I don’t even have to follow the news anymore. Every time some jackass writes an article like this, I’ll know there’s been another mass public shooting.

Really, what can you say? Against this level of brute stupidity, the god’s themselves simply pack up and walk away.

aimai

They’re temporarily non-plussed because they can’t figure out the angle of attack on this guy – he’s not muslim, he’s a criminal justice student. They’re still digging, so they have to tread water. The “why didn’t someone whip out a gun and shoot him” angle is all they have now.

They’re probably searching his voter registration records to see whether he’s an Obama supporter.

When I went to school fighting, even when fighting back against a bully who was threatening you, was enough to warrant suspension.

Which is why Portly always quietly handed over his lunch money, then curled up in a big squishy ball and wept until they stopped kicking him.

Really.

Otherwise he would have opened a can six pack keg of whoop ass on those guys. But he was smart and even then he was thinking of his career. He didn’t want a suspension going down on his permanent record so he didn’t break the bullies’ arms when they gave him atomic wedgies and threw him in girls locker room. If he hadn’t been so smart those guys would still be eating dinner with their feet!

Through a straw. Because The Portal of Doom would have knocked all their teeth out.

It’s true, stop laughing damn it!!

Rob Port can kiss my nutsack.

As a person who HAS had guns held on him in real life, I can tell him that you don’t have time to play Action Figure Hero when someone points a gun at you.

What this fuckstain knows about the real world could fit in a leaky condom. Much like his father did, to his mother’s eternal dismay.

I think the sage of North Dakota has a point, but he doesn’t go far enough. Since we as a society conceive of the public square as a good place for target shooting, we should do away with the notion of public order altogether. Indeed, what are students thinking taking expensive laptops into the public square in the first place. They should leave the laptops at home and bring their Uzis instead.

Now, that said, as a conservative, I feel I should add that unlike your typical liberal who believes mass-murder is a right for all, I hold the view that it is a privilege not a right and therefore there should be some standards, voluntary standards to be sure, that would-be mass murderers abide by.

And those without laptops could have tried to spear the gunman’s eye by tossing pencils, or they could have flicked boogers, or they could have distracted him by making armpit farts.

That’s what I would’ve done. Really.

The “why didn’t someone whip out a gun and shoot him” angle is all they have now.

No, I think the “why didn’t someone throw a book or a laptop” is actually a bold new line of argument. Also, people could have thrown pens, calculators, looseleaf folders, and iPods. Why, in my day, we would have thrown inkwells at him to blind him temporarily as we charged him and beat him with our protractors.

Back when I was a no good teenage Christian punk, some meth head used to break into our church at night and steal stuff. One night my youth pastor, myself, and a few other guys hid in wait for him. When he came we whalloped him with a baseball bat and tied him up for the police. That was the most fun I ever had at church.

The End.

I’ll bet you a hundred dollars this asshat has never been under fire. Let me clue you in, Rob. When the rounds are incoming, zipping past you, hitting stuff with bangs and clatters, hitting people around you with a meaty smack, very few people can have any reaction but to duck, dig, hide, run.

You stand up to a bully if it’s a fistfight. If he starts shooting, you get DOWN! Your childhood fantasies of responding to incoming fire by throwing things are far beyond silly. It’s not about bravery. I assure you there are a lot of 20 year old kids in Iraq, on both sides, who are perfectly willing to hold the line and fight. This is different. This is pure SURVIVAL, and for someone to have to explain this to you merely points up your personal shortcomings…

mikey

I agree with everything Tero said…

mikey

Back when I was a no good teenage Christian punk, some meth head used to break into our church at night and steal stuff. One night my youth pastor, myself, and a few other guys hid in wait for him. When he came we whalloped him with a baseball bat and tied him up for the police. That was the most fun I ever had at church.

That no-good church-thieving meth-head grew up to be Ted Haggard. And now you know the rest of the story.

Great, now we’re gonna get that troll who screams at us about how developing rules of engagement should be a required part of college curriculums.

Why, in my day, we would have thrown inkwells at him to blind him temporarily as we charged him and beat him with our protractors.

Don’t forget slide rules, Professor. You can inflict some serious stinging and redness if you whap someone with a slide rule.

Living a mere 25 miles north of DeKalb, with folks I know students at the school, this is far more personal than I would like it to be.

We heard this kind of moronic stuff last April after the VA Tech shootings. This ass-clown should be sat in a chair with someone shooting at him. Preferably me.

Ooo, that wasn’t nice was it?

g said,

February 16, 2008 at 19:38

Why, in my day, we would have thrown inkwells at him to blind him temporarily as we charged him and beat him with our protractors.

Don’t forget slide rules, Professor. You can inflict some serious stinging and redness if you whap someone with a slide rule.

And if you break an abacus over their head, they might slip on the beads that fell on the floor.

Great, now we’re gonna get that troll who screams at us about how developing rules of engagement should be a required part of college curriculums.

Heh. I was a senior in high school during the Columbine massacre, when they started doing random searches of the goth kids and practicing lockdown drills. Some idiot tried to get me to help him draw up a plan to take over the school by force so that we could show the Administration where security weaknesses were. I said no.

But enough about me.

If someone had had a Pee Chee folder, they could’ve sharpened up the relay-race baton and thrown at him, Tero Pitkamaki style.

A paper cut would have serious impaired his ability to shoot, too.

Fuck, why are we joking?

Wow. That’s some powerful Stupid there, Port.

I’m willing to guess that he has never fired a weapon, let alone had one discharged in his direction. It is painfully obvious he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Fuck, why are we joking?

