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If his only intent was to kill HIMSELF, he could have done that with one shot in a parking lot. He went into a school with 500 rounds of ammo. You're jumping to conclusions that you shouldn't jump to. His plan will all come out in the wash, but I think it's fair to assume at this point that he planned on taking others--whether it was kids, police, school personnel, or all of the above--out with him.
No, its not fair to assume. Assuming is also jumping to conclusions.
He said he wasn't going to hurt anybody. He was suicidal, and if suicide by cop was his way of wanting it, he needed to appear to be a huge threat. The police handled the situation correctly, got him peacefully without anybody dying. He may have wanted to die, but he did not want to kill himself, his actions were pretty clear on that.
No, its not fair to assume. Assuming is also jumping to conclusions.
He said he wasn't going to hurt anybody. He was suicidal, and if suicide by cop was his way of wanting it, he needed to appear to be a huge threat. The police handled the situation correctly, got him peacefully without anybody dying. He may have wanted to die, but he did not want to kill himself, his actions were pretty clear on that.
It'll all come out in the wash. The police helped get him out, but if Antoinette Tuff hadn't been calm, in control, and thinking on her feet, I don't think this would have ended the way it did--she deserves the vast majority of the credit.
Antoinette Tuff, the school employee at McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Atlanta, talked a suicidal gunman (who'd already exchanged fire with police) to put his weapons down and surrender before he could hurt any of the children at the elementary school. Her strength and calm composure under incredible stress is amazing--she handled the situation pretty much like you would a crisis call on a suicide hotline, but she was in the thick of it, knowing that he might kill her at any moment as well. I'm thinking THIS is the kind of training we need to offer school employees to deal with crisis situations--how to DEESCALATE the situation by staying calm, getting the disturbed person to talk about themselves and keep talking, listening and relating to them, and by being reassuring and letting them know you care and you're trying to help them until help can come. If she had pulled out a gun and started firing, there's a pretty good chance she would have been shot and killed herself, and if the gunman hadn't been killed, he could have proceeded through the school killing kids and teachers. It might not work in every situation, but it sure worked in this one. That type of crisis intervention training is something that could EASILY be broadly replicated in schools across the country, for use with both disturbed students and intruders.
There are two factors that you have to take into consideration when talking about this subject.
first in a nation of 300 million + people, the chance that someone will do something crazy gets more and more likely the more people there are.
Second, while that reality does not mean a greater percentage of the population will do something bad, the fact that we have instant access to "news" at a level never seen before, we know more about every little thing that went unreported in previous years.
I do think there is cause to make some smart changes to laws that can save the lives of innocents and the lives of people suffering from mental illness. However, we shoud NOT over-react and create laws that send us back to a time when people suffering from a sickness (mental illness is a sickness just like cancer or any other serious illness) were often abused.
Sometimes you can't, but we could do a better job at trying.
You can well appreciate the ignorance and stigma of mental illness. It's so much easier to blame the parents, a lack of will power or the system. And even when people are " under care" we blame the mental health providers for not curing them or looking deep into their crystal balls and determining a person's potential for future violence in absence of prior violence and locking people up forever.
We have long since crossed the tipping point in terms of guns in this country and there's no going back.
We have also long since crossed the tipping point in terms of meaningful incremental funding for mental health care.
We seem to have a fondness for circular dilemmas.
Antoinette Tuff deserves the cover of Time Mag and person of the year.
You can well appreciate the ignorance and stigma of mental illness. It's so much easier to blame the parents, a lack of will power or the system. And even when people are " under care" we blame the mental health providers for not curing them or looking deep into their crystal balls and determining a person's potential for future violence in absence of prior violence and locking people up forever.
We have long since crossed the tipping point in terms of guns in this country and there's no going back.
We have also long since crossed the tipping point in terms of meaningful incremental funding for mental health care.
We seem to have a fondness for circular dilemmas.
Antoinette Tuff deserves the cover of Time Mag and person of the year.
The only way to get out of a circular dilemma is to TRY. We'll never fix anything if we don't try. I'm not willing to give up on this country and leave it to "it is what it is."
It'll all come out in the wash. The police helped get him out, but if Antoinette Tuff hadn't been calm, in control, and thinking on her feet, I don't think this would have ended the way it did--she deserves the vast majority of the credit.
We can speculate on the 1000 different ways it could have turned out, but what we do know, he said he wouldn't hurt anybody. He sure had an opportunity to hurt many if he wanted to, but he didn't.
Ms. Tuff did very well for the given situation she was handed. But, there are no signs at all that shows he intended to hurt anybody. He shot at the floor to try to get the police to take action against him.
The end result, he had many many opportunities to hurt or kill but he didn't. He didn't wan't to. He would have had to if he truly wanted to die, but he still has compassion towards others life.
You're missing the key point here, which is suicidal. This guy, by all accounts, did not go to the school with the intent of killing kids. The intent was to create a situation where he could feel the center of attention and be killed himself.
^ is it.
Neither we nor he will ever know to what extent he was willing to go to achieve this objective. Having enough ammunition to take out half the student body suggests a potential willingness to do whatever it took. ( not doing an anti gun thing, here)
Antoinette Tuff, the school employee at McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Atlanta, talked a suicidal gunman (who'd already exchanged fire with police) to put his weapons down and surrender before he could hurt any of the children at the elementary school. Her strength and calm composure under incredible stress is amazing--she handled the situation pretty much like you would a crisis call on a suicide hotline, but she was in the thick of it, knowing that he might kill her at any moment as well. I'm thinking THIS is the kind of training we need to offer school employees to deal with crisis situations--how to DEESCALATE the situation by staying calm, getting the disturbed person to talk about themselves and keep talking, listening and relating to them, and by being reassuring and letting them know you care and you're trying to help them until help can come. If she had pulled out a gun and started firing, there's a pretty good chance she would have been shot and killed herself, and if the gunman hadn't been killed, he could have proceeded through the school killing kids and teachers. It might not work in every situation, but it sure worked in this one. That type of crisis intervention training is something that could EASILY be broadly replicated in schools across the country, for use with both disturbed students and intruders.
Neither we nor he will ever know to what extent he was willing to go to achieve this objective. Having enough ammunition to take out half the student body suggests a potential willingness to do whatever it took. ( not doing an anti gun thing, here)
Sure we will know. He already told us he wasn't going to hurt anybody. He may be mentally ill, but may not be stupid. He may have thought he may have to do a lot of shooting into the floors to provoke the police to kill him.
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