“It’s hard to believe anyone took it as “firecracker.” Maybe if it were a handgun.”
Peterson received a first call saying it was firecrackers according to the articles. That’s different than hearing it and coming to that conclusion himself. The school is comprised of more than one building so who knows how it sounded if you were elsewhere on campus. Noises have weird ways of echoing and bouncing off things that distorts them at a distance.
Bottom line, there isn’t enough info made available to the public and armchair wannabe detectives to make an informed and educated opinion, IMO. I’m not defending the guy. I’m just unwilling to skewer the guy based on knowing next to nothing partly because I do think some have motivations other than just uncovering the truth.
Do you get a call when a firecracker goes off? First of all, we are not skewing him for nothing. It was his boss who put it on him. What else were we supposed to think? Yes, there could be more to this since the investigation is taking so long. Naive me thinks it’s just a matter of viewing the video/audio tape that can’t be more than 10-15 minutes long.
“Do you get a call when a firecracker goes off?”
At a school when you are a SRO, my guess is probably yes.
“What else were we supposed to think?”
I can’t tell you what you are supposed to think. I’m just telling you that I think I don’t have enough info to form a reasonable opinion. Experience has taught me not to jump to conclusions based on very little concrete info and just emotions. This guy may well deserve being skewered but neither side has provided enough details to garner my support for their claims. What exactly do we know? Next to nothing.
For those of you debating the protocols used by the sheriff’s office in this case, we are given active shooter training every year. I just went through it two months ago in fact. According to the FBI guys who do the training, the protocol for the courthouse is the same as the protocol for schools. First priority is to engage the shooter. It used to be that police were trained to handle active shooter situations like most crime in progress scenes - secure the area, wait for back up, etc. Since Columbine tactics in active shooter situations have evolved. Law enforcement is now supposed to enter the area and go get the bad guy. Doesn’t matter if it is one officer of ten. They do not wait to brief other officers, they do not wait for back up. They specifically tell us that they will not stop for wounded, not stop to help people evacuate, none of it. The priority is get the shooter.
In fact, the best practical argument I have heard about not allowing concealed carry/armed teachers in schools is from this training. The FBI, Marshalls and Sherriff’s Deputies have been very clear that they are taught to engage whoever they see holding a gun in their hand in an active shooter situation. in other words, if there is a good Samaritan teacher with a gun looking for a shooter, there is a better than fair chance law enforcement will put the teacher down before taking time to figure out it is not the person they are looking for.
Also and just an FYI, but a pistol is probably louder than a AR 15.
If they arm 20-40% of the teachers in every school, it would require retraining the police to yell “ARE YOU THE SHOOTER?!!” in every active shooter situation. Probably complicate things a bit.
Interestingly, more Americans were killed by rifles during the 10 years of the 1994 Assualt Weapons Ban than have been killed by rifles in the 13 years since it was allowed to expire. I’d say 99.5% of the population would never guess that to be true.
^how is that relevant to the discussion and can the same be said for mass shootings of the type that are being talked about here with the Parkland shooting?
Additionally if you are going to state something that should have statistical backing, it would be helpful to have a legitimate source to link to.
^the complete lack of knowledge about firearms generally in the media culture is really something. MSNBC spent two/three days banging on about the difference in muzzle velocity between an AR 15 and a couple different hand guns. It is sad that people really seem to think this somehow makes a difference to anything at all.
@doschicos I’m just offering non-partisan statistical info relevant to the discussion of rifles in this thread. If people choose to talk about them I believe it best that everyone involved has all the pertinent information.
Check out the FBI Uniform Crime reports that I took the information from. It’s pretty labor intensive, though.
Why a School Resource Officer isn’t issued a rifle for his vehicle is a viable topic of discussion at this point. An officer should be appropriately equipped if expected to charge towards an active shooter.
I think the point rational people are trying to make about the choice of weapon in the Parkland shooting is that it is very likely the shooter could have been as lethal with a handgun or any number of different types of rifles as with an AR 15. Personally, I think the deadliest potential weapon of all in a school shooting would be a regular old pump or semi auto 12 ga shotgun. It is a statistical fact that far more “mass” shootings (I believe that means four or more deaths) are perpetrated with handguns than any other weapon type. Here is your link: www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/
So to some of us, the emotional reaction of others in the wake of the Parkland shooting is not the best grounds for setting policy. This is particularly true where the available evidence doesn’t support the idea that banning a particular weapon type would have an appreciable impact on the statistics.
I would be willing to bet quite a bit that most trained law enforcement officers would prefer to engage a shooter in a closed environment with a hand gun they carry on their person rather than a rifle they would have to go and retrieve from a vehicle. These things happen very quickly usually. The 3-4 minutes (as a guess) to run to the car, get the rifle and reengage could make a huge difference in outcome. Plus, quite frankly the idea that some kid with an AR 15 is at some immense firepower advantage over an officer with a semi automatic pistol at distances of anything less than 25/30 feet is way overblown, imho.
The Atlantic article refutes this claim in detail. The writer, a radiologist who was on duty during the Parkland shooting, writes about how she was surprised that the bullet injuries from Parkland were so terrible, nothing like the handgun injuries she normally sees. If you’re shot through the liver with a handgun, she writes, you will probably survive. If you’re shot through the liver with an AR-15, you’re toast. A bullet from an AR-15 is way more deadly than a bullet from a handgun.
“Why a School Resource Officer isn’t issued a rifle for his vehicle is a viable topic of discussion at this point. An officer should be appropriately equipped if expected to charge towards an active shooter.”
Running to a vehicle, wherever it might be on a school’s campus, unlocking, running back would potentially take a lot of time.
@Ohiodad51 My understanding is that AR-15s don’t take much skill to use. Given the firepower, the velocity, the sheer number of bullets it can pump out in a limited amount of time, little recoil, etc., if your goal is to kill a lot of people, it is very efficient at that. With a handgun, it seems there is a lot more skill involved to aim and kill.
“The horrendous Virginia Tech shooting is still the worst in the history of our nation.”
Although they all suck, it isn’t the worst if you’re talking death toll and mass shootings.