Oregon chool shooting (courtesy clickondetroit.com)

“A 15-year-old gunman at an Oregon high school had an assault rifle, handgun and several magazines of ammunition hidden in a guitar case and duffel bag when he rode a school bus to the campus,” the AP reports. “The attacker, identified as Jared Michael Padgett, a freshman at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, entered a boys locker room on Tuesday at the gymnasium, where he ‘murdered a fellow student’ [14-year-old Emilio Hoffman] police Chief Scott Anderson said. He also wounded a teacher, who managed to make his way to an office and alert officials . . . The shooter later encountered [armed] officers in a hallway. After a brief exchange of gunfire, he fled into a restroom and was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.” We now know how Padgett got his guns . . .

“The shooter obtained the weapons from his family home,” Anderson said. “The weapons had been secured, but he defeated the security measures.”

As in the Newtown spree killing, a murderous teen obtained weapons from his parents – despite “security measures.” Now there’s a discussion we should be having: why did Padgett’s parents keep firearms in their house IF they knew he was mentally ill? Should parents of troubled children remove firearms from the family home – at least until mental health issues are resolved? As they say, we report, you decided. Meanwhile . . .
Oregon Live, reports that Chief Anderson said two on-site armed school resource officers (SROs) prevented further carnage. “I believe their quick response saved many of our students’ lives . . . At least one of the officers fired shots.” After which Jared Michael Padgett shot himself and ended the incident.

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158 COMMENTS

  1. Once again, armed good guys stopped the school shooting before it could become a mass shooting. Gun laws didn’t hinder the shooting, but armed officers did.

    • Local armed response saves lives. Again. It should be public policy to absolutely destroy the people who commit these acts. Posts their porn history, every embarrassing thing they’ve done. Let these psychos know you will not be turned into some stupid icon, you will be shown as a crying neet, using your tears as lube while watching golden girls on youtube.

      More than anything, its the main stream medias fault for glorifying these psychos.

      • I have to wholeheartedly agree with your last line.

        News folks should call these scumbags by a year and number, and never show a photo or disseminate any writings. Ever.

        • “The shooter posted this manifesto on facebook. I am now proceeding to wipe my *** with this drivel.”

      • You mean I don’t have to wait for Golden Girls reruns on TV Land or Lifetime!?

        This changes everything.

      • My knee jerk reaction is to think “that goes too far”.
        I agree with not making them into icons of course, any logical person agrees with that.
        At first the drudge up everything and show it to the world approach made me think of privacy violations…. and how it’s a slippery slope….

        Though with more thought I realize… this is a trade I’d be more than willing to make. We already have no privacy. It’s all going through NSA databases anyhow. Why not expose these little freaks?

        Make them month or year long targets of shame and ridicule, drop the entire pretext of neutrality.
        “We are now receiving reports that he liked to dress up like elmo, and sniff his own farts” ect.

        Make mass shooters a complete mockery. Use anything true you can to defame and smear their name. I would honestly rather we just never mentioned their names at all, and never showed any pictures, and suppressed any and all information about them…. but that will NEVER happen.

        Even TTAG lends a hand to making these sick people icons from time to time.
        So, since we can NEVER have a situation where we don’t parade the name and image of the shooter freaks… let’s take your advice, and make them national laughing stock in perpetuity.

        • “We already have no privacy. It’s all going through NSA databases anyhow. Why not expose these little freaks?”

          Because “we” are supposed to be holding the moral high ground. Don’t turn yourself into our enemy by adopting their thuggish ways.

      • Good point. In Karina’s world (the author of a previous post today) it would have been far better to let the attacker kill as many children as he could while someone devised a non-lethal method to subdue the attacker.

        • Yeah… some of the folks posting here are definitely not friend material in my eyes.

          I love how some of the folks here bashing people for their religious views that include “taking a life = bad” will /FREAK OUT/ about other topics and take 100% illogical, emotionally driven, religion fueled stances on other topics.

          It’s the cognitive dissonance in the conservative crowd.

          I pointed out a few days ago in a post I made that some of the same people who chastise Moms Demanding Action for their rally cry of “FOR THE CHILDREN!” use the exact same cry and exact same wording sometimes when it comes to abortion.

          ::Shrug:: Let’s call a spade a spade.

        • @ Bear I don’t know about you, but I don’t come to the threads to make friends.

        • We shouldn’t be enemies, though.

          We are all here (most of us) because we believe in the 2nd amendment.

          A house divided will fall.

          • “A house divided will fall.”
            Correction:
            “A house divided against itself will fall.” – Mark 3:25
            Just dividing isn’t a problem in itself – you’ve got a kitchen, a living room, bedrooms, bathrooms, all separate, all equal, and totally peaceful as long as the kitchen and bathroom aren’t making war on each other. 😀

    • I’m holding the StateRunMedia, MDA, VPC, Brady and the rest of the gun-grabbers partly responsible for this and future school shootings, for obscuring the obvious- its about getting help to families with disturbed kids,

      instead of glamorizing the shooter with excessive PR, all the way to POTUS level, in pursuit of their agenda, restricting gun ownership by law abiding citizens,

      and creating gun-free zones putting school kids at the most risk of all.

