When survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting returned to classes after spring break on Monday, they were met with a slew of new security measures, including a widely resented policy: mandatory clear backpacks for everyone.
Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed in a mass shooting in February, were quick to express their disdain for their new accessory.
[…]
“I hate the backpacks, and I think they solve nothing,” Alyssa Goldfarb, a 16-year-old sophomore, told Vice News. “It’s more of a way of the county saying, ‘Hey, we’re doing something.’”
Indeed. Kind of like banning bump stocks or large magazines.
The woman suspected of opening fire at YouTube’s HQ in California had reportedly criticised the platform for suppressing her videos and reducing her revenue.
Police have named Nasim Aghdam, 39, as the suspect in Tuesday’s gun attack that left three people injured.
She is reported to have started shooting at an outside dining area before killing herself.
Now a picture of her vast online presence is starting to build.
US media say Aghdam, who lived in San Diego, southern California, ran a website and multiple YouTube channels.
She posted videos on a variety of subjects including hand art, exercise and animal cruelty.
A screenshot from one of her channels, posted on her website, describes her as a “vegan bodybuilder and animal rights activist” promoting a “healthy and humane lifestyle”.
The Senate passed a $100 million school safety bill Tuesday that ducked calls by Democrats, students and advocacy groups for gun regulations in the wake of last month’s Florida school shooting.
The bill passed 28-4 with Democratic Sens. Dave Hansen of Green Bay, Mark Miller of Monona, Fred Risser of Madison and Lena Taylor of Milwaukee voting against it.
[…]
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, was the only Republican who spoke in favor of the bill, highlighting that it puts $100 million into both public and private schools throughout Wisconsin to improve their physical security.
(CNN)A suspect in a wave of bombing attacks in Austin killed himself inside his car with an explosive device early Wednesday as authorities closed in, police said.
Since the bombings started on March 2, investigators frantically searched for clues, calling the attacks the work of a”serial bomber” who increasingly changed tactics. The bombings killed two people and left the Texas capital terrorized with fear for 19 days.
I’m going to ask a politically incorrect question, but why are we protecting shipwrecks? What’s the public interest?
TWO RIVERS, Wis. – Dozens of people made a vocal call to Governor Scott Walker to help protect Lake Michigan shipwrecks.
Supporters people rallied in Two Rivers Sunday afternoon.
They’re hoping Walker will name a national marine sanctuary on nearby parts of the lake.
The governor recently pulled back the sanctuary nomination.
Demonstrators say it would bring exposure, tourism, and economic development to the area.
There are a few shipwrecks that are historically significant, but most of them are just human garbage that we left on the bottom of a lake or ocean. They make for interesting diving, but that’s about it.
From what the protesters are saying, the interest seems purely economic. That’s fine, but can we see some financial projections then? What’s the cost of preservation vs. the projected economic benefit? At least we can then make some decisions based on something tangible.
An exiled critic of Vladimir Putin died from ‘compression to the neck’ at his London home, Scotland Yard announced today, as detectives revealed they are treating his death as murder.
Nikolai Glushkov, 68, was found dead by his daughter, Natalia, at his suburban home in New Malden, south London on Monday night – just eight days after the nerve agent attack on spy Sergei Skripal.
Mr Glushkov was one of the last surviving members of an ill-fated circle of Russian exiles – led by Putin’s enemy Boris Berezovsky – who have died in suspicious circumstances.
The announcement of the murder probe comes amid mounting tensions between the Whitehall and the Kremlin over the shocking chemical weapons attack in Salisbury.
More than 240 witnesses have been identified as police investigate the Russian ex-spy poisoning “at speed”, the home secretary has said.
Amber Rudd praised the professionalism of the police who are now looking at more than 200 pieces of evidence.
The investigation into the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia is now in its sixth day.
Meanwhile, Det Sergeant Nick Bailey, who fell ill attending the pair, has denied he is a “hero”.
Mr Bailey remains seriously ill but is awake and engaging with his family.
Ms Rudd said both Col Skripal, 66, and his daughter, 33, who are being treated at Salisbury District Hospital, remain in a “critical but stable condition” after being exposed to a nerve agent.
