Assault Rifle Ban Would Not Have Stopped Texas School Shooting, So What Will?

MAY 18, 2018 BY RUFUS SHINRA

Another tragic school shooting occurred today in Santa Fe, Texas, where ten people would killed and another 10 were wounded by the time the suspect was apprehended by local authorities.

The suspect in custody, identified as 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, is being held on a charge of capital murder and reportedly admitted he did not have the courage to commit suicide before being caught. Authorities also found various improvised explosive devices planted around the school.

The suspect in custody was identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said in a statement. He was being held without bond on a charge of capital murder. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the suspect was believed to be a student at the school.

Abbott said that two people in interest were being interviewed by authorities. He didn’t identify them.

According to a law enforcement source, the suspect posted to social media “Dangerous Days” with a pentagram on Friday before the shooting, Milton reports.

Abbott said the suspect had said that he wanted to commit suicide after the shooting.

“He gave himself up and admitted at the time that he didn’t have the courage to commit the suicide,” Abbott said.

Police found pressure cookers and pipe bombs around the school, a law enforcement source told CBS News.

As the aftermath of this latest tragic school shooting plays out in the media and the political theater, the question will once again be asked: What can be done to stop the next school shooting?

While the question as to why these shootings have been occurring with such frequency in recent decades may be complex with various factors involved, the question as to how to prevent these shootings can be answered in more a straight-forward manner.

Recall in the weeks following the Parkland School shooting in Florida the country saw non-stop media coverage, analysis and protests in favor of gun-control measures. Specifically, a ban on assault rifles was the focal point for Democrats and their media allies.

There was a meeting at the White House, days of protests at schools around the country and a huge march that took place in Washington D.C., which was championed by Parkland School survivor David Hogg.

In the aftermath of the Parkland School shooting, there was ample blame being laid at people’s feet. The Democrats blamed the Republicans, and even the National Rifle Association, for not taking stronger action against “assault rifles”. Republicans blamed the FBI, as the Parkland School shooter was reported to law enforcement on multiple occasions, yet was still on the streets. In fact, due to a program created by Barack Obama in the Parkland school district called the “Promise Program” which reduced the rate of arrests of student offenders and soften school punishment, the Parkland shooter was allowed to escape legal consequences for his offenses on multiple occasions.

The typical knee-jerk reaction to any mass shooting, but especially school shootings, by the media and the left is to ban whichever firearm the shooter used to end lives. In many cases, it is the dreaded “assault rifle” that becomes the favorite target of gun control advocates.

The Santa Fe school shooting, however, did not involve an AR-15 or even an “AR-15 style” assault rifle, yet still 10 people were killed and 10 wounded.

The shooter, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, used a shotgun and a .38 caliber revolver, both of which he reportedly stole from his father. Neither were legally owned or purchased by the shooter, which means not a single gun-control law championed by Democrats, the media or anti-gun protesters would have stopped the Texas school shooting.

The suspect had a shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver, Abbott said. The suspect’s father owned the weapons legally, Abbott said, adding that he didn’t know whether the father was aware his son had obtained the weapons.

Student Damon Rabon told CBSN that he looked out his classroom door with a substitute teacher after hearing several loud bangs and saw the gunman.

“Black trench coat, short kind of guy, had a sawed-off shotgun,” Damon said.

The substitute teacher then pulled the fire alarm in the hopes of alerting students and faculty in other areas of the school and getting them to evacuate.

However, in a barely reported story this week an armed resource officer at a school in Dixon, Illinois, who was an ex-cop successfully prevented a school shooting that could have claimed numerous lives. A school resource officer who was armed chased a student gunman out of the school, shot at the resource officer who returned fire and wounded the shooter who was taken into custody afterwards.

An Illinois school resource officer is being praised as a hero for intervening when a former student opened fire Wednesday morning at Dixon High School.

Vice President Mike Pence lauded the “heroic actions” of Dixon police officer Mark Dallas, who shot and wounded the gunman.

“Another example of the brave work performed by law enforcement each and every day. Lives were saved thanks to the heroic actions of school resource officer Mark Dallas,” Pence said on Twitter.

…

The 19-year-old former student opened fire near the school auditorium where students had gathered for graduation ceremony rehearsal, the statement said.

The suspect fled the school and Dallas chased him, Dixon police chief Steven Howell said in a news conference. The suspect continued to shoot at the officer and the officer returned fire, Howell said.

The suspect was taken to a hospital for nonlife threatening injuries. He will be taken to jail after he’s released from the hospital, state police said.

In other words, a good guy with a gun saved lives and stopped a school shooting before it even started, proving that one effective method of preventing the next school shooting would be to utilize more armed resource officers.

If one school shooting was successfully stopped by an armed resource officer, then it would be logical to conclude that this same process would prove effective in other schools as well. In fact, having an armed resource officer would prove much more effective than simply banning assault rifles, as the Democrats are frequently  pushing for, since as we saw with today’s school shooting it doesn’t take an assault rifle to cause significant loss of a life.

A shotgun, handgun and improvised explosive devices were all that Dimitrios Pagourtzis had when he claimed the lives of 10 students and wounded 10 others.

Will the Democrats and their media allies be calling for a ban on shotguns and handguns as fervently as they were with assault rifles? Doubtful, as even the most radical gun control advocates know they cannot tell voters that they want to eventually ban all firearms in America due to the massive blowback they would receive. No, they must instead start with what they feel is the most realistic endeavor, which is banning assault rifles.

However, if assault rifles were to be banned, it would not stop school shootings or other mass shootings as psychopathic criminals will simply utilize other firearms or explosive devices available to them. Then, after enough of these shootings occurred, Democrats would again scream for total gun control, effectively disarming law-abiding citizens, which means criminals will still have easy access to firearms since they don’t care about following the law.

This is the slippery slope of gun control, and exactly where the legislative path would lead if an assault rifle ban were ever to take place.

If gun-control advocates truly want to save the lives of students and help prevent further school shootings, the most effective method at this time is to utilize some form of armed resource officers in schools around the country. As distasteful as it may be to know that our society has come to the point that we need armed guards in our schools, that is the reality America is facing as a nation today. The cultural shift that fosters the environment where these school shooters can evolve did not happen overnight, and any cultural shift back to a time where a focus on morality, family and self-discipline once again becomes the norm will not happen quickly enough to prevent the next school shooting (if it happens at all).

It’s a distasteful reality that America will have to face if we want to protect the lives of our children, as the next school shooter is already preparing to take lives at this very moment, and the only thing that will stop a maniac with a gun is someone equally armed who has the courage to stop them. Laws, regulations and programs have proven utterly ineffective to even slow down the flow of drugs in America, and as such would prove equally ineffective in preventing school shootings.

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