Can I ask though - how did you get this picked up and into google news?

Very impressive that this blog is syndicated through Google and is it something that is just up to Google or you actively created?

Obviously this is a popular blog with great data so well done on your seo success..

I’m going to have to cover your other points later, as it’s time to contribute my part to the GDP, but I owe you the courtesy of a response.

Mark was actually quoting something I’d said about the Montreal Massacre. But my site does have other posts on V-Tech specifically, which are mostly about our responses to seriously deranged responses to situations like this (the cliches, the teddy bears, the bad poetry) more than they are about the students.

Were I in a situation where I was unarmed and there was a gunman, I’m pretty sure I’d be fleeing the scene, if all alone. With my kid in tow? I don’t know. She is a black-belt martial artist, but her school also teaches the students to flee from a situation where the opponent is armed. I’d like to think I’d be as heroic as Dr. Liviu Librescu, but I don’t know if I’d have the presence of mind.

I refer you and your readers to what was said by Old Jarhead at Making Light:

Given my background I obviously am not an anti-gun crusader. I believe, however, that the decision to carry a weapon in the office or on the street places an enormous responsibility upon the bearer to obtain excellent training, to commit to frequent practice and refresher training, to choose a weapon ideally suited for you and the purpose, and to stare into the mirror and ask yourself if you could really use it - and if you would make its use a truly last resort.

If you shoot and kill someone in the office you are not going to be celebrated as “Annie Oakley” and carried around the Family Law convention on a sedan chair. You are going to go to a private place and vomit until you don’t think you will ever be able to stand up straight again.

In the same article, Making Light quotes

Libby Spenser:

Derbyshire and his little usefool tool are only right about one thing. Until you’ve been there, you don’t have a clue what it’s like. Until they have, they might want to think twice before publishing such clueless posts.

I was talking with a pal who is a police officer, who pointed out:

1. In war, you have the assumption the other side wants to stay alive as much as you do (he said, “run away to fight another day.”) In a situation like VTech, the shooter doesn’t want to get out alive. The difference in assumptions is critical–the shooter will be indifferent to threat and superior firepower. (He also spoke about “suicide by cop”, and how officers respond in that situation.)

2. Never underestimate the IQ- and motivation-lowering effects of fear and shock–and I guarantee that seeing a fellow student’s bleeding dead body would induce shock, unless the viewer had been intensively trained to respond differently. What college student has that sort of training (unless she is ex-military or has been an EMT or the like)?

Tought #2: All situations are not alike and assuming that armed students would have hidden is a false notion. Secondly, there may be people who might shoot without clearly aiming at a threatening individual. Such people should either be trained when and when not to discharge a firearm or not own one.

Thought #3: This one begins with some poor reasoning as well. From the first person accounts clearly some people at the school heard alarming noises before encountering the gunman and if armed likely would have drawn a weapon if they had one. If guns are such a poor “equalizer” why do cops and armored car guards carry them as a matter of course?

Thought #4: Michael K. may be incapable or unwilling to understand how the wider possession of guns in the hands of an average college student would make incidents like Virgina Tech less likely to occur or reduce the number of students murdered but don’t allow his inability lead anyone into thinking that such a position doesn’t exist.

As for that airport incident in Germany. If the armed cops weren’t useful then, why not call for them to be eliminated–if they can’t protect everybody, perhaps we need less cops.

1. The idea that if the students would have been armed things would have played out differently is just as stupid as the comment on charging the guy. I could not find a story in which someone, carrying a concealed weapon, was successfully able to draw it and eliminate a thread.

2. As an off spring of this, even if all students would have been armed, the chances were good that they would have hidden (a story towards this in a bit), or if they would have started shooting in the confusion more people would have been injured or died.

3. The notion that a gun is an “equalizer” only holds true if the gun is already drawn and aimed, if it is still in your holster a paper weight would be just as useful.

4. Calling for more guns is asking to propose to put more cars on the road to overcome the problem of traffic congestion, likewise, how many people can one kill with a knife?

And now the promised story.

A few weeks ago a woman was shot and killed at the Airport in Stuttgart, Germany. A friend of mine was there that day, he saw it. The guy walked up, pulled the gun, shot the woman in the head, then three more times when she was on the ground then he dropped the gun and started walking out.

Everybody and I mean truly everybody, including the cops, where in hiding, once the shooting stopped panic started setting in and people ran everywhere. The cops never drew their guns, they were too scared to do anything. And those are people who are trained to use their guns. This was in an airport for crying out loud where since 9/11 supposedly nothing can happen anymore.

And yet, gun advocates are telling us that if we just arm everybody we’d all be safer.

Well, politically speaking, you’re somewhat to the right of me — and I would suspect that I in turn may actually be a bit to the right of a good chunk of this blog’s readership. Hence the admittedly simplistic catch-all “right winger” label — you know what I mean, Jim!

Thanks for dropping by, and please do come again!

Jim Treacher

Of course, French class is supposed to be safe. I am reasonably sure that I would have been taken so completely by surprise that I would have doubted my own eyes, had I been in one of those classrooms. Time taken to shake your head and be sure = too late to do anything about it.

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Ironic, isn’t it? Damn those automated Google ads!