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What new safety measures are needed in Iowa in wake of Connecticut school shooting?
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Gov. Terry Branstad called Monday for more focus on safety measures and prevention in areas of mental health and bullying in the aftermath of last week’s mass shooting a Newtown, Conn., elementary school where 20 children and six adults were fatally shot.
The governor, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and Mark Schouten, administrator of the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division (HSEMD), also called on Iowa school districts to review their safety measures and to commit to more vigilance, but they conceded efforts at the Connecticut school did not ensure that a violent incident could not take place.
“The thoughts and prayers of all Iowans are with the families and friends of the innocent victims of this senseless tragedy,” Branstad said at the start of his weekly news conference. “While it is difficult to understand such an evil act, we do know our children and grandchildren remain our most precious gifts and ensuring their safety in our communities is absolutely critical.”
Schouten noted that his agency earlier this year put in place a new school safety guide to assist schools in making plans and establishing procedures to make their facilities, students and staff safer. He said the guide covers a variety of emergencies, including how to respond to an intruder with a gun who enters their school intending to do harm, but he also hoped that parents, teachers and others would contact their local school administrators regarding the safety measures they have in place in the wake of last week’s tragedy.
He also said his department has worked closely with the Iowa Central Community College’s Homeland Security Training Center to offer active shooter classes to law enforcement and other first responders for the past three years. The training center has taught some 41,000 first responders through their active shooter and other classes over the past nine years and is currently the recipient of an HSEMD grant to continue active shooter training for smaller law enforcement agencies, he added.
The Connecticut school shooting has prompted calls for stronger gun control laws and conversely for having trained shooters on site at schools to respond to such emergencies, but Branstad urged caution among policy makers regarding any quick decisions.
What do you think of Branstad’s comments? What new safety measures would you suggest for Iowa in the wake of the Connecticut tragedy?
Some modest increased security measures may be in order, especially in the near-term because of the possibility of “copycat” acts, but consider this: According to wikipedia in 2001 there were 92,858 elementary schools in the US with about 3.5 million children attending. What are odds of any school or child being the victim of such an act ? Whereas every year there are about 250,000 children injured and 2000 killed in auto accidents. ( Years 2-14 the leading cause of death. ) Statistically it would be far better to require every child to wear a crash helmet in a motor vehicle than increase security in schools.
Since the CT killer’s mother told a friend two weeks ago that she was “losing him” and that he was getting “worse” I would suggest we need a better mental health solution.
Treat our schools the same as our Council chambers, State house or the White House. Do our kids not deserve the same protection and security that these adults get?
Just like pensions and health care, those of us paying for it don’t get the same benefit of those who regulate it. We should all get the same pensions, health care and security. They’ll tell us there is not enough money but they won’t cut their programs back to our level and use the savings to secure schools. We are all created equal…..until “elected.”
What’s interesting is the dad makes a ton of money a year, I’m not sure why nothing was spent on the shooter. Also, why his mom didn’t have her guns locked in a safe. She was getting $12K a month in alimony, so $2k safe isn’t that big of a cost.
Agreed. Those guns should have been secure especially with a young person in the house and super-super secure when that young person has mental health issues.
Smith,
The young person in question was twenty not ten. He was autistic, not mentally ill.
There is no cure for autism, no treatment, no known cause. People who have the disorder do not deal well with people. They are socially inept and withdrawn, but they are not violent.
Adam Lanza’s case highlights the difficulty of trying to eliminate gun violence by putting a quarantine on the “mentally ill..” We don’t have a useable definition of mental illness with regard to its connection with violence. We can’t predict, based on illness or disabillity, who is going to be violent. and who is not.
We can, however, predict with 100% accuracy exactly how much damage any given firearm is capable of doing to the human body.
I suggest that instead of stirring up fear directed at those who are different or disabled or ill, that we get rid of the kinds of guns civilians have no business owning.
And I suggest we turn to law enforcement professionals for advice on exactly which weapons should be banned.
Bell,
What is the issue with calling either a person of 10 or 20 a “young person”? That term fits well especially from the perspective of an older person (such as myself). As far as “mentally ill” ( or “mental health issues” ), I suspect being autistic, to the layman, would be seen as a mental health issue though technically, from a professionals view, it may not be considered a mental illness. It originates in the brain and is a deviation from the mental norm, isn’t it? My thrust of my reply post dealt with securing weapons — little else.
