Another school shooting!!

[unforgiven]

My nephew has Aspergers he is 11 so far he's doin good,well behaved and does well in school.My grandson is 12 and is profoundly Austic in special Ed. classes and with that has O.C.D.,ADD,.and other mental issues that are being contrlled with meds.They have not been able to come up with the right combination yet.He's getting taller and stronger.My daughter has him and has had him undercontroll add to that raging hormones.We pray for all of God special children everyday.Whats going to happen to these kids when I'm gone,I lose alot of sleep over this.This country is one of a Spartan scociety and if you are less than 100% you are pretty much marginalized.It's beeter than it was but with all these children that have some form of Autisum what is going to become of them? It's a real heartbreaker. :(

[Pappy1600]

My nephew has Aspergers he is 11 so far he's doin good,well behaved and does well in school.My grandson is 12 and is profoundly Austic in special Ed. classes and with that has O.C.D.,ADD,.and other mental issues that are being contrlled with meds.They have not been able to come up with the right combination yet.He's getting taller and stronger.My daughter has him and has had him undercontroll add to that raging hormones.We pray for all of God special children everyday.Whats going to happen to these kids when I'm gone,I lose alot of sleep over this.This country is one of a Spartan scociety and if you are less than 100% you are pretty much marginalized.It's beeter than it was but with all these children that have some form of Autisum what is going to become of them? It's a real heartbreaker. :(

Amen brother, I do feel for them all, My brother has severe autisim, and I made a promise to my father before he passed that I would look out for him, so I understand 100% what you are saying. These people who can not help themselves need assistance from our government ,not the scum bags that pop out kid after kid just to collect a check from the government when they can work. Our priorities in this country are so screwed up it sickening.

[MaDuce]

My nephew has Aspergers he is 11 so far he's doin good,well behaved and does well in school.My grandson is 12 and is profoundly Austic in special Ed. classes and with that has O.C.D.,ADD,.and other mental issues that are being contrlled with meds.They have not been able to come up with the right combination yet.He's getting taller and stronger.My daughter has him and has had him undercontroll add to that raging hormones.We pray for all of God special children everyday.Whats going to happen to these kids when I'm gone,I lose alot of sleep over this.This country is one of a Spartan scociety and if you are less than 100% you are pretty much marginalized.It's beeter than it was but with all these children that have some form of Autisum what is going to become of them? It's a real heartbreaker. :(

Anyone with psychological deficiencies or differentiations are generally pushed harder towards the brink then "normal" people simply due to the fact that they're different and their differences generate social and overall tension. It's a brutal fact of our society that everyone seams to be ignoring. You have to figure that; however hard someone with psychological deficiencies is to deal with, you and everyone else are probably equally hard for them. So; basically, whatever burden they place on your shoulders, that burden is placed on theirs dozens of times over.

The vast majority can and do cope and most I've met have developed remarkable self-control skills (the likes of which few "normal" people seam to have) through their struggles, but even that is the result of added weight that normal people don't experience. If; in extreme circumstances; these people's problems are unattended and become overwhelming, that weight can become too much and they can snap.

It's been known for centuries that emotional self-control has to be exorcised like the muscles. The Chinese and Japanese both actually have similar meditation techniques for exorcising emotional self-control, and they work like a charm for anyone willing to actually follow them.

However, no matter how strong you are, just like with your muscles, there is always a breaking point. It seams as though people with good endurance training tend to hold up better then normal, but once broken, tend to stay broken for a little longer then normal. I am unaware of any psychological studies that prove this hypothesis, but the pattern suggests that the same is true in the mind. Perhaps Jack Nicholson best described it in the movie, "Anger Management" when he said (and I'll put it in fewer words), "There are two kinds of angry people. Explosive is the kind of person that you see screaming at the cashier for not taking his coupons. Implosive is the cashier who remains quiet day after day and finally shoots everyone in the store."

Everyone, whether you realize it or not, has the potential to go over the edge. But anyone put in a position of unusually high stress on a daily basis carries a greater risk. Even so, I have seen with my own eyes how much people like that can really endure. Luckily, I have never seen anyone completely flip but I have seen how hard they can be pushed without flipping and it's remarkable to say the least. The sad thing is; people tend to react with more pushing.

The worst case I know was some kid in my high school. I didn't notice any mental defecate (maybe PTSD at the most) but he WAS a little odd and to himself. Got pushed around allot and his family was a bunch of religious radicals. He got reserved, started practicing Satanism, drawing demented pictures, fantasizing about murder etc. His intensively hostile social life and judgmental family seamed to be the fuel for it. It's easy to judge him, given the path he was taking, but pretty much everyone judging him would have (and on many cases did) flip out and go bonkers over a moment of the treatment he received all day, every day of his life.

