Salon.com > Mass shooting

Alabama issues a disturbing PSA

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:53:00 +0000

It's the strangest low-budget action movie in ages. Ominous music cues that it's not "just another day at the office" -- and then a sunglassed, well-armed psycho/Dwayne Johnson look-alike bursts in and starts shooting. The short film, titled "Run Hide Fight," a product of the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, is an instructional tool for how to cope in an "active shooter" situation. It's as awkward and stilted as any piece of industrial filmmaking or any workplace training video you've ever endured. Yet the subject matter – and the mere need for its existence at all – makes it a gut punch nonetheless.

To its credit, "Run Hide Fight" -- a $200,000 production made with public funds -- is a relatively common-sense how-to primer. It's not easy to make a movie about a scenario no one wants to envision. But in the aftermath of the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, it's been hard to think about much else. Since that December day, a number of theories on how to avoid future tragedies – or at best curtail the damage – have emerged. Many of them have been full-on bananas – from the NRA's suggestion we arm our schools to the National Review's roundtable that featured the brilliant hope of relying on "huskier 12-year-old boys."

The answer is not more guns

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:30:00 +0000

By now, the response isn’t even surprising. After a horrific massacre like the one in Newtown, Conn., last week, gun-rights advocates will argue that someone with a gun at the scene could have stopped the killer. They conclude that the answer to mass shootings is to arm more people.

This argument is usually made by people who can be easily dismissed, like boffo U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, or Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America. Pratt said this weekend that “gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands” for preventing law-abiding citizens from bringing guns into schools.

But the more guns/less crime argument shouldn’t be dismissed so summarily. There’s an undeniable intuitive logic to it -- if you were facing down an active shooter, wouldn’t you want to be armed? Nearly half of Americans keep a gun in their home -- and the majority say the main reason they do so is to defend themselves. Across the country, states are expanding right to carry laws, which allow permitted citizens to carry concealed weapons for their own defense.

Adam Lanza’s typical shooter profile

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:31:00 +0000

A portrait of Adam Lanza is emerging as reporters delve into the limited backlog of information on the quiet 20 years of his life before he gunned down 27 people last Friday.

The details seem to form an all-too-familiar profile: the loner, withdrawn, highly intelligent, ghostly pale, awkward but pleasant seeming enough. He wore oversize formal shirts with pens, sheathed in pocket protectors, in their top pockets. In lieu of a photo in his high school yearbook were the words, "camera shy."

His brother, Ryan, called him a "nerd," one of his classmates mother's said he was "one of the goths." He was assigned to a school psychologist when staff at Newtown High School thought he might be a risk to himself, not others.

Indiana man arrested with 47 guns after threats to local school

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:05:00 +0000

CEDAR LAKE, Ind. — A northern Indiana man who allegedly threatened to "kill as many people as he could" at an elementary school near his home was arrested by officers who later found 47 guns and ammunition hidden throughout his home.

Von. I. Meyer, 60, of Cedar Lake, was arrested Saturday after prosecutors filed formal charges of felony intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement against him. He was being held Sunday without bond at the Lake County Jail, pending an initial hearing on the charges, police said in a statement.

Cedar Lake Police officers were called to Meyer's home early Friday after he allegedly threatened to set his wife on fire once she fell asleep, the statement said.

Meyer also threatened to enter nearby Jane Ball Elementary School "and kill as many people as he could before police could stop him," the statement said. Meyer's home is less than 1,000 feet from the school and linked to it by trails and paths through a wooded area, police said.

Police said in the statement that they notified school officials and boosted security at all area schools Friday – the same day 26 people, including 20 students, were shot and killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

Obama to speak at Newtown vigil

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 14:07:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Making a sadly familiar journey, President Barack Obama will attend an evening vigil in Newtown, Conn., to mourn with a town still seeking to comprehend the unimaginable massacre of its children and teachers.

His visit Sunday to this western Connecticut community comes two days after a man opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School killing 26 people, including 20 boys and girls just 6 or 7 years old.

Authorities identified the shooter as Adam Lanza, a 20-year-old who police say first killed his mother before driving to the school, opening fire in two classrooms and then taking his own life.

Obama will visit privately with families of the victims and with emergency personnel who responded to the shootings. He then will then speak at an interfaith vigil at Newtown High School.

Obama could barely contain his emotions Friday, speaking tearfully at the White House and expressing his sympathy as a parent and a president. He reiterated his message Saturday morning in his usual weekend radio address, declaring that "every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt" and asserting that it was time to "take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this."

Mass shooting reported near Wisconsin mall

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:15:00 +0000

BROOKFIELD, Wis. (AP) - Deputies in Wisconsin are responding to reports of a shooting near a major mall in suburban Milwaukee.

WISN-TV reports a mass shooting has taken place near the Brookfield Square Mall.

A spokeswoman for a local hospital says it has received four patients from the shooting, none critical, and expects three more.

A woman who answered the phone at the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department on Sunday told The Associated Press that deputies are looking for an active shooter.