This week's “shooting rampage” in the gUn-happy States of America

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Colorado school shooting: State again finds itself in gun debate

By MICHAEL MUSKAL | 12:32PM PST - Saturday, December 14, 2013


Sean Sweeney, a runner who lives near Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, pauses Saturday to say a prayer outside
the school that was terrorized by a gunman on Friday. — Photo: David Zalubowski/Associated Press.

AS IT struggles to deal with the latest deadly school shooting, Colorado finds itself in a familiar place, enmeshed in the ongoing debate over how to control gun violence.

On Saturday, police continued their investigation into the latest attack, the third in which troubled gunmen opened fire in crowded places with which the state has had to contend since 1999. Karl Halverson Pierson, 18, apparently frustrated by being removed from the Arapahoe High School debate team and angry at its coach, entered the school building in the Denver suburb of Centennial with a shotgun looking for the teacher.

When Pierson couldn’t find the educator on Friday afternoon, he opened fire, critically wounding one student and then killing himself.

As tragic as the attack was, the context adds to its distress. It came a day before the first anniversary of the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where another lone gunman killed 20 children and six adults before committing suicide. That attack renewed the fight over gun-control legislation which led to Colorado passing three tough measures; those laws, in turn, sparked a political backlash that cost three lawmakers their posts.

Recent times have been hard for Centennial. Residents have already coped with deadly floods and fires, so the area is no stranger to tragedies and catastrophes, including those involving guns.

Arapahoe High couldn’t be located better — or, worse — for the gun-control debate. With some 2,100 students, it is about eight miles east of Columbine High School, where two students killed 12 students and one teacher in 1999. The school is about 15 miles southwest of the Aurora movie theater where a gunman shot 70 people, killing 12, in July 2012.

After Newtown, President Obama signed 23 executive orders designed to limit gun violence, but the centerpiece of his proposals languished in Congress, essentially making any action on gun control a matter for the states.

Colorado was joined by Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Delaware in requiring background checks for all gun purchases in person or online, including at gun shows. Connecticut, Maryland and Colorado also banned certain types of high-capacity magazine or “assault” rifles. In all, about 1,500 gun bills were introduced in state legislatures.

But of the 109 bills that became law, nearly two-thirds loosened gun restrictions, according to a New York Times analysis.

Colorado was the first state in the West to pass tougher laws and the battle between supporters and their opponents was fierce. Located in the former frontier but changing West, the state has always been a battleground between those committed to keeping guns available and those seeking to control them.

Led by Democrats, Colorado passed some of the nation’s toughest gun legislation this year, including an expansion of background checks for gun buyers and a limit on the size of ammunition magazines. Democrats were riding a wave of popular support for some action after the Connecticut slayings.

Hunters and others organized a boycott of Colorado to protest the limits on guns. Groups including Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and the National Rifle Association organized the successful recalls in September of two Democratic state senator — Senate President John Morse and Senator Angela Giron — who voted for the tougher laws.

Gun control groups spent $4 million to unsuccessfully defend the senators, including a $350,000 donation from outgoing New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, according to records from Sunlight Foundation, which monitors campaign financing. Pro-gun groups poured $606,000 into the race. Two-thirds of that money could be traced back to the NRA, the Sunlight Foundation said.

To keep the state Senate in Democratic hands, state Senator Evie Hudak, a Democrat from the Denver suburb of Westminster who voted for the gun-control laws, resigned her seat in late November rather than fight a recall effort. Under Colorado law, whoever is appointed to fill Hudak's seat must be a Democrat.

“This historic event should put every gun-grabber in the Capitol on notice for the 2014 elections,” said Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, in a statement following Hudak's resignation.

If Colorado was among the trendsetters in passing tougher legislation and in dealing with the political fallout, its history has also forced it to take the lead in the tragic necessity of preparing for the worst. Many students interviewed by the Los Angeles Times talked about how they had relied on their training in the crucial first moments of the attack on Friday.

They sought shelter in locked classrooms and in small spaces until they could be escorted out of the building with their arms raised to show that no gunman was among those fleeing. Sheriff Grayson Robinson praised the teacher who had been targeted by Pierson for leaving the building, thus eliminating a target for the gun-wielding student. The teacher’s departure also served to bring some students out of the possible line of fire, Robinson said.

Whitney Riley, a 15-year-old freshman, said everyone started running when they heard shots. She finally ended up with eight other people, including two teachers, crammed into a tiny sprinkler system room. In those moments, she said, she remembered all of the drills she had gone through.

“People were running through the halls, yelling, ‘Get out, get out’,” she said. But those in the sprinkler room did as they were trained and refused to open the door because they did not know whether it might be the shooter seeking more victims.

Finally, one of the teachers said, “Let’s go while we can.”

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-colorado-school-shooting-gun-control-20131214,0,6961512.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Colorado school shooting: New details on 80 seconds of terror

By SABA HAMEDY, SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA and JENNY DEAM | 4:33PM PST - Saturday, December 14, 2013


Parents stand outside Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, where a student shot and
wounded another before killing himself. — Photo: John Leyba/Associated Press.

CENTENNIAL, COLORADO — Carrying a shotgun, a machete, a bandolier of ammunition and a backpack with three incendiary devices, Karl Halverson Pierson entered Arapahoe High School and launched 80 seconds of terror as he hunted his debate coach, who was also the school librarian.

New details emerged Saturday as authorities described the country's latest school shooting.

As soon as he entered the building Friday, Pierson fired a round down the hallway and another from point-blank range that critically injured one student. He fired a third round down the hall and entered the library, where he fired  again and set off one of the Molotov cocktails, igniting bookshelves.

As fire and smoke poured through the room, Pierson fired a fifth round and went into the back corner of the library, where he fired his last shot, killing himself.

“It is our strong belief that he came to that school with that weapon and with multiple rounds and his intention was to utilize those multiple rounds to cause harm to a large number of individuals,” Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson told reporters Saturday. Pierson had legally purchased the weapon a week earlier, December 6th.

Robinson identified the injured girl as Claire Esther Davis, 17, a senior. Earlier reports described the victim as a 15-year-old freshman. There was no real relationship between Davis and Pierson, said the sheriff, who read a statement from her parents asking for privacy.

“Our beautiful daughter Claire Davis has severe head trauma as the result of a gunshot wound," the statement said. "She needs your continued prayers."

On Saturday, investigators and students struggled to understand what could have motivated Pierson, a hard-driving debater and athlete. Classmates said Friday that he had been bounced from the debate team after altercations with the coach.  But Robinson said Pierson was still on the team, though he and the coach had quarreled in September.

Robinson said Pierson had been disciplined but wouldn't give details. Pierson had threatened the coach at least once, Robinson said.

Natalie Black, a 17-year-old senior, said she was dumbfounded that the apparent target of the rampage was the school's debate coach, who has yet to be officially named.

“He's the nicest teacher I've ever known. He really looks out for kids,” Black said. “The only time I've ever heard him get mad was when you brought food or drink in the library.”

August Clary, also 17 and a senior, was equally puzzled. “Why on Earth him?”

The only person who could definitively answer that question was Pierson, variously described as strong-willed and with sharp political ideas and a desire to express them, characteristics that served him well during his debates.

On Saturday, Clary and Black were across the street from their school, which was still wrapped in yellow crime scene tape.

Clary said he has known Pierson since third grade. Pierson moved away, but in middle school they reconnected on Facebook and then began attending Arapahoe High School together as freshmen. Both were Eagle Scouts, and Pierson last year signed Clary’s yearbook: “Feels good doesn’t it?” referring to their achievement in climbing through the Scouting hierarchy.

But Clary said Pierson was often argumentative with teachers and classmates, seeming to enjoy the heat of disagreement, especially about politics. “He was an angry, strange kid, but he was very smart,” Clary said, adding that he was “super, super surprised” to learn the shooter was Pierson.

Clary said he was in fifth-period chemistry Friday when he heard an explosion about 50 feet away in the hallway. When more shots came, he knew it was gunfire. By then the fire alarm had been tripped and he could hear people screaming. Then there was one lone blast, which he now assumes was the self-inflicted shot that ended his friend’s life.

