11 thoughts on “Newtown Elementary Therapist: ‘Hero’ Teacher Used Body To Hold Door Shut During School Shooting”
The difficulties with irrational acts is that they are usually followed by more irrationality by those seeking ready and usually simplistic solutions. There is also this bizarre sense of victimhood by people who should know better. To believe that less than human behavior can be solved by imposing “mandates” on everyone, denying everyone the constitutional and legitimate right to protect themselves is, I suggest irrational and very dangerous. The sad truth is that guns do not kill people, bombs do not kill people, knives do not kill people, clubs do not like people, drugs do not kill people, motor vehicles do not kill people: people kill people. Scandinavia has amazingly rigid gun laws, but Scandinavians manage to shoot each other, or stab each other. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and many other U.S. cities have remarkably stringent gun laws but also amazingly high murder rates, and even though gun crimes are reported, less reporting is done about knife, club or drug killings. Almost no reporting of the clear record that people who are armed and can protect themselves or others do prevent crimes, and do deter and capture wouldbe assailants.
Motor vehicle accidents kill about 40,000 Americans a year (more than 100 people a day) and injure perhaps 200,000 people a year (about 500 each day), statistically mostly younger people. Perhaps we should ban motor vehicles and deny the right to own and drive a motor vehicle, thereby saving all those lives and preventing all those injuries. The real issues I suspect are difficult and upsetting, with no easy solution. Israelis, for example, are constantly in danger of irrational terror attacks, by thugs wielding guns, knives, axes, and bombs, every hour of every day. They are forced to secure all schools, all roads, all buses, all pizza parlors, all government offices, all airplanes and all private homes. Killings still occur, but just about everyone can be armed and manage to not fall prey to victimhood of non-action. The answer is not to deny all from being able to defend themselves from the loonies and criminals, who will always find a way to kill or maim, but to allow everyone the right to self-protection. If occurs to me that if one or two teachers in schools, professors in colleges, doctors in hospitals, designated staff in department stores or malls, theater owners and staff, received training and were permitted to be armed, there would be fewer terror, senseless, and pathological incidents, and those that occurred would have effective countermeasures available. To abrogate the right to defend ourselves and others, or our children is simply senseless.
Donald-well said but there is so much emotion attached to this incident that many people want a way to feel better about having done “something”-it’s really hard to absorb this act.If you have any kind of normal mind there is no way to understand why someone would murder innocent little children in a classroom,
I don’t know about teachers being armed,but maybe we need to consider armed security in our schools-we have armed security on much less valuable things than our children.
If you consider Israel and Switzerland,those are two countries where firearms are prevalent throughout society and there are no mass shootings-obviously I’m not including terrorist suicide bombings and the like in Israel.
I have no problem with every single firearms transaction requiring a background check,It’s always been that way in Rhode Island.
Connecticut already had a stringent “assault weapons ban”in effect.It did no good.
Maybe the fault was with the woman who somehow made it possible for her mentally deranged son to access her firearms.She however,is deceased and beyond any punishment.
I have no answer and there is no way to ensure there won’t be more incidents like this,horrible as that is to contemplate.
I do resent a foreign national like Piers Martin ranting about American gun laws on national television,He is a resident alien and a guest here.When I have been in the UK I saw a lot of aspects of their society that were obnoxious,but didn’t feel I had the right to complain about it.
Good ro see a teacher called a hero instead of being in the news for failing to solve all the problems of bad parenting, poverty, or of kids unwilling to learn, while costing more than the anti-tax zealots want to pay.
But the knee-jerk defense of guns is truly a sickness that contributes to a gun homicide rate in the US about 22 times the rate in other industrialized countries. While there are things the government can do to reduce gun violence (better background checks, closing the gun-show loophole, reinstituting restrictions on assualt weapon sales….) the power of and the effectiveness of the anti-gun control lobbies and the strong emotion the gun fanatics bring make it politically impossible to get reasonable controls, and so I wouldn’t suggest wasting too much time to try to change that. We’ll have to live with the occasional mass murders that our gun culture inevitably produce (at least those of us fortunate enough not to be in the path of one of the bullets)
By the way, in the litany of gun violence incidents, I’ve not heard the Fort Hood shooter mentioned, anyone know how many were killed in that incident??
