14 children, 16 total dead in elementary school shooting

[Mark1T]

It doesn't take that much to kill a person. If AR-15s did not even exist, this incident could easily have happened with semi-auto 9mm handguns. Maybe even easier.

I heard today that not one single person intervened when the gunman entered the building. Again, after 20+++ years of school shootings, where was minimal security to at least try to minimize the shootings?

[bustasinclair]

M16 shoots the same ammo as an AR15, .556 NATO. AR15 can shoot a few different types. .223 Remington being the most popular.

No, that is simply false or uses some obscure mental gymnastics and statistics to reach that conclusion. An M16 is select fire semi automatic, 3 shot burst or fully automatic and are chambered in 5.56mm which is often slightly higher velocity than .223 caliber offerings for most AR15s. The M16 has a higher rate of fire with more “powerful” rounds. That said many ARs can be chambered so they could fire 5.56mm nato or .223 caliber rounds, they are not select fire fully automatic like an M16.

I wouldn’t say an 18 year old should be banned from owning an AR, I mean they can enlist in the military to defend our country and use far more powerful weapon systems. I do think a better means of assessment could be done for legal purchases, but it would do little for illegal purchases. A train car of AR15 rifles was stolen in Chicago a couple years ago. Not sure how many fit onto a rail car, but I’m guessing it’s a lot.

Maybe it was the M-16 A1 that it had the lethal advantage over, not sure. In the military, you are heavily supervised and can only use the weapon for certain things. It's not like you have unlimited access to the firearm. Points taken though. I'm definitely no activist, just a concerned citizen.

[bustasinclair]

It doesn't take that much to kill a person. If AR-15s did not even exist, this incident could easily have happened with semi-auto 9mm handguns. Maybe even easier.

I heard today that not one single person intervened when the gunman entered the building. Again, after 20+++ years of school shootings, where was minimal security to at least try to minimize the shootings?

Exactly! I thought about this yesterday. Barricading yourself in a classroom with a full hour to spare you could kill everyone with a common butter knife.

I'm more or less talking in general terms; not just this tragedy.

[mtpockets]

It doesn't take that much to kill a person.

even less when the person is tiny weighing 50 to 80 lbs.

[Plateauplower]

Maybe it was the M-16 A1 that it had the lethal advantage over, not sure. In the military, you are heavily supervised and can only use the weapon for certain things. It's not like you have unlimited access to the firearm. Points taken though. I'm definitely no activist, just a concerned citizen.

In terms of lethality, really the biggest factor is the operator. Someone trained to engage targets in a high stress situation (combat effective) could be more lethal with a single shot firearm than someone spraying bullets with a full auto. But when it comes down to it, there a millions of semiautomatic rifles that are not AR15s. A Ruger 1022 rifle is .22 caliber and accepts 25 round plus magazines.

[Mark1T]

Exactly! I thought about this yesterday. Barricading yourself in a classroom with a full hour to spare you could kill everyone with a common butter knife.

I'm more or less talking in general terms; not just this tragedy.

even less when the person is tiny weighing 50 to 80 lbs.

All true.

[Corbi]

You ever been to Mexico, brah? They have pairs of dudes in casual street clothes standing outside banks and jewelry stores holding AK-47's across their chests. Security is not taken for granted in other parts of the world like it is in the US.

Similar deal in the Domincan Republic as well, only it's gas stations and they have guards with shotguns standing by the pumps.

Have understand that as weapon that is designed to be very efficient shooting a large amount of rounds, quick and easy to load, large ammunition magazine , easy to quickly aim and fire. Very efficient-powerful

Keep in mind I am not a gun guy, don't know many who are. I have fired an SKS once at a range though, and I did not see the appeal compared to some of the hunting rifles that I tried out.

The SKS sucks, I have one and it's a piece of $hit and should never be compared to the AR.