Clary and Black said Pierson posted a YouTube song link to Facebook on Wednesday with the caption: “It’s a good day for a suicide.”

Joe Redmond, an 18-year-old senior who was good friends with Pierson and was also on the debate team, praised his former teammate's debating prowess, saying Pierson was the best on the team.

“He and I talked politics and economics a lot. He was very good when he was on the team, and he knew what he was talking about,” Redmond said.

Pierson, he said, was a self-proclaimed socialist. “But he also wore a Communist Party T-shirt to confuse people,” Redmond said. Pierson also sometimes wore an Air Force Academy hoodie and apparently wanted to attend the school, Redmond said. His political leanings, friends say, were more antiauthoritarian than communist.

In addition to the debate team, Pierson ran cross-country for the school last year and the year before.

In a photo posted in November 2011 by the Littleton Public Schools Foundation, a lanky Pierson, wearing a black headband, shorts and a T-shirt with his runners’ number tacked on, poses with three other students who had finished running a charity 10K. Pierson, one arm around the shoulder of the student next to him, smiles and gives the camera a thumbs up.

Exactly why Pierson was angry at the debate coach remained unclear. But friends noted Pierson's altered behavior after the two had a falling-out. Pierson was angrier and cruder, making frequent racist jokes and acting with what Larson Ross, a debate team captain, described as “accusatory arrogance.”

“It seemed like he was attacking people to try and elicit a response, and in doing so he would put himself above that person on a mental level,” Ross, 18, said. “It started making it tough for a lot of people to be his friend.”

Changes in Pierson were so apparent that on the day of the shooting, Ross said his friends were talking about how the debater might be “going off the edge” and that they needed to “tell someone.”

But Ross’s friends did not have time to tell anyone. The attack happened during 5th period, just one hour after their discussion.

Ross said he remembers Pierson as a bright, goofy, hardworking guy who put his “heart and soul” into what he was doing — whether it was running, debating or participating in his Advanced Placement courses.

Ross recalled that last year, when Pierson won a debate tournament, he did a  “Gangnam Style” dance on stage as he received the award.

He had at least one argument with the debate coach, but that was not the only time he had questioned authority, said Ross, describing one automated, multiple-choice test.

“Last year in health class, Karl wrote on Scantron, ‘fight the power’, because he thought it was funny,” Ross said. “But the teacher took a really personal offense with it and took his grade down to a B and Karl got really upset and had a yelling match with that teacher.”

Four miles due south of Arapahoe High School, in a tidy subdivision of two-story, middle-class homes, Pierson’s house sat empty Saturday morning. There were no cars in the driveway, the newspaper was unfetched, and a piece of plywood replaced the front door that authorities broke down Friday afternoon when they went to search the home.

Jo Vandewege has lived across the street from Karl Pierson since 2008. She remembered Pierson as  “an American kid,” calling him funny, smart and athletic. He would display signs of support for Arapahoe High in the front yard and used to do chin-ups on the tree in the front yard. She did not know why he attended Arapahoe High rather than the school zoned for the area.

“It’s such a disquieting feeling to know that we could be so disconnected to people we know. He’s right there. We’ve all interacted with him. He must have been in some deep mental anguish and we didn’t know it, and no one reached out to him,” Vandewege, a 29-year-old graduate student, said.

She described the family as pleasant but mostly quiet. Pierson’s mother, with whom authorities say he lived, would welcome new arrivals to the Highlands Park neighborhood with a plate of cookies. Vandewege only heard through the grapevine the parents had divorced.

She was watching television coverage of the shooting Friday afternoon when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives pounded on her door and warned her to stay inside. Soon afterward she heard someone shout: “This is ATF. Open up!” at the Pierson home.

When there was no answer, she said, she heard the door being broken down.

“That’s when my brain went: ‘Oh, Karl goes to Arapahoe High School.’ And then I knew.”

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-colorado-shooting-arapahoe-pierson-20131214,0,4448157,full.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Gun control advocates take new look at strategy

After a year of defeats amid lobbying by the National Rifle Association
and others, gun control advocates consider more modest goals.
Next year's midterm election may offer new opportunities.

By MICHAEL A. MEMOLI | 7:22PM PST - Saturday, December 14, 2013


President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama take a moment of silence for the 26 killed a year ago Saturday at Sandy Hook
Elementary School. Gun safety legislation fell short in Congress after the massacre. — Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.

WASHINGTON — After a year that produced limited results, at best, for their cause, advocates of new gun-safety laws are recalibrating strategy, hoping to find more success at the ballot box and upset the conventional wisdom that opponents of gun control have an iron grip on Washington.

Political groups seeking to counter the influence of the National Rifle Association and others in the gun lobby hope to score some victories in next year's midterm election. But they are setting modest goals. They plan to look for key races in which they can make an impact, but the larger goal is to show lawmakers that the movement behind stronger gun restrictions will have staying power in elections to come.

"There's been a huge sea change in the way people view the issue, but it's not going to change overnight," said Mark Glaze, executive director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group founded by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "You start by winning some state victories and some smaller federal victories, and then legislators are reassured."

It's unclear whether there really has been the change in public attitudes that Glaze and other gun control advocates claim to sense.

Public opinion surveys showed a sharp increase in support for new gun measures after the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, one year ago Saturday. But within months, that support began to fade. By this fall, pollsters were finding that public opinion had mostly returned to its previous state, with the country closely divided over whether to back new restrictions on guns.

What has changed is greater organization and more money than before on the gun control side and perhaps greater political mobilization by voters supporting additional gun-safety measures. Still, efforts in 2013 to win congressional passage of new gun laws demonstrated the extent of the challenge.

Despite what polls showed to be overwhelming public support for expanding background checks to cover all commercial gun sales, a proposal to do so fell 5 votes shy of the 60 votes needed in the Senate in April.

In the end, the only bill dealing with guns that passed both chambers of Congress was one last week, to simply extend an existing ban on the manufacture of guns such as all-plastic weapons that are capable of evading screening measures.

According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks spending on legislative issues, gun control groups spent roughly $1.6 million on the effort. But their efforts were dwarfed by gun rights groups, which spent $12.2 million on federal lobbying.

Some states, including Connecticut, New York and California, passed new restrictions, but a larger number of states responded to campaigns by the NRA and its allies and passed measures to loosen or repeal existing gun laws.

Politically, too, the picture was mixed. In Colorado, where multiple mass shootings have taken place, the passage of new gun laws mobilized gun rights advocates, who successfully recalled two Democratic state legislators. A third resigned rather than face a recall.

But Independence USA, one of a group of gun control organizations backed by Bloomberg, touts its spending in November on key races in Virginia, where Democrats swept all three statewide positions.

Gun control advocates argue that a statewide general election such as the one in Virginia provides a better test than a recall, where turnout is often relatively low.

A strategist involved in Democratic efforts to win House elections said the gun issue could be an asset for their candidates in a handful of key districts. The strategist, granted anonymity to candidly discuss party thinking, pointed to Representative Mike Coffman (Republican-Colorado) as a legislator who might be vulnerable because of his opposition to gun-safety measures. Coffman represents a district covering Denver's eastern suburbs that President Obama carried in 2012.

The gun issue is especially resonant there because the district includes Aurora, scene of the 2012 movie theater shooting, and Littleton, whose Columbine High School suffered a mass shooting in 1999. On Friday, a student at Arapahoe High School, not far from Columbine, shot and critically wounded one student before killing himself.

The Senate election in 2014 offers gun control advocates even fewer opportunities than the House contests. Most Republican incumbents are running in conservative, gun-friendly states.

Vulnerable Democratic incumbents, such as Senators Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, voted against the background check proposal pushed by Senators Joe Manchin III (Democrat-West Virginia) and Patrick J. Toomey (Republican-Pennsylvania). But attacking Begich and Pryor for those votes would risk handing the majority in the chamber to the GOP, which is closely aligned with gun rights groups.

Those realities have gun-safety advocates taking a long view, seeing their effort to influence the debate in Washington as a project that could take years.

"Our focus needs to be building up a political infrastructure across the country to match the NRA," said Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut), one of Congress' strongest proponents of new gun restrictions. "We simply didn't have the political firepower to beat them earlier this year."