Smith,
The issue is that the person in question was an adult, not a child. He also knew how to handle a gun, had been taught by his mother how to shoot, and was encouraged by her to see shooting as a hobby. Which means securing the guns so that he couldn’t get at them would have been a little strange
The second point is that Adam Lanza had a disability but would not be classified as mentally ill. Which means that there would be no red flags on a background check. He didn’t have a criminal record or a history of violent or aggressive behavior either
Third point is that the real culprit here is mental illness is an NRA talking point and I don’t like where it’s going.
You talk about deviation from the mental norm. Except what’s normal? How many peas make a pile and who are we supposed to be afraid of this week?
People with autism or Asperger’s Syndrome are not dangerous. Nor are people with epilepsy, dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder, Type A personalities, or any number of other quirky deviations from the norm. Whatever that is.
We’ve had two of these mass shootings in Johnson County (lone shooter, public place, at least 4 dead). In neither case (Lone Tree 1985; Iowa City 1991) was the shooter mentally ill, a criminal, or had a history of violent behavior. What they did have was access to a gun
Bottom line, people whose brains are not quite “normal” have enough problems without the NRA labelling them potential mass murderers.
So could we focus on what the real problem is instead of scapegoating people who don’t deserve it.
OK, ya got me. The young man (note, I now label him an adult even though not all laws in all jurisdictions, by any means, recognize that someone under the age of 21 is considered an adult — look it up. Not to mention that simply being 21 does not guarantee an adult mentality.) was mentally not anything other than “normal” — the Devil made him (and any other mass killer) do it ! If you wish to be pedantic you can find someone else to listen.
people killed by guns is 400% higher in the united states than great britain, evan the police do not carry guns. they have guns but it is restricted no pistols and limits on what kind of gun.
Well, you have a safe trip now.
gun deaths per 100,000 in the united states not incuding suicides is 9.2.
gun deaths per 100,000 in great britain is .25 not including suicides. if you guys think you need a machine gun to protect yourselves living in iowa you
have issues.
Erect straw men much?
Nobody here mentioned machine guns but you.
And of course they have fewer Gun Deaths; they have fewer guns. That’s a cute way of making an argument while avoiding a discussion of Britain’s murder rate, which has not decreased since they imposed stricter gun control.
But hey, you want to move there, knock yourself out.
William, The population of the US is 400 % higher than that of Great Britian. Your comparin apples to oranges.
Apples to oranges? The critical figure is gun deaths per population. I quickly found two sources, one gives per 100,000 population:
US: 9.20 versus England 0.25. Another gives the US 14.24 versus 0.41 for England and Wales. Regardless which figure you use the death rate from guns is dramatically higher in the US.
Here is one source listing a number of countries /100K population — the rates are in the column immediately to the right of the column of names of countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Get rid of these “gun-free” school laws and rules. They did not stop or prevent incidents like Sandy Hook or Columbine from happening, and perhaps made the death toll worse. Declaring a gun-free zone without metal detectors or an armed guard there to enforce it says to any would be mass shooter “if you bring a gun in here, there will be no one here with a gun to stop your murder spree”.
Sandy Hook, Columbine, the Aurora theater shootings; what did these (and many other mass shootings) have in common? All took place in so-called “gun free” zones.
With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.
Another common thread in these shootings is people suffering from mental illness, often paranoid schizophrenia.
We need to make it easier to involuntarily commit people who display symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Because, just as mass murderers don’t respect gun-free zones, paranoid schizophrenics often refuse to commit themselves voluntarily.
Or we could continue with the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Mr Galt,
Exactly how many of the 62 mass murders by gun in the last twenty years were commiited by people suffering from paranoid schizophrenia?
Do you have a reference for that? Because the only real common denominators are male and guns.
We’ve had a couple three lurid examples of people who were obviously mentally ill, but in most cases these shooters were not
Besides that, paranoid schizophrenia is a specific illness with a connection to violence against other people that is, at best, tenuous. Untreated shizophrenics will self medicate and violence, if any, tracks with drug use.
I suspect that mental illness has become the dominant motif since the 14th because pro-gunners don’t want to deal with the fact that were it not for easy access to guns,especially military style assault weapons, a lot of people who are dead would still be alive.
Teachers should be taught how to handle guns and schools should have saftey protocol in place like the court house does! Guns should not be outlawed!
