Colorado school shooting victim's parents: 'She needs your continued prayers'

[WillyT]

Link: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/14/21903465-family-of-student-wounded-in-colo-high-school-shooting-she-needs-your-prayers?lite

[WowSeriously]

1. She also needs Coloradans to pass gun safety laws,

Rather than recall state representatives who support gun safety laws.

[Agschmid]

2. +1

They should realize it is the guns who make it possible to injure/kill so easily.

[WowSeriously]

12. Exactly

[X_Digger]

4. I'm curious..

.. what law would have stopped an 18 year old, with no criminal record, no adjudications of mental defect, and no history of drug use from purchasing a pump-action shotgun (a gun not on anyone's "assault weapons ban" list)?

The buyer passed a background check (the gun was purchased at a federally licensed firearms dealer.)

[eqfan592]

5. Don't you go bringing facts into the situation!

I mean, people need to be able to score their cheap political points off of tragedies after all.

[WowSeriously]

10. The law that would require parents to be properly trained in gun storage.

No single law will stop any particular incident. But a collection of laws that change the focus of guns from that of phallic worship to that of careful handling and storage would do wonders.

Canada has the same number if guns, per capita, as the US. They have nowhere near the level of gun violence. The reason is they don't fellete their gun, they handle it with the care demanded if a weapon of death.

[WillowTree]

16. How would such a law have helped in this case?

[WowSeriously]

18. Like the President said back in 2007, Yes We Can't!

Every gun safety law we pass diminishes the chance of a tragic death in the future. Maybe if we were more proactive in the past, instead of passive like most in the present, this trajedy might have not occurred.

Let's throw up our hands. It's what we do best.

[Ranchemp.]

29. Dodging the question because you can't answer?

What law would have prevented this tragedy short of an all out ban on firearms?

[Chan790]

39. Even as staunch gun control activist, I'm forced to concede...

none short of a radical reinterpretation of RKBA. I'm okay with that, but most Americans are not.

[Ranchemp.]

40. Thank you for your honesty, that seems to be in short supply,

on both sides of the debate.

[X_Digger]

25. You didn't actually answer my question..

.. but that's okay.

[exboyfil]

27. The LEO on site

seems to have made the difference in this case. No sane person thinks political support exists for banning pump action shotguns. It is a little weird that an 18 year old can purchase a pump action shotgun but not a six pack of beer.

[HereSince1628]

57. That story has shifted around a bit...

with an ever shrinking time frame...shrinking to a window in which any meaningful interaction between school security and the shooter becomes quite questionable. Law enforcement and the community are not completely without motives to expand the significance of the role of the school guard. Everyone wants reassurance that security works.

Security pretty clearly didn't work fully, and it's unlikely that it could unless schoolrooms are treated like vaults at Fort Knox.

One of the reports stated the last shot had been fired prior to the school guard coming upon the injured student. All of it, including someone reaching the librarian and his making an escape happens in under a minute and one-half.

It seems likely that primary objectives of the attack were murder of the librarian, property damage to the librarian's workplace and suicide all along. So there is reason to doubt that the suicide was a consequence of the security guard arriving and tending to the stricken girl.

Maybe the final report will make the time line more clear.

[bluestate10]

77. With an assault weapon, those 80 seconds would have resulted in a scene of utter devastation.

An extended clip gun that didn't jam could have killed or wounded 100 people in that 80 seconds. For that reason, guns that have more than 10 bullets for firing before reloading must be restricted to locations and used under the supervision of professionals and/or gun users that have undergone stringent skill qualification and psychological evaluation.

[HereSince1628]

85. I understand you are fearful of mass-shootings. The Arapaho HS shooting wasn't one of those.

I am not at all pro-gun. I don't think it is too much to limit magazine capacity, to do criminal background checks and have 30 day waiting periods to reduce impulsive acts such as suicide and murder for revenge.

Requiring single psychological evaluations prior to gun purchase is basically useless to reducing mass-shootings. The American Psychological Association has repeatedly said that there is no way to predict which of the ~65 million Americans with mental illness will commit the less than 2 dozen mass killings per year.

Moreover, study after study has shown that the diagnosed mentally ill represent no greater actuarial risk to society than everyone else.

Consequently I much resent the unwarranted prejudice that fear of mass shootings has produced against the mentally ill.

Not just because it is a fear fed prejudice that has already reached me...but because of what fear has also done to YOU.

Fear and prejudice change usually rational people into frightened mobs ready and willing to do almost anything to assuage their fear. The first casualty of that fear is the death of using credible information to inform oneself before taking advocacy positions.

