Assistant Professor Charged in University Shooting

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My friends, 20/20 hindsight and the benefit of being able to take a few minutes -- hell, a few seconds -- to consider a situation is far different than actually being there and having less than 3 seconds. We all wish that we could have a cool head under fire like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven or Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies. But those are movies, not real life, and those guys got several takes.

I am particularily concerned about the cowardice accusation -- feeling fear and acting to protect yourself when taken, unarmed, totally by surprise is not cowardice. If you're outgunned and have never had any training in such matters, it is grossly unfair for others to judge what the perfect response would be.

Crucis, donut chugging? That is the best laugh I've had all week!

 

@LKD - excellent point. What's commonly accepted by those in the know is that you will "default to the level of your training" in a crisis situation, so if your level of training is virtually non-existent or does not involve crisis-intervention techniques (which it most likely won't for basic concealed pistol license holders, not to mention unarmed university professors/instructors), you will likely default to doing nothing or fleeing. IMO that's a good thing. Someone who does not know what they're doing has no business trying to be a hero and will best help the situation simply by not adding to the problem.

I realize you're speaking to the "why didn't the others intervene?" question in the context of the thread topic, but I think the same principal applies, basically.

 

Things get sticky here. We were actually talking about allowing teachers and staff to carry concealed weapons, which would mean that when a kid goes ballistic in the lunch room with an uzi, there may be several guns immediately pointing at him (or her) from several different directions. In HS, I knew two teachers who had concealed carry permits. They didn't carry in school, of course, but they wished they could specifically for something like Columbine. And when you go from HS to College, things get even worse for the 'gun free zone' idea.

 

We're all wired differently -- if someone is gifted with a really cool head even without training, I would respect them if they tried something heroic -- assuming that they did it to protect others and not just to be macho <snip>.

But it's not fair to expect that from everyone. What would I have done in this situation? I'd like to think that I'd grab her weapon and stay in close with her, screaming for someone to help me keep her disabled. Do I know I would have done that? Not a chance. I've got no freaking clue what I would have done, because I wasn't there, in that very moment, having been thinking about my new home-brew class or something and then suddenly being faced with a gun wielding femi-nazi*. Seriously, no clue, and I think I am not alone in that department. Doesn't make me a coward.

*I'm sorry, that was uncalled for, but I can't help it!

 

And that comment is enough for me to be thankful they cannot. Anyone who 'wishes they could' in order to be prepared for 'something like Columbine' is looking for a reason to use their weapon -- especially if they are showing bravado to children. Weapons in the hands of such people is downright scary. I have no respect for teachers who would try to impress their students with claims like that.

LKD: Doing nothing is not cowardice, even running in such a situation is not cowardice; but IMO they crossed that line when they shoved the armed assailant out into the student population. They had the presence of mind to engage the assailant, but then chose to leave her armed and able to harm the very students they are charged to help. Had they simply run from the room and called for help or jumped jumped through the window to escape, I would not fault them at all. But they willfully and intentionally put others at risk when they had the ability to end it.

 

Ouch, that's an absurd generalization. Anyone who desires to be able to prevent a massacre in a school is "looking for a reason to use their weapon"? Do you know the two teachers NOG referenced? How is it that you presume to speak for them and anyone else in that category? And who is to say that they were showing bravado or trying to impress their students? NOG didn't mention that ... unless you're also prepared to state categorically that all teachers who would mention carrying firearms at school to their students are doing so. Yikes.

Anyway, lets look at LKD's hypothetical and expand on it a bit:

LKD and three peers are at school, standing around in the staff lounge discussing the new home-brew class. Suddenly a female colleague armed with a pistol enters the room and brandishes it at them, standing four feet away. Instantly and without consultation, LKD and his colleagues fly into unified action with the intent of shoving her out into the hallway and disarming her!

Colleague 1, a 64 year old male one year away from retirement, acts first and bumrushes the assailant from the front, knocking her down. As she goes down she discharges the pistol at random and a bullet strikes colleague 2, a 28 year old first-year grad female, in the upper thigh, severing her femoral artery. She begins to bleed to death on the floor.

LKD is next to act, lunging for the assailant's pistol. Unfortunately, as he grasps for it, she wrenches her arm away, scoots back on her butt, levels the pistol and shoots LKD in the face at point blank range. LKD is dead before he hits the ground.

Meanwhile, Colleague 3, a 48 year old male with heart trouble, has been waiting for an 'in' and is still sort of dancing around, looking for an opportunity to attack. He is somewhat astounded to see LKD's face blown apart right in front of him, so he is unable to act immediately and stares on in panic as the assailant subsequently fires 6 rounds at him and misses each time, Pulp Fiction style. Instead he feels sudden extreme chest pain and collapses to the ground with a heart attack.

