[Ammi]

..so we remove the very essence and ethos of a school environment, then..?...the safety that should be there for the students and felt by the students..that whole ‘nurturing’ environment is taken away and arms are taken up by school staff, we create and encourage hostility and weaponry as the ‘solution’..?...we become the very opposite of what should be in any school...I’m not ‘arguing’ or creating an argument at all, Alf...

[Cal.]

Oh no

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Alf

More people were killed in the Manchester arena massacre and there wasn't a gun in sight, he used a bomb, bombs are illeagal, but that didn't stop him, They were killed by a lunatic criminal.

86 people were killed in Nice when a truck drove into people, trucks are legal in France, did you call for this deadly weapon to be made illeagal? They were killed by a lunatic criminal.

And these children were also killed by a lunatic criminal.


A far better argument would be, better security in schools. Give jobs to veterans and ex police as security roaming the school corridors. Teachers armed and trained. Just that would prevent anybody from even attempting doing this sort of thing in the first place. The alternative is try and take the peoples guns of them, and you'll get civil war.

..yes, there are not always guns involved, I know...in tragic losses of lives like this...but there are some things that are more preventable with closely looked at and tighter controls in gun laws...

[Eddie.]

The American government always says they will do something, but they end up not doing it and they NEVER learn from their mistakes, it's a shame that due to their actions, many innocent and maybe young lives are lost...

[Kazanne]

Unfortunately we don't seem shocked over these incidents anymore it happens so often,what the answer is ? I don't know,there will always be lunatics that want their 15 mins of fame in this way, Thoughts with the victims and injured also their families,terrible to see this on the news again.

[Tom4784]

Difference between bombs and these mass shootings is that it's hard to prevent the former, anyone can get the ingredients to make a bomb and you can only foil plots like those if the person attempting them is particularly stupid.

These mass shootings however are different, in these shootings, it's almost always done with a gun that was purchased legally and would have been easily prevented if the right checks were put in place.

You'll never get rid of guns in America, it's too ingrained in the culture but assault rifles and weaponry does not need to be sold to the public and they should do more to check who is actually buying these guns in question. Most Gun owners in the US will never have to use their weapons outside of a controlled environment, it's not them that should be worried about the idea of Gun control because sensible owners shouldn't be affected but you got the NRA with all it's sway preventing anything from happening and then you've got the government who profits too much from the Gun industry to truly ever want to restrict it in any way. They are more than happy with the scores of dead children just as long as the NRA get to play with their guns and the tax money keeps rolling in.

[GoldHeart]

If anything Trump encouraged this, mr gun nut himself .
In America these gun massacres / shootings are pretty much all the time, it's got to the stage where we're not shocked anymore, we're just more angry and tired with it all as we know nothing will ever change .

Too many Americans love their guns and seem to think that's the answer to everything, nearly everyone in the states owns a gun just for the sake of it . They go to the park with their kids while carrying a gun .

They go shopping to the supermarket and guns are on display, it's a surreal mess !.

17 lose their lives because once again a deranged lunatic had access to guns and decides to go on a killing spree , no action will be taken. This will continue to happen.

Is anywhere safe or protected in America seriously !?? . The place of trigger happy .

[-Sue-]

Originally Posted by Alf

More people were killed in the Manchester arena massacre and there wasn't a gun in sight, he used a bomb, bombs are illeagal, but that didn't stop him, They were killed by a lunatic criminal.

86 people were killed in Nice when a truck drove into people, trucks are legal in France, did you call for this deadly weapon to be made illeagal? They were killed by a lunatic criminal.

And these children were also killed by a lunatic criminal.


A far better argument would be, better security in schools. Give jobs to veterans and ex police as security roaming the school corridors. Teachers armed and trained. Just that would prevent anybody from even attempting doing this sort of thing in the first place. The alternative is try and take the peoples guns of them, and you'll get civil war.