      Blood dancers, all of them. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

  2. Hmmm so he got shot at and just quit.
    Soo a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun.

      • Predictably national news chains are simply saying he was confronted by “officers” so not a whole lot that will do

      • Yes, yes! We must get this news to Ms. Watts ASAP because this is obviously the first time ever in the history of the world that a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun, at least according to her. I wonder if she has figured out yet, just how bad her comment was?

    • Another manipulated shooter event. You had better realize these events are created by our enemies. Almost every time.

      By most assessments, this is the FOURTH Batman-related shooter event in about 4 years.

  3. One should have undefeatable security, such as a combination lock on the safe. A real safe, not an $80.00 K-mart special, if any family member is a potential danger to himself or others.

    • Most safes cannot stop a determined attacker with unlimited time. For all we know the kid has been practicing cracking this safe for months.

        • A real safe and some sort of sensor that sends the owner a text message when it detects that it is being tampered with might have helped here. I know the Gun Box safe has that as an available feature. I’d like to see it more widely available.

        • A “real” GSA-certified safe will resist a determined attacker for 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Think about that.

        • The average person does not have unlimited income to spend on remote warning systems and hardened safes. You’re looking at a minimum of 2 grand for a 14 gun safe with those features.

      • Safes are rated by the time it takes to crack them. Most of the ones we can buy are measured in minutes.

      • No, but with a good safe, mom and/or dad might have noticed something amiss.

        Without any additional facts (which may not be known for a long time), do we have parents like the Klebolds and the Harrises, who were perennially “HUA” about their sons’ activities and propensity for violence? Padgett’s parents certainly knew about his mental illness.

        In the end, you have a determined kid with a gun, stopped by a determined SRO with a gun, even if it was a secondary event. Even further, you have a mental health system with flaws.

        • I may interject not every mentally ill person is a danger to society. As a person with mentally ill friends and family it is not automatically you have to worry they will break into your safe and steal your guns. It really is what this kid suffered from that makes him a danger not that he was mentally flawed.

        • William Burke says:
          June 11, 2014 at 15:42

          Do you mean a parent who is an FBI bigwig?

          William. Could you explain WHO’s an FBI bigwig?

      • Most kids do not have the tools and knowledge security experts do. If it’s a safe with a key, it’s probably easy to pick. A combination… much more difficult.

        • Any combination lock is easily defeatable given enough time. The more numbers in the combination and the more numbers on the dial (or each dial) increases the time needed. But all combination locks have a finite number of combinations.

        • Bro, Welcome to the age of the Internet, at the age of 15 I’m sure he had the motoavtion and the tools to handle cracking a safe.

      • I hope it was this… that at least puts it pretty much out of their control if the kid was that determined. I have one of those “security” cabinets but my children are toddlers. I am saving my money so that by the time #1 is old enough I will have a real safe. I will only have the combination written down long enough to memorize it and then all physical records will be destroyed. If I forget or lose my mind or die a locksmith can drill the thing open. Otherwise, nobody other than me gets in and out. I know that isn’t 100% fool proof, but its about as much as you can do without burying them in a hardened concrete sarcophagus.

    • At this kid’s age, I knew at least five guys who could pick a padlock. That I knew of.

      • Yeah, and now with the internet its even easier to find the information. You don’t have to order ‘The Anarchist Cookbook’ or the ‘Big Brother Game Book’ from Palladin Press.

    • There is no such thing. Period, thanks for playing.

      Security measures can only force someone who wants to defeat them spend time. A kid who has access to a safe with lots of unsupervised time will, sooner or later, learn how to defeat the lock.

      • I learned how to pick Master combination locks when I was in Junior High. The skill came in handy when I forgot the combination of a lock that I hadn’t used for a while, which happened a couple of times.

        Interestingly, I probably couldn’t do it now. Young fingers are much more adept than old ones.

        • Fingers, or ears? I thought hearing the faint sounds of the mech. were how padlock pickers did it…

        • Yeah, mine are pretty much garbage. I made complex keyfobs and potholders, and sold them, when I was a kid.

          These days, I have to consult an app to tie a good knot. It may have been Acid; I can’t honestly say.

        • @Geoff PR, I did it by touch. There was a very tactile sensation, like a minute detente or stoppage, when I rotated the dial. And of course, with a 3-digit combo, you only need to figure out the first two. The third reveals itself when the lock opens.

          I wasn’t a safecracker, but Master combo locks were easy. And if you think key locks are hard, I stupidly locked myself out of my home last year and the locksmith picked the door lock in about 30 seconds.

    • Even brand-name “gun safes” are remarkably flimsy. They’re usually a few layers of thin sheet steel wrapped around drywall for fire-resistance. In addition to prying them open with crowbars, an axe or angle grinder can make quick work.

      Nearly all gun safes are UL listed as “residential security containers”, where they’re tested and rated to withstand one man with a hammer and crowbar for only 5 minutes.

      You might find https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhOjWHbD6M interesting, even though it was produced by a high-end safe manufacturer.