“Teachers . . . handle guns.” Are you saying teachers should be armed — you want guns in the schools ? Madness !
Here’s some data on accidental deaths of children and guns.
http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/guns.htm
2/3 of the deaths in this study were homicides or police shootings. Approximately 1/3 were suicides and not relevant to your argument. 6% were accidental shootings, which typically happens when the child is playing with a gun. In other words, your link is irrelevant to an argument against trained individuals caring firearms in a school.
The hazards of children playing with guns is well established. So, the answer to the single rare incident of a mentally unbalanced individual killing 20 children ( note that about 100 times that many die in motor vehicle accidents every year ) is to add guns to the school where there is a concentration of children ? Those guns would have to be secure wouldn’t they! Would each teacher be required to carry one securely on their person ? If not it provisions would have to be made to fully secure them in each classroom, right ? What about after the school day, teachers required to take them home, or fully secured at the school safe from burglary — known guns in the school would an inviting target ? Who would purchase the weapons ? You’d want periodic psychological testing of all gun-carrying teachers, right ? How would teachers feel about having guns — in the main extremely resistant I’d expect. Salaries would likely have to be raised substantially to attract them to the profession. Who is going to pay for adding perhaps a million guns just for the elementary school system — the money fairy ? Go ahead, mount a campaign for such an eccentric idea. See how much positive response you get !
How about just allowing a teacher who has a CWP to take their own weapon to school? Not one of your crazy arguments is a problem then.
Brad,
Standard ermergency procedure is for teachers to stay with their students and get them out of harm’s way, not go chasing after some lunatic who has an assault weapon, 30 round clips, and a flack jacket.
Unless the teacher is armed and ready with weapons at least as lethal as what the lunatic has, the teacher is outgunned and probably dead.
Turning schools into free fire zones is not a solution.
Technology is grand thing. Bio metric guns that can only be fired by the teacher, takes care of the wild speculation. Although one poster a couple days ago seemed to think that all the teachers were too old(60) and decrepit. (Maybe thats why 1/4 of the public school kids cant read at grade level). But what about the discussion? Seem lots of posters have a closed mind. Hard to solve complicated problems with closed minds.
And teachers that want to be armed, be allowed to, wouldn’t arm every teacher, But some evil type bent on killing wouldn’t know which ones were and which weren’t. It called a deterrent effect. Much like all the untold military conflicts have not been fought because of preparedness.by the US military.
“Are you saying teachers should be armed — you want guns in the schools ? Madness !”
So, you’re saying schools being a “gun free zone” has made them 100% safe? Or are you saying that teachers you know can’t handle a firearm? Are they too weak/incompetent/afraid?
Point out where I said any of the things you mention and I’ll answer your questions.
Probably none of the above: just people who refuse to accept that toting guns about wherever they go should be a social norm.
It ishouldn’t be a norm It isn’t a norm. It is an aberration.
I was always taught the Constitution was the law of the land, not “social norms” constructed by whiny judgmental folks with irrational fears.
The Constitution is the basis for “law(s) of the land” and it says nothing about specific weapons. What specific “irrational fears” are you talking about and what specific judgements being made by what specific judgmental folks ?
The “common denominator” in this latest shooting rampage with the recent high-profile predecessors is a perp with a firearm that had a high-capacity magazine. Seems like it would be a minimal inconvenience to any sane gun-user to limit a mag’s cartridge count to 10 or less. Sure, the thoughtful rampager would probably plan ahead and take extra loaded 10-round mags. but the changeover time would give the victims a brief window of opportunity in which to take the shooter down. I believe that this was exactly the scenario in both the Giffords shooting and the Colorado movie theater event. Unfortunately, in both cases the shooters were armed with weapons that had high-cap magazines, so the number killed and injured was very high before they could be taken down.
It has been difficult for average citizens to own full-automatic weapons since the mid-1930′s. That’s because criminals brought such ill fame to full-auto weapons like the Thompson SMG and the Browning Automatic Rifle that there was a national clamor to essentially outlaw the ownership of these weapons by other than active law enforcement personnel. Even with the high level of activity of the NRA in recent years, I haven’t seen much of a push for legislation that would make these full-auto firearms generally available once again.
It’s time to give high-cap magazines the same national shunning.
Agree — the magazine capacity is the problem. The old M1 Garand is military and semi-auto but it will only take a clip (not a magazine) that holds 8 rounds.