Because its what we’ve got left. Yesterday I saw snark defined as, “the dark subterranian pit where we’ve hidden what is left of our humanity after 7 1/2 years of the Bush Adminstratïon”. Then again, the people of Burma/Myanmar would probably kill to have George Bush as president. Is it too early to start drinking?

pedestrian: Meet Larry, the Troll of ROE.

Don’t forget slide rules, Professor. You can inflict some serious stinging and redness if you whap someone with a slide rule.

Yeah, but I never could figure out how those things worked.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m snarking in this thread because I’m even more at a loss than I was about Virginia Tech. This time around, there were no indications at all that anybody was about to snap and open fire on a classroom, no creepy creative-writing clues, no scary potential-shooter profile, nothing. Which makes the usual asshattery from the right even more appalling, really.

pedestrian: Meet Larry, the Troll of ROE.

Huh. I understood each word individually, but I still have no idea what he was trying to say. Do I sound like that? I have had a lot of coffee today.

Laptops I can understand. I don’t understand why nobody opened a portal above the shooter and dropped a weighted companion cube through it.

As someone else noted, we’ve seen this before…

When I went to school fighting, even when fighting back against a bully who was threatening you, was enough to warrant suspension.

That one I love. He’s almost put his finger on it and then slid right past it. One of the reasons they don’t let you get away, in school, with arguing that you were only “fighting back” is that they don’t know who started it. If the teacher comes running out to stop a fight, she has no way of knowing which kid started it, and it works best to just suspend both of them.

So now we’re grown, or not so grown, and people are pointing guns at us, and some moron hauls out his own gun and tries to shoot the crazy, and the cops come in and shoot… everybody with a gun. Why the hell wouldn’t they? They don’t know who’s the crazy and who’s the moron. And they haven’t got much time to think it through.

So, you know, if someone points a gun at you, and you can, fucking run. Just fucking run. Don’t try to be a hero, because life isn’t a movie and you are not Bruce Willis, and you don’t get another take.

And if no one has ever pointed a gun at you, be grateful. Shut up about what you’d do. You don’t know what you’d do. I don’t really know what I’d do if it happened again, but I know enough not to mock and blame people for what they did. Nothing you could possibly do in that situation gives anyone else the right to judge you.

I don’t really know what I’d do if it happened again, but I know enough not to mock and blame people for what they did. Nothing you could possibly do in that situation gives anyone else the right to judge you.

Amen. My only question, when analyzing my powers of self-defense, is whether I have the coordination required to crap my pants while running.

My only question, when analyzing my powers of self-defense, is whether I have the coordination required to crap my pants while running.

Trust me, Urban Walker. This is an instinctive skill. You will find you can even scream in raw terror at the same time. I think it goes back to our earliest ancestors…

mikey

If kids got gold stars instead of detention for beating up on classmates, you can be certain that each and every one of the kids in that classroom would have challenged the gunman to a fight by the bike rack during recess.

Hear, hear!

I’m a second degree black belt and have learned several ways to disarm an assailant and put him in serious pain, if not break several bones or kill him.

And I second what D. Sidhe said. Every instructor I’ve had (including several veterans who have seen combat) has said that bullets don’t care about how fast you can kick. As that one Indiana Jones movie showed, skill in short range battle has nothing to do with being faced with a gun.

If he’s too close to get away, then disarming may be your only chance.

But if he’s too far away to disarm, someplace else is where you want to be.

All those fantasies of being the hero interviewed by the cute reporter after the shootings will bleed out on the ground along with everything else….

With a gat it don’t matter if he’s smarter or bigger.

It’s Easy To Be Brave From A Distance
The Bravery of Being Out of Range

Title fixed.

Fuck.
It’s Easy To Be Brave From A Distance
The Bravery of Being Out of Range

Damn my idiocy.

When I went to school fighting, even when fighting back against a bully who was threatening you, was enough to warrant suspension. Maybe even a call to the police and/or expulsion. I think the kids who grew up with that approach to discipline are the same ones who don’t fight back as adults.

They’re certainly not the one’s who enlist in the Army to go fight in Iraq. Where people are, you know, shooting at you.

Rob Port is absolutely right. A lot of modern young people have been bred to be panty waist sissies who refuse to fight back against danger. Its because of liberalism, liberals are a bunch of pacifists who refuse to fight back against thugs like Bin Laden and Ahmadinajad, it all goes back to the wimpy 1960s hippie movement that taught peace, love and tolerance for the enemies of America. When I was in school I was the type that if anyone messed with me they would be beaten to the ground and would never think to try it again. More young people should have that attitude. If I had been a student in that college I would have tryed to get the gunman by surprise and disarm him.

I have to get ready for work, but I could hardly let myself pass up this chance to call this douchbag a douchebag.

Rob Port is a total douchebag.

Totally.

Carry on.

Chris St. James?

Total douchebag.

Totally.

Show us once more what a douchebag you are.

Please?

“Chris St. James” is the unamusing troll who, according to his IP address, has paraded around here before as the fake rabbi Saul and as Bastion Booger. Ignore him, please, and maybe some amusing trolls will come by instead.

Thats it Clif you panty waist sissy! How about you and I meet up and have ourselves a little chit chat one on one? I promise I won’t hurt you that badly.

Pedestrian, it’s never too early to start drinking; however, you should know that consumption of alcohol can lead to the belief that you possess mystical kung-fu powers.

Are you suggesting that Chris St James is not Kevin? And Saul isn’t Kevin?

Now I’m really confused.

When I was in school I was the type that if anyone messed with me they would be beaten to the ground and would never think to try it again.

And then you woke up.

Now, now, saul st booger, I believe we’ve had this discussion before. You seem to be a very slow learner.

If you’re going to be an internet tough guy, you can’t just start in threatening to beat up somebody who’s just a screen name. You kinda have to list your bona fides, y’know?