So you want MORE guns in schools?
Australia had the balls to sort out their gun problem now it's america's turn to stop pretending that 'daily gun deaths & mass shootings' are just normal life in america! where does it end..?? more guns?? more ammo? more security? with NRA members or people that own many guns all saying about their 2nd amendment right .. blah blah blah.. (sure have a handgun & hunting rifle if you must to shoot wabbits during hunting season or protect whats yours home family etc) but should HIGH POWERED guns be so readily available? that have cartridges that fire up to 100 bullets+ ?? the wish is no noone can get them but sadly they have..

Im talking do some not all americans really need 50 guns rocket launchers and many other insane weapons that should be only available if you are in the forces and diployed....

Today you hear blame schools? blame FBI? blame people 'that knew' - blame he was a nut job.. etc how about we blame many things... guns being readily available being just one of them

It's time america stop wanting it both ways you can't have a 2nd amendment right when such insane weaponry is readily available without any form of
gun control!! and not protect people in the country from those terrible people that do unthinkable things to innocent people...

we protect money in banks.. with walls - locks - security - safe etc so why not schools? business? government buildings? post office? etc...are children the innocent victims in grown ups lack of ability to remove their heads from their arse and do something about america's insane gun problem??

(disclaimer i am sure there are some good responsible gun owners over the pond)
makes me angry and upset - as a parent I am sure I would home school if I lived over the pond..


PS on a lighter note..I have a home security system.. a baseball bat and run at them naked (eek mental image sorry)

[LeatherTrumpet]

"This debate has become just one part of America’s self-defeating and circular culture wars. To liberal New Yorkers and assorted East Coasters, gun owners can be put in the same categories as evangelical Christians who believe in creationism and who oppose abortion and feminism, while law-abiding gun owners grow ever more resentful of the liberal elite who seek to leave ordinary citizens at the mercy of gangsters and villains who will always carry and use guns, whatever the legal framework currently in effect.

Neither of these stereotypes is wholly accurate, but neither is prepared to shift ground. The more consensual approach, the more conciliatory language demanded for this crisis – and it is a crisis – is as distant today as it has ever been, perhaps even more so. American politics has led this great nation to a point where it is utterly, perhaps irreconcilably, divided, on guns – as in much else."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018...rn-make-peace/

[montblanc]

i'm so tired of this happening in my country

[-Sue-]

Originally Posted by montblanc

i'm so tired of this happening in my country

I am so sorry such terrible innocent loss I truly hope somethings changes over there soon we live in hope

[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

"This debate has become just one part of America’s self-defeating and circular culture wars. To liberal New Yorkers and assorted East Coasters, gun owners can be put in the same categories as evangelical Christians who believe in creationism and who oppose abortion and feminism, while law-abiding gun owners grow ever more resentful of the liberal elite who seek to leave ordinary citizens at the mercy of gangsters and villains who will always carry and use guns, whatever the legal framework currently in effect.

Neither of these stereotypes is wholly accurate, but neither is prepared to shift ground. The more consensual approach, the more conciliatory language demanded for this crisis – and it is a crisis – is as distant today as it has ever been, perhaps even more so. American politics has led this great nation to a point where it is utterly, perhaps irreconcilably, divided, on guns – as in much else."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018...rn-make-peace/

What a hypocritical article. He tries to make out that it's a problem on both sides but the whole point of the article is to blame the left for it. Trash article.

[lewis111]

I've said It after every one of these mass shootings but the politicians who vote against stricter gun laws or even vote for less gun control in Ameriva are partly responsible for the loss of 17 lives today and should be punished accordingly
If you are ok with the current gun laws in America then you are happy to constantly see children be gunned down and killed - simple as

[Cherie]

I don't understand the mentality . ..access to guns aside, kids get suspended from school or bullied every day of the week in every country in the world, why do American kids react in this way...every kid has access to knives but they don't go on the rampage with them after a suspension

[-Sue-]

the 'right to bear arms' has a lot to answer for!

when the constitution was written didn't they use a musket - gun powder and could load a single pellet(or whatever it was called) ? perhaps it's time for a rethink!

