'Student' in Ohio school rampage

[celeritas]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7038532.stm

'Student' in Ohio school rampage

A 14-year-old student has shot himself dead after going on a shooting spree at his school in the US city of Cleveland, Ohio, the city's mayor has said.

Mayor Frank Jackson said five people were wounded when the teenager entered the SuccessTech Academy and walked down a corridor on the fourth floor firing.

Two teenage boys and two adults were shot while a teenage girl injured her knee while fleeing, Mr Jackson said.

Local media reported the attacker had been unhappy at having been suspended.

The SuccessTech Academy is a 250-student alternative high school that specialises in business and technology.

It is based on several floors of the Lakeside Avenue administration building in the city centre.

At a news conference, Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath said his force's initial investigation indicated that the 14-year-old boy had killed himself before police arrived and that he had at least two guns.

Mr McGrath said video surveillance would allow them to determine how long the gunman was in the school before the shooting, but the student is believed to have arrived early on Wednesday morning.

The main scene of the shooting on the 4th floor of the Lakeside Avenue building is still being processes by the city's coroner's office, he added.

Witnesses reported having seen the shooter roam through school corridors with a gun in each hand.

Ronnell Jackson, 15, told the Associated Press that he saw the attacker running down a hallway.

"He was aiming at me, I got out just in time," he said.

Some students and staff fled after hearing shots and an alert on the school public address system. Others attempted to hide in cupboards or under desks.

Afterwards, shaken students and worried relatives stood outside the building waiting for news.

One student told Philadelphia Channel 6 Action News that the student was a goth and had been wearing a trenchcoat, boots and a chain.

"When he got suspended, he said 'I got something for y'all'," she added.

Schools closed

Cleveland's mayor said those injured in the shooting included two teenage boys aged 14 and 17, who were both in a "stable, good condition".

A 57-year-old man and a 42-year-old man were hurt slightly more seriously and are in "a little elevated condition", Mayor Jackson said.

"The families of all of the victims have been notified, and we are currently connecting all the children and parents with people who can help them through this," he added.

The chief executive of the Cleveland Municipal School District, Eugene Sanders, announced that all the school's activities had been cancelled until Monday.

All public schools in Cleveland will be closed on Thursday, he said, so that students and teachers can "take a breather" and "put this in perspective".

Shock

Joanne DeMarco, president of the Cleveland Teachers' Union, said she was surprised at the shooting.

"Schools are supposed to be safe places, safe places. And you know, it's not that Cleveland's immune to anything that's going on in the nation, but SuccessTech would have been the last place we would have thought of," she said.

Responding to reports that a teenage student may have been responsible, a reader from Cleveland told the BBC News website that the school had been getting good results.

"It's a shame one kid has spoiled all that... and an even bigger shame that due to budget cuts the security the school needed wasn't in place," she said.

Several parents have complained in interviews with local media that the school had recently denied requests to hire a security guard.

The incident comes six months after the US suffered its worst ever campus shooting, when a gunman killed more than 30 students and staff at Virginia Tech.

What are everybody's thoughts are on gun control and the US second amendment rights?

[Aaron]

I think that the US second ammendment is used to excuse far to many things. They definetly need far more extensive screenings and training made manditory as well as manditory home security for weapons. They are far to permissive with their gun culture.

[Mikey]

I as one American who feels like he's in a very lopsided minority, have never owned, fired, or handled any kind of firearm, and I hope I never do. I even feel that hunting should be done with a Bowie knife at most - the animals don't have ranged weapons, now do they?

Unfortunately, the famous sentiments of Charlton Heston - "you can take my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers" - are not a fringe belief, but are somewhat mainstream.

I live in the most densely populated state in the union; you should hear the gasps and moans of horror when I tell people from the midwest that in New Jersey, you can't hunt with a rifle - shotgun only - or a crossbow. If people here are mortified that you can't use a weapon that has a HUGE capacity for collateral damage - a rifle, because of the dense population - what are the chances that stricter gun control is ever going to be passed?

And you're right about the second amendment. It refers to the "right to bear arms" in the sense of militia, or military irregulars. Remember, there was no standing army as such when the Constitution was drafted.

[Monroe]

I'm pro-gun rights myself. I like guns, I like shooting guns, few times I hunted were awesome and it fullfills a vital need in the ecosystem. They just need better security in schools. The on campus security officer should have been there in no time.

[DSG2k]

"It's a shame one kid has spoiled all that... and an even bigger shame that due to budget cuts the security the school needed wasn't in place," she said.

Several parents have complained in interviews with local media that the school had recently denied requests to hire a security guard.

Not to offer recriminations, but when faced with budget cuts the thing they ought not have neglected was security. I'm against budgets of schools being cut, and I certainly understand that if it happens one should attempt to maintain academic integrity, but ditching security altogether was clearly not the best choice, especially if no one else on campus can legally be armed.

Incidentally, any time there's a high-profile killing with a firearm like this, anti-gun folks will decry America's Second Amendment and the evil 'gun culture'. The problem with that is that in both the case of Virginia Tech and this kid, the guns were illegally possessed by killers who were free to rampage in gun-free areas. Making more gun-free areas, even big ones, will not help. (And even if it reduces gun crime, murderous savages will only result to other means . . . hence knife ban talk in the UK, and even attempts to ban glass.)