This month, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords (Democrat-Arizona), who was critically injured by a gunman who targeted her at an outdoor event in 2011, launched a new political action committee. The first recipients of funds from her new Rights and Responsibilities PAC were Manchin and Toomey.

Some lawmakers who have backed sweeping packages of gun laws are now more open to pursuing smaller, potentially more attainable victories on related issues such as mental health. In the past, some involved in the push for gun restrictions have opposed dealing with mental health issues separately. They feared that taking up the issues one by one would reduce the chances of winning measures such as expanded background checks, which they believe would prevent a larger number of gun crimes.

Murphy said he was still consulting with Republicans on the idea of keeping guns away from people with mental problems, but was uncertain about its legislative prospects.

"The horror of this is that every time there's a new high-profile shooting somewhere around the country, it prompts another round of conversations on the floor of the Senate," he said. "I wish we were having those conversations for better reasons."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-gun-control-20131215,0,3737689.story

[Calliope]

In the year since Newtown, at least 24 school shootings have claimed at least 17 lives, according to a Daily Beast investigation. On Friday, a day after this investigation, a 25th occurred in Colorado.

In the year since 20 first-graders were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, another school shooting has taken place in America every two weeks on average.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/12/the-school-shootings-you-didn-t-hear-about-one-every-two-weeks-since-newtown.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

1 dead, 2 hurt in Reno hospital shooting; gunman apparently kills self

By JOHN M. GLIONNA and MATT PEARCE | 6:13PM PST - Tuesday, December 17, 2013


Outside Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno after a gunman opened fire. — Photo: Matt Lush.

A GUNMAN opened fire at a Reno hospital Tuesday afternoon, killing at least one person and critically wounding two others before apparently taking his own life, state emergency officials said.

Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson told reporters the gunman apparently shot himself.

The incident took place on the third floor of a medical building at Renown Regional Medical Center, Robinson said. He estimated that about 100 people were inside at the time.

"The building is secure and safe," he said.

The shooting was first reported at 2:05 p.m., Robinson said, and officers responded within three to five minutes and searched room by room. Authorities say the gunman is believed to have killed himself about 3 p.m.

Robinson had no preliminary details to release about the identity of the shooter or his victims, nor about a possible motive or the type of weapon used.

In a statement on its website, Renown Health, which operates the hospital, said the shooting happened at "a professional office building located on the northeast corner of the Renown Regional Medical Center campus."

One person was rushed to surgery, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

Daranda Cone of Reno told the Gazette-Journal she was at the hospital when the shooting happened.

"I saw this woman with blood all over her being rushed past me" to the emergency room, Cone told the newspaper.

Lesley Guerrero, 17, was at the hospital to visit her grandfather in the intensive-care unit and said she was outside when the hospital’s intercom announced a “code black.” From the top of a parking garage, as she watched SWAT team members huddle and enter the medical building where the shooting took place, she said she saw a “flustered” woman pull up in a car.

“She was looking down at the scene and talking on her phone … and I guess that was her building that the shooting was happening in, and she was very concerned about her employees,” Guerrero said. The woman rushed back inside the hospital, and when Guerrero came inside too, she passed three doctors huddled together, one of whom was crying.

“I wondered who got hurt, and it made me feel very concerned,” Guerrero said.

Sharon Spangler, a spokeswoman for the city of Reno, said the shooting occurred at the Center for Advanced Medicine, which is located on the medical center campus but is not affiliated with the hospital.

"They’re leased offices," she said. "They’re not part of the hospital."

Reno-area resident John Reid told the Gazette-Journal that he hurried to the hospital after his wife, Carlotta, who works in urology at the facility, called him crying after hearing shots fired.

"She was in pure panic," he told the newspaper.

Reid said his wife reported seeing the gunman walk past her. He said she was frantic and did not say definitively whether she saw the man fire any shots.

He told the paper that he eventually saw his wife near the shooting scene being escorted by Washoe County sheriff’s deputies.

Pictures broadcast on Reno television showed police SWAT team members going through the building. Video also showed officers running toward the building.

The medical center campus was on lockdown all afternoon, but by 4:15 p.m., TV video showed hospital workers walking away from the facility.

Officials said they had little idea what prompted the shooting.

"We haven’t received any information," Spangler said. "It’s way too preliminary. But police are saying that the shooter took his own life by self-inflicted gunshot wound."

She said the scene in the minutes after the shooting was chaotic.

"There were police everywhere," Spangler said. "The Reno police are being assisted by law enforcement from around the area. There were police cars everywhere."

Matt Lush, a 20-year-old junior at University of Nevada’s journalism school, said he was doing Christmas shopping in the area when he saw the alert on his phone. “I rushed over to take photos and see what was going on,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

When Lush arrived, he saw police cars everywhere, including two SWAT team cars. Police shut down East 2nd Street in the 1400 block area and Pringle Way, which intersects it, he said.

After the shootings, “police got as many people out of the building as possible,” Lush said.

Angelo Rambo, a public affairs officer for the hospital, said the two injured victims were being treated at the center. Both were in critical condition, officials said.

Spangler said that several witnesses had been taken to Reno police headquarters for questioning. “The police say they’ve entered the investigative phase of this incident,” she said.

She added that officials had yet to notify relatives of the dead and injured and were therefore not releasing identities. “What we do know is there are no more outstanding suspects,” she said.

Reno police scheduled a news conference for Wednesday morning.

Jan Tors, a spokeswoman for the University of Nevada, whose medical school has offices in the building, issued a news release just after 4:30 p.m., saying all students and faculty members were safe.

"We are relieved to report [University of Nevada School of Medicine] officials have received confirmation that all UNSOM faculty and staff at that location are accounted for and safe," she wrote. "Reno Police Department and Renown Health have issued notices confirming the threat is clear."

She encouraged faculty, staff and students to register with the university’s emergency messaging system, which sends messages to all enrolled cellphones and email accounts in the event of an emergency.

Late in the day, U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) responded on Twitter to the tragedy.

“Saddened by tragic shooting at Reno's Renown Regional Medical Center,” he wrote. “My heart goes out to the victims and their families.”

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-reno-shooting-20131217,0,4932638,full.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Columbine shooting continues to cast shadow over schools

For students, the idea that they must prepare for gunfire at school has
become routine in the aftermath of the 1999 shooting in Colorado.

By JENNY DEAM | 6:18PM PST - Tuesday, December 17, 2013


Fifteen crosses dot a hill in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999 after a shooting rampage at Columbine High School.
 — Photo: Eric Gay/Associated Press/April 28th, 1999.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO — As she does every day, Kay Cates asked her 10-year-old son how his school day went. He shrugged.

"We did math. We did reading. We had a lockdown," the Boulder fourth-grader replied.

She froze. When pressed, the boy matter-of-factly explained the protocol he has rehearsed since kindergarten: "We hid so in case a man with a gun came he can't find us."

That was December 4th. Nine days later, across the Denver metro area in Centennial, a man with a gun came to Arapahoe High School. Karl Halverson Pierson, 18, shot and gravely wounded another student before taking his own life. It was at least the fourth school shooting incident in the Denver area since 1999, starting with Columbine High School.

And that doesn't include the Aurora theater rampage in 2012, which left 12 people dead and 70 others injured.

For schoolchildren born into post-Columbine America, the idea that they must prepare for bad people who open fire in classrooms, school libraries and playgrounds has become routine.

"It struck me that this is now just part of his life," said Cates, a mother of four children ranging in age from 4 to 16. "I think about how my children are going to grow up and think this is a normal part of school."

That's when a little piece of her heart breaks.

According to an analysis of data from the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, there have been at least 285 school shooting incidents across the country since April 20th, 1999. That was the day two heavily armed high school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, forever altered school safety in this country by killing 12 students, a teacher and themselves at Columbine.

Although there had been school shootings before, Columbine is seen as a national point of demarcation. Law officers were roundly criticized for failing to act quickly, leaving students trapped and vulnerable, said Kenneth Trump, president of Ohio-based National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm that works with school districts across the country.

"Columbine made school security and preparedness part of the educational culture," he said.

Sachin Mathur, an 18-year-old college freshman who grew up in Castle Rock, Colorado, was in kindergarten in the immediate aftermath of Columbine. Throughout his school years, lockdown drills became routine.