It is apparent, primae faciae, based on your comment that you have been afflicted with the need for this sort of blind advocacy to DO SOMETHING EVEN IF IT IS USELESS.




Although I suspect you are completely ignorant of it...

...thanks to the pressure of the fearful uninformed and the misinformed,

the nation's Veterans Affairs Hospitals have been directed to share without veterans' authorization information from our VA medical records with the FBI, "in the interest of security and pubic safety".

Including records of completely voluntary approaches to the VA for treatment of mental illness.

And so, for all practical purposes, my rights to privacy of my VA medical records under HIPAA is at an end.

Are you HAPPY NOW?

Are you FEELING MORE SECURE?

I'd bet not.

I'd bet you don't feel one iota more secure now that vets' mental and physical health records are open to the FBI.

I resent it.

I resent all of this succumbing to fear,

I resent the misplaced fear and prejudice against the mentally ill,

I especially resent the impulsiveness of the fearful to demand things that violate others' rights so that those fearful people are falsely reassured by something that can never be useful in solving the problem of gun violence has been done.


Thank-you

and welcome to my ignore list

[X_Digger]

87. Bravo. Just.. bravo. n/t

[aikoaiko]

6. What new laws do you think CO should pass?

[WowSeriously]

9. The ones that will properly train the next gun owners

To keep their guns locked up where their children can't steal them to shoot a teacher they don't like.

How's that for starters?

[ManiacJoe]

13. Not a bad start, but not relevant to this case.

In this case the "child" is legally an adult, which is why he could legally buy the shotgun from the dealer.

[Fumesucker]

14. Could this "adult" purchase alcoholic beverages legally?

[ManiacJoe]

15. Are you that unfamiliar with the alcohol laws?

Legal age to buy alcohol = 21
Legal age to buy handguns = 21
Legal age to buy shotguns and rifles = 18
Legal age to vote = 18

[LionsTigersRedWings]

53. Nope. But you knew that when you posted this..

Or am I wrong?

[WowSeriously]

17. Yes we can't!

Maybe he doesn't get the gun until he learns how to "drive" it.

[eqfan592]

19. So you think training on how to properly use the shot gun would have...

...somehow made him less effective when he showed up to the school with it?

[WowSeriously]

21. One of many laws. But I don't really care.

I'm tired of do nothing Democrats. I'm tired of those who find reasons to quit before they start.

Maybe it isn't Yes We Can't. Maybe it is Yes We Won't.

[eqfan592]

23. So you don't care if laws will work, so long as we just pass something...

....well ok then.

[WowSeriously]

44. I do care if laws work. But it is the combination of laws that work.

As I state earlier, perhaps not clearly, is that no one law may address a particular incident, but a collection of laws, over time, change this country from worshippers of weapons of death to regulators of weapons of death.

Which are you, a worshipper or a regulator, or someone who says Yes We Can't.

[eqfan592]

45. Really? Gun owners are "worshippers of weapons of death?"

And you honestly expect any sort of serious discourse?

[WowSeriously]

46. If gun owners can't tolerate common sense gun safety

Laws like mandatory back ground checks on all sales, licensing and training like car ownership, and waiting periods for first time buyers, then yes, they are death weapon worshippers and no dialog is possible.

[eqfan592]

51. I have no issue with background checks.

If you make the licensing process free of charge and available enough as to avoid constitutional issues (a difficult task to be sure) I may not have a problem with that either. But none of that is addressing the causes of violent crime, and a licensing law especially is going to use up a LOT off political capital that, in my opinion, would be much better spent elsewhere.

[WowSeriously]

60. There are no constitutional issues with gun regulation.

Read the Supreme Court Decision. Political capital is just funny money if you never spend it. As for the root causes, well, we are a nation that ha been in a fighting war in every decade since the 1940s. And our number one export are weapons of death. So, it's a long haul to become a peaceful nation. Let's start by not killing ourselves. Maybe then we'll stop killing others, and maybe then we'll stop exporting weapons of death.

If only we were a Christian nation. Oh, wait, we are. Ooops.

[eqfan592]

62. The root causes are poverty, poor education, inadequate mental healthcare, etc.

And licensing goes far beyond basic regulation (which we have) and does generate constitutional issues, like it or not.

[WowSeriously]

70. We do not have basic, uniform, regulation. And licensing is not an issue.

The Supremely Idiotics ruled that while states and municipalities can not outright ban gun ownership, they can reasonably regulate ownership.

