasible.

Now, if you want to really be shocked, look up the numbers of deaths due to medical malpractise in the US.
http://www.personal-injury-information.com/index.html

In the United States, over 200,000 people die annually due to mistakes by healthcare professionals, surgeons and pharmacists. In fact, medical malpractice is the third leading cause of death in the United States, with 3 per cent of all hospital patients becoming victims of medical mistakes. The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) breaks down the annual figure further: 100,000 deaths from adverse effects from medication, 80,000 deaths from infections contracted in hospitals, 12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgery and 7,000 deaths from medication and prescription error. However, one area that does not receive much press is the fact that more than 10,000 doctors in the US have been disciplined for incompetence, misconduct and negligence

45,000 a year on car accidents... Two days ago in Maryland a poorly driven car killed eight people standing at the side of the road. Hell, this guy did better than the NIU Shooter, and he wasn't even trying.

Why not ban doctors and cars? Obviously because they provide an overall benefit to society far greater than their detremental effect. What people fail to realise is that firearms have a far greater benefit to society (especially for the law-abiding) than their negative effect. The difference is that the latter is publicised in international news, and the former is almost never mentioned, thus creating a skewed perspective.

By the more extreme example, you note that you teach sword-fighting. What possible benefit to society does a sword have? Obviously some people can consider them to be a threat to sociey, the UK has just announced a new ban. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7138735.stm. Even a smaller blade can be used to stab a number of people. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-22-grocery-store-stabbing_x.htm (Oh, and look who stopped him: A man carrying a gun)

Elartrice Ingram, 21, was charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder, police said. The attack Friday apparently stemmed from a work dispute, investigators said <snip>

Ingram, chasing one victim into the store's parking lot, was subdued by Chris Cope, manager of a financial services office in the same small shopping center, Memphis Police Sgt. Vince Higgins said.

Cope said he grabbed a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from his pickup when he saw the attacker chasing the victim "like something in a serial killer movie."

"When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground," Cope told The Associated Press. "He saw my gun and that was pretty much it."

I'm sure your sword has never hurt anyone you didn't mean to hurt. At least my firearms can be argued to have a greater practical use in the real world. In the meantime, however, I suggest that I leave your form of self defense alone, and you leave me to mine.

NTM

Surely rubber rounds have enough stopping power in them for an assailant

In a word, they don't. You're just going to piss him off. Look at the size of the rubber bullets fired for crowd control, and imagine how effective they are against a guy with a real gun. Even when shooting live rounds, you keep pulling the trigger until the threat stops, it's not a one-shot-stop deal.

I dont see the use of letting loose thousands of lethal Full Metal Jacket rounds into society.

I use jacketed hollow points as my round of choice, as do most people but there is some option in favour of using rounds like Glaser. Hollowpoints are less likely to overpenetrate (either people or walls etc), and do a far better job of transferring energy into the target. FMJ is generally military issue only, where immediacy of effect is not an issue (and deforming rounds are forbidden by treaty anyway). If there's a gun battle going on in the street, you want the round to stop the target immediately. Not necessarily kill him, but incapacitate him. (Survival rates for JHP are actually higher than for FMJ)

NTM

Hopefully a quick one: The new Knight Rider is on in a few minutes. (I don't know if I like KITT as a Ford Mustang, but anyway)

[*]Citizen vigilantes do not prevent the shootings from happening in all the anecdotal cases you cited thus far. The shooting starts first.

It is true, the shooting does. Our difference lies in what happens afterwards.

In the recent classroom shooting incident at Northern Illinois University the deranged person began shooting with a shotgun before a potential citizen vigilante would be able to act, so your solution is not preventative.

It is very preventative if you happen to be in the room but not victim to the first shot or two. Assume, for the sake of argument, that someone starts shooting in your USC lecture hall. It'll take a shot or two to realise just what's happening. Nothing to be done about that. Assuming that you are one of the majority not actually injured, what are your options from that point on? (1) Join the mad rush of people trying to get out the door, assuming that the shooter isn't blocking it, and hope that you don't get hit should the shooter decide to aim at the mass of people. (2) Cower in the hopes that someone with a gun (i.e. police) gets to the shooter before he gets to you. Neither of these are particularly pro-active solutions, and in both cases you are reliant on two factors: The amount of time it takes for the police to show up, and just how long it takes for the shooter to hit you. Neither of which are under your control.

This is a process of damage limitation. The difference between four people being killed in the Colorado church shootings, and maybe a dozen. (He had nearly a thousand rounds of ammunition, apparently). Now, I don't know about you, but assuming total prevention isn't going to happen, I think lower death tolls are preferable to higher ones.

Unlike the Rambo sterotype that assumes years of training, your citizen vigilante would require little (according to you in two of your earlier posts).

