“A 6-year-old boy wounded during a shooting at a South Carolina elementary school this week has died, his mother said Saturday,” cnn.com reports. “Jacob Hall was hit in a femoral artery and a massive blood loss led to a major brain injury. He died Saturday, Renae Hall wrote on Facebook.
“You are dead to me by God you are my angel and now as I lay here and Watch the Life leave your body it reminds me of how honored I was to have you in my life.”
Gun control advocates don’t seem to be all that interested in Jacob Hall’s death, at least for the moment.
That may be down to the fact that the SC murderer secured a firearm by shooting and killing his father and stealing his rifle. Which is a distinct echo of the Sandy Hook school slaughter, where the killer shot his mother to death before stealing her rifle.
Which didn’t stop proponents of civilian disarmament from exploiting the incident to promote their statist plans.
Perhaps it’s a question of scale. It’s hard for gun firearms freedom fence straddlers to imagine that a single “untrained” armed defender could stop a spree killer from murdering 26 people. It’s not hard to imagine a single armed teacher doing the same in an incident that claim “just” a single life.
The wounded teacher — who was shot while trying to protect Jacob and other children — was identified as Meghan Hollingsworth, who teaches first grade and has been at Townville Elementary for nine years.
Courageous as she was. Ms. Hollingsworth was unarmed. Jacob was shot and killed. Those dots aren’t necessarily connected. But any idea that a teacher shouldn’t be been able to keep and bear arms in her own defense and the defense of her students is beyond laughable. It’s thoroughly, inexcusably, reprehensible.
It sucks that the kid died.
However, it’s evidence that we not only need to reevaluate our firearms laws but we need more people to step up and take responsibility to for learning basic TCCC. Combat Gauze, properly applied, could have saved this poor kid.
I’m not going to bother looking for the images right now but I remember years ago seeing pictures of a “First Aid” station at a restaurant in Israel. On the wall there was a metal box with a big red cross on it which contained everything from bandaids to combat dressings. Next to the box was a hook with an M16 on it. Next to that a large fire extinguisher. Above all of this there was a 3-mag pouch you could sling over your shoulder.
That’s an emergency station. Fire, medical and return fire all in one place.
http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/field-medicine-for-terrorist-attacks
http://www.me.ngb.army.mil/units/rti/resources/IS0871_Edition_C_ALMS.pdf
Whether or not combat gauge could have save the young boy is anyone’s guess.
What I don’t have to guess about is that you will bleed-out in less than two minutes if someone severs your aorta or femoral arteries. There is a very good chance the outcome would be the same even if a trained person was standing next to the boy with gauze in hand.
I said it “could” have saved his life. I didn’t say that it “would” have.
It certainly couldn’t have hurt the situation.
It also depends enormously on what “hit the femoral artery” means. Clipping it is completely different from severing it. A small fragment hitting it is again different. Was it actually severed I highly suspect he would have died on the scene.
I am saddened to hear this. I cannot imagine losing one of my children.
I agree, we all need to be prepared for all types of emergencies. But I for one, am sick and tired of politicians dancing in the blood of victims of tragidies like this. We have become so de-sensitized as a nation. And that may be the greatest tragidy of all.
The solution isn’t in Washington. It’s in the homes of families all across America.
Mothers and Fathers reading this take note; the greatest investment you can make is in your children. Spend time with them. Let them know you care. Protect them and teach them to protect themselves and to stand up for those around them that cannot stand up for themselves.
“We have become so de-sensitized as a nation.”
I would have to disagree with you on that just a bit. All across the country people are slowly waking up. Look at all the CCW permits that have been issued in the past few years. It’s thought to be up to 12.8 million last year. That’s 4.08% of our overall population and rising every day. The trend for permit issuance is upward, meaning the number being issued is accelerating each year and that doesn’t look like it’s going to stop in the near future.
Then there’s the fact that TCCC medical classes even exist for civilians is another sign that there is a market for the knowledge to be prepared when SHTF. Ditto on training classes that seem to pop up so fasts it’s almost impossible to vet the instructors in real time. That’s a growing market right there.
It’s true that 70%-80% of the country don’t even know CPR but the numbers are getting better. I look at the Red Cross website and I see 80 classes that up coming up in my area. Everything from CPR to First Aid to how to handle an autoinjector Epipen or and AED device. Heck, even lifeguard classes that incorporate basic First Aid and CPR.
Things are actually getting better because the population, as a whole, is getting better prepared. Not every needs to have TCCC training and a big kit in their trunk but the fact that some people do and more people are getting into that sort of thing is encouraging. Just look at some of the top sellers on Amazon. Israeli Bandages, Combat Gauze and the popular styles of TQ are flying off the warehouse shelves so fast that many items are out of stock on a regular basis. My parents are old and they asked me to build them an IFAK for two to have in the car!