As for poverty and education, you are mostly correct. But many, many gun deaths happen in very non-poor, reasonably educated house holds because of accident, or misuse. Licensing and training can decrease those occurances. And if we spent half our Death Budget on education and social improvements, we could address the areas you rightly identified.

[eqfan592]

73. I agree training should be a huge priority.

Would cut down greatly on the amount of accidental discharge related deaths. I've long been an advocate for free firearm safety courses being made available at all times of day throughout the week so as to accommodate people who work all different schedules.

You're for sure going to hit constitutional snags the minute you try to license a constitutional right. Imagine a license to exercise your freedom of speech? Speech is regulated to a degree as well (permits for many public plays to hold demonstrations, usage of public airways, defamation laws, and of course, the yelling of "fire" in a crowded theater without a fire being present), but none of that equates to a licensing requirement in order to even exercise it at all.

[WowSeriously]

75. I almost conceded the point about licensing a right.

But then I remembered permits for protesting and "free speech" zones. There is quite a bit of room to regulate the only amendment with the word regulate in its text

[eqfan592]

76. Actually, I covered those instances of speech regulation in my post.

And the amendment does not have the word "regulate" in it, but the phrase "well regulated" which equates to "well disciplined" or "in good working order," not legal regulations.

[WowSeriously]

79. Parse it any way you wish, it is in fact the only

Amendment with the word regulate in it. And a license to shoot can be a permit to shoot, like a permit to protest. And a free arm bearing zone can be a free speech zone.

[eqfan592]

80. And the vast majority of states that allow firearms to be carried in the public...

...require a license to do so.

[WowSeriously]

82. Not licenses akin to drivers licenses where you must demonstrate

Aptitude and continous renewal. Regulating gun ownership only requires the will to act.

Clearly most don't have the will to act.

[eqfan592]

83. Probably because most find a licensing requirement to be of limited value...

...yet extremely costly in terms of political capital. But I believe we're to the point of going around in circles on the subject.

I appreciate your generally positive attitude during our discussion. Not very common on this topic around here.

[WowSeriously]

88. I thought it was a nice exchange of ideas as well.

And this is a very sensitive subject. Until we debate again.

[HangOnKids]

48. You are here for honest serious discourse?

A DEMOCRACTIC PROGRESSIVE site that tolerates gun discussion, yet it is all YOU want to talk about. What a fucking joke.

[eqfan592]

50. huh? sorry, i really don't see your point. nt

[HangOnKids]

66. LOL

Press on.

[WowSeriously]

71. Not sure of your point, but I suspect you

Don't really care that will kill 10 times the number of 9/11 deaths, YEARLY, through good old American gun terrorism.

[HangOnKids]

72. Clearly you are NOT sure of my point

You might want to read the thread before commenting.

[WowSeriously]

74. Well, since you commented on my post

And all you could muster was an LOL and a Press On, I think it incumbent upon you to expand on your "thoughts".

[HangOnKids]

86. I did not comment on your post I was replying to another DUer

Maybe you should learn to follow the conversation a bit more closely.

[WowSeriously]

89. Wow. Seriously. You are extremely rude.

How disappointing.

[HangOnKids]

91. So sorry we can't be BFF's

I'll get over it.

[WowSeriously]

92. But I won't.

[ManiacJoe]

42. Unfortunately far too many politians (both sides) and their supporters

feel it is better to give lip service to a hard problem than either (1) to spend the time and effort to really solve the problem, or (2) to just admit they have no interest in solving the problem. Unfortunately, you just admitted to being one of these people.

[aikoaiko]

24. So a law that would have no relationship to the crime that occurred?

I think that's typical of bad gun law.

[WowSeriously]

81. As I said, some laws work in combination.

For example, if you need training before you can own a gun, maybe his training wouldn't have been completed and his state of mind would have changed. Regardless, training is good.

If you can't purchase guns until your 21, then 18 year olds don't do the killing.

But then you know that multiple laws are required for many things in society.

[bluestate10]

78. From the last report that I read, the kid bought the gun himself, he didn't steal it.

It makes sense to hold gun owners responsible if guns they buy are used in a crime. But a robust background check process and allowing access to certain mental health records would help. I am 100% behind background checks because I am convinced that a thorough background check would have resulted in the kid in Colorado not getting a gun, and just may have stopped him from seriously injuring an innocent teen.

[X_Digger]

84. The kid passed a background check, and had no mental health records in NICS. n/t

[thucythucy]

30. Maybe raising the legal age

of gun ownership to 21?