"Living in the shadow of Columbine and the Aurora theater shooting," Mathur said, he worried, "Can it be my school next?"

Columbine is just 12 miles from Rock Canyon High School, where Mathur graduated. The Aurora theater is 15 miles away; Arapahoe is six.

Teaching too has changed in the post-Columbine reality.

Lisa Lane Filholm, a 45-year-old veteran teacher, quit this year to spend more time with her family. She remembers a deadly shooting on September 27th, 2006, at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, not far from where she taught.

"I realized at that moment that this is not what I signed up for, to be a first responder, to be on the front lines," she said. "This career is dangerous. Or it could be."

In that incident, an intruder entered the school, took six girls hostage, sexually assaulted some of them, then shot and killed 16-year-old Emily Keyes before killing himself.

Filholm immediately reassessed where her desk was located and how she could best protect her students. Back-to-school orientation for teachers now includes safety drills on how to respond to a gunman. In addition, most schools conduct two or three lockdown drills for students in all grades.

Every state has a different level of preparedness, Trump said, but for Coloradans, the stakes seem higher.

"Time and distance from high-profile incidents fuel complacency and denial," he said. "When major incidents happen in your own backyard, people take it a lot more seriously and remember them for a longer period of time."

After the mass killings a year ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six educators were slain, some argue that drills aren't enough. School administrators and teachers should be armed, these critics contend, and even children should be taught to fight back.

The U.S. Department of Education suggested this year that school staff can run away, hide or fight back when threatened by an "active shooter."

"As a last resort when confronted by the shooter, adults in immediate danger should consider trying to disrupt or incapacitate the shooter by using aggressive force and items in their environment, such as fire extinguishers and chairs," the new guidelines say.

Trump said he knew of one school that urged children to hide soup cans in their desks so they can hurl them at a gunman. He calls that strategy abhorrent and potentially deadly for any child trying to combat semiautomatic gunfire with a can.

"That is horrifying," said Shannon Watt, a mother of five who started a grass-roots advocacy group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America the day after Sandy Hook. "If that is where we are at in this country, it's a pretty sad state of affairs."

Still, precautions are so ingrained in today's childhoods that they have become second nature.

When Whitney Riley heard the first loud bang of gunfire last week near the Arapahoe High School study center, she knew to run to a place of safety. Whitney, 15, six other students and two teachers crammed into a tiny sprinkler systems room, no bigger than a closet. Her mind raced through the years of drills.

She weighed her options: Would she confront the gunman? Would she run? Would she stop to help the wounded? Would she sacrifice her life? She heard someone yell, "Get out!" and remembered the stories of the Columbine killers taunting and stalking their victims. She stayed put until a teacher told her to run.

Her father, Charles Riley, said Whitney also attended Deer Creek Middle School, site of a 2010 suburban Denver school shooting. He finds no comfort in statistics that say school shootings are extraordinarily rare.

"I'm very proud of her," he said, with a mixture of awe and horror at what his daughter has learned and endured in her young life. He said she and her brother, who also attends Arapahoe High School and knew the shooter, are doing well despite last week's events.

He and his wife, not so much: "We're still trying to figure out what to feel."

• L.A. Times staff writer Soumya Karlamangla in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-shooter-drills-20131218,0,3027426,full.story

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

How come your not moaning about all the people being slaughtered in the Syrian war,or people being blown up in Iraq or the Afghans, or all the dead murdered blacks in Africa.

Ktj is only upset about white people with guns in the USA he still got small penis envy lol

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

How come your not moaning about all the people being slaughtered in the Syrian war,or people being blown up in Iraq or the Afghans, or all the dead murdered blacks in Africa.

Ktj is only upset about white people with guns in the USA he still got small penis envy lol

There is a WAR going on in Syria.

Tell us all about the WAR under way in the USA.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Arapahoe High School shooting victim Claire Davis dies

By SABA HAMEDY | 5:05PM PST - Saturday, December 21, 2013


Arapahoe High School students hug at a tribute site honoring senior Claire Davis, who was hospitalized after being shot in the head
by a fellow student on December 13th. Davis died Saturday afternoon. — Photo: Brennan Linsley/Associated Press.

CLAIRE DAVIS, the 17-year-old who was shot in the head by a classmate at Arapahoe High School, died Saturday afternoon, hospital officials said.

"It is with heavy hearts that we share that at 4:20 p.m. this afternoon, Claire Davis passed away, with her family at her side," the Littleton Adventist Hospital wrote on its Facebook page.

"Despite the best efforts of our physicians and nursing staff, and Claire's fighting spirit, her injuries were too severe and the most advanced medical treatments could not prevent this tragic loss of life."

Davis was shot at point-blank range by Karl Halvorsen Pierson, 18, who then turned the gun on himself. Pierson had reportedly been searching for his debate coach when he entered the school December 13th.

Since the shooting, the community has rallied around Davis, with Twitter users taking up the hashtag #PrayForClaire.

About 500 students held a candlelight vigil last Saturday for Davis outside the school, where they had inserted flowers into a chain-link fence to form the message "4 CLAIRE."

Earlier Saturday, members of Millbrook Equestrian, hosted a day of activities in honor of Davis, who was active in the horseback riding community, according to the Denver Channel's website.

The announcement of Davis' death comes just two days after students were allowed back on the Centennial, Colorado, campus for the first time since the shooting to retrieve belongings.

According to the hospital's Facebook page, a public celebration of Claire's life will be announced later. The hospital will continue to accept cards for the Davis family in the "Cards for Claire" box at its main entrance.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-arapahoe-claire-davis-dies-20131221,0,6654721.story

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

There is a WAR going on in Syria.

Tell us all about the WAR under way in the USA.

lol


In America your more likely to be killed by police than by anyone else

Father recalls watching son being shot, killed by LAPD officers




Bill Beaird wept Friday as he recalled watching live on television as Los Angeles police officers fatally shot his son at the end of a pursuit.

Sometime before the shooting, Beaird said, his son Brian had called to say that police were chasing him. Beaird said he urged his son to pull over. But Brian Beaird kept driving his Corvette at high rates of speed, eventually broadsiding another car Dec. 13 in downtown Los Angeles. The shooting was filmed from TV news helicopters.

The elder Beaird said he watched in shock as his 51-year-old son staggered out of the wrecked Corvette, briefly putting his arms in the air as he walked behind the vehicle to the passenger side, and police opened fire.

"They killed him," Bill Beaird said, tears welling in his eyes.

Three LAPD officers fired an estimated 22 times at Brian Beaird, who was unarmed. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has put the officers on extended leave pending a final investigation, saying he was "very concerned" by the incident.

Beaird's father and brother stood outside LAPD headquarters Friday to announce that they had filed a $20-million claim against the city, a legal precursor required when suing a California government entity. An attorney for the Beaird family said that if the city doesn't reach an agreement, the family would pursue a federal wrongful-death suit.

Bill Beaird described his youngest son as a disabled veteran who was discharged from the National Guard in 1988 after a botched surgery on a brain tumor. The surgery left his son with brain trauma, Beaird said. He could be paranoid, his father said, particularly about police.

John Beaird, the oldest of Bill Beaird's four sons, said his youngest brother "made a lot of bad decisions that day." But, he said, the officers should not have shot him.

"I can only imagine how terrified and alone he was in the last moments of his life," he said.

An investigation into the shooting is underway. The department, which often provides written explanations for police shootings, has provided few details in the case.

After reviewing a preliminary report Thursday, Beck placed the three officers who opened fire on extended leave pending the final use-of-force and criminal investigations.

"After hearing the preliminary briefing, I am very concerned about the circumstances that led up to and resulted in this officer-involved shooting," Beck said in a statement.

Beck said that at least one less-lethal bean bag round was fired at Beaird, but only the officers who fired their guns are being investigated.

Bill Beaird, an Army veteran, said his son followed in his footsteps and joined the military. He said his son would have made a career out of it had it not been for the botched brain surgery.

"He was simply afraid and paranoid of the police, even though he has never been convicted of any felonies," said Dale Galipo, the family's attorney. "And that paranoia of the police is one of the reasons why he didn't pull over."