      • OR….. The kid found the key because the parents left it around OR they left the safe unlocked. Both are also very possible and would make defeating the security pretty easy.

        • Figured out? This is the 21st century!

          All he needed was a GoPro hidden near the safe, with a view of the combo lock.

          Doesn’t matter HOW physically secure the safe is, if there’s a way to get the combo. And given trusting human nature and technology, there’s ALWAYS a way.

    • Build a better mouse trap, get a smarter mouse. By all means secure your valuables but any lock, vault, security system or whatever can be defeated. Since they were in his own home he likely had a lot of time to consider and research how.

    • Or, in the case of most firearms, just disable the gun. It takes about 5 seconds to remove the bolt from an AR, perhaps a second or two longer to remove the firing pin from a Glock. Secure the firearms in the safe, put the other parts in a small, very secure, and hidden place.

  4. I don’t think they should be removed by law. But I think they should have ample “security measures” which clearly they did not in this case.

    Regardless, they will now pay the price. Their reputations are ruined and the civil suits will bankrupt them.

    • Yeah, let’s give the .GOV the means to define what is, and isn’t, secure enough for gun storage.

      That”ll only take a year or two to get politicized and totally out of hand.

      You want Chuck Schumer telling you what multi-thousand dollar safe and alarm system you need for your 10/22? ‘Casue he’ll be happy to work up some specs for you…

      • How about keeping them locked up unless there on your person or in the same room as you. Pretty sure that would work.

        • When pro-gunners argue against keeping their unused guns locked up, they sound like, well, “gun nuts.” There is no reason why we can’t keep our firearms locked up unless we are using/wearing them.

          Too expensive? Too slow to access firearms if Bubba breaks down the door?

          Bullshit. I make only 45K teaching your bratty kids and I can afford a $200 biometric strongbox that opens in an instant giving access to a loaded pistol. Other guns, which aren’t designated for home defense are locked in a cheap safe, which…I know, I know…any kid with a cutting torch or grinder can access (another bullshit argument).

          Quite a few pro-gunners need to grow the fuck up and realize that if we don’t find ways to help, our gun rights WILL be taken away after too many more high-profile mass shootings, especially when the perp and victims are kids. We should get out ahead of this – with the NRA – and write our own rational, effective safe-storage law before anti-gun pukes write it for us.

          • Yes, we totally need more laws. Tell me, in your mind, how would this law work? Would I have to submit to a home inspection by a government functionary to make sure the guns would be stored safely before I was allowed to purchase them, or would a receipt for a safe be sufficient? Would that inspection be required to be periodically updated? Would the law just be used for prosecution after the fact, if someone’s gun was stolen and it could be proven they didn’t have it secured, thus discouraging the reporting of thefts? So, how would it work?

            • Would it be OK to leave your loaded gun lying on a table at McDonalds while you go to the restroom Why should the government be able to sanction you for that behavior; doing so would be an infringement on your rights. RPGs are a class of arms and everyone has “a right to keep and bear arms.” It doesn’t say anything about restricting arms to firearms. Hell, there’s no reason why we can’t keep and bear nuclear weapons in our homes. The Second Amendment seems to guarantee it. But all reasonable, rational people know that this cannot be.

              All of our rights in the Bill of Rights come with conditions. We might not like to think that way, but it’s true. We have a right to worship as we please, but if our religion involves withholding life-saving medications from sick minors, then our religious liberty will be infringed. We have the right to free speech, but if we yell, “Fire!”, in a crowded theater, we will be arrested and held accountable for the injuries and deaths we cause.

              We cannot successfully defend a fundamentalist position, trying to read the Bill of Rights as if they were laws of physics. We should defend the Second Amendment, yes, but we also should be able to make some small sacrifices while preserving the right to keep and bear arms. Keeping your guns secured from authorized persons is not an undo sacrifice, and it doesn’t restrict anyone from keeping or bearing any kind of firearm he wants.

              • “Would it be OK to leave your loaded gun lying on a table”

                No, Shannon, it’s not OK to leave your gun unattended.

                Sheesh! Where do these people come from?

        • @Matt in Florida: You raise the right questions and those are questions that we need to be asking.

          I don’t think any of us would be open to home inspections. Your other ideas are more doable.

          Nothing is going to be perfect or foolproof, we know that, but gun owners should want other gun owners to safely store their guns. Everyone thinks that theiradolescent kid is stable, but let me tell you that I’ve worked with thousands of adolescents and I know that no adolescent is stable. They are unstable almost by definition. They can act irrationally without thinking of the consequences. I like them, but they’re batty as hell sometimes.

          Also, do we really want any more criminals to break into our homes and steal our guns when we’re not home? Sure, a good thief might be able to get into the safe, but most are dumb asses would would give up in short order. The fewer guns we have in the hands of criminals, the fewer gun-related crimes we all will be blamed for (and the less excuse politicians will have to try to take our guns).

          • I think you misunderstood my comment, so let me be clear. I completely disagree with you on the subject of safe storage laws. Do I think, as a rule, responsible gun owners should take appropriate steps to secure their firearms from those that shouldn’t have them? Sure. Do I think the method or manner of doing so should be mandated by law? Hell no.