You need to tell us about your boots and your bike, your guns and your hot girlfriend, your money and your ability to hold your liquor. Only at that point can you move on, having established your internet tough-guy credentials, to talk of beating up someone who you’ll never see face to face and have to stand up and take your swings.

Do NOT make me tell you again, young man.

Or I’ll have to pull on my hand-tooled leather boots, get on my huge, thundering chopper with my 4 inch K13 combat masterpiece with tritium sights and pachmyer custom soft rubber grips, bobbed hammer and combat trigger and custom action with a 1 and a quarter pound single action break, tell my girlfriend who looks like angelina jolie that I’ll only be gone an hour and come over and kick your wimpy little ass.

mikey

The law of averages says at this point at least a few of the students in the various classes at Va Tech, NIU, etc, were conservative gun-nuts. Somehow they didn’t pull a Rambo. I don’t know, maybe the problem isn’t suspending kids for fighting.

Typical dickless rightwing men who like to blame the victims for being killed.

As if these turds would have risen up and leapt at some crazy motherfucker who is shooting at anything that moves?

Why do all these wingnut losers always think of themselves as some valiant hero, chiding the ones who died?

Too much “24” methinks.

This is the same sort of shit you get in the aftermath of a rape case– there’s always at least one idiot who wants to make everything the victim’s fault. We live in a random, scary world, and despite one’s best efforts one can STILL be in the wrong place in the wrong time. Deep down people like Rob Port know this, so they expend all this effort trying to convince themselves that they would have disarmed the attacker in some improbably heroic way.

Does anyone else think that if the shooter were brown and had a name like Hassan, Portal would be too busy screaming dumb shit about tarrist to write dumb shit about throwing lap tops?

Ninja Throwing Laptops are all the rage in Japan, I hear.

I heard on NPR that they shooter had several guns and got off as many as 50 shots. Assuming the shooter wasn’t standing in place I’m not sure how anyone could have tossed anything at him without getting shot. Or there is the tragic possibility that someone did try to disarm him and they didn’t live to tell anyone about it. But why think when you can have a kneejerk attack on liberals instead?

A Glock 9, a Sig 9, a .380 and a riot gun.

They found 48 brass cases and 8 spent shotgun cases.

All fired in about 5 minutes, start to finish.

Hell, in the field that’s called a “mad minute”, putting maximum firepower downrange in an attempt to break an attack.

In an enclosed room? It would be horrific, and nobody, NOBODY was going to be standing or moving INTO the fire…

mikey

You need to tell us about your boots

Filled with piss, like the rest of the Kool Kids Klub.

and your bike,

My dad will take the training wheels off any day!

your guns

Red Rider BB.

and your hot girlfriend,

Of course she’s hot! You’d be hot too if you were covered in wool.

your money

Ever heard of Wingnut Welfare, tough guy?

and your ability to hold your liquor.

Current record – five seconds.

You need to tell us about … your ability to hold your liquor
My record so far is a 1.125-litre bottle in each hand, for 55 seconds. Then my arms got tired.
Hey, at least it’s a balanced diet.

Heeeee. Throwing a laptop at a gunman…. that’s just awesome!

Picturing myself in this situation, as a victim, I’m pretty sure I would be doing everything possible not to draw attention to myself. I’d probably be doing my best to curl into the smallest ball possible and position my laptop in front of my head as a shield.

Arky the Blasphemer said, [on an earlier thread]
Sometimes people just snap. It would be nice to think there’s a pattern, but 99.999% of the people who fit the ever-evolving “profile” for this type of crime don’t go on shooting rampages. Now we have a guy who doesn’t fit the profile at all who did go on a shooting rampage.

Serious question #1. This idea that mass shooters are troubled outsiders, not really representative of the broader society, who fit a particular psych. profile and show all sorts of warning signs that are recognisable in retrospect… I can see that it’s reassuring on several levels, but was it ever actually based on evidence?

I bet that before February ends some dumbfuck will, without a trace of irony, suggest an outrageous violation of privacy rights just to make sure anyone who has ever taken medication for any sort of mental illness can’t get a gun

Serious question #2. When dumbfucks propose that some of your constitutional rights are only provisional, and can be taken away if some expert thinks that some individual has a heightened chance of mis-using his rights… why the buggeryfuck do they always want to leave that decision in the hands of psychologists? Why not go all the way and let astrologers decide who is entitled to a particular right and who can’t be trusted with it? I’m not a psychologist, but…
Hang on.
[checks Ph.D.]
OK, I am a psychologist. Forget that. Psychologists are wise professionals with almost god-like powers of insight into the minds of others.

What if you would type in “Killer Fuckin’ Doom Arsenal” before you through the laptop?

I’ve had a handgun stuck, literally, in my face while I was sitting in my car. When I told the guy I didn’t have any money, he smacked me in the face with his little pistol. (Not having much experience with guns, for a split second my brain actually wondered if it was a real fun.)

Without thinking about it, I leapt out of the car, pushing the guy back against a pickup. Having surprised him, I took the opportunity to RUN LIKE HELL. I’m lucky that I didn’t end up with an extra hole in me, even from the guy’s gun firing accidentally. And I sure wasn’t about to pull some macho BS like trying to disarm him or throwing my Discman at him. Even a .22 is more than I’d want to deal with at two feet.

Everyone’s fucking Steven Seagal when they’re not actually involved in the situation, y’know? Mr. Port would do well to leave the armchair Rambo shit safely in the magical world of his super ego and let people mourn and come to an understanding of the tragedy in their own way.

Doh! “a real Gun”, not fun. It certainly wasn’t real fun.