I don't mean to be rude, but I have no idea what you are talking about. Democrats keep proposing gun legislation and it gets shutdown. Every-single-time. After Sandy Hook school shooting, Obama administration proposed a bill to expand background checks to most gun sales. Go check which party and who specially voted against it. And that's after 20 DEAD American kids.

Once again we already have background checks to most gun sales. You cannot buy a gun online without going through a background check. I recently purchased a semi auto shotgun online and it had to be sent to a dealer with an FFL and they do the paperwork for the background check. Anyone who claims otherwise has no fukking clue what they are talking about.

Unless you are private shop, like Daniel Defense, which sold AR-15's to this psycho. This is how easy it is to get AR-15 from it, you can even get it in credit!

https://qz.com/2170207/we-ordered-th...ow-easy-it-is/

I drilled down to the form that the owner of Daniel Defense probably filled out for this shooter:

https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/nics

I don't know if they did or not. Background check checks for criminal record, which at 18 this guy didn't have. It takes like 48 hours from what I am reading to get approved? I never went through this process so I am not sure. But this seems pretty easy, no?

See above, learn about the process or stop pretending to know anything about it.

I haven't fact-checked this, but the AR-15 is reported to be 40% more lethal than the M-16 I trained with when I was in the military. Apparently this was claimed by the person who designed the AR-15.

Either way, an immature 18 year-old probably shouldn't have one in their possession. The chances that they will be responsible with the security of the weapon is suspect and could easily end up in the wrong hands. JMO

Same exact round used so no difference at all in lethality.

[Corbi]

make background checks tighter and raise age limit. 18 year old can't drink, but can have AR-15?

Which of these would you ban and why?

[induced_drag]

No real nor effective discussion will come out of this. Dems will scream 'guns bad!'

It just does not add up.

Household gun ownership down last 40 years.
In the last 10 years since Sandy Hook, guns have not gotten any more deadly. There is no new gun tech that has become available to kill better. Yet in the past 10 years we have seen an EXPLOSION of mass shootings. If there is no correlation to guns, their availability or their deadliness, could something else be the reason behind it?....


Very quicky the left will call out "gun lobbies".  

FACTS:  2021 Big Tech spent 70+ mil.   Big Pharma in 1st Quarter alone spent 92 mil.    NRA ALL OF 2021....  2 mil

No one looks into the effects of massively medicating an entire generation.  Between 1991 and 2018 there is a 3000% increase in anti-depressants.   State funded prescriptions for teens has doubled in last decade.  In the short period of COVID lockdowns, there was another 20% increase in SSRI's for teens.    

Gun ownerships is DOWN in families.  According to a RAND study, 45% of  homes had a gun in 1980.  Now it is 35%.    

So to wrap up, in 3 months big pharma spent 46x more than the NRA did in an entire year.   1 in 10 Americans is on a psychoactive drug currently.     Anyone willing to have an honest discussion as to there may be other linking factors other than  "Gun BAD!".    

Why is no one standing up and calling for the heads of the politicians who demeaned 'lock downs'. Anyone want to take an honest look at the deaths and rise in mental illness associated with lock downs. Speaking from experience, there is blame to be placed for these things. The blame is not on the guns.

[Cantplankwell]

One thing I keeping coming back to and we talk about it at home:

The growth of violent 1st person shooting games, we grew up with space invaders, pacman and board games

The violent gun play sh*t on TV shows and movies, way worse then stuff we went to see 30 years ago...carnage and more carnage

30 years of war in the Middle East and elsewhere you have access to on Youtube and constantly in the news

The list goes on

We did not grow up on this, god help our kids

[induced_drag]

One thing I keeping coming back to and we talk about it at home:

The growth of violent 1st person shooting games, we grew up with space invaders, pacman and board games

The violent gun play sh*t on TV shows and movies, way worse then stuff we went to see 30 years ago...carnage and more carnage

30 years of war in the Middle East and elsewhere you have access to on Youtube and constantly in the news

The list goes on

We did not grow up on this, god help our kids

I played plenty of first person shooter games. My son plays them almost exclusively. Playing a game does not make you go kill people any more than music was balmed on suicides in the 80's.