I remember when car insurance was voluntary and you could smoke at your desk at work. Every freedom comes with responsibility. Most Americans want responsible and accountable gun ownership and laws that regulate guns. Any move towards these ends is met with outrage from the NRA and the gun manufacturers. Anyone who stands up for gun control can expect to be flamed, but adults can stand up to words to protect our children from bullets.
I think the Fort Hood shooter killed thirteen people and an unborn child,so I’d make it fourteen.It was called a “workplace violence”incident by the idiot running DHS.It was terrorism plain and simple.
Barry-calling people “fanatics”because they believe in firearms rights is unjustified.
However if it makes you feel better,I guess that’s all that matters.
We have had very specific gun control in the US under Federal law since 1968.Prior to the Kennedy assassination one could buy guns through mail order.Can’t do that now-buying guns on the Internet involves the firearm being delivered to a dealer in your home state and he has to follow Federal/state laws before the buyer takes possession.In RI there is no way to avoid the background check.
It would be nice if amidst the ranting here some actual true facts came into the conversation.
As I noted, the absurd always emerges, and the plea to maintain a posture of victim-hood, or “someone else (usually those faceless folks in government), needs to protect me, since I am unable (actually “unwilling” is more appropriate) to protect myself or my family or my friends, or my anything. This I suggest is a relatively recent development, and largely mirrors the expansion of the paternalistic welfare state in the West and paternalistic and very undemocratic states elsewhere in the early and mid-twentieth century, at the expense of individual liberty and responsibility. There is no all seeing elite that can protect anyone from crime or lunacy, and to deny individuals the right to protect themselves is an equal madness.
I have been around guns and gun owners most of my life and never knew anyone who owned a machine gun or really wanted one-you’re just being silly.
Excuse me, I should have used the proper technical term for a rifle that can spray multiple rounds without having to stop to reload– the old machine guns I saw in war movies were probably less efficient at spraying bullets.
You’re excused.Actually there are a lot of full-auto capable submachine guns and rifles-but they aren’t readily available to civilians and in some states not at all.They are prohibitively expensive to purchase and shoot because they run through ammo fast.I carried one in Vietnam,a CAR-15.I have no desire to ever own one and I don’t know anyone who does.You can have all the miserable fantasies about gun owners you want,but at least try to use some facts instead of non-stop emoting.I noticed a news story about a man in China who went on a rampage in a school the same day,stabbing 22 children.It’s not the first incident of its type there.People can’t own guns in China.You can’t realize that the problem is that there are a lot of folks walking around with nothing inside them you’d really want to see and they act out-and when they do it’s bad news.Your colleague Kiersten just couldn’t wait to start the rant against guns as seen above-almost like she was just waiting for an excuse.Using this incident as a justification for a political agenda is wrong and if that’s not comfortable to hear,too bad.
Delving into the technical is a silly excercise, I think. Of course quality firearms are much safer today than at any time in the past, and can be either more or less lethal. A Winchester lever action rifle that advances a round one at a time may not be a carbine, but it can be fired rapidly in the hands of an expert (I remember Chuck Connors). Fully automatic weapons are in fact controlled by numerous regulations and permitting and not easily available if at all to “normal” people in the U.S. Oddly, I read that they are available to “normal” people, even in very civilized countries, with no up-tick of mayhem. But terrorists to street hoods, in almost any city in the world, have no difficulty obtaining fully automatic weapons and once again, only people who choose to play by the rules follow the rules. In actuality, were flint-locks more lethal at close range than bows and arrows? One can load and unload a cross-bow with very lethal bolts and kill lots of people; or store 19 knives in a little bag; or ammonium nitrate fertilizer can be cheaply purchased to make bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan or Oklahoma; or collect cobbles to stone to death women for divorcing their husbands in many Moslem countries. The issue is not the weapon, but the person. The most rigid “gun” control laws (gun in a very broad sense of a firearm) are always found in nations with the most miserable examples of governments devised. There is a very real tension between any government and its citizens and between citizens and criminal elements in any society. It is the inherent moral and legal right and obligation of any person to defend home, hearth and family. My point that automobiles kill 40,000 Americans a year would seem more logical as a reason to ban all cars in favor of horses, but of course, automobiles don’t kill people, drivers do. But banning cars would save 40,000 lives each year, so let’s do just that. My sense is that instead of slumping into an inability to protect ourselves, instead of debating whether or not I can own semi-automatic rifle or pistol, or cross-bow, or slingshot, or a car, we should be securing all institutions and public places by training more people in self-defense.
