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In Parkland News

Army Awards Medal For Heroism To 3 JROTC Cadets Killed In Florida Shooting

Peter Wang, a 15-year-old member of the Junior ROTC who was killed as he tried to help fellow students escape a mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., last week, has been posthumously admitted to the U.S. Military Academy.

Peter and two other freshman cadets, Martin Duque and Alaina Petty, both 14, were also awarded the Medal of Heroism — the highest medal given to Junior Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets.

15-year-old student shot 5 times protecting Parkland classmates from gunfire

PARKLAND, Fla. – A 15-year-old student who was shot five times during last week’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is credited with saving the lives of at least 20 other students.

A fundraising site said Anthony Borges was shot in both legs and his back while attempting to close and lock a classroom door last Wednesday. Seventeen people were killed.

Donald Trump hosts White House ‘listening session’, says arming teachers could prevent school massacres. Fortunately Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel has a better idea: deputies will now carry AR-15 rifles on school grounds.

As for the power of guns to stop massacres: Florida school officer waited outside building for 4 minutes as killings happened, sheriff says

A Marjory Stoneman Douglas school resource officer has been suspended without pay after Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said video shows him taking up a defensive position during the shooting but never entering the school.

Israel announced Thursday that the decision to suspend Deputy Scot Peterson was made after reviewing video from the shooting and taking statements from witnesses and Peterson himself, Israel said.

“He should have went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer,” Israel said.

Peterson was armed and on campus during the shooting Israel said. Since he met the requirements for retirement, Peterson opted to resign after he was told he was being suspended, Israel said.

Having a gun doesn’t bestow magical powers and is no guarantee of safety.

4 comments

1 Badtux { 02.23.18 at 5:29 pm }

Having a gun in the presence of a school shooter automatically makes you the first target of that shooter. All that arming teachers will accomplish is to make the teachers be the first target of the school shooter. We already expect teachers to be social workers, child psychologists, wipers of tears, and bolsterer of fragile self-images in addition to their job of, well, teaching, all without giving them any more pay for undertaking those tasks. Are we going to expect them to be bullet targets and killers for no more pay too?

I dunno about you, but if people are shooting at me, I want combat pay!

2 Bryan { 02.23.18 at 9:40 pm }

I want combat pay, paid range time , full liability insurance, a million dollar life insurance policy, ballistic body armor, a weapon of my choice with laser sighting, a minimum 100 rounds a month for practice, duty ammunition of my choice. Then we can talk about whether I will take the position.

I’ll post a link to a 7th grade English teacher in Panama City who pulled a tour in the Marines before getting her teaching credentials. She made two important points: as a Marine she trained full-time for combat and she knew her chain of commend had her back. As a teacher she doesn’t have the time to do the necessary training and only a fool would trust the Florida legislature and/or governor to have their back.

Trump is talking about arming 20% of teachers – that works out to 640K, bigger than the regular military. It’s insane.

3 Kryten42 { 02.26.18 at 3:59 pm }

Yeah… But the NRA wants to sell 640,000 more guns for their investor’s obviously! Duh!

Me, I’d want my trusty old IWS-2000 AMR! Though… Not practical at close range… less than 100 meters. 😉 😀 But put me a few blocks away on high ground & I’ll take off the suckers head!

At close range, I’d prefer either the HK P7M13 (13 round mag) that my unit was issued to field test. Was very nice, compact, accurate & good penetration power. But the Army abandoned the trial & stuck with the Browning Hi-Power & chose the modded Glock 17A (which was also an accurate & rapid fire weapon with a 17-round mag. Had enough energy to penetrate light-medium body armor.) The 17A would be my 2nd choice.

The problem with shooting a target armed with a semi-auto, especially with a SlideFire stock (pseudo full auto fire) is that if his finger is on the trigger & safety off, muscle reflex will cause the weapon to fire as the target falls. Very dangerous. Only safe shot is the *peach* (as we call it). The Medulla Oblongata @ the base of the brain, about the size of a peach. Destroying it causes the cessation of all nerve & muscle impulses. We trained for that mainly for use in hostage situations, even with a knife (especially throwing knife or spike from behind, for a quick & silent target elimination).

Arming teachers is stupid for so many reasons!! Only complete idiots would even consider it! So yeah… The GOP & Dotard definitely would!

4 Bryan { 02.26.18 at 9:01 pm }

There aren’t a spare half million handguns available and if you get a half million people trying to qualify, the ammo isn’t available. People don’t understand the scale involved; they don’t understand the costs; they don’t understand the implications of something like this. Start with who pays for the liability insurance for the teachers, the local school boards can’t afford it if they could find an insurance company to write the policy.

This is ignorance on display.