Analysis by Rangemaster Memphis (Part I)

[Richard S]

This analysis of the horrible tragedy in Connecticut this week was just received from Tom Givens of Rangemaster Memphis (http://www.rangemaster.com/ ) :

In the wake of the tragic, horrific slaughter of innocent school children in Connecticut, there has been a renewed cry for more gun control laws. This stems from the natural need to “do something” when a tragedy of this proportion occurs. I agree we need to do something, but the “something” I want is a bit different.

The “Gun Free Schools Act of 1994” made it a federal crime to possess a firearm on any school property. Many states enacted similar legislation at the state level, as the federal act required them to do so or lose certain federal funding. Thus, it has been a crime to go onto school property anywhere in the US while in possession of a gun for the past 28 years. Has that helped?

Well, I did some research and I cannot find a single mass school shooting in the US prior to 1994, when this bill was passed. For the purposes of this discussion, I will define a “mass school shooting” as one in which three or more people were killed. I have found 14 such incidents in the United States between 1997 and the Newtown, CT, incident of yesterday. That is an average of one incident every two years. ALL OF THESE OCCURRED AFTER THE ENACTMENT OF THE GUN FREE SCHOOLS ACT OF 1994! Let me emphasize that—every mass school shooting in the US occurred AFTER it became illegal to possess a gun on school grounds. Why?

The answer should be obvious. By making schools a “gun free zone”, you automatically disarm all law abiding citizens at those locations. This is tantamount to placing a sign on the front of the building inviting criminals and mentally deranged persons to come shoot up the place. “Come on in. We’re all unarmed, by law. We won’t interfere with your mayhem.” Disgusting…..

I, for instance, have a state issued handgun carry permit. I am certified by the NRA as a Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor and I have been certified by the FBI as a police firearms instructor. I am certified by two states to train and certify new firearms instructors for those states. I have held a law enforcement officer commission. I travel all over the US teaching defensive firearms use. Yet, by law, I would commit a felony by stepping onto school grounds while wearing my sidearm. Despite this, someone who, for whatever reason, wants to shoot up a school can walk right in. If he is willing to murder six year olds in cold blood, he certainly won’t be deterred by a law against bringing a gun onto the campus. Duh….. To think otherwise is so naïve as to be a form of mental illness.

I think it is truly ironic that in the first mass school shooting I could find, occurring in 1997, the mayhem was stopped when the Assistant Principal got a handgun from his car and confronted the gunman, who surrendered to him. Thank God the Assistant Principal had an ILLEGAL gun that day.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an attempted mass shooting at a mall in Oregon. The demented shooter had a high capacity semiautomatic rifle, but he only managed to kill two people and wound one other before killing himself. Why was the body count so low, given that this was obviously a copy-cat version of the Aurora, CO, shootings? The answer is simple. Because Nick Meli, age 22, was at the mall there with his wife and child. Nick has a concealed carry permit and was wearing a handgun concealed on his person. When the suspect began shooting, Nick drew his gun and verbally challenged the gunman. Meli held his fire because of innocent people in the background (excellent judgment under stress), but his actions caused the gunman to break off the attack, run into a nearby service corridor and kill himself, ending the spree. Of course, the lamestream media will not tell you about Nick. They would prefer a higher body count rather than tell you a legally armed citizen saved the day. Here are a few other instances that two minutes of internet research brought to light. In each case, a legally armed private citizen saved lives by being there and by being armed.

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[Continued in Part II due to Forum's 5,000 character limit per entry.]

[thor447]

Looking forward to #2.   He's absolutely spot on.

[Richard S]

Part II should now be posted below this Part I.

It seems to me that one of the major problems facing our nation today stems from a diminished concern for diagnosis and treatment of the mentally ill among us. The quality of services for the mentally ill today is pathetic and becoming more so by the year. The Federal Government and the governments of the States are systematically slashing support for mental health services in an effort to cut costs. By doing so they have sown the wind, and we are now left to reap the whirlwind.



_{[Edited typos.]}

[Buffalo]

Richard S,  I find you assessment of the problem and society to be right on point.  I agree with you completely.  I wonder if the NRA or some other group is going to make efforts to push the facts to the general publice... or more importantly is the public read and willing to actually look at the facts!