“Firearm-related homicides dropped from 18,253 homicides in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011,” according to a report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, “and nonfatal firearm crimes dropped from 1.5 million victimizations in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011.
“Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49 percent lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew,” according to the Pew study. “The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75 percent lower in 2011 than in 1993.”
All of that is good news — but many Americans don’t seem to be aware of it. In a survey, the Pew Research Center found that only 12 percent of Americans believe the gun crime rate is lower today than it was in 1993; 56 percent believe it’s higher.
In an effort to explain that finding, the Pew researchers noted that while mass shootings are rare, they capture public interest and are often viewed as touchstone events that help define they year in which the crimes occur. As examples, they cite three shootings in the past two years, in Tucson, Ariz.; Aurora, Colo.; and in Newtown, Conn.
The U.S. gun crime rate peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Pew study says, ending years of growth in gun violence that began in the 1960s. But the rate of suicides committed using a firearm hasn’t fallen as fast, they add, noting that 6 out of every 10 gun deaths in America stems from suicide.
To me, the more important number is the number of fire-arm related assaults – not murders. Sometimes the difference between an assault and a murder is the quality and access to quality emergency care and/or the bad guy’s aim.
It turns out that various independent studies came to the same conclusion: the ban had no measurable impact on the number of shootings or the number of shooting deaths while it was in effect.
A 2005 report from the National Research Council, for example, noted that “A recent evaluation of the short-term effects of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence outcomes.”
A 2004 study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice found that while the ban appeared to have reduced the number of crimes committed with “assault weapons,” any benefits were “likely to have been outweighed by steady or rising use of non-banned semiautomatics.”
As a result, the Justice study found “there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence, based on indicators like the percentage of gun crimes resulting in death or the share of gunfire incidents resulting in injury.”
The main reason the failure of the ban to make a difference: “assault weapons” account for a tiny share of gun crimes — less than 6%. Even among mass shootings, most didn’t involve an “assault weapon” in the decade before the ban went into effect.
A security guard shot and killed a man who was attempting to rob a bank Thursday afternoon on Madison’s Far East Side, Police Chief Mike Koval said.
The attempted robber entered the Chase Bank at 4513 Milwaukee St. at about 4:45 p.m. with his face covered and postured as if he had a weapon, Koval said. He then handed a bag to an employee and demanded money.
The security guard saw the man posture with the gun and shot him, Koval said.
None of the seven other people in bank were reported injured.
A 21-year-old would-be carjacker was shot and killed by his intended victim early Monday, Milwaukee officials said.
The man, whose name has not been released, was armed with a gun and trying to carjack a 24-year-old man who was heading into work shortly before 6 a.m. Monday, Milwaukee Police Capt. Andra Williams said.
The 24-year-old had a valid concealed carry license and fatally shot the man, said Ald. Cavalier Johnson, who called a news conference late Monday about the shooting.
The incident occurred outside a business in the 8800 block of W. Fond du Lac Ave. and was the first reported fatal shooting in Johnson’s northwest side district this year.
The shooter, who lives outside the city, stayed at the scene, gave a voluntary statement and is cooperating with the investigation, Williams said.
Police believe a second car may have been involved with the attempted carjacking and are searching for a green Chrysler Pacifica, Williams said.
I always feel bad for the shooter in incidents like these. This guy was just heading to work early on a Monday and now his life is forever altered because he was forced to take a life in self defense (allegedly). As someone who carries a weapon for self-defense all the time, I pray that I am never forced to do what this young man had to do.
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online. Here you go:
Once again we find ourselves searching for solutions in the wake of a mass killing at a school. It is the natural human reaction to want to do something about it and we all want the killing to end. The powerful impulse to “do something” is often the genesis of bad laws, or worse, tyranny, but that must not deter us from doing whatever is legal, ethical, and constitutional to decrease the likelihood of another massacre.