I’m going to have to bust out a LOLcon:

The Derb

The stupid! It burrrrrrns!!!!

Owwwwwwww!

This is the same sort of shit you get in the aftermath of a rape case– there’s always at least one idiot who wants to make everything the victim’s fault.

I had exactly the same thought. Always, always, some numbnuts will ask, Why didn’t she fight back? There weren’t any guns involved.

Never mind the fact that she was, oh, say 115 lbs to his 200+, or that there were four of him, or that he or they had loaded her drink with horse tranks so she was barely conscious to begin with.

Enough blaming the victims. Victims don’t get themselves killed. People who do stupid things like try to resist rapists who are twice their size, or who throw laptops (!) at armed maniacs with automatic handguns, on the other hand…

The fact is, I am amused at how easily you would surrender your life and your freedom for safety, unneccesary if you were armed yourself, but no, liberals must submit to the enemy without a shot.

Thats [sic] it Clif you panty waist [sic] sissy! How about you and I meet up and have ourselves a little chit chat one on one? I promise I won’t hurt you that badly.

HAW haw! Tune in again tomorrow for another episode of “As the Troll Squeals.”

Gary Ruppert said,

The fact is, I am amused at how easily you would surrender your life and your freedom for safety, unneccesary if you were armed yourself, but no, liberals must submit to the enemy without a shot.

Remind me again how rethuglican redstaters courageously fought for eagerly gave up their Constitutional right not to be spied on by the government as they wet their beds and then hid under same in the aftermath of 9-11?

Yeah. Gary’s a douchebag.

Totally.

So, the Nation of Bed-Wetters you Repugs are so eager to create and then exploit? How’s that going, Gary?

The fact is, I am amused at how easily you would surrender your life and your freedom for safety, unneccesary if you were armed yourself, but no, liberals must submit to the enemy without a shot.

I love the way they come up with these sweeping phrases describing this fictional group of “liberals” and the behaviors they ascribe to them.

Hey Gary? You will have to do a lot of searching to find someone more “Liberal” than me.

And while I have been rightly accused of many things in my life, two things that have never been associated with me are “surrender” and “unarmed”.

So the question is, where does that leave your theory of unarmed liberals surrendering?

Ah, yes. Another pathetic fiction for you to hide behind. Do carry on…

mikey

Why, I’m surprised no one planned ahead and brought ninja stars to class! How silly and cowardly of them!

I think Gary is talking about the Stereotypical Liberal from Mallard Fillmore, you know, that weird liberal newspaper editor that isn’t like anyone you’ve ever met? (Even if you know a lot of liberals.) You know, the Stereotypical Liberal that ALL CONSERVATIVES go on and on about, as if they never actually talked with a liberal.

They are awfully comfortable in that echo chamber. And they apparently have no idea how foolish they look to people who have to deal with the real world.

Huh. So where are all the Repugs joining up to fight in Iraq? I’m sure ole Gary is running off to his recruiter’s office right now.

Real men disarm gunmen with cheesies!

I don’t get it. All you have to do bunny jump and circle strafe the gunner with your melee weapon, (usually a crowbar or monkey wrench) and he’ll go down. You don’t even have to worry about your health until it gets to around 40, then you just pick up the medpack and you’re on your way again. Pussies.

What these putzes don’t realize is that even when you’re armed, being shot at can be a startling experience. If you can’t take a shot, you’re basically drawing fire till you get into a better position. Let me tell you, the rate of fire that guy was dishing out was substantial.

God, Rob Port and his loser commenters are so fucking pathetic. I hate fat, stupid, arrogant right wingers. Wannabe tough guys.

MINOT — An armed robbery at the Minot Home of Economy discount retail outlet was foiled today, when the gunman slipped and fell in a puddle of warm urine, striking his head against an in-store energy drink display. Manager Rob Port witnessed the event. “As soon as I saw the gun, I knew what I had to do.” A representative of Home of Economy’s corporate office added, “We don’t ordinarily leave standing pools of urine in our stores. I guess we were lucky to have Rob around today.”

Oh, how stupid of me. You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. You bring a laptop.

I always enjoy a good Port Whine with my imaginary friends Rambo, Clark Kent and Lulu Losser the Laptop Tosser. It goes well with Crackers and Jeeze.

Oddly enough, I overheard a conversation between two geniuses about the same age as LoveHandles Port this afternoon that mirrored his sad plaint for the liberal-inspired loss of manhood in today’s corrupt society. They also lamented that there was a recent bill before the North Dakota Legislature that would have authorized students carry permits on campus that sadly went down to defeat.

Question: would it be possible to expel North Dakota from the the Union?

[…] Clif of Sadly, NO! on a defense against school shooters. […]

Oh, ha.

The brave men of Wingnuttia! Puddles of piss indeed!

I don’t know about you, but the thought of these assholes in Iraq is terrifying. They’d shoot civilians and attack female soldiers—if they didn’t get butt stroked all the way through basic. But, yeah, talk about international incident waiting to happen.

these assholes are in iraq shooting civilians and attacking women. some of them work for blackwater and some of them are in the US army.

The ones in Blackwater got out of the military because of the UCMJ. Blackwater can kill and rape with impunity and has been doing so since their boots hit the ground. Flawed as the military is—and I’m a female in the military—it’s nowhere near the same as the Blackwater assholes.

Besides, these fuckers couldn’t join BW because BW likes prior service. These guys wouldn’t last through Basic much less SEAR training.

I don’t know about you, but the thought of these assholes in Iraq is terrifying. They’d shoot civilians and attack female soldiers—if they didn’t get butt stroked all the way through basic. But, yeah, talk about international incident waiting to happen.

Dude, where the fuck have you been?

