"I'd just point out that the only person who's been killed has been the shooter,"... "I think the situation might be a lot more chaotic and a lot more deadly if a number of students had tried to go in and be heroes." "The system worked."
- John Woods - UT Grad Student
The system worked?
Just like most campus shootings, this one was stopped by a man with a gun. The only reason a large number of students weren't shot is because Colton Tooley didn't intend to kill them. Tooley's decision not to walk around killing his fellow students was the only thing that kept others safe.
The system didn't "work." University of Texas students got lucky, nothing more. A locked down college campus, huddled in a building, unarmed and unable to leave is the last place I ever want to be if there's an active shooter running around.
I don't know what's wrong with all of these "No Guns Allowed" signs posted at universities across the nation. Perhaps they should ask for their money back, since obviously the signs aren't working as advertised.
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That was pretty much my reaction to it. The day after, you couldn't sneeze without someone on the radio claiming that campus security & Austin PD kept a bad situation from being worse. Which defies all logic, but isn't surprising.
Most of the talk of the previous UT shooting now omits the inconvenient fact that an armed civilian was among those who broke into the tower and took out that shooter. I'll admit that took me by surprise as well, although I guess it shouldn't, coming from San Francisco-on-the-Brazos.
John Woods needs to take his carpetbagging ass back to Virginia or wherever it was he came from.
Folks are missing the point.
The system did work. It taught hundreds of students not to try to defend themselves, to rely on others for their safety, that their best bet for coming out of an attack alive was to hide.
Most of the talk of the previous UT shooting now omits the inconvenient fact that an armed civilian was among those who broke into the tower and took out that shooter.
Excellent point Sabra. I noticed that as well. These days when cases are mentioned where attacks were stopped by armed civilians that point is generally omitted.
The Whitman UT shooting, the shooting at Appalacian law school, or the one in (i think) Colorado where a teacher retrieved a 1911 from his car to stop the shooter.
There was also at least one mall shooting where a CCW holder unsuccessfully engaged an active shooter. He put a couple rounds of .45 center mass before being killed. Unfortunately the bad guy was wearing a vest.
Fact is, armed civilians have on numerous occasions stopped these kinds of shootings, but that doesn't fit the narrative so the media lies and obfuscates.
Erik - Yeah no kidding. He should leave. There's no need for snivelling pussies in Texas.
Bob - Good point. I don't know how often I'm told that it's best to lock the door and hide in such a situation. Sure, do that if you're armed, in a defensible position, and have no good means of escape. Otherwise hiding, cowering and waiting for the cavalry to show is a really dumb survival plan. It's certainly not one I'd plan to follow. Lockdowns have to be one of the worst ideas ever.
This stuff scares the crap out of me. I spend most of my time doing grad work on campus or teaching undergrads. Dealing with a situation with an active shooter would be hell here (as it would be anywhere).
what bothers me more is the manner in which information is spread after a disaster / emergency(which is one of my prelim topics).
In my opinion there is less an emphasis on effective communication by schools and more an emphasis on restricting comm but covering the bases.
There was a gun on campus, which bans guns. Thus, the system failed.
It is frightening how delusional some people are.
Unfortunately, individuals like that one would have proclaimed that the "system worked" so long as the muderous shooter was brought down, regardless of the cost to the students in general - after all, they can inevitably argue that more students "could" hvae died had it not been for the "system".
For people like that, there is no price not worth paying to see the continuation of that "system"... so long as that price does not include their lives, mind you.
In other news, I blame the education system for the inefficacy of the signs - illiteracy and all that ;).
after all, they can inevitably argue that more students "could" have died had it not been for the "system".
That is EXACTLY the argument they made, ad nauseam, reality be damned.
I am worried that this line about the system working is going to breed a false sense of security. The issue of CCW on campus will come up again in the Leg this year, and this will be used to argue against it. Beyond that, I've got a friend who works on campus, and she really does think she's fine thanks to the police response. I'm still trying to come up with a polite way to tell her she's delusional.
Mike, the Pearl, Mississippi school shooting is also one where a teacher stopped things short when he got a gun out of his car. That shooter killed his mother, shot up his high school, and was on his way to the junior high school (if I recall the story correctly) when one of the teachers pinned him down at gunpoint.
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