            I think that the responsible storage of firearms in the home is no different than the responsible storage of narcotics or power tools in the home. Get back to me when they start mandating locks on medicine cabinets or tool chests.

            • I understand your point, Matt, but kids OD’ing on narcotics or cutting themselves with power tools aren’t the same things as a messed up kid shooting and murdering other kids, is it? Those other tragedies aren’t going to threaten our gun rights. Our gun rights (as we know them today) will not survive another massacre like at Sandy Hook. We need to realize that and try our best to prevent those kinds of horrors.

              In the case referenced in this article, as in Connecticut, and as in school shootings elsewhere, the young people took their relatives’ guns from the home. If those guns had been secured – locked up so that only the owners had access – then those tragedies might have been prevented.

              It would be nice if all gun owners had enough common sense to secure their arms without being told to do so, but clearly there are too many irresponsible gun owners who do not.

      • Matt, I know your questions were rhetorical and you don’t agree with me, but maybe we could find some common ground.

        What if we, gun-rights advocates, through the NRA or SAF or some independent non-profit, provided a non-governmental way to encourage people to think about secure storage?

        For example, couldn’t the NRA give away X number of guns as prizes each year to purchasers of new firearms who show proof of ownership of a safe-storage device?

        There wouldn’t be any coercion, you just don’t get to enter the sweepstakes if you don’t have the safe-storage certificate. People who aren’t sure about gun owners might hear about it and see that we really do give a damn, and are looking for ways to reduce shooting tragedies. It also would get some gun owners thinking about safe storage. Maybe it could help make the idea of safe-storage “cool.”

  5. “why did Padgett’s parents keep firearms in their house IF they knew he was mentally ill?”

    because they have the right to self-defense of themselves and their mentally disturbed child and went to the extra step of locking the firearms up?

    Didn’t we already have that discussion with Sandy Hook? If there was no firearms in the house, he would have acquired them elsewhere once he had his mind set on murder.

    • Exactly. The two attackers in Las Vegas this week demonstrated how easy it is to relieve a police officer of his/her firearm. And no, you don’t need a handgun to shoot a police officer in the head to instantly incapacitate them. Plenty of other inconspicuous AND SILENT objects can easily achieve the same goal.

      Of course we must also remember how cheap and easy it is to make a single shot zip gun with a few parts available at any good hardware store. A determined spree killer could easily make a zip gun and use that to execute just about any person who possessed a better firearm … and then use that better firearm to repeat the previous process or conduct their attack.

      • Well, he did shoot up his school, so yeah, he was for sure mentally ill. But think I know what you mean, if he had a history of diagnosed mental illness and violent behavior is unknown.

      • I was only using the term from the blog post. I have no info as to the validity of his mental state.

  6. “The weapons had been secured, but he defeated the security measures.”

    If the measures were defeated, the guns were, by definition, not secure.

    • That’s a fun game to play. The anti’s do it all the time. There are no law-abiding citizens there are just law-breaking citizen who haven’t broken the law yet.

      • In which case the argument that they are all Nazis awaiting marching orders can be made. It’s fun to turn their agenda around on them and watch them squirm trying to make a double standard for inflammatory rhetoric like that.

        • Fun, but bounces right off them. They don’t even try to hold themselves to the standards to which they hold their opponents.

    • That sounds like blaming me, because someone broke into my house. There IS a standard of reasonableness and individual responsibility that needs to be laid at the feet of the perpetrator.

    • “If the measures were defeated, the guns were, by definition, not secure.”

      Yeah, let’s give the .GOV the means to define what is, and isn’t, secure enough for gun storage.

      That”ll only take a year or two to get politicized and totally out of hand.

      You want Chuck Schumer telling you what multi-thousand dollar safe and alarm system you need for your 10/22? He’ll be happy to work up some specs for you…

    • I’m as anti gun as you are. Sloppy security is no security and in this case (Sandy Hook as well) we all pay for it. I’m saying declaring something secure means no one else can get at “it”. We can take responsibility ourselves of give the bloombergs of the world valid points to regulate ancillary areas of gun ownership. And please, I prefer being called a Father-Fer to being thought of as anti gun.

      “Secure all of your guns not under your supervision”
      could be a usable 5th golden rule.

  7. Good guys with guns stopped a bad guy with a gun?

    Wayne LaPierre and the NRA were right.

    • You’re right. This is exactly what the NRA said should be done. And where it has been implemented, there has been success in stopping these losers.

      • Didn’t stop them from taking guns to school and start shooting, did it? On the other hand, they might not have known about the armed guys. Crucial details – always missing from these stories.

  8. It’s a personal choice, but when the risk of having a firearm in the home outweighed the benefit, I did not have guns in the home.

    If someone in my house was diagnosed with mental illness, I would probably remand custody of my firearms to a family member who resides elsewhere.

    “Security measures” can always be defeated by someone who is determined enough.

    • This is the way I feel, too. Of course, if the kid can’t be trusted around guns….