Myself and 3 other people seamed to be his only sources for relieving the pressure. He got no help or sympathy from anyone else, not family (I seam to recall something about them trying to have him exorcised), not the school and sure as heck not from his peers (this was during the gang wars of the 90s) and to make matters worse, when he started slipping, people saw it, became afraid and in their fear, pushed him much harder. In other words, as soon as everyone became afraid, they reacted by doing everything they could to validate their fears, which is actually a very standard pattern people follow. I really got a very strong sense that we were the only people keeping him hanging on and there was an obvious sense that giving him the finger would have sent him over the edge.

It wasn't exactly hard either. The medicine of choice was listening to him vent no matter how constant and aggravating, inviting him to partake in craft or study projects and telling jokes. In other words, withholding judgement and treating him like a human being which; ironically, no one else was willing to do.

He was still struggling last I saw him and I have no idea whatever became of him, but I have no doubt that without the few of us, he would have gone over the edge and I myself probably would have been killed in a school shooting. He actually talked about it in 2 instances that I can recall and in one case told me in a vent that if he did, he wouldn't be able to distinguish us 4 from anyone else. Basically, shooting at anything that moves.

TBH, this is what's made me very critical of our nation's attitude towards this problem from the beginning. Having seen it's build up first hand and done what it takes to prevent it, it's hard for me to imagine a school system, common teen age attitudes and the legal system doing anything but making it worse. People can pretend all they want but bottom line is, it's all geared towards setting these people off, not prevention.

At least when I was in school, all 3 groups (family, friends and authorities) did pretty much everything they could to make it worse and I'd be surprised if it isn't far worse now. That guy had a very unique support to get him through it and still barely made it. I doubt very many others have that luxury.

Even then, everyone was pretty firm about doing everything in their power to egg him on. I doubt anyone today is going to do anything effective to prevent these tragedies.

FWIW, I am probably alone here but I tend to see the killers in many of these shootings as every bit as much a victim as the people they kill. These tend to happen when the killer has snapped and completely lost control. In most of the cases I've studied, the crisis leading up to the killings is the end of a long road of psychological cruelty that sends them over the edge. These killers are often nemesis created by the world around them that explode indiscriminately.

Kinda like being attacked by a violent dog. It's not the dog you're mad at but he/she who made them that way. And I am not the only one who sees it that way. Our good friend Susan Hupp, who survived a mass shooting mentioned sharing a similar perspective.

Anyway, as far as Aspergers goes, I have a good friend with that condition. Apart from the fact that he's an Obama supporter, I have no problem with him and I really don't see what all they hype is about. Sure, he's not very empathetically spoken, but he sure shows it in his actions. And as far as I'm concerned, talk is cheap.

[MikedaddyH]

My GF's theory is he went to the school because this is where it all started for him. The teachers realized he had issues and the other kids picked on him. His mother had a tight leash on him as a boy. Family life had to be bad as well ,rich parents and a ugly divorce. Lot of factors all lead up to his breaking point.

Should be interesting what the boys father says, maybe some answers will come to light.

[unforgiven]

The common thread is these killers act in a methodical calculating manner,beyond the scope of in the heat/passion of the moment.

[MaDuce]

The common thread is these killers act in a methodical calculating manner,beyond the scope of in the heat/passion of the moment.

I've seen allot of people break down and loose control. Not in the way he did, but less severe cases. Hot heads are always spare of the moment but people who are obviously making a dire effort not to tend to loose control for more lengthy periods of time. If you have a "revenge' fantasy already played out in your mind, I can see that person playing it out for real in the event of a total break down, which may explain the weird themes some of them use. And given the cases I've seen, I can imagine people being completely out of control for up to a couple hours in the most extreme cases.

The ones I've seen had to run out of energy and break down before regaining control. 7 or 8 years ago I listened to an audio interview with one of these school shooters who managed to survive that was made shortly after the shooting and he sounded exactly like the people in the above cases.

I am pretty sure that was Kip Kinkel. Google search the name and you'll find that audio interview.

Listening to it again, I am seeing ALLOT of parallels with the guy I went to school with.

[imschur]

I gotta tell you guys the atmosphere around here is absolutely dreadful. Im personally having trouble sleeping. Just cant stop thinking about these kids. I have a vision of how the classrooms must have looked and I cant shake it. So many people know somebody connected to this. Last friday the local DJ's got a call from a woman rushing to the school because her sister worked there. The DJ's tried to calm her down telling her that the sister was probably just busy with all that was going on and could not answer her phone. Well Monday she called back. Sadly her sister was the psychologist who was killed. Very tough to listen to.

There was a picture shown only once of a first responder carrying a little girl in his arms....then there was the little girl covered in blood. The one survivor in the classroom, she played dead.

Yesterday on my way home from work the guy on the radio stated that friday they want everyone to ring a bell 26 times. Not sure why but that was the one that did me in. I just started crying.

So far I dont have any personal connections and I feel this bad. I cant imagine how the first responders feel let alone the families of the deceased.

I never finished decorating for xmas. Not going to bother. Just feels wrong to celebrate or even smile.

The only time I stop thinking about the kids is when I play Bioshock on the 360.