Kmareka.com 
The difficulties with irrational acts is that they are usually followed by more irrationality by those seeking ready and usually simplistic solutions. There is also this bizarre sense of victimhood by people who should know better. To believe that less than human behavior can be solved by imposing “mandates” on everyone, denying everyone the constitutional and legitimate right to protect themselves is, I suggest irrational and very dangerous. The sad truth is that guns do not kill people, bombs do not kill people, knives do not kill people, clubs do not like people, drugs do not kill people, motor vehicles do not kill people: people kill people. Scandinavia has amazingly rigid gun laws, but Scandinavians manage to shoot each other, or stab each other. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and many other U.S. cities have remarkably stringent gun laws but also amazingly high murder rates, and even though gun crimes are reported, less reporting is done about knife, club or drug killings. Almost no reporting of the clear record that people who are armed and can protect themselves or others do prevent crimes, and do deter and capture wouldbe assailants.
Motor vehicle accidents kill about 40,000 Americans a year (more than 100 people a day) and injure perhaps 200,000 people a year (about 500 each day), statistically mostly younger people. Perhaps we should ban motor vehicles and deny the right to own and drive a motor vehicle, thereby saving all those lives and preventing all those injuries. The real issues I suspect are difficult and upsetting, with no easy solution. Israelis, for example, are constantly in danger of irrational terror attacks, by thugs wielding guns, knives, axes, and bombs, every hour of every day. They are forced to secure all schools, all roads, all buses, all pizza parlors, all government offices, all airplanes and all private homes. Killings still occur, but just about everyone can be armed and manage to not fall prey to victimhood of non-action. The answer is not to deny all from being able to defend themselves from the loonies and criminals, who will always find a way to kill or maim, but to allow everyone the right to self-protection. If occurs to me that if one or two teachers in schools, professors in colleges, doctors in hospitals, designated staff in department stores or malls, theater owners and staff, received training and were permitted to be armed, there would be fewer terror, senseless, and pathological incidents, and those that occurred would have effective countermeasures available. To abrogate the right to defend ourselves and others, or our children is simply senseless.
Donald-well said but there is so much emotion attached to this incident that many people want a way to feel better about having done “something”-it’s really hard to absorb this act.If you have any kind of normal mind there is no way to understand why someone would murder innocent little children in a classroom,
I don’t know about teachers being armed,but maybe we need to consider armed security in our schools-we have armed security on much less valuable things than our children.
If you consider Israel and Switzerland,those are two countries where firearms are prevalent throughout society and there are no mass shootings-obviously I’m not including terrorist suicide bombings and the like in Israel.
I have no problem with every single firearms transaction requiring a background check,It’s always been that way in Rhode Island.
Connecticut already had a stringent “assault weapons ban”in effect.It did no good.
Maybe the fault was with the woman who somehow made it possible for her mentally deranged son to access her firearms.She however,is deceased and beyond any punishment.
I have no answer and there is no way to ensure there won’t be more incidents like this,horrible as that is to contemplate.
I do resent a foreign national like Piers Martin ranting about American gun laws on national television,He is a resident alien and a guest here.When I have been in the UK I saw a lot of aspects of their society that were obnoxious,but didn’t feel I had the right to complain about it.
Good ro see a teacher called a hero instead of being in the news for failing to solve all the problems of bad parenting, poverty, or of kids unwilling to learn, while costing more than the anti-tax zealots want to pay.
But the knee-jerk defense of guns is truly a sickness that contributes to a gun homicide rate in the US about 22 times the rate in other industrialized countries. While there are things the government can do to reduce gun violence (better background checks, closing the gun-show loophole, reinstituting restrictions on assualt weapon sales….) the power of and the effectiveness of the anti-gun control lobbies and the strong emotion the gun fanatics bring make it politically impossible to get reasonable controls, and so I wouldn’t suggest wasting too much time to try to change that. We’ll have to live with the occasional mass murders that our gun culture inevitably produce (at least those of us fortunate enough not to be in the path of one of the bullets)
By the way, in the litany of gun violence incidents, I’ve not heard the Fort Hood shooter mentioned, anyone know how many were killed in that incident??
I remember when car insurance was voluntary and you could smoke at your desk at work. Every freedom comes with responsibility. Most Americans want responsible and accountable gun ownership and laws that regulate guns. Any move towards these ends is met with outrage from the NRA and the gun manufacturers. Anyone who stands up for gun control can expect to be flamed, but adults can stand up to words to protect our children from bullets.