So please stop trying to turn the tragic events into political nonsense.

[Mikey]

What type of game do you hunt? And, do they have ranged weapons to try and shoot back? If not, then I say it's only sporting to try and take out your quarry hand-to-hand (or hoof, or claw...)

[Aaron]

Not to offer recriminations, but when faced with budget cuts the thing they ought not have neglected was security. I'm against budgets of schools being cut, and I certainly understand that if it happens one should attempt to maintain academic integrity, but ditching security altogether was clearly not the best choice, especially if no one else on campus can legally be armed.

Incidentally, any time there's a high-profile killing with a firearm like this, anti-gun folks will decry America's Second Amendment and the evil 'gun culture'. The problem with that is that in both the case of Virginia Tech and this kid, the guns were illegally possessed by killers who were free to rampage in gun-free areas. Making more gun-free areas, even big ones, will not help. (And even if it reduces gun crime, murderous savages will only result to other means . . . hence knife ban talk in the UK, and even attempts to ban glass.)

So please stop trying to turn the tragic events into political nonsense.

Your a blithering idiot. By banning and cracking down on guns the UK drastically cut down on gun crime, both by legal and illegal firearms. Yes there is now a problem with knife crime but by it's very nature a knife is a melee weapon and the user is unable to harm anyone outside his or her own reach. That is a serious disadvantage. You can simply run away from a knife weilding subject, where as a firearm weilding one can still shot you for some distance.

[Mikey]

You know what, DSG2k? I happen to agree with a point you made here. Most - or at least a lot - of firearm-based crime is committed with an illegaly-possessed firearm. Gun control won't help, because it is the nature of illegal things to be, well, illegal. That is why I mentioned nothing about what should or should not be in place as far as gun-control legislation. And legislation against manufacture is useless, because of the amount of firearms produced overseas.

However, to iterate the intent of the second amendment, in order to clarify it for someone who is not a resident of the United States, is hardly turning the discussion into "political nonsense." In fact, I just re-read my post - I mentioned my own personal take on whether or not to own a gun; there is still no message there about wanting anyone else to feel as I do, or any reference to having or not having a policy or legislation regarding gun ownership or control; nor is there any sort of value judgement about the second amendment. So, saying:

So please stop trying to turn the tragic events into political nonsense.

not only bears no relevance to the discussion, it appears to be simply inflammatory for no sake or reason but its own.

[Aaron]

I don't see anyone making a political statement of any kind in this thread until Darkstar went off on another of his tirades. This is just him trying to stir the pot for the sake of it.

[Teaos]

I'm not Ameerican but I am pro gun. I believe everyone should have the right the own as many weapons as they wish.

[Monroe]

What type of game do you hunt? And, do they have ranged weapons to try and shoot back? If not, then I say it's only sporting to try and take out your quarry hand-to-hand (or hoof, or claw...)

I was in the military so yes, the game shoots back.

[Captain Seafort]

The necessity of firearms should definately play a role in the nature of firearms restrictions. In the more remote areas of the US, for example (upstate New York, Washington state, etc) heavy firepower is required. Unless anyone thinks a .22 handgun will stop a charging bear in its tracks.

Hand guns are a different kettle of fish. The only possible use for a privately-owned hand gun is to kill people, whether in self-defence or in the course of comitting a crime. For that reason they should be banned. For those who enjoy shooting as a hobby, the weapons should be owned and kept by a club, on the range, in a proper armoury.

[Granitehewer]

Does anybody actually understand their own constitution????!!!
The full sentence is

' 'Everyone has the right to Grizzly Bear Arms on their Wall, preferably above the fireplace, but not near the window, because of those awful draughts that we thought, we'd fix last year, but that zeb, is one useless guy, why honestly did kate marry him?''

[Mikey]

I was in the military so yes, the game shoots back.

Of course, I'd be a candidate for thorazine if I didn't understand the need for firearms in a miliary role. But when you referred to "humnting," does that mean you are now hunting people?

Speaking of which, that doesn't ALWAYS hold. My father-in-law was a jarhead who had embassy duty in Lebanon in the '50's. One of the first couple of times that I met him, he described to me how he once had to kill a man in the line of duty, but didn't use a gun... somehow, I still ended up marrying that girl...

Anyway, I'm not attacking your enfranchisement to have guns, to use them responsibly, or the sport of hunting - I know full well the sometime ecological necessity of hunts as well as the cultural relevance. In some auto plants in Michigan, for example, production stops and the plants close FOR WEEKS when deer season opens. All I meant to illustrate with my ironic little rhetorical question is my own personal feeling on the matter.

In the more remote areas of the US, for example (upstate New York, Washington state, etc) heavy firepower is required. Unless anyone thinks a .22 handgun will stop a charging bear in its tracks.

Due to environmental encroachment, availability of lots of food (from houses, garbage, etc.,) and pure ignorance on the part of the humans, black bear incursions are commonplace in parts of New Jersey. As I mentioned before, hunting with slugs (as opposed to shot) is not allowed here because of the population density - heck, almost all of the incursions I remember happened outside of the very short bear season here, even during the years when the bear hunt was authorized - and the biggest shot one can get commercially is double-ought buck, but I can't recall ever reading or hearing about someone getting injured by one of those black bears.

[Mikey]

PS: Thanks for clarifying the law of the land, Pete.