Or was that snark? It was snark, right?

I don’t know about you, but the thought of these assholes in Iraq is terrifying.

They wouldn’t make it out of basic training. “Ha! Pull the pin and throw the grenade, that’s how terrorist and sissies do it. [pulls grenade] I show them [throws pin] how a real Americ -“

Well, they use fake grenades in Basic, but even so, these guys would wash out due to inability to cope. They wouldn’t be able to tolerate the stress, the lack of sleep, the conditions….and the final FTX, much less the road march back in. They wouldn’t be able to make the PT test. If any of them made it through Basic, they’d be that like that guy who raped and murdered the teenage Iraqi girl, then killed her family. His wingnut friends would be the ones who let these scumbags through the wire to attack this girl and her family.

Sorry, don’t want them in the Army.

Jeeeeeezus! Reading the comments for that post is like a trip to Bedlam. Blame is placed on everything from feminism to Dharma and Greg, I shit you not. Then there are the narcisstic fantasies of heroism, like the guy who holds the female shoplifter for the Home Depot boys, only she got away when her her 2 “sistas” showed up with the cadillac. The drag is it should be entertaing but the more you read the more depressing it gets to see such a benighted lot, and all the fun is drained out of the experience.

Bill Crozier has the solution: bulletproof textbooks! It’s foolproof!

Patriot: “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Ruppriot: “Eek! Terrorists might conceivably hurt me! Take the liberty, take it take it take it”

You know, if we were assholes, we’d do a little “victim digging” ourselves, and find out how many of the kids in that classroom were Young Republicans. Then we’d ask them why they don’t believe in self-defense. Yeah, even the wounded ones.

But that’s if we were assholes.

Seems as if The Right has come up with a new line of attack on the victims of mass shootings. They are pussies, pure and simple.

After Virginia Tech there was a lot of babbling that the real problem was 19-year old coeds were not allowed to carry their “gat” to class. If they had, that crazy bastard would have quickly gone down in a hail of return fire.

Me, I just think, hey, this is America circa 2008. Get used to having college kids gunned down in geology class. Own it America. The boy’s guns were legal as hell.

Oh, I almost forgot: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. If they use guns . . . well, that’s they way it goes.

In a very valid sense, pug is right. The US has always been awash in guns and gun culture. I’ve carried a gun for decades, and pretty much everyone I know has done so too.

The thing that has changed is a combination of the willingness to take a life, the cheapness of a life if you will, and a willingness, nay, a PRIDE in serving your prison sentence. We did NOT want to kill, and only would in the most extreme situations, and we most certainly had as a goal to stay out of the penitentiary. So you didn’t just cap somebody ’cause you felt like it, and if you decided you needed to take a life, you did it in such a manner that you might actually not go to prison for it. Otherwise, how could you consider it worth it?

This new world is a place without constraints, where the rules are different, and the consequences of not understanding that the rules have changed are brutal. Come and live here at your peril…

mikey

I just posted this over in Rob’s comments. Didn’t bother to read anyone else’s comments and I’m not going to go back to see if it stays up or how people react. Fuck him.

So lets say Rob is one of the students in the class. He’s paying attention but also thinking about his hot date for the weekend hope I get laid hope I get laid hope I ge-suddenlyallfuckinghell breaksoutintheclassroom. Glassisbreaking,stuffisgettingshattered,people’sinsidesarecomingoutandtheincrediblyloudfuckinghnoisejustwillnotstopandtimeitselfdisintegratesinthechaos. Crazy guy isn’t after anyone in particular in the room and he’s so fucking nuts that the only thing he sees is his own death and hell and final release from this mental inferno. He’s going to kill himself when he’s done enough damage. He takes just a second to refocus on his own suicide.
At this point Rob throws a fucking laptop at the guy.
All of a sudden crazy guy realizes that he has just gotten shit from someone in the room. He’s got a job to finish before he submits to the crazyness telling him to kill himself. He starts fucking shooting again fucking and takes out everyone in the whole fucking room.
Good job, fucking hero.

And please don’t mistake me for somebody who wants to confiscate all the guns either, Mikey. I don’t. Even if I did, I know that would be impossible and it’s far too late for that anyway.

So, just deal with with it because it isn’t going away. Maybe it’s the price of “freedom” or something. I just hope it’s never my daughter’s geology or German class that gets attacked.

Rob Port: a Pantload for the Heartland

The other thing that’s new is the sense that if you’re suicidal, killing yourself quietly is for wusses. There seem to be a feeling that the only sufficient and appropriate gesture for showing the depths of your turmoil and anguish is to kill lots of other people beforehand — that this constitutes a kind of twisted heroism.

Of course here I’m generalising wildly from a handful of over-publicised tragedies. Trouble is that a lot of other people will take the same message from the tragedies and the publicity they received, and some of them will be suicidal and have access to guns.

The other thing that’s new is the sense that if you’re suicidal, killing yourself quietly is for wusses. There seem to be a feeling that the only sufficient and appropriate gesture for showing the depths of your turmoil and anguish is to kill lots of other people beforehand — that this constitutes a kind of twisted heroism.

Everything is a reality show these days. It’s like the last days of the Roman Empire, when everything was spectacle. Everyone wants that promised 10 minutes of fame, and these are the lengths that some people will go to to get it. That’s my theory, anyway.

You published Port”s

place of employment and phone numbers?

Sadly, yes.

WOOF, I don’t think it’s ever been a secret, even at his own site. I know I’ve seen it posted before.

Did anyone notice that the Home of Economy says they have five locations to serve you and indicate six on the map of N.D.?

gbear, I’m familiar with his site, never saw it posted.

Sorry, don’t want them in the Army.