I think the Fort Hood shooter killed thirteen people and an unborn child,so I’d make it fourteen.It was called a “workplace violence”incident by the idiot running DHS.It was terrorism plain and simple.
Barry-calling people “fanatics”because they believe in firearms rights is unjustified.
However if it makes you feel better,I guess that’s all that matters.
We have had very specific gun control in the US under Federal law since 1968.Prior to the Kennedy assassination one could buy guns through mail order.Can’t do that now-buying guns on the Internet involves the firearm being delivered to a dealer in your home state and he has to follow Federal/state laws before the buyer takes possession.In RI there is no way to avoid the background check.
It would be nice if amidst the ranting here some actual true facts came into the conversation.
As I noted, the absurd always emerges, and the plea to maintain a posture of victim-hood, or “someone else (usually those faceless folks in government), needs to protect me, since I am unable (actually “unwilling” is more appropriate) to protect myself or my family or my friends, or my anything. This I suggest is a relatively recent development, and largely mirrors the expansion of the paternalistic welfare state in the West and paternalistic and very undemocratic states elsewhere in the early and mid-twentieth century, at the expense of individual liberty and responsibility. There is no all seeing elite that can protect anyone from crime or lunacy, and to deny individuals the right to protect themselves is an equal madness.
when the domestic arms race has moved up to machine guns you’ll never have enough weapons to feel safe.
I have been around guns and gun owners most of my life and never knew anyone who owned a machine gun or really wanted one-you’re just being silly.
Excuse me, I should have used the proper technical term for a rifle that can spray multiple rounds without having to stop to reload– the old machine guns I saw in war movies were probably less efficient at spraying bullets.
You’re excused.Actually there are a lot of full-auto capable submachine guns and rifles-but they aren’t readily available to civilians and in some states not at all.They are prohibitively expensive to purchase and shoot because they run through ammo fast.I carried one in Vietnam,a CAR-15.I have no desire to ever own one and I don’t know anyone who does.You can have all the miserable fantasies about gun owners you want,but at least try to use some facts instead of non-stop emoting.I noticed a news story about a man in China who went on a rampage in a school the same day,stabbing 22 children.It’s not the first incident of its type there.People can’t own guns in China.You can’t realize that the problem is that there are a lot of folks walking around with nothing inside them you’d really want to see and they act out-and when they do it’s bad news.Your colleague Kiersten just couldn’t wait to start the rant against guns as seen above-almost like she was just waiting for an excuse.Using this incident as a justification for a political agenda is wrong and if that’s not comfortable to hear,too bad.
Delving into the technical is a silly excercise, I think. Of course quality firearms are much safer today than at any time in the past, and can be either more or less lethal. A Winchester lever action rifle that advances a round one at a time may not be a carbine, but it can be fired rapidly in the hands of an expert (I remember Chuck Connors). Fully automatic weapons are in fact controlled by numerous regulations and permitting and not easily available if at all to “normal” people in the U.S. Oddly, I read that they are available to “normal” people, even in very civilized countries, with no up-tick of mayhem. But terrorists to street hoods, in almost any city in the world, have no difficulty obtaining fully automatic weapons and once again, only people who choose to play by the rules follow the rules. In actuality, were flint-locks more lethal at close range than bows and arrows? One can load and unload a cross-bow with very lethal bolts and kill lots of people; or store 19 knives in a little bag; or ammonium nitrate fertilizer can be cheaply purchased to make bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan or Oklahoma; or collect cobbles to stone to death women for divorcing their husbands in many Moslem countries. The issue is not the weapon, but the person. The most rigid “gun” control laws (gun in a very broad sense of a firearm) are always found in nations with the most miserable examples of governments devised. There is a very real tension between any government and its citizens and between citizens and criminal elements in any society. It is the inherent moral and legal right and obligation of any person to defend home, hearth and family. My point that automobiles kill 40,000 Americans a year would seem more logical as a reason to ban all cars in favor of horses, but of course, automobiles don’t kill people, drivers do. But banning cars would save 40,000 lives each year, so let’s do just that. My sense is that instead of slumping into an inability to protect ourselves, instead of debating whether or not I can own semi-automatic rifle or pistol, or cross-bow, or slingshot, or a car, we should be securing all institutions and public places by training more people in self-defense.