[aikoaiko]

36. maybe.

[bowens43]

55. Total ban on the sale and possession of weapons and ammunition

of course this should be nation wide, not just Colorado. The gun fetishists and death lovers need to be stopped.

[aikoaiko]

56. May you be the voice of all gun control efforts.

[hack89]

58. Thanks for your support. Please keep it up. nt

[Ranchemp.]

95. You're the gift that keeps on giving to the pro gun rights orgs.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. Indeed.

[WowSeriously]

11. Thank you

[Initech]

37. [phone]!!!!

Praying won't help for shit. Taking action against the evil assholes that run the National Rifle Association will. I'm tired of this bullshit. We don't need prayer. We need to hold the assholes in the NRA accountable and vote out their enablers.

[pintobean]

38. It's not about your needs.

A family in crisis is asking for help with their needs. I seriously doubt that they give a flying fuck about the NRA or gun laws right now.

[WowSeriously]

90. They probably don't now. But I bet they will in retrospect, which is always too late.

[pintobean]

93. I'll assume PWI here

[WowSeriously]

94. I don't know what PWI means

[WowSeriously]

41. That's what I'm talking about!

[blkmusclmachine]

3. Need REAL action, not just silent well-wishes.

[Packerowner740]

8. I don't pray but will keep her in my thoughts

[malaise]

20. They should pray that they do not recall their representatives who support gun control n/t

[WowSeriously]

22. No need to worry.

Coloradan pols have learned their lesson.
They will take no action and they will garner the support of a good number of posters on this thread.

Yes We Can't!

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. What she directly needs are the confident hands of good and capable

Trauma neuro surgeons, nursing staff, therapists and other allied professions. Indirectly, for her fellow citizens not to recall pols who pass the necessary laws to help put a stop to this.

[pintobean]

28. My heart goes out to this girl and her family.

I'm sure the girl is getting the best medical care possible. The parents are obviously faithful people and are asking other faithful people for their prayers. There is little else they can do right now.
I'm not a praying person, so the best I can do is hope for a full recovery and for the family to be able to cope with the situation.

[spanone]

31. a clarion call to gun humpers.....

[Tuesday Afternoon]

33. close -

REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

This is a hell of a thing to say about the family of a shooting victim. They have made no political statements. This family is just trying to deal with this tragedy. Is this what we want to see on DU?

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Dec 15, 2013, 01:22 PM, and the Jury voted 3-3 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: I didn't read it the same way as alerter.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT and said: Although the alerter seems to be way off base on what this post meant, I still think that the use of "gun humpers" as a term for pro-gun advocates is out of line.
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT and said: words like humpers are sexist and derogatory and flamebait. go away ugly little post. offensive and you know it, spanone.

[spanone]

34. better luck next time

[Tuesday Afternoon]

35. I don't alert. Don't care what you post. Just showing the results is all.

[Lizzie Poppet]

43. Next time?

So you're saying you're going to post something douchey and deliberately inflammatory in another sympathy thread in the future?

Good to know the sort of person we're dealing with...so thanks for that, I guess...

[LionsTigersRedWings]

54. I think the next time meant in trying to get the thread closed after being alerted?

Just my take.

[Lizzie Poppet]

61. Once a thread is alerted on and survives, no more alerts.

That's why I assumed they meant they'd post that shit again...

[LionsTigersRedWings]

63. Ohh I understand.

I thought they were ready to do it to the next thread that popped up..

[LittleBlue]

32. I pray she survives

Unfortunately, when the family says they need prayers, the outcome isn't usually good.

[HarveyDarkey]

47. Not to change the subject, but...

She needs expert medical care. Prayers don't do shit.
My sympathies to the family, but they need doctors, nurses, equipment. medicine and science, not prayers.

[pintobean]

52. She's getting both.

Prayer will help family, friends, and well wishers, who are faithful, cope with the situation. It can be very therapeutic. Many medical experts recommend it.

[SoCalDem]

64. and luck n/t

[MisterP]

69. the article already notes she's in a hospital, where presumably they have doctors and nurses

[Demo_Chris]

49. She needs science and medicine. nt

[wercal]

59. This has turned out to be one of the ugliest threads I have ever seen

[sarisataka]

65. There is a grieving family with a seriously injured child...

and they would like support, at least I think that is what the OP was about. Hard to tell not many posts address that...

Hoping Claire pulls through and fully recovers

[Vashta Nerada]

67. Science and medicine will do more for her than prayers.

[pintobean]

68. And, prayer will do more for her

family than comments like yours.