[LeatherTrumpet]

Originally Posted by Cherie

I don't understand the mentality . ..access to guns aside, kids get suspended from school or bullied every day of the week in every country in the world, why do American kids react in this way...every kid has access to knives but they don't go on the rampage with them after a suspension

the attraction of fame and the attraction of what has gone before

ingrained in the USA psyche

[Ramsay]

The fact that people still defend the gun laws baffles my mind

[-Sue-]

Originally Posted by Ramsay

The fact that people still defend the gun laws baffles my mind

I feel the same way! It angers me that despite numerous shootings and it continues to happen people in the states have done nothing to try and make things safer! not a single thing...

[LeatherTrumpet]

as I have said many times before people see this as the price one pays for liberal gun laws and they are happy to pay it in a country of 300,000,000 people

[GoldHeart]

Originally Posted by Ramsay

The fact that people still defend the gun laws baffles my mind

These gun enthusiasts have no brain cells , they'll defend their pointless right to own guns till the end of time,things will never change.
The fact a student can go into his own school and massacre kids & teachers like it's the norm just makes us sick & tired of it all .

There's zero gun control in America, it's far too easily to own a gun it's scary .

[montblanc]

Originally Posted by -Sue-

I am so sorry such terrible innocent loss I truly hope somethings changes over there soon we live in hope

thank you x

Originally Posted by GoldHeart

These gun enthusiasts have no brain cells , they'll defend their pointless right to own guns till the end of time,things will never change.
The fact a student can go into his own school and massacre kids & teachers like it's the norm just makes us sick & tired of it all .

There's zero gun control in America, it's far too easily to own a gun it's scary .

i'm not even joking we can go to Walmart (a supermarket) and buy guns it's horrific

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Ramsay

The fact that people still defend the gun laws baffles my mind

yeah or more guns is the answer to these incidents ffs but yeah not even going to bother repeating the same old s**t, nothing will change, too much money involved now

[GoldHeart]

Originally Posted by montblanc

thank you x



i'm not even joking we can go to Walmart (a supermarket) and buy guns it's horrific

I know it's disturbing AF , families grocery shopping can literally pick up a weapon .

Just for the sake of it people carry guns over there ,it's insane. And it's unhealthy that people feel the need to carry a gun while with their kids in the park .

[arista]

One big teacher (sadly died)
took the bullets, saving pupils.

A Great Hero

[Maru]

Source: TMZ



Source: https://republicofflorida.wordpress.com/

Nikolas Cruz, Florida shooting suspect: Guns, depression and a life in trouble
https://www.facebook.com/markberman
11 ～ 13 分

Nikolas Cruz, 19, is the man suspected of fatally shooting at least 17 people at a South Florida high school on Feb. 14. Here's what you should know. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)

He had been getting treatment at a mental health clinic, but he had stopped. He had been expelled from school for disciplinary problems. Many of his acquaintances had cut ties in part because of his unnerving Instagram posts and reports that he liked shooting animals. His father died a few years ago, and his mother, among the only people with whom he was close, died around Thanksgiving. He was living at a friend’s house. He was showing signs of depression.

And Nikolas Cruz, 19, had a fascination with guns. He owned an AR-15 assault-style rifle.

Although school officials, students and others who knew him were aware that something was off with Cruz, it is unclear whether anyone had a full picture of what was building within him in recent months. Had everyone who knew of his struggles sat down in a room and compared notes about his recent past, perhaps an alarm would have sounded ahead of what emerged on Valentine’s Day, when Cruz allegedly walked into a suburban South Florida high school and carried out one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings.

[‘I’m not really shocked’: Florida high school prepared for the worst. Then it happened.]

“Weird” was the word students had used to describe Cruz since middle school. At first “it was nothing alarming,” said Dakota Mutchler, 17, who attended middle school with Cruz, adding that there was something “a little off about him.” But that was it — for a while.