Colleague 1, who had knocked the assailant to the ground initially, has been wrestling with her off-arm, expecting the others to handle her shooting arm (which LKD failed at so miserably ) and any other necessities. Seeing that it's now just him and her, he reaches for the pistol and manages to disarm her, but not before the assailant shoots him in the foot and herself in the chest during the struggle. Colleague 1 takes the gun away and limps off to a safe distance while the assailant and Colleague 2 die from blood loss at approximately the same time two minutes later. Colleague 3 dies from his heart attack at the hospital 4 hours later.

Hoorah, the staff has saved the day, at a cost of only 3 fatalities in their number and a wrongful death lawsuit against Colleague 1, which alleges that if he hadn't gotten involved, none of this would have happened. LKD and his two dead colleagues are subsequently laid to rest, and Colleage 1 spends the next 3 years and a couple hundred thousand dollars defending himself in civil court. He also can't play golf anymore because of his bum foot and has to undergo weekly electro shock therapy treatments because he has severe PTSD.

Does that sound like a win all the way around? I would argue that the above scenario is just as plausible as any hypothetical scenario where the assailant is successfully disarmed without any injuries.

 

You should copy and paste that in Creativity Surge.

As far as your first paragraph, I would have no problems filing a complaint to the school district and allow them to investigate the teacher(s). The teachers NOG mentioned showed, at the very least, an extreme lack of judgment by making such a statement in front of students.

 

I resent being killed so early in the story. I'm filing a complaint to the Literary Commission, Gaear. See you in court!

 

lol, I wanted to keep you alive longer, LKD, but ... somehow it just didn't work out the way I planned. Go figure.

 

Bad assumptions, T2, and several of them. These two teachers were specifically speaking out of a frustration at being unable to protect themselves and others if a similar situation were to happen at our school (and it was far from unlikely). This was no show of bravado, nor was it looking for an excuse to use a weapon, it was just wishing to be prepared for a very real risk.

This requires more information. It sounds to me like the woman in question was specifically targetting her co-workers, maybe even her superiors. We have no reason to suspect she would run around shooting students if her primary targets were denied to her.

How so? Because they said something that indicated that guns aren't absolutely evil? Because they said something that challenged the official rules to justify themselves? Neither teacher did anything wrong. And, in case you were assuming this, they didn't just up and say it without provocation, but rather were drawn into discussions we students were having and asked their opinions.

 

School shootings aren't exactly common events. There are thousands of schools and universities throughout the country and we've had how many shootings? Maybe a dozen or so? I consider winning the lottery or being struck by lightning, or being attacked by a shark to be exceedingly rare events, and I think statistics would show there's a better chance of any of those happening than being involved in a school shooting. Why did they think this was a "very real risk" that was "far from unlikely"? I would think that unless there were some circumstances that were unique to this particular school that a Columbine-type event would be a very remote possibility.

 

First, why would we not investigate the fitness of teachers who voice their unreasonable paranoia to students? No matter the circumstance of the comment, there was poor judgment for the teachers to even go there (and I had assumed they were simply in discussion with students, not preaching to a class; even with your explanation it was bravado on their part). If the risk was real (which is doubtful) the revelation of that risk to students was simply wrong and could create panic. Such poor judgment should always be investigated by the proper authorities.

Second, how could the faculty members possibly know she would not turn her attention on the students? In hindsight we can see she did not, but IMO the university was simply lucky in that regard -- there is no way to determine during an incident the person is not going to target others. In fact, history has shown the opposite in both school and workplace shootings.

When have I EVER said guns were evil? You're just baiting and making up your own argument to be durogatory.

 

What makes you think it was unreasonable?

Actually, it was more a theoretical discussion of the morality of the issue in one case and a practical discussion as to what schools should do in the other. Again, you've made a bad assumption.

The students were as aware of the risks, if not moreso, than the teachers. They generally are in schools. I mean, it's not like the gun free zone laws were a secret, or that Columbine was a secret, or anything.

A teacher shooting at a school and a student shooting at a school are two very different things. The primary difference is the nature of the shooter. Shooters tend to target their peers, their superiors, and those they feel threaten them or work against them. Unless the teacher specifically had a history of hating or being abused by her students, I would assume she wouldn't be likely to target them.

Actually, I was just trying to make some guesses as to your reasoning. You'll note I gave another alternative as well. Those two were just the only things I could think of at the time that would explain your response. Don't think of them as baits, just wild guesses.

 

No, actually not.

 

You failed to answer Aldeth's question, NOG. I think Aldeth did an excellent job of explaning the statistics and we're just waiting to hear why you would think such drastic measures would be reasonable and necessary.