In addition to the reasons you already mentioned, here’s the number one reason you don’t need to worry about The PantyLoads joining up:

These guys will sprout wings and fly before they voluntarily put themselves in a dangerous situation or a situation that has a chance of becoming dangerous.

Trust me, every time Charlie Rangel talks about bringing back the draft, Portbarrel and his pals pee their pants a little bit.

When are these pie-in-the-sky Republicans going to learn that you can’t solve every problem by throwing laptops at it?!!!

Shorter CSJ, via Freud: Thinking about being a victim make my penis feel small, which must mean that the ACTUAL victims had smaller penises than mine… if they had one at all.

There seem to be a feeling that the only sufficient and appropriate gesture for showing the depths of your turmoil and anguish is to kill lots of other people

You know, that’s one reason I wish that some of these people would live and be able to speak up in later years.

I think some of the school shooters have lived – didn’t the kid in San Diego live to be convicted?

I wish they would come out and do PSAs and appearances and say – You know what? If you’re thinking of doing this – Don’t. You’ll regret it.”

Everyone wants that promised 10 minutes of fame, and these are the lengths that some people will go to to get it. That’s my theory, anyway.

The fuck you say? Andy promised me 15 minutes! Aw shit, last time I let that little bastard watch. Unless he has the camera. Say, uh… can anyone bum me 20 bucks?

Poor Port: probably trying to sound tough to the basers (Minot AFB) he probably envies. And trying not to sound envious of the kids in town who are going to college.

Minot is not exactly the garden spot of ND, not the cultural highlight of the state, and a backwater compared to Fargo & Grand Forks. This is after all the state where farmers sometimes try to make missiles out of silos, and where they are proud of being the world’s third largest nuclear power (if they seceded from the union).

As we used to say about those guys in GF with jacked-up pickup trucks: “You know what they say, big hubcaps, little feet. . . “

The other thing that’s new is the sense that if you’re suicidal, killing yourself quietly is for wusses. There seem to be a feeling that the only sufficient and appropriate gesture for showing the depths of your turmoil and anguish is to kill lots of other people beforehand — that this constitutes a kind of twisted heroism.

Good point, Smut Clyde. Also, “domestic violence” has historically spiked upwards whenever the economic stats drop, but (praise Goddess) we’ve delegitimized, to some degree, the traditional outlets. Cops aren’t as likely to look the other way if a guy beats up his girlfriend or ‘disciplines’ his kids with a belt. I get the feeling that even barroom brawls are less common, possibly because they’re hard to start at a franchise sports bar in a suburban stripmall.

At the same time, the Mad Gunman has been “celebritized”. (Top’o the world, Ma!) So you take a smart, Type A young dude, used to getting prizes for high achievement, but he’s failed to make it through Basic, he’s probably looking at a ton of student debt, there aren’t many job opportunities for a new sociology grad even at the do-you-want-fries-with-that level (because, realistically, why not stick with the teenage peons and beaten-down retirees who won’t give the manager any more crap?). On the other hand, four guns and a very busy afternoon, and he’s the top item on ALL the network news channels…

Funny thing about Derbyshire et al. They represent a general opinion (or more likely they’re trying to create a general opinion) that it is contemptible and pussified to go gentle into that dark night; and conversely, that it is sweet and fitting to die with firearms in one’s hands, blazing away at real or imagined enemies. They could hardly do more to encourage classroom shooters if they tried. I’m just wondering if they’re doing it consciously.
If internal enemies can’t be found, we have to create them.

Question: would it be possible to expel North Dakota from the the Union?

As a Floridian, I am thrilled to see this question asked about some other state for a change.

isnt the power of liberalism amazing? its managed to pussify the heartland but lays down and dies everytime mr 30% stamps his feet.

Dells? Come on, liburals prefer Macs, which are too nice to throw. 😉

And I thought we were supposed to have bullet-proof books now for protection…

Seriously, as others have noted, in this situation, most people would be best off running.

The problem with Chris St James is that he hasn’t got a stock phrase like the other sockpuppets – y’know, like “The fact is” or “Shalom”. Perhaps he could even ‘flip da script’ and have it at the end of his posts rather than the beginning. That would really fool all us dumb libruls.

He could use something like ‘Excelsior!’. Or ‘Live long and prosper’. Or ‘Go Go Power Rangers’.

[…] To what is probably everyone’s relief one Republican blogger caught a later flight so he could stay long enough to solve the whole survival strategy issue should a gunman appear on your campus – throw your Dell laptop at them. […]

I don’t understand why nobody called Superman or Batman to come and take out that creep. I mean what are they here for?

Forget throwing their laptops. They should have quickly opened “Doom” or some other shoot-em-up game and gotten some of those kick-ass weapons with which to shoot the shooter!

But no, all those lieberal college students were too busy getting high and getting brainwashed by their pothead communistic professors to think that ummmm… creatively!

…

And that level of analysis is only slightly stupider and out of touch with reality than robbie’s.

Dr. Dunning proved correct again!

Damn! Jay way beat me to it!

That’s what I like about John McCain, he applies common sense to issues like gun control and the economy. Merle Haggard actually wrote a song for Hillary, so I’ve added a subtitle to this song:

Merle Hasn’t Lost His Fightin’ Side
(Wishful Thinking)
Dr BLT: words and music by Dr BLT copyright 2008
http://www.drblt.net/music/MerleVeryLast.mp3

So if you’re looking for more common sense, you’ll find it in:

The Maverick
Dr BLT copyright 2008
http://www.drblt.net/music/MaverickDemo2.mp3

And yes, it is easy to be brave from a distance, but I’m sure we’ll all proud of Todd Beamer aren’t we? Even Neil Young was proud of him as is evident in the song he wrote called “Let’s Roll.” I wrote a song by the same title, and, believe it or not, my song was actually written, and aired on the radio before his was.