( That a rifle has an assault design appears to me to be irrelevant. )
Jack, many died in the Columbine shooting and the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was in place (30 rd mags were illegal). Limiting these magazines will not stop these shootings.
Also, you are wrong about the theater shooting. He was using a 100 rd drum. It jammed and he transitioned to a different weapon.
Taking down a shooter, even if they are reloading, is suicide if you are unarmed. Just ask the principle at Sandy Hook. Wait, you can’t.
Perhaps we should rethink gun free zones.
Drum, shrum: the point is that the shooter’s firearm had a high-capacity cartridge reservoir- by any other name.
Re Columbine- 30 round mags were NEVER illegal to own. I personally purchased three 30-round plastic mags, post-ban, to use in my Norinco SKS. The ban made it illegal for manufacturers to make, import, or sell new 30-round mags during the ban era, but not for people to purchase them secondhand, and to own or use them.
My proposal would go farther- not only make the manufacture of high-cap mags of any type illegal, but also make the ownership of same a federal crime- just as the unlicensed ownership of a full-auto weapon is a federal crime (and also a state crime in many cases). That would tend to dry up the source of these appliances for the bulk of the population.
You are wrong about 30 round mags. ALL of the magazines I used in the army stated “Law enforcement and Military only”. It was illegal to own these during the ban.
Brad Fisher,
The Tucson Arizona shooter was taken down by a llittle old lady with a folding chair. She hit him with it while he was reloading.
As for filling up gun free zones with firearms will make them safer, if you should happen to be caught in, say. a shopping center shootout and decide to confront the shooter—presumed to be armed with an AR-15 or worse—with your conceal carry whatever, even if you should survive the confrontation, guess what’s going to happen when the SWAT team shows up and sees you with a gun.
Bang. You’re dead
That’s a tough question. Do we really want to build walls around our schools, have armed guards, x-ray machines, pat-downs at the gates, armed guards riding the school buses and on every block where children walk to school?
Living in an armed encampment doesn’t sound all that good to me. Neither does having to arm myself and spending a significant amount of time traing with a weapon and learning self defense techniques.
The focus of our resources should be on understanding this problem and learning what we need to do to change it. There are some people working on it, but we need more and we need to sharpen their focus.
Hey Joel, how many school kids have died in a fire at school in the last 50 years? That’s right, zero. Because it’s not hard to ID a problem and take steps to fix it.
Abernathy
The reason there have been no deaths in school fires in the last 50 years is because nationwide safety standards were adopted in 1959 after a fire at Our Lady of Angels School in Chicago, Dec 1, 1958, killed 92 students and 3 teachers. Our Lady of Angels was an elementary school built in 1910. It did meet fire safety code as of 1958 although it had structural problems that had been grandfathered in. There was, for example, no fire alarm system.
If the nation had responded to that fire the way pro-gunners want us to respond to the Newtown murders, in fact, to all the mass murders and assassinations that have occurred over the last half century, American children would still be attending school in outdated firetraps
The difference of course is implementing fire safety measures had been proven to reduce fires and save lives in the event of a fire. You have no evidence that suggests trampling on the constitution, will make anyone safer. In fact, A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, will produce a safer community. Because the founders knew that the ultimate responsibility for security rested with the individual, not the govt.
A better analogy would be the 18th amendment It failed to do what it set out to do, As much as the correlation seemed undeniable, the causation was not.
Taking good peoples guns away will not stop Insane people from killing! Crooks and kooks can get guns anytime they want them!
The Sandy Hook massacre is closely associated with a liberal culture that diminishes respect for humanity:
- pro-abortion laws allow children to be killed in the womb.
- a promiscuous sexual culture brings massive numbers of single parent families and a breakdown in personal responsibilitiy – boys are inseminators BUT are not fathers.
- feminists emasculate young boys.
All of these cultural failures have lead to broken homes and failed families where children become victums rather human beings. With these issues as a background it shouldn’t surprise you that some people growup with an attitude that life and children, in particular, are of little significance.
And what do the liberals do? Blame an inanimate object. We don’t need gun control we need to excise liberalism from our culture.
It is not that difficult.