As for solutions, you’re absolutely right.
By desensitized, i do not mean unaware. just no longer caring about the people involved.
Sure, we have emptied ammo shelves, bought med kits, and even cleaned out gun stores in the last few years, but I know when I heard about this particular shooting my first thought was ‘how many is that this week so far?’ Not, ‘how tragic that another group of children are scarred for life’. That is what I mean by desensitized.
And in the short term, we must certainly be vigilant, alert, and ready to respond. But in the long term, my hope is the next generation rises above us, and does not sink to new lows. (Which will only happen if this generation invests in the next one.)
OK, but that’s normal human behavior that has nothing to do with current society.
When people in ancient Rome heard about the horrors of battle in the Punic Wars they didn’t much care about the individuals who died horribly unless they knew them or actually knew of them in a personal sense, like a friend of the family or a neighbor’s kid or something.
This is human nature. The further removed from us, even removed within “the group” a causality is the less we care unless we are specifically conditioned to do so. This makes total sense from an evolutionary point of view and is actually a good thing. If we truly felt for others the way some say we should we’d have a national day of grieving for every fatal car accident and be paralyzed by our feelings for others. We have to accept the fact that bad shit has happened and then move on and deal with it. We can’t treat every victim like it’s a family member who died or we’ll never get anything done.
The fact that people are gearing up on medical equipment and learning to use it tells you that they do feel a sense of empathy for people they don’t know but are not paralyzed by it.
GOD didn’t take him…an evil 14year old murderer did. There is literally nothing a gun grabber can say.But that won’t stop the leftards…my deepest sympathy.
The article says the teacher was wounded while trying to protect students. How was she trying to accomplish that? If it was by counterattacking the shooter, she did as well as she could under the circumstances. If not, it was an empty gesture.
You use the tools you have and which are right for the moment. I’m sure she used whatever tools she had to attempt to engage, distract, occupy, or otherwise bring the killer’s focus onto her and not the kids. It may or may not have been a counteroffensive, but whether a firefight, fire, or courtroom, I’ve learned there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.
How come everyone thinks its normal to have armed security for pawn shops, armored cars, casinos, malls, jewelry stores, crack dens, amusement parks, banks and gated communities but not a school? Who would not trade a bag full of money to have this kid back? So why do bags of money get better security than children?
I’ve never seen armed security at any of those places either.
You’ve never noticed that armored car personnel are armed?
Burt,
You are looking at it all wrong … this isn’t about what is “normal”. This is about the Progressive mindset. If Progressives admit that they need armed guards around their children, they are admitting that:
(1) evil exists
(2) government was not able to protect them
(3) guns really do stop bad people
They will gladly sacrifice as many children as it takes to suppress those facts.
When I first read what the wounds were in the beginning, and one boy was in critical, I sort of assumed the leg wound was a bleeder.
That’s so damn sad! Six years old and shot in school because of some shit-for-brains goof! I don’t care how incompetent that guy is, he should be lined up and shot. All these mall shooters, school shooters etc. should be tried, then immediately shot. You want to be a shooter, when we catch you and you’re convicted, you will be immediately executed. THAT should be the law.
So the murderer shot his father to get his rifle, implying he had a rifle to begin with… I wonder if his dad had any idea that it was unwise to supply a firearm to this 14 year old? I say that because in many posts here I’ve seen parents say “well, I know MY child is safe…” and I suspect this father did too. He paid for it with his life but then his ward made other people pay for it too.
Hannibal,
Anyone that we trust implicitly could turn on us and kill us at the drop of a hat … and they don’t need a firearm to do it with almost zero effort.
Sometimes bad things happen. There are no guarantees in life.
Did this child produce any warning signs at all? Who knows.
These institution-style defectives have no business being on our streets. If there’s common sense reform in the offing, it is to round up these maniacs who always leave a long, long trail of red flags. Or don’t. Eventually the leftists will win over enough people using these defectives as an excuse to take your guns.
The shooter was tackled by an unarmed volunteer firefighter on the playground. Guy has big brass balls, not to mention he has stayed completely out of the media. Imagine what the outcome may have been if either the teacher or the firefighter had been armed, perhaps this boy would still be alive today.
Was reported today the guy was armed just didn’t use it…just means the man had brass balls and brains.
Next time when they say, a good guy with a gun does not stop a bad guy with a gun, tell them,
the only things that stops a bad guy with a gun is a bunch of good guys with a bunch of guns. And it’s because of people like you that we do not have that. Expecting to win a one-on-one encounter when the attacker is inside of the defender’s OODA loop is a fantasy.
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