      If it’s come to the point of restricting their environment for the safety of them and others, it’s probably time to have them spend some time in a facility set up to deal with troubled individuals.

  9. Why is TTAG promoting the shooter’s story and detailing his armament? All this does is encourage other psychos.

    • I don’t think it’s the mere transmission of the details but rather the sensational way they are covered that contribute to this.

  10. So, to be clear a bad guy with a gun was ultimately thwarted by good guys with guns. Does that about sum this up? Imagine if that school official had been armed perhaps he could have stopped the little bastard sooner.

    And what exactly is an assault rifle?

  11. An assault RIFLE? Wow, I guess his family had a class 3 weapons license then huh?

  12. He just wants his 15 mins of fame. We (the TTAG crowd) always reprimand the media for turning them into a celebrity, the same is true here. I propose we call him and people like him “the (location here) killer/murderer” I realize this was done in the title, but please do the same in the article. What do you say, RF?

    • It’s not fame they seek, it’s revenge for some real or imagined wrong.

      Read the Santa Barbara shooter’s mad ramblings. He didn’t attack one chosen target at Halloween because “There would be too many cops walking around during an event like Halloween, and cops are the only ones who could hinder my plans.”

      They don’t kill for headlines. They kill for blood.

  13. Do we know for certain that his family knew he was mentally ill with the capacity for murder? It’s not really fair to declare that without any proof otherwise.

  14. I must have missed the part of the article that said the parents, or anybody, knew the kids was unwell…

  15. Another guy, 21, went to the school with a gat to possibly protect his little sister.

    During the pat down of everybody, it was discovered and he was arrested. (No permit).
    The DA said they will press charges.

    Oops

  16. There are a few things that strike me about all this. For one, it’s not about guns. It’s high profile reporting, and easy availability of weapons. When I say easy availability, I don’t mean that someone can buy one out of a trunk of a car in the parking lot at a gun show. Don’t try to feed me a spoon full of dirt because I know what it looks like. Background checks are not going fix the problem. Banning the Super Blaster Black Tactical 15/14 Rifle and Hi Cap magazines are not going to fix the problem. Good guys with guns and armed security, LIKE OBAMA HAS, and locking up these god damn guns in a SECURE safe so that these stupid kids can’t get them is the answer.
    What is so hard about that. Get a safe that can’t be picked by some kid with his moms fingernail file, make sure they don’t have a key or know that the combination is written down in that secret spot that isn’t so secret and lock these firearms up for gods sake!
    This high profile reporting has got to stop. Disturbed kids think it’s cool, just like they thought fast and the furious was cool. God, I had some douche bag kid walk up to me at a gas station as I was fueling up my MR2 and he said, “I could be a street racer, I can shift fast and double clutch”
    I about threw up. I ask him where his car was and he said he wrecked it.
    My point is these stupid brainless kids are stupid and impressionable. Lock those guns up!!!!!
    Spend the money, save a life.

    • The invention of the internet has turned local incidents into national news. Twenty five years ago nobody would have heard about this incident outside of the Pacific Northwest. Now every 7-11 holdup gone bad in rural North Dakota is national news. This has the effect of making people think that there is an “epidemic of gun violence” or child abductions. It also gives ideas to potential copycats. We can’t control this within the context of the Bill of Rights.

      • Its social media, its Internet news sites, blogs and general interest sites. Its the MSM and 24/7 cable news.

        All of these things make it seem like it is happening every day when it is not and the MSM feeds on this.

        Remember the so called “knock out game” or the drug “ICE” — all supposed epidemics and moral panics of crises all found to be isolated incidents — back in the 70’s a single white man rapped an American Indian women and the feminists at the time said it was epidemic and blamed the role of porn and that it was happening all over the country. The media went into a buzz, the news, TV, radio, the newspapers — the sky was falling. After all the investigation, it was one single isolated incident.

        The media can falsely sway public opinion and perceptions and does so all the time only in today’s world with constant bombardment of information 24/7 right to our phones, it just makes things worse.

      • This is true. My wife has the impression that incidents like this “just didn’t happen” in the past, and that “gun violence” is increasing. I told her that this was a function of media exposure, and that in fact the FBI says that violent crime is not only falling, it is at a 50 year low. She finds this hard to believe–because of media.

  17. Sorry if someone already said this, but for once I didn’t read all the comments first. That said:

    Ban guitar cases! You band geeks can find another way to get your archtops to class and back!

    • Slippery slope.

      Next thing you know, they’re banning Cello and Viola cases. Then the Mandolin.

      “When they came for the Banjo cases, I didn’t speak up…”

  18. The story is going to disappear quietly and promptly – “only” one victim dead and armed intervention stopped it quickly, so it does not serve much political purpose for the antis. They never miss a chance to twist things, though, so watch out for:

    1) Assault Weapons Ban – after all, he had an “assault rifle” with several mags able to carry “several hundred rounds” per the sheriff (I gotta get me some of those 100-round-mags, apparently). Not a chance before the midterm elections but watch for movement right afterward if not at a federal level then in vulnerable states. Mag limits and registration, anyone?