Let’s Roll
Dr BLT copyright 2001
http://www.drblt.net/music/LetsRoll.mp3

Neil Young has since weakened in his political views, just like Merle. When we will ever have rock stars who remain true to the red, white and blue, and who are willing to toss around a few laptops in the name of American pride?

Man, what a bunch over there. My favorite are their comments about martial arts and facing a knife-wielding opponent. I am not a blackbelt, I’m a 7-kyu (beginner) aikidoist. The bunch at Robs place agree that when you take on someone with a knife, you will get cut no matter what. Yeah, most likely you will get cut, but the point of knife-disarming techniques, at least in aikido, is to avoid getting cut. If you get cut, you’ve messed up. Course, the most important part of every aikido technique is taking the initiative away from an attacker.

Good point, Flying Fox, although I prefer Kung Fu Fighting:

Rob has a good point. I often wonder why when a wildebeest herd is being attacked by a pride of lions, a couple dont stop running and flip off the lions? Thats a behavior that natural election will surely reward.

selection not election

One must never forget the story about David and Goliath.

One must never forget the story about David and Goliath.

Actually, after the prior thread, my mind had drifted to the story of David and Saul. You know, the part where Saul hurls his javelin at David and nearly kills him? The pretty-boy harp player is all well and good when he is soothing the king, but as soon as the king’s son shows some interest in him – well that’s when intergenerational gay love triangles get spicy.

Goliath–had maybe a sword, probably a large stick; stood still and watched David fling stone.
Shooter–had multiple guns which he fired rapidly.

David–had slingshot and stone(s) he’d used in the past to kill predators
Kids–had laptops and binders

Yep, just the same.

See, the students should alll immediiately be issued Mac Airbooks…

Don’t make me be mean. In fact, wildebeests are less likely to be killed by lions if they stand and fight. This is primarily because the lions don’t have guns and have to close to horn-goring distance to use claws and teeth. So, okay, if you’re ever in a classroom and a guy goes nuts and starts trying to kill people with a knife and you have a machete, feel free to try to disarm him. But you might want to make sure he doesn’t have a gun first, because then you’re screwed. Unlike lions, humans tend to have pockets.

Unlike lions, humans tend to have pockets.
Yeah?

I stand corrected.

[…] More here. […]

Better yet, if you’re ever in a classroom and a guy starts shooting, throw a wildebeest at him.

What happened to these people when they were children? I mean, seriously, shitting on the dead and traumatized because they didn’t act like C. Thomas Howell in Red Dawn?

Reminds me of the defense against fresh fruit sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus:

Cleese: Sorry, Mr. ‘Arrison. Come at me with that banana. Hold it like that, that’s it. Now attack me with it. Come on! Come on! Come at me! Come at me then! (Shoots him.)

Chapman:
Aaagh! (dies.)

Cleese.:
Now, I eat the banana. (Does so.)

Palin:
You shot him!

Jones:
He’s dead!

Idle:
He’s completely dead!

Cleese.:
I have now eaten the banana. The deceased, Mr Apricot, is now ‘elpless.

Palin:
You shot him. You shot him dead.

Cleese.:
Well, he was attacking me with a banana.

One must never forget the story about David and Goliath.
Seems to me that the shooters haven’t forgotten it. Trouble is they see themselves in the role of David.
Port, Derbyshire and the others seem to think the same way… their admiration for the shooters is not well hidden.

I dunno. I think the impulse that drives this class of “commentary” is frightfully obvious. In their real lives, these so-called “men” swallow, look down, are afraid to speak, fail regularly, acquiesce to requirements they resent, and mostly feel helpless in the face of a world that terrifies them on every level.

In their fantasy existence, they ALWAYS perform the most heroic of deeds, somehow always surviving (but always with non-crippling, non-life threatening wounds), and end up the toast of America, on Leno and Larry, meeting Paris and Bono, aw-shucks-tweren’t-nothing-ing their way to fame.

And no one ever, EVER treats them like a helpless, fearful nobody again.

And sometimes, the fantasy is so overwhelming it leaks out…

mikey

About six months ago I had a 15 year old kid pull a gun on me in Brussels. I was quite proud that I didn’t piss myself but I can tell you that my feet became rooted to the ground and even if I thought that throwing my camera at him would have somehow disarmed him and allowed me to get away, my arms had stopped working. The funny thing is that the thought that he might shoot me didn’t even cross my mind. I distinctly remember thinking to myself “Shit, I’m gonna lose my new camera” and yet I still couldn’t do anything about it. Fortunately for me, he was just showing off for his friends – trying to get a reaction from me – and put the gun away and walked off laughing with his doods. Didn’t even take my camera or my money. I wasn’t delusional enough to think afterwards “I should have grabbed the gun and wrestled it from him with my mad (imaginary) martial arts skills.” although I did regret not secretly clicking off a couple of pictures as he approached and I had that gitchy feeling that something bad was going to happen.

OK, here’s what should’ve happened. Did this month’s mass shooter wear glasses? If so, the nearest male student should have stealthily approached, grabbed the shooter’s glasses off his face, and stabbed him in the throat, just like in Godfather III.

I’m sure that’s what I would’ve done.

No one wants to be defeated
Showin’ how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right

Thanks for the tip on Mr. Port. He’s been added to the Operation Yellow Elephant collection.

Jeez, where do these dirtbags crawl out of? Throw your laptop???
Damn, I wish we’d had laptops back in my Vietnam days. We would have wrapped up that annoying 1968 Tet Offensive in a couple of hours.
What a dick.