Galipo said the shooting was excessive.

"Police officers with respect to deadly force have to justify every shot," Galipo said. "Usually the story involves he was reaching in his waistband, he had a gun, he had something that looked like a gun. But the problem in this case, none of those stories will work because every step, everybody saw actually what happened on video."

Brian Beaird bought a home in Oceanside a few years ago, his family said, but often spent time in Los Angeles.

The Dec. 13 incident began about 9:30 p.m. as a suspected drunk- or reckless-driver pursuit in Cudahy by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. Los Angeles police took over the chase when it reached city limits.

With several LAPD cars following his Corvette, Beaird crashed into a vehicle at Olympic Boulevard and Los Angeles Street, sending it into a fire hydrant. Police said one of the occupants of the other vehicle suffered serious injuries but provided no other details.

Beaird's mangled Corvette spun to a rest on the street corner. He tried to pull away but then abandoned the vehicle and got out, walking around to the sidewalk on the passenger side. Roughly 20 officers from the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division surrounded him.

Television footage shows Beaird briefly putting his arms in the air with his back to officers, then grabbing his stomach as he fell. He died less than an hour later at California Hospital Medical Center, authorities said.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-corvette-shooting-20131221,0,4243760.story#axzz2o7lM1khl


Atlantic City Cop Ordered to Pay $250,000 From Own Pocket to Citizen He Abused    17
By Carlos Miller


http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2013/12/22/atlantic-city-cop-ordered-pay-250000-pocket-suspect-abused/

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Those gun-happy SEPOs have been at it, yet again....


• At least three dead, including gunman, in Louisiana shooting rampage

(Los Angeles Times news story — 10:14AM PST - December 27, 2013)

[Gecko]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9560015/Woman-charged-after-Auckland-man-shot


must be a few yanks in Kelston too 

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Roswell shooting: 2 children critical; fellow student possible shooter

By MICHAEL MUSKAL and JOHN GLIONNA | 10:48AM PST - Tuesday, January 14, 2014


Roswell Mall packed with parents waiting to pick up kids after shooting at Burrendo Middle School. — Photo: Kim Tobin/Twitter.

ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO — At least two children were in critical condition after a shooting at a Roswell Middle School on Tuesday morning. The shooter was taken into custody as hundreds of parents converged on a mall parking lot to console their children and take them home.

Two minors were being flown to Lubbock, Texas, in critical condition, said University Medical Center Health System spokesman Eric Finley; a 14-year-old boy was being taken by helicopter and a 13-year-old girl by plane.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the minors were the same pair taken to a hospital in Roswell by ambulance after the shooting.

Hundreds of parents congregated at the Roswell mall Tuesday to meet their children, who were bused from Berrendo Middle School, where the shooting happened.

David Fox said his 12-year-old son, Spencer, called him from the school to say he had heard three gunshots and that they were apparently fired by a fellow student with a sawed-off shotgun.


Google Street View of Berrendo Middle School, scene of a school shooting; suspect in custody, students reported injured.
 — Photo: Scejas/Twitter.

Ynez Fox, who works at a nearby hospital, said she saw police cars and ambulances rushing to the school just before 8 a.m.

“I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I feared the worst.”

Then her son called from an unfamiliar cellphone number.

“Mom, there’s been a shooting at school,” he said, “but I’m OK.” His voice was calm, almost without emotion, and she assumed it was because he was in shock.

“It wasn’t even his phone,” Fox said of her son. “He doesn’t even have a cellphone. But he’s going to get one now.”

A man walked by, overhearing her words. “My son is going to take his cellphone to school from now on, you can bet your bottom dollar.”

The parents were directed to wait at different mall entrances for their children, who had been bused to the site. The sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders emerged one-by-one from different mall doors as the parents’ names were called out to reunite with their child.

Justin Dollar, 13, walked away from the mall trailed by his father, who kept a hand on his shoulder. He said he was in a different part of the building from where the shooting happened when an announcement went over the loudspeakers.

“The voice said that the school was under lockdown and for all of us to get to the nearest classroom and to text or call your parents and tell them that you’re OK,” Justin said.


Parents, families visibly upset at Roswell Mall, waiting to pick up kids from Berrendo Middle School. — Photo: Katie Kim/Twitter.

Nearby, Jonathan Flores hugged his mother and talked about the shooting.

“This kid shot another kid with a shotgun in the school gym,” he said. “Nobody knows why,” said the youth, who wore a blue Berrendo Middle School sweat shirt with the bulldog mascot.

Asked when he would returned to school, he said, “I feel scared.”

A woman in a powder blue pant suit was waiting at the parking lot for her 14-year-old son. The woman, who asked not be identified, said her son called her about 7:50 a.m. from a locked room in the school office. She was told that teachers and fellow students were inside.

All were safe, she said.

According to the boy, a person with a shotgun was in the school and was tackled and caught, his mother said.

State police were expected to hold a news conference about the shooting in the early afternoon.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-roswell-new-mexico-school-shooting-20140114,0,656262,full.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

2 youths wounded by student in Roswell school shooting, police say

By JOHN M> GLIONNA and MICHAEL MUSKAL | 2:45PM PST - Tuesday, January 14, 2014


Students surrounded by police are escorted from Berrendo Middle School after a shooting on Tuesday in Roswell, New Mexico.
Roswell police said the suspected shooter was arrested at the school. — Photo: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record.

ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO — A seventh-grade boy walked into a middle school Tuesday morning and opened fire in the gymnasium, wounding two classmates, one critically, officials said.

There was no immediate motive for the shooting, which began about 7:30 a.m. at Berrendo Middle School, New Mexico State Police Chief Pete Kassetas said at an afternoon news conference.

He said the 12-year-old shooter, brought what is believed to be a shotgun in a bag into the school. He went into the gym where students were gathered at the start of the day because of the cold, and opened fire, Kassetas said.

A teacher heroically approached the child and ordered him to drop the weapon, which he did, officials said. Later a state police lieutenant, who was dropping off a student, was allowed to enter the building to help control the situation.

“I believe we have the only individual responsible for this at this time,” Kassetas said.

The school system has its own security force, said Roswell school Superintendent Tom Burris. The educator said you always hope this type of incident doesn’t happen.  “It is unbelievable that it did,” he said.


Law enforcement personel set up a perimeter after a shooting on Tuesday at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell, New Mexico.
 — Photo: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record.


A student is comforted after a shooting on Tuesday at Berrendo Middle school in Roswell, New Mexico.
 — Photo: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record.

The shooter was in custody but it was unknown what charges he will face given his age. Officials said they still have to interview many of the witnesses.

Three people were injured in the attack, Governor Susana Martinez told reporters.

A male student, 12, was listed in critical condition at University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, and a 13-year-old girl was in the same facility in serious condition, the governor said.

Both students had been airlifted to Texas after they were rushed to a Roswell hospital where they were treated and stabilized, officials said.

“I am asking all New Mexicans to keep these children in your prayers,” Martinez said. “They were shot simply sitting in a gym waiting to go to class.”

The governor said that a school staff member was also injured but that the wound was minor. The staffer refused hospital treatment to stay at the school.

None of those involved have been named.


Parents converge on a mall to collect their children after a shooting on Tuesday at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell, New Mexico.
 — Photo: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record.


Parents meet up with their children at a mall after a shooting on Tuesday at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell, New Mexico.
 — Photo: John M. Glionna/Los Angeles Times.


People wait for news at a staging ground area set up for parents after a shooting on Tuesday at Berrendo Middle School
in Roswell, New Mexico. — Photo: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record.

News of the shooting spread quickly earlier in the day via social media as school officials locked down the campus. Hundreds of parents congregated at the Roswell mall to meet their children, who were bused from the school.

Ynez Fox, who works at a nearby hospital, said she saw police cars and ambulances rushing to the school just before 8 a.m.

“I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I feared the worst.”

Then her son called from an unfamiliar cellphone number.

“Mom, there’s been a shooting at school,” he said, “but I’m OK.” His voice was calm, almost without emotion, and she assumed it was because he was in shock.

“It wasn’t even his phone,” Fox said of her son. “He doesn’t even have a cellphone. But he’s going to get one now.”