    2) Thank goodness the police were there. “Good guys with guns” didn’t stop him, police officers did, the only people in our society with the training and expertise to use firearms (so say the antis). When they see “good guys with guns” they think “untrained gun nuts who will kill everyone in crossfire.”

    See – lockdowns work! Just hide with the lights off and the police will save you.

    So many folks dump all over the NRA and it’s “culture of gun worship and death” but if you actually read the NRA school safety study it’s a multi-point plan that is really quite good. Better physical security, armed presence on campus, regular meetings of staff/teachers/mental health specialists to talk about at-risk kids. But god forbid anyone actually spend money on something that might work when a “gun free zone” sign is cheap and a lockdown rehearsal is free.

    On the OregonLive web page if you hunt around a bit you’ll find audio of the police radio traffic. They sound like they responded about as quickly as they could and made plans for entry very quickly, wanting officers with ARs in the building ASAP. But even with fast response, patrol rifles in the cars, recent inter-agency “active shooter” practice, they still didn’t make entry until about 5 or 6 minutes after the first calls went out. Damn fast in lots of ways, but if this person had been truly focused on death and destruction, how many kids could he have killed in 5 minutes?

    Like we say, when seconds count…

    Good job by the resource officers to have an armed response quickly.

  19. I lived in a home with a teenage girl who was unstable and there were guns in the house. Her mom and I did our best to keep them secured, but no system is perfect.

    Why did we keep guns in the house? Because the girl’s friends were even more unstable and way more dangerous then her and, frankly, I was more worried about her friends than I was about her.

  20. What security measures were put into place at home? A gun lock prevents small children from having accidents, not older children from getting access. A $600 safe (the price of a polymer framed pistol) ensures that no one without a blowtorch and/safe breaking knowledge is getting these firearms. If the parents knew the kid had problems, it is 100% up to them to REALLY secure their firearms or remove them. These people make us all look bad, my kids aren’t old enough to be able to even accidentally discharge a firearm but mine are all locked in safes anyway (I also worry about thieves getting access).

    • These people make us all look bad

      No, they don’t.

      Do thieves and murderers make gun owners look bad? No? Then don’t place responsibility on “us” for what the parents may or may not have done.

    • If you aren’t already aware, 95-99% of hacking is social engineering. It’s manipulating people into giving you their secrets, it’s looking over someone’s shoulder when they write something down, it’s getting them to let you into something you shouldn’t be in.

      This kid could have “hacked” a premium gun safe exactly this way. Dad is going to the safe? Make sure you’re there to look over his shoulder. Even if you don’t see the whole combination in one go, if you can do it a few times, you can piece it together. If you only manage to get a partial, it still greatly reduces the number of testing you’ll need to do.

      Most times these guys have all the time in the world, so if it takes a while to crack the safe, they’re just fine spending it. As far as they’re concerned, weapons procurement is a checklist item to tackle, and they’ll just keep plugging away until it’s checked off. Then it’s on to the next thing.

  21. Good gun and ammunition storage likely could have prevented at least a couple of these shootings. Yes, any security measure can be defeated, but that’s not any reason not to use security measures. Just because security measures fail sometimes, doesn’t mean they fail every time.

    • Correct. But what bothers me is that we’ve already “convicted” the parents for being negligent. Unfortunately, we will never know the truth. As if the truth actually matters.

  22. Oregonlive.com says that he came from a family with military ties, he was in junior ROTC and instead of once a week would sometimes where his ROTC uniform every day, enjoyed first person shooter video games (so do I, nothing to see here…)

    “He seemed normal, but you had to be careful what you talked about with him, you had to be respectful,” Guzman said. “He just kind of seemed like he had strict parents. He had to keep decent grades. It seemed like he felt out of place or awkward about certain topics, like partying or like girls.”

    more to come but sounds like just a different flavor of a recurring theme…

    • Couldn’t possibly be that our educational system is pushing kids to the breaking point . . . nah, what could possibly be wrong with pumping them full of nasty food with no nutritional value, forcing them to get up at stupid hours in the morning, giving them no physical outlets through recesses, and 6 hours of repetitive useless homework every night? That and stick them in front of a teacher who doesn’t care, a principle who’s just there to feel big, and a state educational board that’s really just there to make sure McGraw-Hill gets their pound of flesh. Oh, and if they act out in any way they are suspended, expelled, or otherwise have their lives ruined by some know-nothing administrator. Nah, the system’s fine …

  23. “Security measures” – as in a solid, fireproof safe with a combination lock? a $200 Stack On gun cabinet, or a cable lock?

    • Honestly, it could have been a $10k Fort Knox safe, and the kid could have defeated the security measure just by entering birthdays until the lock went click.

      • Sad but true. People will pick some number that they can otherwise remember.

        Can’t remember numbers for $#!+? Then pick a six (or more) letter *word* from the dictionary; turn it into a combination using a phone keypad. Memorize the word. DON’T use a word others will know has significance (e.g., I should not use “Steven” or “Stephen”). You probably always have a phone with you. If not you can tape a diagram of a keypad on the safe. Open the safe often enough and you will probably memorize the combo anyway.