[Plateauplower]

One thing I keeping coming back to and we talk about it at home:

The growth of violent 1st person shooting games, we grew up with space invaders, pacman and board games

The violent gun play sh*t on TV shows and movies, way worse then stuff we went to see 30 years ago...carnage and more carnage

30 years of war in the Middle East and elsewhere you have access to on Youtube and constantly in the news

The list goes on

We did not grow up on this, god help our kids

There probably is correlation to several of those things. Desensitization from seeing video violence probably has an affect. Likely a number of things combined. IDs post above is interesting too on the increase in pharmaceuticals. There are other environmental factors possible too, pharmaceuticals and some common use chemicals are hard to remove from wastewater and don’t take high concentrations to have an effect. Things like hermaphroditism in frogs/fish from birth control drugs etc, not a stretch to believe there could be many similar effects.

[thomashenry]

One thing I keeping coming back to and we talk about it at home:

The growth of violent 1st person shooting games, we grew up with space invaders, pacman and board games

The violent gun play sh*t on TV shows and movies, way worse then stuff we went to see 30 years ago...carnage and more carnage

30 years of war in the Middle East and elsewhere you have access to on Youtube and constantly in the news

The list goes on

We did not grow up on this, god help our kids

We grew up watching Combat, 12 o clock high the rat patrol, John Wayne and Audi Murphy, the French connection and The Godfather Johnny Quest, gun smoke, heck I used to have a collection of Sgt Rock and Sgt Fury and his howling commandos comic books, GI Joe’s ( the original one) not the Kung fu grip kind, we/ I knew the difference between reality n fantasy !

I also went to church and grew up in a neighborhood that had common sense and respect, values and morals, it’s a lack of many things that has led us to this point

[induced_drag]

There probably is correlation to several of those things. Desensitization from seeing video violence probably has an affect. Likely a number of things combined. IDs post above is interesting too on the increase in pharmaceuticals. There are other environmental factors possible too, pharmaceuticals and some common use chemicals are hard to remove from wastewater and don’t take high concentrations to have an effect. Things like hermaphroditism in frogs/fish from birth control drugs etc, not a stretch to believe there could be many similar effects.

Years ago there was a site that tracked many of the mass shootings and HS shootings. It had all kinds of info on anti-depressants and how almost every school shooter was on some form. (not saying that is a causal factor, but certainly worth looking into)

My wife has a psychology background and there are 'black box' warnings on many anti depressants about suicidal increases etc. A kid I grew up with killed himself after starting anti-depressants. My daughter had a female cycle issue which was significant and one of the things we finally agreed to try was a combo of an SSRI with another med. My daughter had a terrible reaction to it, and shared with us dark overwhelming feelings of wanting to kill herself.

Anyway, all the complaints about gun lobbies, why are there no good studies looking into rise in violence with anti-depressant use? Maybe because big pharm spends almost 200x what the NRA spends. And govt pays for many of these scripts as the biggest customer providing them to teens. (doubled in past decade).


So I dont think there is one clear answer, but when guns have not gotten any more available or any more deadly, yet these events increase at a massive rate, looking at the gun as the problem is very short sighted.

[Plateauplower]

Years ago there was a site that tracked many of the mass shootings and HS shootings. It had all kinds of info on anti-depressants and how almost every school shooter was on some form. (not saying that is a causal factor, but certainly worth looking into)

My wife has a psychology background and there are 'black box' warnings on many anti depressants about suicidal increases etc. A kid I grew up with killed himself after starting anti-depressants. My daughter had a female cycle issue which was significant and one of the things we finally agreed to try was a combo of an SSRI with another med. My daughter had a terrible reaction to it, and shared with us dark overwhelming feelings of wanting to kill herself.