[tracker]

The Harrold, Texas school system has given this problem some thought since they are 25 minutes away from the nearest law enforcement authority. Each teacher who has a CHL is encouraged to carry on the school property and in the classroom. Although Texas law prohibits weapons at school it is a local option; well conceived in this case. This option was exercised in 2007 after the Virginia Tech tragedy. Harrold is a small town between Wichita Falls and Vernon, close to the Red River.

[Buffalo]

Perhaps the Harrold, Texas school district could be a model for the solution to a "gun free school zone" that has exposed innocent children and adults exposed to those who would never honor rules, policy or law.

I assume there have been no problems with the faculty in Harrold carrying concealed?

[tracker]

Their school district does not reveal any details but I suspect there have been no problems. One of the main advantages is that it serves as a deterrent to those like the sick xbox 360 commando Newtown coward. Of course, every state and locale is different in their population density, distance from law authority units, state laws, etc..

[Richard S]

When she heard the first shots fired, the heroic Principal at Sandy Hook Elementary ran to confront the deranged coward who had blasted his way into her school. She was not armed. He was. And there was apparently no armed School Resource Officer in the building. But there was the heroic Principal intent on protecting the innocent children under her care . . . and she died at the hands of the deranged coward. The enormity of the tragedy that ensued -- an unspeakable tragedy that might have been prevented -- is staggering.

In an age when the sociopaths, the mentally ill, the criminally insane, the drug cartel members, the "gang bangers," and the international terrorists can obtain instructions on the Internet for constructing weapons of mass destruction using common fertilizer and readily available chemicals, how do we explain to those who will not see that so-called "gun-free zones" are simply "soft targets" in the eyes of those among us who care nothing for the rule of law?

[sslater]

In addition to Analysis by Rangemaster Memphis, I'd like to recommend that you get hold of a copy of 18-Dec-2012 Wall Street Journal and read the article on page A17 entitled Guns, Mental Illness and Newtown by David Kopel.  It covers a lot of ground in a half page article.

Mr. Kopel notes that the number of mass shootings has remained more or less constant over the past 30 years BUT the number of "random" mass shootings (not just in schools) have increased.  There were 18 in the 1980s, 54 in the 1990s, and 87 in the 2000s.

Kopel goes on to talk about the deinstitutionalization of the violently mentally ill. I'll quote the paragraph verbatim:
"In the mid-1960s, many of the killings would have been prevented because the severely mentally ill would have been confined and cared for in a  state institution. But today, while government at most every level has bloated over the past half-century, mental health treatment has been decimated.  According to a study released in July by the Treatment Advocacy Center, the number of state hospital beds in America per capita has plummeted to 1850 levels, or 14.1 beds per 100,000 people."  Check out http://www.jaapl.org/content/36/4/438.full for a real eye-opener on just how great the decline in bed availability is!  Finding this article took a sophisticated web search:  I typed "mental hospital beds 1960 vs. 2010" in my browser's search engine box, and the first hit was this article in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online.

I think we all have had our lives touched by family, friends, or workplace colleagues who suffer from mental illness.  Many aren't violent, but some are.  Many of those people, who would have been institutionalized in earlier times, are given psychotropic medications and  "mainstreamed".  That's the modern (i.e.: cheaper) way to deal with mental illness.  I guess it works okay - until the patients go off their meds.  I'm not a mental health professional so I have no reliable information on why that happens, but it seems to happen a lot.

By the way, why has nobody mentioned the Nickel Mines atrocity of 2006 where a stranger walked into an Amish school near Lancaster, PA and shot 10 little girls, ages 6 -13, killing five before he killed himself?  That mass shooting is seared into my memory because I grew up in Philadelphia, about an hour's drive away.

Steve

[Reinz]

As I have mentioned before,  a killer with body armor and an "assault" weapon held Sheriff dept. members at bay with only their pistols at the Tyler, TX Court House about 10 years ago.  After the incident and the madman were laid to rest, the D.A. now has an AR-15 in his office.  Many of the Judges are armed with something as well.  These folks are not going to helplessly sit by and experience that terror again.

In fact it is our State Representative Lewis Goemert from Tyler, that you may have heard on the radio, discussing how the school principal should have had an M4 in her hands.  I believe he is thinking about the example above.