Mass killings are still the statistical outlier in America. The odds of being killed in such a mass shooting is dwarfed by the likelihood of being killed by a criminal or angry family member. According to FBI data, our nation has averaged about 23 deaths per year from mass shootings since 1982. While each mass shooting is shocking and tragic, you are more than twice as likely to be killed by bees or wasps as in a mass shooting. Still, while rare, mass killings appear to be on the rise and we must take reasonable measures to prevent them when possible, and mitigate the damage when they occur.
The root causes of the rise of mass killings are complex. Our culture is steeped in violent movies and video games; devoid of moral absolutism; hostile to God and blessings of salvation; detached from the real world of human interaction; where kids grow up isolated and angry in a sea of digital and artificial surrogates for love, friendship, and emotional connections. It is a toxic brew that — especially when mixed with mental illness and lax law enforcement — fertilizes evil. But fixing the culture is hard. In the meantime, we must look to preserve the footings of individual liberty while providing for our security.
What can be done about reducing mass killings in our schools and elsewhere? Provide better mental health services? Install better security in our schools? Hire armed security officers to patrol our schools? See it and say it? Ensure that background checks for the purchase of weapons are thorough? Deal severely with people who are violent and unstable? Yes. All of the above.
Another measure we need to take is to allow schools to decide if and how they would allow teachers, parents, and staff to arm themselves.
There are some realities that we face as a nation when it comes to firearms. First, firearms are prevalent in our society and they are not going away. That is as it should be. We decided at the founding of this nation that an armed citizenry was necessary for the preservation of liberty and it is an ethic that is ingrained into the American heart. If anything, in the face of tragedy, Americans have shown that they prefer to lift restrictions on owning and carrying firearms for law-abiding folks instead of enacting further restrictions. Even if we repeal the 2nd Amendment tomorrow, 300 million guns aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Second, while we can and must take action to address the root causes of violence, we will never completely dig out those roots. They are at the very core of humanity. We are marked by a shadow of evil that cannot be completely eliminated absent the eradication of our species. As such, we must do as we have always done: hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Allowing school employees to arm themselves provides for that last desperate line of defense in the face of unthinkable violence. When faced by a lunatic with a gun, there are very few ways to escape the situation alive. Meeting force with force is sometimes the only, and best, option.
Implementing such a policy is complex. High schools are different from elementary schools. Rural schools are different from urban schools. Big schools are different from smaller schools. That is why the decisions about how a policy allowing teachers and staff to arm themselves must be left to local school districts and private school leaders.
But this is not untraveled ground. In Texas, for example, 172 school districts already allow staff and/or school board members to carry firearms on school grounds. And according to the Giffords Law Center, nine states already allow concealed carry holders to carry on school grounds in some or all situations. Those are not the schools where mass shootings are on the rise.
Not every, or even most, school employees would want to accept the responsibility of providing an armed defense, but some would. They deserve to have that choice. They deserve to have a safer workplace. Even the best police forces are minutes away when seconds count.
At the very least, the fact that some school employees might be armed serves as a deterrent to wouldbe killers. There is a reason why mass murderers tend to target gunfree zones. They may be evil, but they aren’t stupid. The threat of an immediate armed response denies them the time to inflict maximum carnage.
We will never be able to completely eliminate the threat of violence in our schools. That is precisely why we must provide our school teachers and staff with all of the tools available to protect themselves and our children. As we have learned after almost every school shooting in the past thirty years, the violence only stops when it is met with equal force. The quicker that happens, the fewer people get shot. It is just that simple.
This has almost no chance of passing this year since the legislative session is pretty much over, but I support this bill.
In response to the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida, State Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, has introduced a bill that would allow licensed concealed carry holders to bring weapons into private schools, if the school enacts a policy allowing it.
The deadline to co-sponsor the Private School Carry Act was noon Friday.
In a co-sponsorship memo, Kremer said, “We hope this program will gain popularity for expansion into all public schools statewide.”
The thinking behind the bill is that a shooter who is aware of a school with armed people in it will bypass it for another school.