        There are variations on this of course to make it less likely the letters will be guessed. Be creative.

        The one weakness of this is that the digit 1 won’t ever show up in a combo, but it beats the ever-loving feces out of using birthdays!

  24. “Should parents of troubled children remove firearms from the family home – at least until mental health issues are resolved?”

    If your child is that dangerous, you should commit your child to a mental health hospital. Let’s say you remove firearms from your home. Are you also going to remove knives, bats, pillows, rope, chemical cleaners, gasoline, matches, and everything else that people have used to kill someone? Oh, and make sure you remove your money, too, because your child could steal your money and use it to purchase items for murder.

    • A family I knew growing up had a sick kid who when unbeknownst to the parents stopped taking his meds tried to poison the family by tainting dinner on the stove. They all ended up in the hospital. Even the would-be poisoner.
      I don’t know how the parents of such children do it. Even in the best case scenario of a solid diagnosis and successful treatment program there is still no certainty the patient will stay the course. Total gestapo supervision still can’t guarantee compliance.
      It must feel like living with a stranger in your home 24/7 that you have parental unconditional love for.

      • Pretty much. The ill person is usually convinced that they’re just fine. It’s part of the illness.

  26. W.T.F.O! What’s up with all the maniacs? Why have all the mental pygmies gotten it in their head to start killing people? Zombies are real! Jeez.

  27. Ah there’s the knee jerk “musta been crazy” finger pointing. Can we move past that? Shit, as they say, happens. People do evil. Doesn’t mean he was crazy.

  28. + 1 Matt…heck I had a Keltec sub2000 you could easily fit in a laptop computer case. BTW didn’t we have this conversation a year and a half ago. Did anyone determine if this young psycho was targeting the kid he murdered?

  29. I guess the liberal media can just re-define words to fit their message now huh? Assault Rifle was always defined as ‘intermediate cartridge, SELECT FIRE”. I’m guessing no one in the family had a class 3 weapons license.

    I guess they are like their own little Ministry of Truth though now huh?

    I know…. we have always been at war with Eastasia. Right.

  30. THIS SORT OF THING HAS TO STOP. I believe people with mental issues need to be seriously monitored by the parents, who’s responsibility it is to keep these kids from harming others. Parents with mentally ill kids need to keep their guns HIGHLY SECURED or don’t keep guns in the home AT ALL. I blame the parents of these kids for the death of innocent children. Innocent kids blood is on the parents hands too. I seriously believe the parents of kids that have been killed need to start SUING the parents of KILLER KIDS who kill, SERIOUSLY. That will make these parents of mentally ill kids thing twice about WHAT THEY NEED TO DO MAKE SURE THESE KIDS DON’T GO ON SHOOTING SPREES. These parents of mentally ill kids need to turn detective and check out the kids computers, cell phones, and anything they might have in their rooms, where they go, who they are with etc. COME ON parents, get with it or more innocent blood will be on your hands too. Wake up!

    • How can you blame everybody except the little pr1cks who actually pull the triggers? Don’t they have any culpability?

      Some crazy woman who thought every womb was made of gold once told me that all kids are born perfect. No, they are not. Some kids should never be born at all.

    • On one level, you are correct: If parents KNOW that their little darling is dangerously mentally ill, all precautions should be taken, and woe to them if they don’t. On another level, though, you are very wrong: Many people who are mentally ill give ZERO indication that they might be dangerous to others, and most will never become so. Further, many people who are NOT seemingly mentally ill can manifest the illness suddenly, without real warning.

      I give you Charles Whitman of Texas as a named example. Mostly normal, certainly not homicidal, until his growing brain tumor sent him to the observation tower to kill. Sure, there were ‘signs’ that he was troubled, but NOT signs that he was going to be a mass murderer.

      I also give you every wackjob killer since the beginning of time whose neighbours always tell the first reporter that contacts them that “[Fill in the blank] was a GOOD boy, quiet and polite, always loved his mother and walked old ladies across the street.”

      They walk amongst us, just as do Progressives. That’s why I always dress as a homicidal maniac on Hallowe’en: It’s cheap and easy, because they look just like everyone else.

  31. I’ve got a really nice pistol safe at home. it’s made out of steel with a biometric lock and a double sided key if that lock doesn’t work… should both mechanisms ever fail, give me 20 minutes, a corded angle grinder with a hand full of wheels, a crowbar and some work gloves. I’ll have that sucker open.

    You simply are not going to deter someone determined enough to get something open.

    • More than likely you can get the thing to pop open by dropping it from a height of six inches in the right orientation.

  32. School shooting
    School Shooting
    School Shooting

    All we talk about is the shooting. When will we look at the other half–the school?

    In the hypothetical end state where no civilian has a gun, aren’t I still stuck with the proposition of putting my kid on a school bus and saying “Well Johnny, some of your classmates would murder you if they had a chance. But don’t worry, there are no firearms. Have a good day at school!”

    When can we ask: Why do some of our children want to kill each other?

    • We can’t. Doesn’t fit their meme. They don’t care about root causes. Guns are their obsession. Blame the gun. How many people died because of drunk driving that same day? Did they go wall to wall on each one of those incidents and blame the booze?