Officials scheduled a prayer vigil at the Roswell convention center for 6 p.m. They also made arrangements for specialists to deal with children’s grief and shock.

“Today is the day no superintendent ever wants to go through,” Superintendent Burris said.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-roswell-school-shooting-20140114,0,6830749.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Chicago Tribune....

3 dead, including shooter, at Indiana supermarket

By ADAM SEGE | 12:57AM CST - Thursday, January 16, 2014

A SHOPPER a supermarket employee and a gunman are dead after a shooting at an Indiana supermarket Wednesday night, according to the Indiana State Police.

Just after 10 p.m., police in Elkhart, Indiana received calls of a man with a gun at a Martin's supermarket on East Bristol Street, Sergeant Trent Smith of the Indiana State Police said.

Two officers were in the area and rushed to the supermarket, Smith said.

Inside the store, the officers heard a gunshot and quickly located the gunman, who was pointing a semi-automatic handgun at someone's head, Smith said.

The officers opened fire and struck the shooter, who is described as a man in his early 20s.

After shooting the gunman, police found the bodies of a shopper, believed to be in her early 40s, and a supermarket employee, believed to be in her late teens or early 20s, Smith said.

Both were apparently shot by the gunman, Smith said. They were found about 15 aisles apart.

All three people died on the scene.

No other people were injured, something Smith credited to the prompt response by police officers.

"The quick action of the Elkhart City Police Department responding to this active shooter undoubtedly saved several lives tonight," he said.

Indiana State Police are leading the investigation into the shooting. There was no immediate indication that the shooter knew either of his victims, Smith said.

Martin's Super Markets has posted the following message on Facebook:

"Thank you to our community for your thoughts and prayers tonight. We will comment further when we can do so responsibly and appropriately."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-indiana-supermarket-shooting-20140115,0,2911223.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Elkhart Truth....

Three dead, including suspect, after shooting at Martin's Super Market

By ANNE CHRISTNOVICH | Thursday, January 16, 2014



ONE MAN and two women are dead after a shooting in Martin's Super Market on 3900 East Bristol Street on Wednesday night, according to information from the Indiana State Police.

The man, described as a white and in his late teens or early 20s, is believed to be the gunman, according to an announcement made shortly before 1 a.m. by State Police Trooper Sgt. Trent Smith. The state police will be leading the investigation.

The Elkhart City 911 Dispatch Center confirmed that emergency crews were alerted to an active shooter just after 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Two Elkhart Police officers patrolling and area nearby responded within minutes of the call, Smith said. The officers fatally shot the suspect after they found him in the store pointing a gun at another person. The suspect was carrying a handgun and a large knife, Smith said.

One victim, an employee at the store, was believed to be in her late teens or early 20s. The other victim appeared to be a woman customer in her 40s.



The women were found 10 to 12 aisles apart, but Smith did not say where in the store the suspect was shot.

Their identities will not be released until immediate family has been notified. As of 1 a.m. Thursday, it was unclear when that would be.

Authorities don't yet know if there was a connection between any of the victims, Smith said. No one else was injured.

The Elkhart Police Department Chaplain arrived on the scene at about 11:15 p.m.

Witnesses who were in the store were taken to the Elkhart Police Station. The scene was secured before midnight, meaning the shooter is no longer a threat, according to Elkhart Assistant Police Chief Laura Koch. No other details were given.

Elkhart County Prosecutor Curtis Hill was at the scene. Among other agencies, the state police, the Elkhart Police, and the Elkhart Fire Department also responded.











http://www.elkharttruth.com/article/20140115/NEWS05/140119954

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Three are dead in shooting at mall in Columbia, Maryland

By EMMA BROWN and PETER HERMANN | 1:41PM EST - Saturday, January 25, 2014



VIOLENCE erupted at a suburban mall in Columbia, Maryland, on Saturday morning, after a shooter emerged from among weekend shoppers. Police confirmed that three people were left dead, including one believed to be the shooter.

Howard County Police Chief William J. McMahon said that the three were killed in and outside an upper level skate store at the Mall in Columbia and that authorities are still working to unravel details of the shooting as well as to determine the identity of the shooter, who was identified only as being a man.

Police identified the victims as Brianna Benlolo, 21, of College Park, and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Ellicott City, both employees of a skate shop called Zumiez on the mall’s upper level. Benlolo’s family members, reached by telephone Saturday evening, declined to comment.

McMahon said a motive for the shootings still is unclear.

“There are still a lot of details we need to confirm,” McMahon said, adding that police combed the mall for additional evidence but that police believe there were no additional shooters. Police searched the entire mall and have cleared it, though the mall is not scheduled to reopen this evening as police work through what officials described as a very large crime scene.

Police said a gun found near the suspected shooter was a shotgun.

Howard County officials said five people who were injured at the mall Saturday morning are being treated at a local hospital, including one police said suffered a gunshot wound to the foot.



The mall, a suburban shopping center about 25 miles northeast of Washington, went on lockdown after police received reports of an active shooter at about 11:15 a.m. Shoppers and employees huddled in stores after the sound of gunshots ripped through the mall’s hallways on a cold morning.

Laura McKindles said she heard eight to 10 shots as she worked a travel timeshare booth on the second level overlooking the food court. At first she thought it was construction.

“People were yelling, ‘Someone’s got a gun’,” she said. “They were screaming.”

McKindles ran across the corridor into a perfume store and hid in a back room for about 90 minutes until police told them it was safe to emerge. She was with three other workers from her stall and the store.

“I was praying,” she said. “I was thinking about my family, my dog.” She had left her cellphone at the kiosk and couldn’t call anyone to tell them she was okay until after she got out.

“I think this country is in a lot if trouble,” said McKindles, who moved to Columbia from Cockeysville, north of Baltimore, two months ago. “I mean, what possesses someone to, on a Saturday afternoon, in this cold, to come to a mall and shoot people? Why? I just can’t understand what motivates that.”

Police said that they have confirmed that the suspected shooter was located near a gun and ammunition but that they have not yet identified the person because they have been treating his body carefully because, though obviously dead, he appeared to be laden with ammunition. McMahon said police did not fire any weapons during the incident and that they believe the two victims were killed before the shooter shot himself.

Workers at stores in the mall said the building was on lockdown almost immediately after the shooting. An employee at Rafet’s Hairmasters, who declined to be identified, said she heard the shooting had taken place near the mall’s Sears store, which is adjacent to the food court.



]Roger Aseneta, a manager at Auntie Anne’s pretzel shop, said he heard what he immediately recognized as gunshots around 11:15 a.m. He ushered his employees inside and locked the doors behind them. They went into a back room where, on a surveillance camera, they could see people running and screaming in the food court outside.

“It’s a case of people running for safety,” he said. “It’s a really terrible thing. I never thought I would experience this... I was shaking.”

Aseneta, 52, said the gunshots sounded like booms and he heard five or six of them from directly overhead of his shop on the upper level. He guessed that they came from a clothing shop on the upper level called Zumiez.

At 12:30 p.m., police led frightened shoppers and workers out of the mall entrance at the food court. Many were without coats, and police and paramedics ushered those without cars, many shivering and some holding babies, into warm vans from Howard and Anne Arundel county fire departments. Some held hands and were crying.

Police officers guarded each entrance off Little Patuxent Parkway to keep people away from the nearly empty parking lots.

Solon Jimez was working at a beauty salon when he said he heard the gunshots. “We saw people running,” he said. “It was very bad.”

Candace Johnson was shopping in the mall’s Forever 21 store when she heard a commotion, then saw 30 people “panicking and screaming and kind of running” toward her from the area of the food court and the Sears department store. The 24-year-old from Columbia said she immediately went to the back of the store and got down as employees pulled shut the gates.

“It’s just kind of nerve-wracking,” she said.

Johnson said she waited for about two hours, huddled with a dozen or so other customers and Forever 21 employees as they received periodic updates over the phone from mall security. She said police seemed to be clearing the mall store-by-store, starting with those businesses near the Sears on the ground level.

• Lori Aratani, Jenna Johnson and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/mall-in-columbia-on-lockdown-amid-reports-of-shooter/2014/01/25/4b3e8fb2-85e2-11e3-b85b-b305db87fb90_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Chicago Tribune....

