Back To School Shootings

Tim Cavanaugh | March 22, 2005

After a longish respite, double-digit school shooting rampages return, as a spree at Red Lake High School on Minnesota's* Red Lake Indian Reservation leaves 10 dead (including the apparent gunman). The alleged shooter is 17-year-old Jeff Weise, said to have held "anti-social beliefs" and posted pro-Hitler messages on a neo-Nazi message board. Security procedures proved useless in this case, as Weise apparently shot his way through the metal detector, killing the school's unarmed security guard.

* Corrected

Comments

|3.22.05 @ 2:43PM|#

Also, the nut's grandfather, who he killed and took his weapons, was a law enforcement officer.

I like to hear from the gun control people here. Explain to me how your precious Brady bunch laws would've prevented this.

Jeff|3.22.05 @ 2:49PM|#

It's never the one's you'd suspect.

|3.22.05 @ 2:53PM|#

Mr. Nice Guy,

Don't worry, Joe will be all over this one like stink on shit. I'm sure he'll be posting any minute now.

|3.22.05 @ 2:53PM|#

maybe the problem was the 'unarmed' security guard.

|3.22.05 @ 3:01PM|#

The metal detectors without an armed guard reminds me of a law they passed in CT after a disgruntled employee went and shot up a lottery office: Employers can now post signs that say "No Guns Allowed." Because a fucking nut who comes charging in without regard for human life, is clearly going to obey a sign on the wall. Brilliant.

I remember Jesse Venture caught a bunch of flak post-columbine for suggesting that it wouldn't have happened if the teachers had been armed. Now I know we've all had a few teachers in our day we positively wouldn't want walking around with guns, but it seems more and more reasonable.

Warren|3.22.05 @ 3:23PM|#

Tim,
Are you deaf and illiterate? That's Minnesota's IR not Michigan.

|3.22.05 @ 3:27PM|#

Looks like maybe they were watching him.

"The shooter was Jeff Weise, a 17-year-old student who had been placed in the school's Homebound program for some violation of policy, said school board member Kathryn Beaulieu. Students in that program stay at home and are tutored by a traveling teacher. Beaulieu said she didn't know what Weise's violation was, and wouldn't be allowed to reveal it if she did."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050322/D8903PBG0.html

I know he did himself in, probably for the best, but would the recent ban on the death penalty for minors have applied since this took place on an American Indian Reservation? Do they have their own rules? Do they even have the death penalty. It obviously doesn't matter, but I'm curious if anyone knows the answer.

|3.22.05 @ 3:31PM|#

I believe that reservations fall under federal law, not state law. But, in either event it appears that the new court findings would have applied.

|3.22.05 @ 3:33PM|#

MNG, I don't imagine the Brady bill would have made any difference.

I imagine the cop assumed his guns were safely hidden.

|3.22.05 @ 3:48PM|#

Maybe he heard a rumor that the people down the way had weapons of mass destruction. I hear that these days you don't need much of an excuse before you go shoot some place up.

|3.22.05 @ 3:52PM|#

Dude, an Indian Nazi? What a nutcase.

|3.22.05 @ 3:54PM|#

Pretty funny Aaron, but I want my joke back.

|3.22.05 @ 3:54PM|#

Genuinely classy response, joe.

There's really no political capital in this for anybody. Just tragedy.

|3.22.05 @ 4:02PM|#

I second Rimfax. And 2004 for that matter.

Tim Cavanaugh|3.22.05 @ 4:03PM|#

What Rimfax said. Can we please wait for the bodies to cool before making hay? It shouldn't take long in the Gopher State's chilly northern reaches.

|3.22.05 @ 4:17PM|#

"There's really no political capital in this for anybody. Just tragedy."

that's a noble sentiment, but give them a chance. there's political capital in anything.

|3.22.05 @ 5:04PM|#

I'm still wrapping my mind around the concept of metal detectors in schools. How did it come to this? Seriously?

|3.22.05 @ 5:13PM|#

Native American Nazi isn't as odd as you might think. A lot Nazis really like Native Americans. Nazis are very big on historical ethnic ties to territory. I've seen some European neo-Nazis suggest that Europe is meant for whites and America is meant for Native Americans. Nazis also tend to be serious environmentalists and naturalists, which makes them sympathetic to Native Americans. They also see some similarity between nature-loving Native American religions and pre-Christian Germanic relgions. Sympathizing with Native Americans is also a good opportunity to bash the United States for its treatment of Native Americans. Nazis never miss a chance to bash the United States.