    • Hmm…
      Jared Laughner in Arizona
      Jared Miller in Las Vegas
      Jared Padgett in Oregon….

  35. “Now there’s a discussion we should be having: why did Padgett’s parents keep firearms in their house IF they knew he was mentally ill?”

    I haven’t seen any mention that his parents knew he was mentally ill or even that he WAS mentally ill? What is the source for this information? It is not in the linked-to AP article.

  36. Haven’t seen anything about mental illness thus far although it’s just a day old. Mormon family, junior ROTC, older brother in the Army, he had a fascination with firearms from a young age. I think this is a “but wait, there’s more” story coming up in the next few days.

  37. STAY OFF THE MENTAL HEALTH SLIPPERY SLOPE!

    It’s just another grabber tactic, and even more insidious, because once you open that Pandora’s box, you won’t even need to be a GunzNutz™ for them to come and take you away. “What? You don’t looooove Our Glorious Beloved Infallible Obamessiah? You’re feeble-minded and must be put away For Your Own Safety™!”

  38. besides the fact that the guns were in the house, why does your mentally unstable child know the combo to your safe. FFS!

  39. Remove firearms from the home? I don’t know about you, but if I knew the kid was a danger, I would remove HIM from the home and keep my guns.

  40. If they want to put up “Gun Free Zone” signs then they should be required to actually prevent “bad people” from bringing guns onto the premises… Otherwise those signs mean diddly-squat.

  41. I sure hope they pass a law requiring background checks and guns registrations, that would solve this problem, oh wait-never mind.

    Once again the shooter stops when the lead is incoming if only there were adults at the school that could be armed, oh wait

    Of course the media yells the shooters name to everyone giving him national recognition and then says that it doesn’t result in copy cats. Ask the name of the aurora shooter, ask the name of the columbine shooters, ask the name of Virginia tech shooter- I am guessing they will get 2 out of 3 or better. Then ask the name of a couple of their victims, dead silence. Let’s face it, it is much much easier to have a household name as the shooter than as a victim. And they wonder why they keep happening.

  42. This kid doesnt seem to meet the usual disturbed parameters at first glance.

    you safe guys:
    most safes are mainly for fire protection thats why the wall construction is sheet metal, sheetrock for fire resistance and then inner metal.

    While the door is usually fairly resistant,
    I suggest that you look at accessible side walls and think using a drill or die grinder to open a hole, then enlarge the hole with the die grinder and or metal saw.
    tear out sheetrock then defeat the inner metal.

    This takes time and if you have an alarms system to reduce that time its to the good.
    if the safe room is boobytrapped with a pepper spray system another plus, if its under video surveilance another plus

    but dont figure that a safe will resist a burglar with ordinary metal working tools and a lot of time.

  43. All teenagers are somewhat unstable, and some are very unstable. Too many parents will claim, “Not my son/daughter. My kid would never cheat. My kid would never bully. My kid would never steal. My kid would never use drugs. My kid would never take a gun to school…

    I think responsible pro-gun-rights people should encourage the use of safes, especially when there are children (and especially teenagers) in the house.

  44. The report states the weapons were “secured” but that the “security” was “defeated”.
    Not a lot to go on …… I don’t consider a gun locked in a closet “secure”. I don’t even
    consider a gun locked in a steel cupboard behind just a keyed lock very secure. Mentally
    ill/angry teenagers are not idiots and usually are very clever, they can find ways to defeat
    low level storage obstacles…..especially since they live in the house and have the luxury
    of time. Homes that contain both firearms and minor children simply MUST have the
    weapons stored in a SAFE that is security rated and uses a COMBINATION lock. If thus
    stored and the kid STILL has the time and opportunity to thwart the safe then the parents
    are leaving the kids unattended for FAR TOO LONG. When my wife became pregnant
    with our first many years ago LONG before she was born I bought a CANNON gun safe
    to keep my guns in…..and to this day my weapons ALL reside in a safe or ON MY BODY
    even though all the kids in my house are now old enough to buy their own guns…and have
    done so.

  45. @ Rich Grise, the incident has NOTHING to do with President Obama or gun grabbing. Maybe in your world pointless gun violence is okay, but the rest of us pro gun and anti guns are BOTH concerned with the issue of mental illness and its interface with mass public violence.

    Normal, healthy teens dont simply get mad and grab múltiple guns and go to school to cause mass casualties-something is wrong, and like Santa Barbara on back to Columbine, the killers are ANGRY, narcissistic, overindulged a-holes who COWARDLY MURDER innocents!

    There has to be some mental issue, even hardened street thugs don’t mass casualty kill everyday, and thats what makes these school shooters something to be concerned about.

    Your”oh well”, long as the govt doesn’t touch my guns attitude is pitiful-it weakens the standpoint of LAW ABIDING ,ARMED AND RESPECTFUL PRO GUNNERS…

    • @dubbs, what the fuck are you talking about here?

      “@ Rich Grise, the incident has NOTHING to do with President Obama or gun grabbing. Maybe in your world pointless gun violence is okay, “

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