More Gun-Free Zone murders...UPDATED!

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UPDATED: SEE BOTTOM OF BULLET-POINT LISTS.

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I will be accused of being insensitive, but so what?

So what if your daughter or son attends a "gun-free" University, College, or for that matter, grade or high school? So what if they are (by now) OBVIOUSLY at risk daily from crazy people who want to make a lethal "statement", act out a fantasy or are just plain misbehavin' in the worst degree?

Gun Free Zones are kill zones.

Gun Free Zones are target-rich environments for these murderous predators.

Let's start with what CAN'T be done:

• You can't disarm the entire society or prevent importation of more guns if you do (see: the Second Amendment, school shooting in Scotland where no guns were allowed, etc.)
• You can't have duck-and-cover mentality. OF COURSE students will try to leave a building under attack, that's only survival instinct, but when the University puts that on paper and says it is an "action plan", who are they kidding?
• You can't rely on the Internet. NIU locked down the campus (well after the shooter had done his evil and had already killed himself) and sent out an Internet bulletin. Sorry NIU, the closed barn door is a tad late.

Now, let's look at what CAN be done:

• You CAN allow arms on the campus. It's hard to predict the actions of emotionally disturbed people (EDPs), but usually, some reality seeps through their fog of confusion. If they know that they are likely to face armed resistance to their mayhem, they will go somewhere that they won't face it. Lots of other such places in the GFW Chicago area.
• You CAN do a better job of securing buildings. This guy came into the lecture hall via a side door. Such doors should have better locks installed and used on them. Sure, it's expensive to do that to an entire campus, but the cost pales to that of the issues now present.
• You CAN do a better job of getting EVERYBODY to recognize the threat. Single male, dressed "gothic". Where have we seen this before? IN JUST ABOUT EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL SHOOTING, YOU BLITHERING IDIOTS! So, here's something that huge, nannyish Government CAN do: ban "gothic" style clothing on campus. Just tell everyone that it's insensitive to wear it, just like wearing the Swastika, then ban it. That will set back some, maybe not all, but some of the goth-boys who wouldn't dream of going out in public NOT dressed in black with those shotgun-concealing trenchcoats on. They have a uniform fetish. Use it against them.
• This is an update. There may be a technology idea here. What about a passive-defense item that isn't categorized as a weapon, but might be used as one. One that projects from a distance. Yep, the common LASER POINTER! If a third of those students in that hall had laser pointers with them, and if, instead of scattering or ducking, they pulled them out and focussed on the shooter's head, he would have had so much laser energy, from so many directions, on his eyes that he would have been at least temporarily dazzled, if not permanently blinded. YOU CAN'T SHOOT WHEN YOU CAN'T SEE! All he would have been able to do from that point on is discharge his weapon in the direction of screamers, etc. Reloading? No, not unless he was HIGHLY trained. In that condition, just about anyone would have been able to come up to him and take him out with no more difficulty that anyone might knock down any blind man.

I challenge the authorities who will want some knee-jerk reaction here to sit down and discuss, using cold logic, not hysteria or political-agenda motives, just how the threat from these copy-cat massacres can be managed. Put EVERYTHING doable on the table, people, and yes, that includes totally closing the campuses, although, when the "fortress" idea is objectively tested, I believe it will fail in that a test group WILL be able to get weapons into the fortress-University.

Spare us the "gun-nut" hype this time, Editors. I'm one of those "gun nuts", and I'm here trying to help you fix your problem.

Comments

[bill-tb]

It's even harder to defend against these "suicide attackers" as even the US military has found out ... You can only kill them quick, once the attack has begun. Notice the police arrive after the attackers has committed suicide.

Words mean things, and "suicide attacks" are what is being carried out by these crazies.

[Caimlas]

Yep, the common LASER POINTER! If a third of those students in that hall had laser pointers with them, and if, instead of scattering or ducking, they pulled them out and focussed on the shooter's head, he would have had so much laser energy, from so many directions, on his eyes that he would have been at least temporarily dazzled, if not permanently blinded.

It wouldn't have mattered, I don't think. If a person is huddled in a fetal position, they're about 3 or 4 major psychological/philosophical awakenings away from coming to the point of being able to face someone threatening them head on in a "look at me" sort of fashion when they're outgunned - regardless of whether they're right or wrong, whether it's a verbal confrontation or a physical one.

And, when you've been trained to act like a herd, and individual initiative is looked down upon, it would take more time for them to coordinate such an attack - "are you going to laser him? no? well, you should. I've been thinking about it, and I think it's a good idea" - than it would take a crazed psycho to kill everyone in the room. No, something like this needs a solitary individual to act, or a group of solitary individuals because, like in every other "emergency" situation, the job just needs to be done, not talked about or strategized over.

[Bruce Edwards]

I listened with interest to the early reports ( I'm in far north suburban Chicago). First reports of one hundred to one hundred fifty young adults, not little children, threatened by one man, and they all run away in a mindless panic. A panic so intense that they were crawling over each other in their frantic effort to get away.
Not one person made a move to attack the nut case. No wonder their parents consider them helpless little children, as they refered to their kids in the TV interviews. The shooter could and should have been swamped and stomped to death.
The next generation has really become the sheeple.
NIU, this was a disgracefull exhibit of cowardice.