Anyway, all the complaints about gun lobbies, why are there no good studies looking into rise in violence with anti-depressant use? Maybe because big pharm spends almost 200x what the NRA spends. And govt pays for many of these scripts as the biggest customer providing them to teens. (doubled in past decade).


So I dont think there is one clear answer, but when guns have not gotten any more available or any more deadly, yet these events increase at a massive rate, looking at the gun as the problem is very short sighted.

Yeah I’ve heard about correlations before in school shooting but it’s like that disappeared from the news cycle unsurprisingly. Scary deal with your daughter, glad for you that she was open and communicated that to you guys.

[Mark1T]

So, the Uvalde Police were at the scene while the shooter was killing kids for 40 minutes, waiting for a tactical team to arrive, while holding parents back while they heard shots in horror. Not one police officer had the guts to run in there and end it.

No school security before, during or after. Nothing learned in the past 20 to 30 years. But, it is the gun's fault.

[Cantplankwell]

I played plenty of first person shooter games. My son plays them almost exclusively. Playing a game does not make you go kill people any more than music was balmed on suicides in the 80's.

Sure but with 330 million people out there in the US alone, there is going to be a wide spectrum of reaction ranging from revulsion to obsession or worse

We grew up watching Combat, 12 o clock high the rat patrol, John Wayne and Audi Murphy, the French connection and The Godfather Johnny Quest, gun smoke, heck I used to have a collection of Sgt Rock and Sgt Fury and his howling commandos GI Joe’s ( the original one) not the Kung fu grip kind, we/ I knew the difference between reality n fantasy !

I also went to church and grew up in a neighborhood that had common sense and respect, values and morals, it’s a lack of many things that has led us to this point

Yup all staples of growing up in 70s and 80s, but what kids have at their fingertips today is a couple of octaves worse, compare Ozark or Breaking bad to any of those you mentioned., the violence is so much more graphic, on a whole different level

[Mark1T]

It doesn't take that much to kill a person. If AR-15s did not even exist, this incident could easily have happened with semi-auto 9mm handguns. Maybe even easier.

I heard today that not one single person intervened when the gunman entered the building. Again, after 20+++ years of school shootings, where was minimal security to at least try to minimize the shootings?

Remember University of Virginia killer, 2007? No AR was used. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols.

[ViolentZ]

Its not because of the guns, it's because of mental illness combined with social media that drives these @ssholes to acts like this. Add in the fact that schools are gun free zones which makes them a soft target. There are plenty of ex military as well as retired cops who could be utilized to protect schools. Setup a single point of entrance and have an armed Vet standing there, I guarantee this $hit stops.

mental ilness and social media aint going nowhere, so why do u let guns in the hand of the mentally ill.

[lotusdeva]

Similar deal in the Domincan Republic as well, only it's gas stations and they have guards with shotguns standing by the pumps.



The SKS sucks, I have one and it's a piece of $hit and should never be compared to the AR.



Once again we already have background checks to most gun sales. You cannot buy a gun online without going through a background check. I recently purchased a semi auto shotgun online and it had to be sent to a dealer with an FFL and they do the paperwork for the background check. Anyone who claims otherwise has no fukking clue what they are talking about.



See above, learn about the process or stop pretending to know anything about it.



Same exact round used so no difference at all in lethality.

See above what. You can buy AR-15 online:

Only gun dealers with a Federal Firearms License are required to do a background check before selling a gun in Texas, not private sellers. Texas has NO state requirement for more comprehensive background checks when purchasing a firearm. Therefore, persons prohibited from owning firearms can easily obtain a gun - on the internet, at a gun show, even from a private seller out of the trunk of a car.

https://www.txgunsense.org/articles/...ckground-check

You seem to know what you are talking about.

[Karl_Hungus]

Remember University of Virginia killer, 2007? No AR was used. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols.

This is why the hangup on the AR-15 is a red herring. Banning it would have no effect whatsoever. A shooter could move to another firearm that is equally effective. In fact, even among mass shootings, handguns were used in the majority of cases. The problem with these debates is that emotionality supplants rationality.