Read more:

Spoiler:

As Cruz transitioned into high school, he “started progressively getting a little more weird,” Mutchler told The Washington Post. Cruz, he said, was selling knives out of a lunchbox, posting on Instagram about guns and killing animals, and eventually “going after one of my friends, threatening her.”

On Wednesday night, Mutchler recalled Cruz as an increasingly frightening figure, being suspended from school repeatedly, before he was expelled last year. “When someone is expelled,” Mutchler said, “you don’t really expect them to come back. But, of course, he came back.”

He came back to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with a vengeance, according to the Broward County sheriff, who identified Cruz as the gunman who marched through the school with an AR-15 assault-style rifle, killing 17 people and wounding at least 15 others. He has been booked on 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Police arrested Nikolas Cruz, who is suspected of killing 17 people in a shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. (Reuters)

“I think everyone in this school had it in the back of their mind that if anyone was supposed to do it, it was most likely going to be him,” Mutchler said.

Mutchler spoke as he stood outside a Marriott Hotel where families and students had been told to gather so they could find one another and go home. Still looking dazed, the young man also spoke with the benefit of hindsight.

Math teacher Jim Gard, who taught Cruz at Stoneman Douglas last year before he was expelled, said that at some point the school administration sent out a note with a vague suggestion of concern, asking teachers to keep an eye on Cruz. “I don’t recall the exact message,” Gard said, “but it was an email notice they sent out.”

“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” Gard told the Miami Herald. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”

Broward County Mayor Beam Furr told CNN that Cruz had been receiving treatment at a mental health clinic for a while but that he had not been to the clinic for more than a year. “It wasn’t like there wasn’t concern for him,” Furr told CNN. “We try to keep our eyes out on those kids who aren’t connected. … In this case, we didn’t find a way to connect with this kid.”

Cruz apparently fell off the radar, but he was having a rough time.

Roger Cruz — who along with his wife, Lynda, had adopted Nikolas — died of a heart attack several years ago. Then in November, Lynda Cruz, 68, died of pneumonia, according to her sister-in-law, Barbara Kumbatovic.

With her death, Cruz and his half-brother lost one of the only relatives they had left, according to family members and friends.

“Lynda was very close to them,” Kumbatovic told The Post. “She put a lot of time and effort into those boys, trying to give them a good life and upbringing.”

One boy was quiet and seemed to stay out of trouble, but Nikolas kept having problems at school, Kumbatovic said.

“Lynda dealt with it like most parents did. She was probably too good to him,” Kumbatovic said. “She was a lovely woman. She was a hard-working woman. She made a beautiful home for them. She put a lot of effort and time into their schooling, their recreation, whatever they needed. She was a good parent. And she went over and above, because she needed to compensate for being a single parent.”

“I don’t think it had anything to do with his upbringing,” she said. “It could have been the loss of his mom. I don’t know.”

Neighbors told the Sun-Sentinel that police were called out repeatedly to deal with complaints about Cruz. Shelby Speno said he was seen shooting at chickens owned by a resident. Malcolm Roxburgh told the Sun-Sentinel that Cruz took a dislike to the pigs another family kept as pets. “He sent over his dog … to try to attack them.”

After Lynda Cruz’s death, Nikolas Cruz and his half-brother stayed with friends in Lake Worth, in Palm Beach County. Then he asked a former classmate from Stoneman Douglas High School whether he could move in with him. Cruz’s friend and his friend’s parents agreed and opened their home to him, said Jim Lewis, an attorney representing the family who took in Cruz. “It wasn’t working out” in Lake Worth, Lewis said.

“The family brought him into their home,” Lewis told The Post. “They got him a job at a local dollar store. They didn’t see anything that would suggest any violence. He was depressed, maybe a little quirky. But they never saw anything violent. … He was just a little depressed and seemed to be working through it.”

Analysis | More than 50 years of U.S. mass shootings: The victims, sites, killers and weapons

Those who were acquainted with Cruz through school, such as Mutchler, had seen enough to disturb them in recent years.