One of the candidates running to replace Kremer also supports it:
Stockbridge – Former Campaign Manager and Legislative Intern for Rep. Kremer, Ty Bodden, comes out in support of Kremer’s Private School Carry Act. This bill gives private schools the option to arm their teachers with guns to protect their students. The bill is meant to be a pilot program, starting in private schools and could eventually lead to being enacted in our public schools as well. “This bill and any future bill gives power to the schools and the school boards. They know what is best for their students and can decide what is best for their classroom safety. If schools do not want their teachers having guns, they do not have to have them, but it at least gives them the option,” states Bodden. The idea of arming teacher is not a new concept. In Ohio, decisions about whether to allow guns in schools are up to school boards in the more than 600 districts across the state. Many districts voluntarily acknowledge the presence of guns on campus, but only the staff knows who has access to them. Other districts have not said anything at all about their policies. The decision is up to each individual school. Attorney General, Brad Schimel, has also come out in support of legislation like this.
Bodden also supports the recently passed Assembly Bill that creates a grant program to help schools pay for armed guards. “These are the pieces of legislation that can lead to real safety change when it comes to protecting our students and schools,” Bodden said. The bill also makes purchasing a gun for someone prohibited from possessing one a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison instead of the four years the state has now. “More of a discussion needs to be had in regards to protecting Wisconsin students and I look forward to having those discussions.”
A mother-daughter duo are confronted by an armed robber in their family’s liquor store in Oklahoma, but they quickly pull out their own guns and shoot him several times, and its all caught on CCTV.
The incredible heart stopping footage shows Tina Ring, 53, and her daughter Ashley Lee, 30, appearing to cooperate after giving the robbery money while being held up with a shotgun at their Forest Acres Liquor Store Thursday night.
However the fast acting women grabbed two small pistols hidden under the register and lock him in the store with a button, turning the tables on the would-be robber, who police identified as Tyrone Lee, 36.
First Tina shoots Lee once at point blank range, as he runs off she pumps off two more shots in his direction. Her daughter Ashley looks to be dialing 911 while her mother covers them waiting for the brazen robber to return.
I wish these two ladies were guarding the school in Florida.
Also, click through the link and watch the video. See how active the robber is and how he attacks one of the ladies even after he’s been shot. THAT is why one shoots to stop the threat and not try to wound, warn, scare, or disarm an attacker.
(CNN)When Nikolas Cruz started shooting last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, an armed deputy stationed at the Florida school rushed to the building.
But instead of going inside, the officer waited outside for four minutes as the gunman killed students and faculty inside, authorities said.
School resource officer Scot Peterson never went in, despite taking a position on the west side of Building 12, where most of the carnage happened, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday.
At his White House event, Mr Trump promised to look “very strongly” at calls for educators to be armed with guns – a position long held by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms,” he said, “they could very well end the attack very quickly.”
“Where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them,” he said, while acknowledging the plan was controversial, “they would go for special training and they would be there, and you would no longer have a gun-free zone.
I certainly don’t require a teacher or staff member to have to carry a weapon, but if a teacher is willing and able to do so, why shouldn’t we let them have the opportunity to meet force with force to protect their students and themselves?
I doubt that this activity actually moved any votes, but I’m glad that we are taking actions to punish foreigners who committed crimes while trying to interfere with an American election.
It says a group of Russians:
Posed as Americans, and opened financial accounts in their name
Spent thousands of dollars a month buying political advertising
Purchased US server space in an effort to hide their Russian affiliation
Organised and promoted political rallies within the United States
Posted political messages on social media accounts that impersonated real US citizens
Promoted information that disparaged Hillary Clinton
Received money from clients to post on US social media sites
Created themed groups on social media on hot-button issues, particularly on Facebook and Instagram
Operated with a monthly budget of as much as $1.25m (£890,000)
Financed the building of a cage large enough to hold an actress portraying Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform
The indictment says those involved systematically measured how well their internet posts were doing and adjusted their strategies to maximise effectiveness.
At least 17 people have been killed in a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, police say.
The suspect has been named as Nikolaus Cruz, 19, and is a former student at the school who had been expelled.
Cruz, who was armed with “multiple magazines”, began the shooting spree outside the school before opening fire inside, according to officials.
Students were forced to hide in classrooms as police scoured the building.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters that Cruz had used a rifle and opened fire outside the school where three people were killed. He then entered the building and killed 12 people.
Two people later died after being taken to hospital.