 

One thing to realize is I'm not just thinking about school mass-shootings like Columbine, but any school shooting incidents. Any kid who would bring a knife to school would have all the same reasons to bring a gun to school and, as I said, we had already had several kids bring knives to school. There were a couple of gangs active in the school, and they didn't always get along. Between that and the recent Columbine shootings, it seemed a reasonable fear at the time, and I'm still not sure it isn't. Just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it's unwise to prepare for it. I never expect my apartment to be broken into or be consumed in a blaze, but we still have renter's insurance in case either of those things did happen.

Beyond that, though, I don't think it's all that radical of a measure. Remember, there are plenty of private schools around the nation that don't have any gun restrictions, and they aren't constantly being shot up by people bringing legit weapons to them. In fact, if there was any statistical difference between the two groups at all, I'd wager the schools with legal guns were less likely to see shootings than the schools without legal guns.

 

I'll take a stab at that one ...

I suspect (though I don't know and haven't checked) that there have been more than a dozen shootings since Columbine, although probably most of them have been less horrific. If you count any shooting whatsoever at a school and not just the mass-murder variety, there have probably been a great deal more than that. Still, there have probably been so few that they are statistically insignificant. (Which itself casts a curious light on the frequent refrain we hear about the US gun culture.)

But the fact that any have occurred at all is, IMO, justification enough for the matter of defending schools - whether that be with armed teachers or other security procedures - to at least be debated. If you could say that there is absolutely no chance that a person at random school x will be killed by some maniac gunman, then there would be no need to discuss the topic. Unfortunately you can't say that, and I'm sure the victims in the dozen other mass shootings (if that's how many there have been) would see the fact that their murders were 'unlikley' as small comfort.

'Very real risk' could be interpreted as 'any risk at all,' since if there is even a .001 percent risk, it is real. 'Far from unlikely' would probably be stretching it a bit IMO, but then I don't really know the exact context in which that statement was made (by NOG's teachers, I assume).

[edit]

Posted while NOG was posting.

 

Which ones?

Thus far you've said nothing to change my mind -- you want to excuse the teacher lack of discression on fears and general panic. I'm not willing to do that, nor am I willing to believe the faculty at UA could have had any idea the shooter would not have targetted others -- there have been several cases in the news over the past few years where a worker has gone on a rampage killing more than just the original targets.

 

Well, you can start here. All those schools have some sort of definite gun policy, a number of which allow students to carry weapons. I don't know if Appalacian School of Law (where two armed students disarmed a shooter) was among them or not.

Nor have you said anything to change my mind. You are still assuming there was any lack of discression or impropriety at all, and have yet to justify this assumption.

This is a point. I'm merely suggesting that they may have had a reasonable suspicion, not certainly had, and definitely couldn't have known.

Gaear, actually, the 'far from unlikely' was my own assessment at the time. In retrospect, I think 'somewhat unlikely' is a better assessment, but rememer we're talking about the possibility of a single event happening durring the entire lifetime of a school.

 

Yes, but there's a big difference between a knife and a gun. I have NEVER heard of an incident where some student (or teacher) went on a stabbing spree. A knife requires you to go into hand-to-hand combat, and as soon as you run into someone who is bigger, stronger, or faster than you, you're likely not going much further.

Secondly, with a knife, I think you'd have more inclination to stop the attacker. If a group of people bum rush a guy with a knife, you could probably take him out without him killing any of the rushers. While it's true that the same can be said of someone with a gun, I for one, would certainly not want to be leading that charge.

Why? You still haven't explained this...

I think you are making my point here. Purchasing renters or homeowners insurance is a proportional response to the level of risk involved. For a relatively small outlay on your part, you protect yourself in case your apartment burns down. If a risk with a remote likelihood but a catastrophic consequence can be mitigated with a small outlay of funds, it should be done. (Part of my job as an analyst with the government is risk assessment - I do this stuff all the time.)

Again, you make my point. I agree - there probably isn't any statistical difference between the two groups at all! Due to the rarity of the event itself, the odds of it happening, regardless of whether it's a gun-free school zone or not, are going to be very low.

But this goes back to risk assessment and analysis. I don't discuss whether or not I should risk driving to work every day, and yet, I cannot say there is absolutley no chance that I won't be killed in a car accident. (I have a 40 mile commute each way to work, much of it on major highways. So it is likely that if I were involved in an accident at highway speeds, I could be killed.)

It is real, but not at all likely. Not to , but the primary factor in determining how to mitigate risk is the probability of such a risk actually happening. The second criteria is the consequence if such a risk should occur. Like I said, this is part of my job. I'm much more likely to attempt to mitigate a risk that has a high probability of happening, but having a small consequence of it does happen, than I am of mitigating a risk that has remote chance of happening, but having catastrophic results should it occur, unless such a risk could be easily mitigated. The response to any risk needs to be proportional to the level of risk. Arming teachers and/or students appears to be disporportionate to the level of risk involved, especially considering that having loaded weapons in schools would in and of itself be a risk.