Joshua Charo, 16, a former classmate during their freshman year, told the Miami Herald that all Cruz would talk about “is guns, knives and hunting.” While Charo said Cruz joined the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps as a freshman, he continued to be “into some weird stuff,” such as shooting rats with a BB gun.

Drew Fairchild, also a classmate during Cruz’s freshman year, agreed. “He used to have weird, random outbursts,” he told the Herald, “cursing at teachers. He was a troubled kid.”

He was suspended from Stoneman Douglas for fighting, Charo told the Herald, and because he was found with bullets in his backpack.

A classmate, Victoria Olvera, 17, told the Associated Press that Cruz was expelled last school year after a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.

Officials would not comment on Cruz’s school record for privacy reasons. Broward County Sheriff Scott J. Israel said at a news conference that Cruz was ultimately expelled from Stoneman Douglas for “disciplinary reasons.”

He had since enrolled in a GED program, Lewis said.

Cruz already owned the AR-15 rifle when he moved in with his friend’s family, Lewis said, noting that he was told that Cruz had bought it legally. “It was his gun. He had brought it to the house when he moved in. It was secured in a gun cabinet in the house, but he had the key to it. I believe it was secured in his room,” Lewis said. The family had not seen Cruz shooting the AR-15 since he moved in.

Authorities confirmed that Cruz bought the AR-15 himself, and it is the only gun that has been recovered as part of the investigation, said Peter J. Forcelli, special agent in charge of the Miami field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“He purchased the firearm legally,” Forcelli said in an interview Thursday morning. “No laws were broken in his acquisition of the firearm.”

In his social media postings, Cruz has been seen wielding other firearms, so officials are continuing to look for any additional weapons, Forcelli said. Investigators also are contacting gun shops across the region to find out whether Cruz had tried to buy other weapons.

Mackenzie Hill, a 17-year-old junior at Stoneman Douglas, told The Post that she has known Cruz since middle school, and that he was always getting into trouble. More recently, she remembered seeing him at the dollar store where he worked.

“He would talk to me like he knew me, and it creeped me out,” Hill said. “I always had a bad feeling about him.” Hill, like others, also cited Instagram posts, which, in the wake of the killings, Israel called “very, very disturbing.”

An Instagram account that appeared to belong to the suspect showed several photos of guns. And one appeared to show a gun’s holographic laser sight pointed at a neighborhood street. A second showed at least six rifles and handguns laid out on a bed with the caption “arsenal.” Other pictures showed a box of large-caliber rounds with the caption “cost me $30.” One appeared to show a dead frog’s bloodied body. Most of the photos were posted in July.

The day before the shooting, Cruz had gone to work at the dollar store, Lewis said. On most days, the father of the family with whom he was staying dropped Cruz off at his school. But Lewis said that on Wednesday, Cruz told the family something to the effect of: “I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day.”

Authorities arrested Cruz not far from the house where he lived Wednesday afternoon after a manhunt that transfixed the region and spread panic through many nearby schools.

Michael Nembhard, a retiree who lives in Coral Springs, said he saw police arrest Cruz just outside his house near Wyndham Lake Boulevard and Coral Ridge Drive. A little after 3 p.m., Nembhard was sitting in his garage watching the news on television with the door open when he heard an officer yell, “Get on the ground!”

When he looked up, he saw a teenager lying on the ground, wearing a burgundy hoodie and dark pants. “The cop had his gun drawn and pointed at him,” Nembhard said.

Nembhard said he thinks Cruz had been on foot when he was arrested. At first, Nembhard saw only the one officer and his police cruiser alongside the suspect on the ground with no other vehicles in sight. Within minutes, however, a swarm of officers and cruisers had descended on the quiet neighborhood.

From about 150 feet away, Nembhard watched as authorities handcuffed Cruz and put him into a police cruiser. A few minutes later, authorities put him into an ambulance.