A Native American Nazi doesn't make sense if you buy into the mainstream media portrayal of Nazi ideology. But if you understand that Nazis aren't simply white supremacists and side as often with the far left as the far right, then it's not so silly.

Just to be clear, when I say that Nazi ideology is often inaccurately represented, I don't mean that it's unfairly represented. The general conception of Nazis as bad is perfectly accurate; it's just the details that are often misunderstood.

|3.22.05 @ 5:43PM|#

Well, the Nazis and some Native American's shared the swastika, so I guess that's where it all began....

Neb Okla|3.22.05 @ 5:51PM|#

I've got my own writeup at my blog - whatever happened to Reason Trackbacks?

http://spaces.msn.com/members/40north/Blog/cns!1p5chIbAGeDErK8Gimvz5F6w!487.entry

|3.22.05 @ 5:52PM|#

This is tragic, and we can all agree that we feel terrible for these kids and their families.

Well, all of us except joe, who seems to almost imply that the grandfather deserved it for owning guns.

I'm confused by this, since the grandfather was a cop. joe has previously said cops SHOULD be armed better than the average citizen (the better to impose on regular citizens). Though I disagree with this, I'm thoroughly confused by joe's stance - it seems contradictory.

Jesse Ventura had it right. joe as usual has it wrong. "I imagine the cop assumed his guns were safely hidden." Sure, blame the grandfather whose firearms were stolen after he was murdered. Way to blame the victim, joe. Next you'll be telling Terry Schiavo vegetable jokes... Pretty sad.

One of the most tragic things about these incidents is that there could have been far less loss of life or it might have even been completely prevented.

If the adults who saw fit to put the kid "in the school's Homebound program for some violation of policy" - presumably due to the threat of violence - were allowed to bring a firearm to school to protect themselves and their students this probably wouldn't be news right now.

Can I hold joe accountable if someone steals his car and then runs over 12 high school kids with it? Obviously not, and rightfully neither should the grandfather be held responsible for this tragedy.

Even cops on duty, or anyone else for that matter, can have their firearm stolen by someone willing to ambush them. That doesn't mean no one should have a gun, but that the restrictions on civilians carrying firearms for their own protection should be eliminated.

Being rendered defenseless by the gov't means that the GOV'T should share some of the blame for this incident, not the grandfather.

fyodor|3.22.05 @ 5:58PM|#

rob = troll?

|3.22.05 @ 6:07PM|#

Yep, that's me. Troll-at-large!

Ok, maybe a little bit when it comes to joe... His "duck to another thread" routine when he gets pinned irritates me.

|3.22.05 @ 6:10PM|#

fyodor,

No, Rob is just rightfully pissed at Joe's statist rants from a couple days ago. This is just a continuation of that discussion.

|3.22.05 @ 6:19PM|#

By all accounts, the shooter was an exceedingly troubled kid--his father killed himself four years ago and his mother is in a Minneapolis nursing home with brain damage after a car accident. He was clearly having trouble at school and staff were watchful of him. I doubt arming the security guard at the metal detector would have done a whit of good--any more than the Israelis are able to be 100 percent effective in stopping attacks by suicide bombers. The kid walked into the school with three loaded guns wearing a bullet-proof vest. It's a freaking tragedy.

fyodor|3.22.05 @ 6:21PM|#

I missed what joe said a couple of days ago, but I most certainly did not interpret his comment here to be blaming the grandfather. At very, very most, he might have been dropping a hint about what can happen when guns are not successfully hidden. But I think he was primarily if not completely declining to claim more gun control would have prevented the tragedy. And I sure don't see how he blamed the grandfather.

Either rob is grossly overreacting to what joe said a couple of days ago, or joe sure was an asshole a couple of days ago!! ;-)

|3.22.05 @ 6:27PM|#

I doubt arming the security guard at the metal detector would have done a whit of good--

You never know. If I was the guard, I would have wanted a gun.

|3.22.05 @ 6:30PM|#

God, the things that happen to people, and that people do to other people, is so sad that sometimes it's impossible to say if anything could have prevented it.

Thanks for the re-focus, Serafina.

And kmw, thanks for the "not a troll" vote.

|3.22.05 @ 6:32PM|#

I missed what joe said a couple of days ago, but I most certainly did not interpret his comment here to be blaming the grandfather.

Yo tambien.

I don't think joe wants to continue the usual Democrat mistake of pushing unwanted gun control.

|3.22.05 @ 6:50PM|#

fyodor,

You have to have read the back and forth with joe from the previous thread to truly appreciate his most recent comment in context (and the length and breadth of my exasperated, way-too-long replies).