Rupert Murdoch, the New York Post, and Bill OReilly have all come out in favor of gun control—banning certain kinds of weapons, banning large capacity clips, requiring owners of certain types of weapons to register with the FBI. Look it up. It’s all come out in the past few days
If the pro-gunners and the NRA haven’t got FOXNews on their side, then they’ve lost the argument. They’ve got nobody
As far as mental illness goes, Adam Lanza had Asperger’s Syndrome which is a disability, not a mental illness. It is not associated with violent behavior directed at other people. Adam Lanza did what he did not because he was mentally ill (he wasn’t) or bullied as a child (he wasn’t) or the victim of abuse (he wasn’t) but because he has easy access to guns his mother kept in her house.
Trying to fix this problem of mass murder in public spaces by focusing on the shooter instead of the means these people choose to commit murder is a fool’s game. With a few exceptions, these people profile out as white, male, middle class and well within the parameters of perfectly sane. Background checks almost always turn up no criminal record and no record of serious mental illness. The guns used were, with few exceptions, legally purchased and registered either by them or a family member. The overwhelming vast majority of weird, nerdy, socially inept, depressed, or even mentally ill people do not commit murder. People with these characteristics are far far more likely to be victims than perpetrators and it is virtually impossible to tell ahead of time who is going to commit that kind of crime. We can’t pull a minority report on people. It didn’t even work in the movie
If anyone is interested, Mother Jones published “A Guide to Mass Shootings in America” It’s on line and updated 12/15/2012.
Since 1982 there have been 62 mass shootings in 30 states in which at least 4 people died. Criteria used was lone shooter, public place, single incident.
Two of these occurred in Iowa: 1985 Lone Tree 4 dead; 1991 Iowa City 5 dead.
There have been 6 in 2012; 3 in 2011; 1 in 2010, 4 in 2009, 3 in 2008.
The two worst were Northern Ill Univer, DeKalb, 2008, killed and injured 27; NewtownSchool, Connecticut, 2012, killed and injured 30
There was an attack on school children in China a couple of weeks ago. A lone man stabbed and slashed 22 elementary school children and their teacher. Same kind of attack as occurred last Friday. The difference? Nobody died
I think all the people who are blaming liberals, the culture, the mentally ill. or the fact that there are simply not enough guns need to look up the Port Arthur Massacre, Australia 1996.
Australians are at least as volent and as goofy as we are. It’s a country that started out as a penal colony. The original European settlers were criminals. And our Old Wild West has nothing on the Australian Outback when it comes to both violence and really weird people.
Gun laws in Australia were lax and Australia had its fair share of horrific murders. Then came Port Arthur, In 1996, armed with two semi-automatic AR-15 rifles, Martin Bryant killed 35 people around Port Arthur and wounded 21 before being caught by police the next day following an overnight siege.
The immediate result was a crackdown on guns. Semi-automatic rifles and pump action/self-loading shotguns were banned from civilians and a genuine reason was required for all other firearms. Both a firearms license and a buyers permit are necessary to legally purchase a firearm. Furthermore, an acceptable reason must be stated on the permit for buying the weapon, and a minimum 28 day “cooling off” period must be enforced before the issuing of the license.
Australia doesn’t have the kind of mass murders we do. And it’s because the people who might want to commit mass murder can’t get their hands on the kind of weapons that would enable them to do it.
The experience in the United States proves that as gun ownership rises and freedom to keep and bear arms right,s are restored by citizen state legislatures, murders go down. That is just a simple fact repeated in state after state across this nation. A study released in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694)
“Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.
The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun – a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite – but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain:
[P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent.
Note that CT had some of the most strict gun laws of any state in the union.
Mr Williamson,
We are talking about a rampage murder (lone shooter, public place, at least 4 dead) in an elementary school in Connecticut (28 dead, two injured, 20 children ages 6 & 7 dead).
I would venture to guess that virtually 100% of the rampage murders committed since 1966 (University of Texas, 45 dead and injured) in the United States were committed using a firearm.
As for stats on gun violence, this one is a second and a half google search:
“In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm. There were 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000. The majority of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, with 17,352 (55.6%) of the total 31,224 firearm-related deaths in 2007 due to suicide, while 12,632 (40.5%) were homicide deaths.” Wikipedia
There have been 7 rampage shootings in 2012. Total killed and injured 140.
The question is not whether the total number of murders and deaths by firearms in the US has dropped or what has caused this or even whether or not more people are killed with kitchen knives than guns (the answer is no). The question is how many more of these rampage killings are we supposed to tolerate. The question is how do we stop those.
You don’t have the answer