Police identify two killed in Maryland mall shooting

By STAFF REPORTERS | 4:58PM CST - Saturday, January 25, 2014


Emergency responders arrive at the Columbia Mall after a fatal shooting on January 25th, 2014, in Columbia, Maryland. Three people were killed in a
shooting at the popular shopping mall, located about 45 minutes outside Washington, authorities said on Saturday. Howard County, Maryland, Police
announced the fatalities and urged people inside the Mall “to stay in place”. Police said one of the dead was “located near a gun and ammunition”.
 — Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images.

THREE PEOPLE died in a shooting at a large shopping mall outside Baltimore on Saturday, including the suspected gunman who apparently killed himself, police said.

Two Zumiez skate shop employees were killed. Police identified the victims as Brianna Benlolo, 21, and Tyler Johnson, 25.

Benlolo was from College Park, Maryland, and Johnson was from Ellicott City, Maryland, the Howard County Police Department said on its Twitter page.

The gunman, who has not been identified, opened fire with a shotgun in the skate shop at the rowded shopping mall, killing the two store employees and wounding another person, before apparently killing himself, police said.

Howard County Police said they believed the mall in Columbia, Maryland, was secure and they were contacting shoppers to help them leave the complex.

Police said they did not immediately know the shooter's motive.

An emergency 911 call was received at about 11:15 a.m. EST reporting that shots had been fired at the Mall of Columbia, a sprawling shopping center with about 200 stores about 30 miles north of Washington, D.C.

"We had officers quickly get into the area and we were able to identify three victims at an upper level store in the Columbia Mall, one of those victims appears to be the shooter," Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon told reporters.

"We are very confident that it was a single shooter and there are no other shooters in the mall," he said.

One person suffered a gunshot wound to the foot, and four other people were injured in the chaos, police said. Howard County General Hospital said all the injured have been treated and released.

The suspected shooter was found near a shotgun and ammunition, police said.

At the time of the shooting the mall was crowded with weekend shoppers, many of whom sheltered in place after hearing the shots or seeing people fleeing.

"So right now we still have many, many people still in the mall who have secured themselves inside stores," McMahon said, adding that officers were helping people leave the building.

Colin Reddy, who works at the mall, told CNN he heard about eight or nine shots in all.

"We thought it was construction because there's a lot of construction going on at the mall right now. Then I heard it again. Like ‘boom, boom, boom’. And then everybody started running," he said.

Reddy said he and the other employees closed the store's gate and waited in a back room for police to arrive.

Tonya Broughton of Silver Spring, Maryland, said she and a friend were getting facials when they noticed other shoppers running.

"It was panic. We just headed for the nearest store, Victoria's Secret," she said, adding that the store's employees herded everyone to the rear of the store.

"They were very, nice, keeping us calm. They told us we were safe," she said.

The attack in Columbia follows a shooting at a New Jersey mall in November in which a gunman fired at least six shots without hitting anyone, sparking a mass evacuation of the complex, then killing himself.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-maryland-mall-shooting-20140125,0,2030558.story

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

MORE PHOTOGRAPHS....



Maryland State Police gear up as civilians depart the Columbia Mall after a fatal shooting on January 25th, 2014, in Columbia, Maryland. Three people
were killed in a shooting at the popular shopping mall, located about 45 minutes outside Washington, authorities said on Saturday. Howard County,
Maryland, Police announced the fatalities and urged people inside the Mall “to stay in place”. Police said one of the dead was “located near a gun
and ammunition”. — Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.


Police patrol outside a Sears store at Columbia Mall after a fatal shooting on January 25th, 2014, in Columbia, Maryland. Three people were killed in a
shooting at the popular shopping mall, located about 45 minutes outside Washington, authorities said on Saturday. Howard County, Maryland, Police
announced the fatalities and urged people inside the Mall “to stay in place”. Police said one of the dead was “located near a gun and ammunition”.
 — Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.


Police enter the Sears department store at the Columbia Mall after a fatal shooting on January 25th, 2014, in Columbia, Maryland. Three people were
killed in a shooting at the popular shopping mall, located about 45 minutes outside Washington, authorities said on Saturday. Howard County,
Maryland, Police announced the fatalities and urged people inside the Mall “to stay in place”. Police said one of the dead was “located near
a gun and ammunition”. — Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.


Police enter the Sears department store at the Columbia Mall after a fatal shooting on January 25th, 2014, in Columbia, Maryland. Three people were
killed in a shooting at the popular shopping mall, located about 45 minutes outside Washington, authorities said on Saturday. Howard County,
Maryland, Police announced the fatalities and urged people inside the Mall “to stay in place”. Police said one of the dead was “located near
a gun and ammunition”. — Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.


Maryland State Police patrol the Columbia Mall after a fatal shooting on January 25th, 2014, in Columbia, Maryland. Three people were killed in
a shooting at the popular shopping mall, located about 45 minutes outside Washington, authorities said on Saturday. Howard County, Maryland,
Police announced the fatalities and urged people inside the Mall “to stay in place”. Police said one of the dead was “located near a gun
and ammunition”. — Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images.


Two people embrace in the parking lot of the Columbia Mall after a gunman killed three people, including himself, in the food court of the mall in
Columbia, Maryland, USA, on January 25th, 2014. Police were confident it was a single shooter, said Bill McMahon, chief of Howard County police,
in broadcast remarks. Many in the weekend shopping crowd took cover and found hiding places, as the general public has been instructed to do.
Police were scouring the mall to find anyone still sheltering, police said. — Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA.


Police prepare to enter the Columbia Mall after a gunman killed three people, including himself, in the food court of the mall in Columbia, Maryland,
USA, on January 25th, 2014. Police were confident it was a single shooter, said Bill McMahon, chief of Howard County police, in broadcast remarks.
Many in the weekend shopping crowd took cover and found hiding places, as the general public has been instructed to do. Police were scouring
the mall to find anyone still sheltering, police said. — Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA.


Howard County, Maryland, Police Chief William J. McMahon talks to reporters outside Columbia Town Center Mall following a shooting situation
on January 25th, 2014 in Columbia, Maryland. Three people are dead after a shooting inside the mall. — Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.


Police evacuate employees and patrons from the Columbia Town Center Mall after three people were killed in a shooting there on January 25th, 2014 in
Columbia, Maryland. Police still do not have a motive for the shooting but believe the shooter has been killed. — Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.


Law enforcement officers organize outside the Columbia Town Center Mall following a shooting situation on January 25th, 2014 in Columbia,
Maryland. Three people are dead after a shooting inside the mall. — Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.


Police evacuate employees and patrons from the Columbia Town Center Mall after three people were killed in a shooting there on January 25th, 2014 in
Columbia, Maryland. Police still do not have a motive for the shooting but believe the shooter has been killed. — Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.


Police evacuate employees and patrons from the Columbia Town Center Mall after three people were killed in a shooting there on January 25th, 2014 in
Columbia, Maryland. Police still do not have a motive for the shooting but believe the shooter has been killed. — Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.


Police evacuate employees and patrons from the Columbia Town Center Mall after three people were killed in a shooting there on January 25th, 2014 in
Columbia, Maryland. Police still do not have a motive for the shooting but believe the shooter has been killed. — Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.


Civilians walk from a building after a shooting at a shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland on January 25th, 2014. Three people died in a shooting
at a large shopping mall outside of Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday, and one of the dead was believed to be the shooter, police said.
 — Photo:  James Lawler Duggan/Reuters.