You're probably 100% correct on both counts - my over-reaction and joe's crap-tastic-ness... ;>

|3.22.05 @ 6:59PM|#

Oh, wow. He even shot a guy for believing in God, according to the last story I read on this. If he was going to be a Columbine copycat, I'm not sure why he didn't wait a month, though.

It looks like part of the ridiculous pack of school policy changes that followed Columbine actually worked, though. The school did their lockdown thing and it looks like he was only able to actually get into one classroom. Maybe overreaction actually did save lives.

On a side note, I guess some of my coworker's kids play Red Lake in sports. That's a little bit too close to home right there.

Larry A|3.22.05 @ 8:41PM|#

The whole no guns/no knives/weapons-free/see-through backpacks/eliminate lockers/metal detectors/security guards thing doesn't seem to be working.

When I was in the second grade I was a member of the Cub Scout pack sponsored by the local elementary school. Part of our uniform was the Cub Scout pocket knife, which included a blade, can opener, bottle opener, and screw driver. We all carried them to school once a week, depending on what day our particular den met.

I learned that having a knife was handy, and as a result I carried a pocket knife all the way through high school. All the teachers knew I had it, and on occasion would borrow it or ask me to cut something. And I was far from the only student who had one. I never remember anyone getting in trouble for misusing a pocket knife.

Of course when I graduated (1965) our Texas high school also had a rifle team, as did almost every high school in New York City. (Note: Not the Wild West, or the Violent South, or those Redneck Rural Areas; New York City.) In the Big Apple students commuted with their .22 target rifles on the subway, and no one paid any attention.

Perhaps treating teenagers like they can handle that kind of responsibility makes more sense than putting troublemakers in "Homebound."

Joe: [I imagine the cop assumed his guns were safely hidden.]

One of the points that the Texas Department of Public Safety includes in the Texas Concealed Handgun License course curriculum is that hiding firearms is not an effective way to keep them away from children.

C'mon, Joe. Didn't you know where everything in your house was when you were growing up?

|3.22.05 @ 9:54PM|#

Larry: I grew up in North Texas and rural southern Okla during the fifties. I concur. Everyone had guns. Nearly everyone learned to shoot by the time they started to school. ( Of course there was no pre-school nor kindergarten so kids were at least six at the time )We also were taught gun safty and not to 'play' with guns.
Maybe the answer to all of this is to teach a kid about weapons instead of trying to ban them.

As thenold saying goes," give a man a quail and you have fed him a meal. Teach him how to shoot and he needs to buy a shotgun, shotgun shells, a hunting license, a dog, a hunting vest, a pickup truck with a dogbox, and---

|3.22.05 @ 9:55PM|#

Why do these mass-murders only occur in remote towns?

Franklin Harris|3.22.05 @ 10:19PM|#

It shouldn't take long in the Gopher State's chilly northern reaches.

That was a joke, Tim. I'm telling.

Seriously, however, it didn't take 24 hours for someone to blame all of this on media violence.

From the op-ed by David D. Perlmutter:

A few years ago, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report asserting that the film, music and television industries engage in what FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky described as "target marketing to children of entertainment products with violent content."

Indoctrination to violence is not a free-speech issue. The world considers training child combatants to be a crime.

Of course, the author neglects several important facts: 1) Juvenile crime and school violence are down, 2) kids in other countries watch the same movies and TV shows our kids do, 3) and they play the same video games, too.

Franklin Harris|3.22.05 @ 10:52PM|#

Oh, and the guy ignored the fact that the shooter was an "Indian Neo-Nazi." Which is a bit like being a gay communist gun owner, but never mind that.

|3.22.05 @ 11:25PM|#

ohmy-

I'd have to see the exact treaty, but I would be very surprised if there wasn't a clause in there somewhere that asserts the primacy of the Federal Government and the Constitution over the Tribe. To grossly simplify an incredibly complex and variable issue, Reservations generally only have to answer to the Feds.

|3.22.05 @ 11:29PM|#

Shem,

Thanks, assuming you are correct (and I have no reason to doubt you are) this would answer the question of whether the no executing minors policy would apply. But as for whether the reservations even have the death penalty (not including a fed charge, or would that always apply?), any idea? Or is each different like the states?

|3.23.05 @ 7:50AM|#

Yeah, I agree that joe didn't imply anything more then the simple statement he made, and it was balanced.

Franklin Harris:

I'll take your word about the "media violence" connection made, since I hate registering at news site (even with fake info). I read from several different sources, and I have yet to hear much about this story except for the basics.