[Tommy W.]

This is why the hangup on the AR-15 is a red herring. Banning it would have no effect whatsoever. A shooter could move to another firearm that is equally effective. In fact, even among mass shootings, handguns were used in the majority of cases. The problem with these debates is that emotionality supplants rationality.

Plus most people think AR stands for Assault Rifle

[LWW]

X trainer Ben, what did you think of my idea?

Would you enable a feature on your phone to alert you that someone a few miles away from your exact location made a threat on SM?????

[Mark1T]

This is why the hangup on the AR-15 is a red herring. Banning it would have no effect whatsoever. A shooter could move to another firearm that is equally effective. In fact, even among mass shootings, handguns were used in the majority of cases. The problem with these debates is that emotionality supplants rationality.

Exactly my point. Yes, an AR-15 inflicts a lot of damage, but a much less powerful gun will easily kill as well. Damage doesn't matter. If you hit a person with a VW Beetle at 40MPH head-on vs hitting a person with a military tank at 40MPH, in both scenarios, the person is dead. Or, do you solve the problem by banning tanks?

What matters is the person holding whatever gun he or she is holding and their intentions and how they got the guns. What also matters is the schools themselves and if they are bright enough and caring enough to provide security - some security for the kids.

This school should be held accountable.

Again, I agree with raising the age to 21 to buy any gun and more regs on private gun sales and some other suggestions by Ms. Deva and JT. But, banning a type of gun is a waste of effort that could go into requiring schools to follow safety protocol.

If this school in Uvalde had followed a simple safety protocol, lives would have been saved and the severity would have been much less.

[Bando]

Outside of gun confiscation, what are the solutions? If there was gun confiscation of any type of gun, no criminal that has any type of gun will abide by it.

As a result, a gun confiscation would end up being ineffective and largely ceremonially political.

It's the old "if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" argument. Law abiding gun owners aren't going to surrender their guns when Hillary comes knocking, me being one of them.

And I disagree with forcing teachers to be armed security guards. That's not their function, and security is better left to professionals.

Hope you're trolling me Brah, that's not what I said. Lots of grizzled old woodshop teachers with 7 remaining fingers spend every weekend at the Rod & Gun club shooting chit up. I'm not saying arm every teacher, but I would guess every school has 3 teachers that routinely use firearms, allow them to pass a proficiency test and allow them to CC on school grounds.

In all these cases, there's at most, one armed resource officer that the shooter knows about.

If these cowards knew there were 3-4 other handguns in ankle holsters waiting for them, it wouldn't be such a soft target IMO

[unity]

Sure but with 330 million people out there in the US alone, there is going to be a wide spectrum of reaction ranging from revulsion to obsession or worse



Yup all staples of growing up in 70s and 80s, but what kids have at their fingertips today is a couple of octaves worse, compare Ozark or Breaking bad to any of those you mentioned., the violence is so much more graphic, on a whole different level

there are 3.24 billion gamers in the world. i don't think all shooters are gamers.

even if "violent" entertainment is having some kind of impact on mental health, i believe the % is so small that we will be better off looking elsewhere for solutions.

i am far more intrigued with induced_drag's point about anti-depressants. have you noticed that there is treatment for mental illness, and depression but there is no cure? and what is the effectiveness of these treatments? it doesn't seem to be very successful. additionally the push for mental health awareness is increasing every day, in which we are supposed to refer our friends and family to seek professional help from experts that clearly have a low rate of success. now these people have to spend money for the rest of theirs lives on medication and possibly treatment sessions, and be flagged as a person with mental illness. and maybe someday in the future we can pas legislation to take certain rights away from people because they have a mental illness.