Throw a laptop at the gunman?

Great idea. It just might work. It could cause the guy to miss, and it could provide a needed break to rush the guy and take him down.

Beats being an effete Ghandi and just sitting there, tame as a hindu cow, like you guys are advocating.

Good God no wonder I am not a liberal.

Neil Young has since weakened in his political views, just like Merle. When we will ever have rock stars who remain true to the red, white and blue, and who are willing to toss around a few laptops in the name of American pride?

Dr., I think you’d rather have Neil Young remain true to the red and white, no?

The only thing we’re “advocating” is not pissing on the fresh graves of the dead students.

Throw a laptop at the gunman? Great idea. It just might work. It could cause the guy to miss, and it could provide a needed break to rush the guy and take him down.

Stephen Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old former student at the school, carried a shotgun in a guitar case and was wielding three handguns during Thursday’s ambush attack inside a lecture hall….Investigators recovered 48 shell casings and six shotgun shells following the attack, Mr Grady added….

The gunman paused to reload his shotgun after opening fire on a crowd of terrified students in a geology class….

Sixteen people were injured, and he shot himself dead on the stage of the hall.

Beats being an effete Ghandi and just sitting there, tame as a hindu cow, like you guys are advocating.

Witnesses said terrified students, some of them bleeding profusely from neck and other wounds after being hit by buckshot, fled the classroom after the gunman began shooting seemingly at random from near the front of the room.

“Some girl got hit in the eye, a guy got hit in the leg,” George Gaynor, a student who was in the hall told the Northern Star, the student newspaper on the campus.

In a matter of seconds, he killed five and wounded 15.

Good God no wonder I am not a liberal.

“In a study likely to raise the hackles of some conservatives, scientists at New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, found that a specific region of the brain’s cortex is more sensitive in people who consider themselves liberals than in self-declared conservatives.

The brain region in question helps people shift gears when their usual response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are more flexible in their thinking.” (Nation and World)

The other quotes are from national newspapers and services. Try finding out the facts first.

Great idea. It just might work. It could cause the guy to miss, and it could provide a needed break to rush the guy and take him down.

But I think that if something like this ever happens to you personally, you should stick with shitting your pants.

The past 7.5 years have been very difficult on this country. It’s really not surprising to me that a young person with mental issues could go off the deep end with all the extra bizarre pressure.

I heard some politician in his state (probably an R) on the radio describe the shooting as the work of “incredible evil” – what a fucking wanker. These guys will stoop however low as required to scare the faithful.

Aren’t Hindu cows–and I didn’t realize cows were big on spirituality, myself–the ones that *don’t* get bashed with a hammer and eaten?

Listen, asshole, the day someone aims a gun at you with every intention of killing you, you can tell people what to do in the situation. Until then, STFU. Regardless of whether there’s a right and wrong answer here, and I tend to think there isn’t, what you should do and what you will do may very well turn out to be two different things. Unless you have had it happen, you do not know. And all the planning ahead (read: blocking out little FPS fantasy scenarios in your cubicle daydreams) in the world isn’t likely to matter at all. I almost hope you find that out someday, since it’s apparently the only thing that will keep you from making fun of innocent victims of a horrible crime. But your Rambo fantasies are pretty likely to get some poor bystander killed, so I have to hope like hell it *doesn’t* happen to you. I’ll just hope for crippling finger injuries that shut you up instead, okay?

Theses Keyboard Kommandos are serious about their profession, no?

Complaining about schools suspending people for fighting back was the only part of that article that made sense. (People shouldn’t be suspended for fighting back when 5 guys are beating up on them.)

The rest is clearly the product of too many video games, wherein throwing crates will stop attackers. Sorry, doesn’t work that way in real life.

When I went to school fighting, even when fighting back against a bully who was threatening you, was enough to warrant suspension.

Good conservatives, what with their Judeo-Christian morality, would always fight back. That whole “turn the other cheek” thing is some Islamo-fascist dirty hippy blather completely out of place in the Judeo–Christian society the manly virtues of which reactionaries want to impress upon us all.

Jebus….the comments section of that article is full of the sort of brain-sucking cobaggery that could make someone shit out their own eyeballs. Armchair quarterbacks who, like John “bring ’em young” Derbyshite after VA Tech, can talk a mean game about the “right thing to do” but would likely as not find themselves shat and shot were they faced with the same set of circumstances.

sounds to me like Ken “Fill” McCracken has never been in close proximity to shots fired in anger.

try living in a neighborhood where stray bullets are a fact of life like i did when i was younger.

try working as unarmed security at the sort of clubs where there is only the thinnest veneer of civility and detente between rival gangs preventing the place from turning into an outtake from The Wild Bunch

if you don’t have a piece to bring to the party, what remains of common sense in those situations is a lot of ducking and covering and getting the fuck out of Dodge, but hey, ken, don’t let reality trump your bullshit little monday-morning-quarterback-by-way-of-rambo fantasy

phony-tough wanker.

It’s kind of bizarre to read this. I teach in an inner city school in Chicago, and am dealing with an injured elbow and injured hand from breaking up fights between students. They frequently throw things at each other, and try to hospitalize each other. Why don’t we try to make more high schools like the inner city. Then they’ll be better prepared for a world where someone may try to shoot them/look at them funny and need to be assaulted

With conservatives it’s always about the blame.

First, the shooter. Was he a liberal? A communist? How about a Muslim?

None of the above? Well, then it must be the victims’ fault. They were overly influenced by liberals, communists, or Muslims, and that’s why they died. Either way, the fault for this whole episode certainly must lie with liberals, communists, or Muslims.

That’s what passes for airtight logic for conservatives.

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