Tarah William of Lanham, Maryland reacts after she was evacuated from a building following a shooting at a shopping mall in Columbia, Maryland
on January 25th, 2014. Three people died in a shooting at a large shopping mall outside of Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday, and one of the dead
was believed to be the shooter, police said. — Photo:  James Lawler Duggan/Reuters.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

• Gunman opens fire at Ft. Hood in Texas

    (Los Angeles Times news story — 11:17PM PST, April 02, 2014)

• Photograph Gallery

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

• Isla Vista shootings: Victim's father lashes out at politicians, NRA

          (Los Angeles Times news story - 1:36PM PST, May 25, 2015)

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

some more unarmed gun victim porn for KTJ to pore over

Poor  lil virgin rich kid

people like him are the reason people need guns to be able to defend them selves



'I will slaughter every single blonde s*** I see': Lonely killer posted chilling video warning of 'retribution' because he was still a virgin at age 22
Elliot Rodger went on a shooting rampage in Santa Barbara, California
22-year-old killed six people and also died of gunshot wound to the head
He posted a video ranting about how women have rejected his advances
Lamenting about being a virgin, he promises 'retribution' and 'punishment'
Planned to enter 'hottest sorority on SCSB' and 'slaughter' the girls inside
Rodger is the son of The Hunger Games assistant director Peter Rodger
Family contacted police last week out of concern over disturbing videos
Officers found him to be a 'perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human'




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2638049/7-dead-drive-shooting-near-UC-Santa-Barbara.html#ixzz32m5HcXLR
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/24/heres-everything-we-know-about-the-santa-barbara-mass-slaying-and-the-22-year-old-alleged-shooter/

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Buy a gun, be a god

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 6:57PM PST - Tuesday, May 27, 2014

AGAIN with the mad rush to explain. Again with the desperate need to try and figure out why an intelligent, privileged white kid from one of America’s wealthiest areas, a young man with every advantage the culture has to offer, would instead deem himself sufficiently vilified and marginalized that the only obvious solution is to buy multiple semi-automatic handguns and several hundred rounds of ammunition, and calmly massacre as many people as possible. And then kill himself.

Do you think you have one? A suitable explanation, that is?

Insanity is always convenient. And popular. “This was the work of a madman,” said Santa Barbara’s sheriff regarding Elliot Rodger’s massacre of seven people, because it sounds right, because it seems so obvious, because really, what other reason could there be? Unless you’re a cop or serve in the military, anyone who ever shoots another human must be at least somewhat mentally deranged, right?


The only thing Elliot Rodger loved? His guns.

Well, no. Not at all. Despite years of therapy, Rodger reportedly had no signs of madness or even serious instability. In truth, few killers do. But the insanity claim is popular because it neatly swallows up all the other possibilities and cultural mutations, which is why gun advocates love this excuse most of all — they’re instantly off the hook, when the hook is all theirs to begin with.

What about extreme misogyny? The feminist blogs, not to mention Twitter, are lit up with this discussion, and it’s fascinating, sad and powerful all at once; most of the writers have a heart-wrenchingly valid point indeed, given how Rodger’s disgustingly entitled, antagonistic attitude toward women is little different than the hostile, bitches-‘n-hos, slut-shaming douchebaggery on display across much of bro culture, an undercurrent of sexism and potential violence women have to deal with every day.

Result: Women are scared. Perhaps more so than ever. Certainly far more than most men realize — even the “good” men, the ones who feel they’re being unjustly lumped in the sexist/entitlement debate. Have you followed the #YesAllWomen Twitter phenomenon? It’s astonishing. No matter what kind of male you think you are, this is essential — and humbling — reading for all men (thanks Phil Plait at Slate for the most apt summary I’ve read so far).

Perhaps you prefer something less specific? Maybe you think mass shootings — or even the “everyday” gun violence that’s so common it barely registers on the media (example: three people were shot to death at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina the day after the Rodger massacre — did you hear about that?) are always the result of a bizarre, unknowable mix of psychological and cultural forces no one can ever fully unpack.

I used to think this way, too. Sometimes I still do. But I’ve also come to realize this view misses the biggest, most overarching point of all.


Masculine and feminine.

The point is simple enough: It’s the guns.

Wait, let me clarify: I don’t mean the debate around access to guns, or the absurd fight over background checks, or even the failure to prevent the mentally ill from buying weapons in the first place. As pointed out everywhere, California already has the strictest laws in the land (a relative point: they’re only strict by comparison to gun-worshipping states like Texas), and Rodger had no problem buying all the weaponry he wanted.

No, the larger issue is something even more nefarious, and more deeply embedded in the American (male) psyche: It’s our cultural obsession with, and fetish for, guns and gun violence, our near-religious belief in firearms as salvation, cure, solution, defense, protection, the ultimate phallic symbol, the most shameful icon of American pseudo-cowboy patriotism and bogus virility.

Don’t you know it already? More then 70 mass killings in the U.S. in three decades; more than a dozen in the past two years alone; an average of two mass shootings per month for the past five years; 20 children and six adults slaughtered at Sandy Hook; more than 12,000 dead (more likely twice that amount) from guns in 2013 alone, which is an average of 30 every day; upwards of 32,000 gun-related deaths every year; more than 100,000 people shot every year (including non-fatal and suicides) — there is only one commonality: the gun.

Not just easy access to — reliance upon, and fatal obsession with.

Put it this way: No matter his motivation, every shooter in America has concluded, in his own dark, sociopathic, or just plain stupid way, that the only way to solve his problem, to rectify the situation, to prove he’s a “man”, to properly “get back” at society, women, his boss, the world, is to buy a firearm and start shooting.


When one gun isn’t enough.

It’s a distinctly male credo, too: The gun is the ultimate punctuation mark. It is the definitive conclusion of every argument, the biggest (and dumbest) penis in the room, the sine qua non of every scene of bullshit macho posturing.

It’s also the message every American male gets hammered into his warped concept of masculinity since childhood, across the cultural spectrum, from video games to movies (like this one, and this, and this (see YouTube clip below), this, and this, and this), to TV shows, cop dramas, gangsta fantasias, music videos, reality TV and even cartoons: When all else fails, reach for a gun. When life refuses to cooperate, fire back. When real retribution is needed, just slap in a fresh clip and go for broke. There’s no problem a rage-induced spray of bullets can’t solve, right, bro? Did you know the movies with the most gun violence of all are rated PG-13? True.



Notice, by the way, I make no mention of women above. This is because gun fetishism and its related thug mythology is, almost without exception, the sole dominion of scared, misaligned men – guys who, for the most part, have lost all sense of what authentic masculinity is really all about. So they turn to violence — or, at the very least, the visible threat of it — as pitiful substitute.

Don’t believe it? Here, let Elliot Rodger spell it out: “Who’s the alpha male now, bitches?” he wrote in his manifesto, after buying his first Glock semi-automatic pistol. And there your have it: From depressed and resentful to immortal and god-like in a single purchase.

The NRA has Rodger’s declaration tattooed across their mission statement. So does nearly every gun advocate, gang thug and drug lord in the land. The reason is obvious: A gun is the fastest, cheapest, easiest way to power, domination and uber-manhood. Never mind that it’s a complete delusion, a lie, irrefutable evidence of your complete lack of authentic masculinity. You’re a hollow sham, dude. Your gun proves it.

Try this quick thought experiment: Picture any bragging, gun-wielding gang banger, swaggering cowboy, mafia kingpin, big game hunter, vengeance-seeking action hero, open-carry doofus or would-be mass shooter you like. Now remove the gun from the picture. What do you have? That’s right: Another nervous schlub standing there, looking lost.


With only slight adjustments, these stats are
actually shockingly accurate.

Would you like to argue the gross fallacy that more guns equal more security and protection? This is as childish as it is patently false. If more guns meant more safety, we’d be the safest nation in the world. We are the exact opposite.

Look, I am far from naïve. I’ve been writing about gun-related issues off and on for 15 years, and aside from banning guns completely — which, despite the howls of libertarians and extremists, won’t happen anytime soon thanks to cowardly politicians and the thuggery of the NRA — there is only one lasting solution: change the message completely.

Do you think it’s possible? To excise the gun fetishism from Hollywood and the news media, to explode America’s bogus cowboy mythology, to shout down the gun apologists, the NRA goons and those who talk about “responsible” gun ownership, to point out how relying on a gun actually makes you less of a man, not more? Is it possible to re-frame and reclaim authentic masculinity for a new generation of men, a definition in which doesn’t include sexism, violence against women, or guns as the ultimate solution to any problem?

Because the alternative — more shootings, more fear, countless thousands more dead, more unimaginable pain and nearly all of it at the hands of men — is as predictable as it is inevitable.

• Email: Mark Morford

• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2014/05/27/buy-a-gun-be-a-god

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

he killed 3 of his victims with a knife ban knives cars, trains, fists, hammers, base ball bats, rocks ban your brain you might be dangerous