[GrouchyUSMC]

I agree, we cannot regulate evil, but we sure as hell can regulate who and how gets guns. The craziest part of this story is that this murderer, shot his grandmother, cops were called, he drove away, crashed his car and there was a shootout outside the school and the TRAINED COPS WHOS JOB IT IS TO PROTECT US AND OUR CHILDREN, were not able to stop him from entering the school. It took 91 f-g minutes from the first 911 call before the shooter was killed. Cops had to call backup and the boarder patrol pulled up and killed this psycho. Meanwhile, during that time, the parents were outside trying to get into the school to save their kids. Cops had weapons drawn on parents too, because the parents were trying to save their kids. And after all that parents had to wait all night and give their DNA so that they can identify their children, because AR-15 is not a f-g musket.

According to the latest news sources, he wasn't confronted outside. The reason for the long wait (I heard 40-60 minutes) isn't due to the cops just sitting around listening to kids get killed like they did at Columbine. Officers were inside the school four minutes after the 911 call and exchanged gunfire with the *******. The guy then barricaded himself in the classroom with a metal reinforced door. The same metal reinforced door that if the back door was locked and he had to come in the front door that could have potentially saved everyone in that classroom. They had cops inside with guns pointed at that door, and it took something like 30 minutes to get a master key to open it. The cops outside were trying to keep people back as they were worried about additional shooters and/or bombs, and the last thing you need when you're waiting to see if an armed gunman comes out of a door is a bunch of frantic parents rushing through you.

And you're right, an AR-15 is not a musket. Musket balls are larger and do a lot more damage. A musket ball that size is equivalent to being shot with a 12 gauge slug.



The Founding Fathers would actually argue for us to have access to all military weapons, if you really want to get technical. Several of them had their own personal fully armed warship and crew to command - their equivalent of a tank back then.

[GrouchyUSMC]

Can you provide some examples in our century when a gun prevented government from doing something to a person? Like when someone pulled out a gun or AR-15 or a tank and government said, ok, we leaving now, we scared? This literally never happened. If they want you, they will get you lol

The Bundy standoff in 2014 immediately comes to mind. So does the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest from 2 years ago.

Or overseas, you know, Afghanistan if you're the Biden administration.

[Cantplankwell]

there are 3.24 billion gamers in the world. i don't think all shooters are gamers.

even if "violent" entertainment is having some kind of impact on mental health, i believe the % is so small that we will be better off looking elsewhere for solutions.

i am far more intrigued with induced_drag's point about anti-depressants. have you noticed that there is treatment for mental illness, and depression but there is no cure? and what is the effectiveness of these treatments? it doesn't seem to be very successful. additionally the push for mental health awareness is increasing every day, in which we are supposed to refer our friends and family to seek professional help from experts that clearly have a low rate of success. now these people have to spend money for the rest of theirs lives on medication and possibly treatment sessions, and be flagged as a person with mental illness. and maybe someday in the future we can pas legislation to take certain rights away from people because they have a mental illness.

I dont think you can discount an increasingly desensitized population. We started watching "walking dead" with my 80 yo Dad in the room, he was reading a book, there was that scene where the heros were trapped and were being executed by cannibals' with baseball bat swats to the head, then having their throats slit before slaughter, it was a disturbing scene. He was thoroughly shocked and disgusted that we would watch something like that, he got up and left the room muttering comments about garbage TV.

Additionally if this was 1922 and you had severe mental issues, and a lot of hate, I am sure you would find it harder technically to kill a lot of people in the typically situations we are seeing today.

easy to get guns of every type, lax enforcement of already permissive laws, lots of angry mentally ill marginalized people, drugs, a declining sense of community and moral virtue, a polarized society, complete distrust of government, increasing wealth gap leaving more people behind... So many things.

[LWW]

I guess you guys think an alert is eithier stupid or just not possible, well it’s possible for sure.

But you all know what’s going to happen right?

THE guns will be connected to the Internet just like driverless cars. Gubmit won’t need to take them then.

All the kids will think it’s awesome, an Internet gun, then gubmit shuts it off.

Of course you can still build your own gun.