(rant)
This really, really pisses me off. After Columbine, the press was all over it because you had two white douchebags who wore Goth clothing and were fond of guns and video games. All of a sudden there was all this negative criticism about the culture these kids happen to be attached to.

However, in this recent case, we have a Native American, so the press isn't going to get NEAR criticizing his culture, and make suggestions that we should ban his clothing, or his diversions. And since his grandfather was a cop, all the fucking gun bans in the world wouldn't have prevented this event. This is a modern liberal's nightmare, and I wouldn't be surprised if this story quietly goes away, if it hasn't already. But, let me add, the liberals will very happily melt this into their "gun violence" statistics, without calling specific attention to it.
(/rant)

Xmas|3.23.05 @ 8:22AM|#

I don't know why you are assuming the grandfather who was a law-enforcement officer had his weapons "hidden". The grandson could have simply swiped his service weapon from him and then shot him.

The reports I'm reading say Jeff was armed with a pistol and shotgun. The shotgun was probably in the gradfather's patrol car.

|3.23.05 @ 9:08AM|#

Oh, I doubt the guns were hidden at all and I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff shot his grandfather with Jeff's own .22 before taking his grandfather's two pistols and shotgun. Most teens in the area have their own hunting rifles. It's part of the culture. (I grew up in the area.)

The only person to blame in all of this is Jeff, who lived a miserable, tragic life. The circumstances of his father's suicide were shocking--he shot himself after 24 hours of an armed stand-off with police. Everyone knew Jeff was troubled and enraged.

|3.23.05 @ 9:33AM|#

rob, you're a bitter, miserable, petty piece of shit who makes a habit of distorting my posts because you lack the firepower to argue with me. I handed you your head on the last thread, and you're too dim to realize it.

This is the last response you will get from me until you demonstrate the maturity and intellect one would expect from an eight year old.

ed|3.23.05 @ 10:24AM|#

And, according to the news reports, he favored black clothing.
A dead giveaway.

fyodor|3.23.05 @ 10:33AM|#

Rhywun,

Why do these mass-murders only occur in remote towns?

In case you were serious and thinking of Columbine, Columbine High School is in Littleton, a suburb of Denver and hardly remote.

|3.23.05 @ 10:40AM|#

joe: Duck and cover to another thread. Anyone who has read your exchanges with other people on this forum knows that you're full of it. Just like most people here have figured out that when you're shown to be full of it you run to another thread and start the same routine using minor variations on the same lame arguments.

You are right about one thing, tho, you don't have to worry about responding to me anymore since your last post pretty clearly demonstrates who REALLY fits your description.

Don't know who I'm talking about? Use a mirror.(Just a hint for the guy who is too dim to realize his stances have been repeatedly and publicly proven to be wrong.)

|3.23.05 @ 10:52AM|#

Serafina, you're probably 100% correct that he had access to his own firearm as well. Gun-owning families do tend to be less-inclined to restrict access to firearms to their teenaged children.

When someone with access to a gun goes berserk it's always tragic, whether they only harm themselves or also harm others. There's probably NO way to prevent someone from getting a gun who is really determined to do something terrible.

|3.23.05 @ 11:15AM|#

Why do these mass-murders only occur in remote towns?


Like Stockton, San Diego, San Yasidro, etc.?

|3.23.05 @ 11:19AM|#

The reports I'm reading say Jeff was armed with a pistol and shotgun. The shotgun was probably in the gradfather's patrol car.

I've read reports that the kid had the patrol car, bullet resistent vest, shotgun and two side arms.

|3.23.05 @ 12:37PM|#

The whole Nazi sympathizer thing really isn't too surprising when you think about it. There's a lot of racial tension between white people and Native Americans on and near reservations, especially in such homogenous areas as Minnesota and North Dakota (I grew up 30 miles from a reservation in ND).

A lot of Native Americans have really negative attitudes towards white people, and vice versa. Is it that big a step to go from hating one race to looking down on all races other than your own and on the mixing of races?

Race relations between the Native Americans and the whites are really messed up here. I'm really not surprised that a kid on a reservation would harbor the beliefs that Jeff apparently did.

|3.24.05 @ 1:06AM|#

Jeff's life was tragic,his father's suicide, his mother's brain injury due to a car accident, the taunting he suffered from his peers simply drove him insane. I hope the families of those that Jeff hurt will remember Jeff was no longer the happy little boy with his family, but a young man full of pain, I hope they can forgive him and most of all I hope the Creator has forgiveness for the insane. Thank you.