I make no Rambo stereotypes. The simple fact of the matter is that aiming a pistol at a target and pulling the trigger is a fairly simple process, which has been managed by anyone from gangbangers to psycho students to private citizens under stress. The woman in the 911 call I linked to earlier didn't even own the gun she used to kill her attacker, it had been loaned to her by a friend the day before. Now, when you start getting into one-on-one scenarios such as quick-draws, or tactical fire and movement (Particularly in teams) then yes, much more training is required. Putting steel on target is much simpler.

Although there will be exceptions like yourself (US Military?), those will be exceptions, with citizen vigilantes carrying guns into the classroom generally with less training than campus police, local law enforcement, or SWAT in most cases?

Again, I point out that those who undertake CCWs are often better shots than the police for whom their sidearm is merely a mandatory annual qualification. You teach martial arts, police and military are given unarmed combat training. Do you really think the average cop will best you in unarmed combat? I know that the standard I received in the Army wasn't to the level that I would like to take on someone for whom it's an interest.

I worry about increasing the numbers of untrained or poorly trained vigilantes and the likelihood of increasing what military types call death or injuries due to "friendly fire," or what the news media calls "collateral damage?"

Apparently 10% of shootings involving police hit bystanders. I need to look up the cite, but I'll get back to it, I just saw it today. The figure for private citizens is 2%, though this figure is skewed heavily because most private citizen shootings tend to be in places like the home where there are no bystanders to hit. And frankly, if the shooter is going around firing at will, I don't see what benefit there is to not taking the shot.

Your solution assumes that students and faculty will arm themselves to such an extent that there will be an armed presence in most or all classrooms at any given moment of time? At USC during a normal semester session, that would mean that hundreds of guns would have to be present on campus.

Well, despite the fact that the hundreds of guns known to be on campus at UU don't seem to be a problem, if other people wish to be defenseless, that's their problem. I see no reason why someone else's fears should prevent someone who wishes to be armed from doing so.

Your concealed gun permit requires that the citizen vigilante be at least 21 years old. That greatly reduces the number of university students that would be eligible to carry guns,

Correct. But it also increases the amount of chance that someone with a firearm will be in a position to take action. Again, note the 32-year-old veteran killed in NIU, for example. There is no reason to believe that this person would have chosen to be armed, but even the option was not available. Having increased chances of stopping a rampaging shooter earlier, even if not 100%, cannot be a bad thing. By the way, I object to your repeated use of the term vigilante. That implies someone who takes the law into their own hands. I'm talking about people who act within the law.

The shooters, according to all the reports and studies I have read, are emotionally disturbed people, not your criminal types that may consider risk as a factor before committing a crime

Again, it's the difference in numbers. Mass shootings stopped by someone carrying a gun aren't mass shootings, because they were stopped before they got to that point.

When faculty were asked if they would carry a gun into a classroom, not one said they would do so;

That's their choice. I choose otherwise.

the notion of a gun in the classroom was thought to be more of a risk and counterproductive to a learning environment

If you don't know about it, I'm not sure how that can be a problem. Perhaps given the stigma in urban California regarding firearms, just no faculty member chooses to openly admit that they carry a firearm for fear of unwarranted ostracisation. After all, if it's a concealed weapon, it's counterproductive to tell someone you have it.

I know several at USC in student government, and have been asking around about their position on changing the USC policy about carrying guns into the classroom.

Have you asked them what their preferred course of action would be if they found themselves in the same lecture hall as someone with perhaps less respect for human life than most people? Mr Kazmierczak appears not to have been too concerned about anyone else's positions on carrying guns into the classroom.

hence predicting is spurious (i.e., unscientific armchair nonsense).

The number of school shootings is indeed a small sample size. The number of private citizens using firearms to prevent crime or violence is a much greater number, and far less deniable. Since we are only suggesting that the same people who carry outside of class carry inside of class, I see no reason to believe that the statistics for the one cannot extrapolate to the other.

The high availability of guns in the United States has to be considered a serious part of the problem, to where it is easier for criminals, gangs, mentally disturbed, and persons without minimal firearms safety training to acquire them.

Yes. But access to firearms is not new. The root problem is something other than the firearm. This argument also happily ignores the benefits to firearms ownership.

The same can be said about how easy it is for a mentally disturbed college shooter to pick up a gun, if they are highly available in the United States.

As has, I believe, now been demonstrated. Given, however, that there will be no reduction in the amount of firearms sales in the US, you need a solution which takes into account the fact that there are 200million firearms in the country, and that normal citizens will always be able to buy them, at least until the Constitution is changed.

so maybe more monies to research and discover how to reduce, if not eliminate the college shooter problem?

I have no quarrel with this concept. I, too, think the money would be better spent that way than on warning systems. In the meantime, however, I see no reason this can exclude the legal carrying of firearms in addition.

As you might have guessed, I've told them that I would be willing to serve on the committee to protest guns on campus should it be necessary

The implication here is that there is a movement in USC's population to permit it? (I don't know if there is or not).

The shortest question though is 'who is responsible for the safety of any individual student?' I think any solution must take that question into account. Please note that the question of "Do the police have any duty towards a private individual" has already been answered by the Supreme Court.

NTM