[planeflyer21]

Mass shootings suck.

Your feelings are understandable and normal.

When the Tucson shooting occurred, I was separated by 1 or 2 degrees from lots of it.  Students I've trained had just left Safeway minutes before it happened.  My daughter attended school where Gifford's sister worked, and Pat Maisch (who was also shot) and her husband do the school heating/cooling systems.  Dipwad bought the pistol he used (after passing the background check) at the store I used to work in, and still teach classes at the location.  He went to highschool with a lot of the young employees there.

The shooting was on Saturday.  At 0630 on Sunday, I got a call from the New York Times.  They'd gotten my contact off the store's website where the shooter allegedly bought the pistol used in the shooting.  He wanted to know if myself, or any of the other instructors teaching there, had trained the shooter.  The reporter was quickly advised that none of the instructors had taught this person, and that if someone as mentally unstable as the media was portraying him to be had contacted us, he would have been flagged and reported to authorities.  No story there, no mention of it in print.

Worldwide media reported the store had sold "the weapon responsible for the deaths in the shooting", so death threats started rolling in to the point the store had to quit answering the phone.  One hysterical male came into the store screaming about murderers working there, was taken down and held for police.  Marana PD posted officers around the clock in tactical gear, sans helmets.  Tolerance my ass.

Wednesday after the shooting, it was reported that an AZ Game & Fish officer had pulled over the shooter after he left a different retailer with the ammunition used in the shooting.  All the death threats and anger calls then shifted to AZG&F for "letting the shooting happen".

Knowing investigators, reports from the scene are both disturbing and mind boggling.  The shooter was opportunistically methodical, firing a shot every 1 or 2 seconds.  Of the scores of people present, nobody engaged the shooter, even though 20 or so were within a step or two...if not in arms reach...when the shooting started.  Not one person engaged him while he was actively shooting, no folding knives planted in his neck, no pistol placed against the back of his skull, no "spontaneous take-downs" (pure YANK on the shoulders, head rupturing on asphalt or concrete), until his first magazine was empty.

When removing and attempting to reload, Pat Maisch saw an opportunity (not the boastful fatass retired Colonel) and charged, wrestling with the shooter by grasping the 32-round Glock magazine.  If she is 5' tall I'd be surprised.  Others then jumped in to help.

Of the two CCW Permit holders present that we know about, neither one felt they could take a safe shot with so many dozens of people running around. 

Also shot that day, Ron Barber (D), who won Gifford's seat in Congress and now calling for an AWB.  Pat Maisch too, who being of such small stature, would never in her life have been able to wrestle away a standard-length or 10-round Glock magazine from the shooter.

The very DAY of the shooting, the county sheriff calls his constituents hateful intolerant racists, blaming talk radio and conservatives for the shooting.  The vitriol REALLY took off after that, with calls for tolerance and to arrest people for "hate speech".  People on the conservative side said it was the deed of a deranged lunatic.  The liberals and media would have none of it...

...until it came out that the shooter shot Gifford for not being liberal enough, being a "blue-dog democrat" that voted with Bush.  Then, suddenly, the shooter was crazy.  Better dope him up on meds!

So what was evident that we as society can learn from the Tucson shooting?  Police are a few magazines away...ultimately we are responsible for our own security.  Untrained and undisciplined shooters can cause a LOT of damage in a few short minutes, IF left to continue upon their path by those in the area.  Shooting may not be a viable response to shooting, put other weapons in the box.

What else did we learn?  Non-firearm liberals people are intolerant, hateful, vengeful people that will silence you in any way they can, in order to subjugate you to their every whim.  Think I'm wrong?  Put a NRA sticker on the back of your vehicle before you go out next time.  Prepare for rocks and sticks.

Brother, the pain and memories aren't going away.  You weren't there.  Could you have made a difference and saved children's lives?  Probably.  But don't kick yourself for another person's actions.

What you can do now is increase the possibility to save the lives of children in future attacks.  LOUDLY proclaim to do away with "gun free school zones" and to arm teachers, staff, and parents.  Offer your services to train people in competent arms use (no "spray and pray" crap).

Finally, do not under any circumstances bend on the current availability of firearms or magazines.  Those spittle-spewing, hateful, vengeful, power-mongers will make Pol Pot look like a Girl Scout selling cookies once they have YOUR weapons.  If you think a mass shooting is bad, think about having to watch thousands of people bludgeoned to death at the hands of "tolerant progressives".

Jon

[98Z5V]

Very well said.  <thumbsup>

[imschur]

My anger is with the Connecticut law makers. The democrats have been shaping and controlling policy here for just over 40 years. If there was ever a perfect example of the silliness of an AWB CT is it. Our AWB predates the Federal ban. I have not heard any mention of the CT AWB. If you listen to the local radio and news that talk as if there is not one in place. Hell the politicians are calling for a ban here. Blatant lies and politicizing are ruling the day and the conversation.

I say shame on them for thinking signs and happy thoughts would protect anyone. The blood is on their hands too.